The stories of Old Testament conquest may be the most difficult for modern Christians to understand. Why would God want His people to kill others in the name of God? It just doesn’t make sense to us, and in the light of Jesus’ Great Commandment, we certainly don’t believe we should still practice such violence.

But we must remember that in those days, one’s ethnicity was inseparable from one’s culture, and one’s culture was inseparable from one’s religion. Indeed the word “culture” and the word “cult” are still closely related. Thus, in those days, the only way to stay away from false gods was to stay away from the people who worshipped those gods.

With the coming of Christ, so much of that has changed. Today, people from every tribe and nation worship Jesus, and His praise is sung in every language of the world. Today, Christ has separated culture from cult, and His people understand that all sorts of food and dress and musical styles are appropriate for us to use in His worship and our daily living.

But there’s one thing that is just as true today as it was in Joshua’s time – no Christian has any business worshipping any other gods. Thus, we must be just as ruthless in rooting out false gods from our lives as those Old Testament people were in driving the alien peoples out of their lands.

And, just as in Joshua’s day, this is an ongoing project for us. Yes, in the campaigns discussed in chapters 6-11 he might have broken the back of the foreign armies that surrounded God’s people, just as Jesus has already broken the power of sin and death by His cross and His empty tomb. But the mopping up action, the removal of the remnants of sin and death from our lives, still remains to be done for all those who trust Christ as Savior and bow the knee to Him as Lord.

So let us be just as vigilant to know God’s Word and to keep God’s Word as were the people of Joshua’s day. Let us diligently follow God’s law of love for Him and for others, seeking to be as faithful to Him as He has been to us.

Joshua 23:1-6, 14-16 (ESV)

A long time afterward, when the LORD had given rest to Israel from all their surrounding enemies, and Joshua was old and well advanced in years,
2 Joshua summoned all Israel, its elders and heads, its judges and officers, and said to them, “I am now old and well advanced in years.
3 And you have seen all that the LORD your God has done to all these nations for your sake, for it is the LORD your God who has fought for you.
4 Behold, I have allotted to you as an inheritance for your tribes those nations that remain, along with all the nations that I have already cut off, from the Jordan to the Great Sea in the west.
5 The LORD your God will push them back before you and drive them out of your sight. And you shall possess their land, just as the LORD your God promised you.
6 Therefore, be very strong to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, turning aside from it neither to the right hand nor to the left.

14 “And now I am about to go the way of all the earth, and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed of all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one of them has failed.
15 But just as all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you have been fulfilled for you, so the LORD will bring upon you all the evil things, until he has destroyed you from off this good land that the LORD your God has given you,
16 if you transgress the covenant of the LORD your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them. Then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you, and you shall perish quickly from off the good land that he has given to you.”