PARALLELS BETWEEN THE BOOK OF JOSHUA AND ACTS

Anyone who has been reading this blog for long will have realized that I am always on the lookout for common themes running throughout the Bible and thematic parallels between one portion of Scripture and another. In that respect, one of the more obvious sets of similarities is found between the books of Joshua in the Old Testament and Acts in the New Testament. Here are a few that I have noted, but you may wish as an exercise sometime see how many more you can detect.

The importance of purpose in both works can not be overestimated. In Joshua the goal before the Israelites was quite clear – conquer all the territory that God had destined for them, eliminating pagan practices from the land in the process. For the leaders of the church in Jerusalem, Luke specifically outlines the way they are to spread the Gospel beginning in Judea and eventually reaching the capital of the most powerful nation at the time, Rome.

And vital to accomplishing their respective missions was the fact that the goals were outlined by God Himself, and He would be with them to assure that they accomplished it as long as they continued to rely on His strength and not their own.

But prior to accomplishing these goals, certain preliminary preparations were needed. Before the conquest of Canaan could begin in earnest, we read through four chapters of prelude during which time: God's promises are given and relayed to all the people, spies scout out the first city to be conquered, an elaborate ceremony is carried out when miraculously crossing the Jordan, all of the people who are uncircumcised are circumcised, everyone celebrates the Passover, and Joshua meets the commander of the Lord's army who will be the real leader into battle.

In the case of the opening chapters of Acts, chapter 1 concerns a recap of the final marching orders from the risen Christ and finding a replacement for Judas to bring the apostles back to their full number of twelve. And it is isn't until chapter 8 that we actually leave the environs of Jerusalem.

Because of the common goals, geographical considerations were paramount in both cases. It was necessary to reach the most important cities and city-states of the time which were on main trade routes and wielded much economic and/or military power in their respective areas. But in neither case was the goal easy to accomplish. For Joshua, one of his main problems was in keeping the tribes unified until the final goal had been accomplished. For Paul and his companions, their human plans were often overturned when they ran into local resistance and God supernaturally directed them elsewhere.

During the process of conquest, opposition came not only from outside but from within as well. There is a prominent example in each book. Toward the beginning of Joshua and just after the conquest of Jericho, Achan hides some of the booty devoted to God. He is supernaturally found out and pays for his mistake with his life. The same thing happens in the early days of Acts when Ananias and Sapphira say they are devoting to God all the proceeds from sale of their property but withhold some instead. Peter is given knowledge from God of their acts and they both die. In each of these cases, there was a real danger that such deception toward God could not be tolerated in the fledgling communities. They had to maintain their status as a “holy people.”

Conflicts from within on a somewhat more important scale occurred. And both were nipped in the bud by timely and wise actions of the group's leadership. In the case of Joshua, he saw a coming rift between the trans-Jordan tribes who appeared to want to settle their allotted territories before the whole land was conquered. As a sort of compromise, they agreed to stay with the unified Israelite army until all the land is held. The leadership in Jerusalem had to wrestle with a similar problem when the Judaizers wished to impose Jewish laws and customs on the newly converted Gentiles. In that case, James and the other leaders recommended a compromise in which only those things hampering fellowship between the two groups needed to be observed by the Gentiles.

Speaking of leadership, both books represent decisive transfers of leadership. In the book of Joshua it is the important shift from Moses in Deuteronomy to the person of Joshua. And even within the book of Joshua, although it is seldom noticed, there is a shift from Joshua at the start of the book to dual leadership of Joshua and Eleazar beginning in Joshua 14:1 and continuing to 21:1. After that point, the burden of leadership shifts to Eleazar and Phinehas until the end of the book when Eleazar dies.

There is a clear parallel found in the book of Acts wherein the book begins with the drastic change of leadership from Jesus himself to the twelve apostles in Jerusalem. But then within the book, the emphasis of leadership passes from Peter and the other leaders in Jerusalem city to Barnabas and Paul, with Paul taking the major lead for the rest of the narrative. And in each case, the books end with the leader's death in the case of Eleazar and with Paul's impending death in Acts.

Another commonality between the books of Joshua and Acts is that both contain a concentration of miraculous events. You may think that not a particularly unusual thing in light of the fact that there are miracles throughout the Old and New Testaments. However, if you look at the distributions of such supernatural events more closely you will discover that miracles are most prevalent during key periods of history.

One parallel that is seen more clearly in Acts than in Joshua consists of the fact that events in each book contain both expansion and consolidation. These two goals are highlighted in Acts in the various summary statements appearing after each new phase of spiritual conquest (see, for example, Acts 2:43-47 and 16:4-5). This provides an extremely important lesson for the church today. We can neither focus exclusively on numerical growth or inwardly on our current members' spiritual growth. Both emphases are necessary at the same time.

And finally, if one is looking for a specific parallel between the two books, one has always struck me: In preparation for taking the city of Jericho, two spies are sent into the city where they are protected by the prostitute Rahab. When it becomes obvious that the officials of the city have received word of their presence, she conceals them until night time and then lowers them by a rope down from the outer wall to safety. (Joshua 2:1-24)

Soon after Saul's conversion, he goes to the city of Damascus where he powerfully preaches the Gospel. But the Jews there plot to kill him, and so the disciples in the city remove him to safety at night by lowering him down the outside wall in a basket. (Acts 9:19-25)

Both of these events occurred in key times for the respective books. Thus, the first event was associated with the conquest of the first city in the Holy Land, and the second event marked the first city that the evangelist Paul reached for Christ.

It has been said that history repeats itself, and that is certainly true for biblical history.