I used to love the daily verse by verse bible study format of J. Vernon McGee, as a new believer in Christ. I recently found his complete Thru The Bible Study series in commentary form, which I added to my Logos Bible Software library. He had a unique teaching style and southern charm that was well suited for me, and I always enjoyed his insights. I am starting to read his treatise on the Book of Joshua and wanted to share with you his first take on the book.

Enjoy my friends.

Introduction To The Book Of Joshua

In the Book of Genesis Israel was born. In the Book of Exodus Israel was chosen. In the Book of Numbers the nation was proven. In the Book of Leviticus it was brought nigh by the blood. In Deuteronomy it was instructed. Now in the Book of Joshua it faces conflict and conquest.

The Book of Joshua completes the redemption of Israel that was begun in Exodus. Exodus is the book of redemption out of Egypt; Joshua is the book of redemption into the Promised Land.

The key word in the Book of Joshua is possession. God had given the children of Israel their land in an unconditional covenant. To Abraham He had said, “And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God” (Gen. 17:8). However, Israel’s possession of the land was conditional. There was conflict and there was conquest. They had to fight battles and lay hold of their possessions. And, as Joshua reminded them in his final message before his death, their obedience to the Word of God would determine their continued possession of the land.

The Talmud says that Joshua wrote all but the concluding five verses, which were written by Phinehas. Joshua was the successor to Moses. He was a great general. Born a slave in Egypt, he was forty years old at the time of the Exodus out of Egypt. He was eighty years old when he received his commission as Moses’ successor and one hundred ten years old at his death. Joshua had already gained prominence during the wilderness wanderings. When they were attacked by the army of Amalek, it was Joshua who organized the men into an army that fought off Amalek. Joshua served as a minister or servant to Moses. References to him in that connection reveal his loyalty to Moses and his devotion to God. At Kadesh–barnea he was one of the twelve men who went to spy out the land of Canaan. He is one of the two spies that returned with a favorable report in full confidence that God would give them the land.

Joshua’s name means “Jehovah saves.” The same word in the New Testament is Jesus. Joshua was a man of courage, dependence upon God, faith, leadership, enthusiasm, and fidelity. He is a type of Christ in his name and in his work. As another has said, “Joshua shows that a man of average ability may become a leader in the church. Joshua received his call not in flaming letters written across the sky, but from an older man who knew God and knew Joshua, and saw that he was fitted by God to be a leader.”

The Book of Joshua has a very practical application to the believer today. The Promised Land cannot be a type of heaven since heaven is not a place of conflict and conquest. Heaven is received as a gift of the grace of God. Rather, the Promised Land represents the place to which believers are brought right here in this world today. The Book of Joshua corresponds to the Epistle to the Ephesians in the New Testament where we see that the believer is blessed with all spiritual blessings. The practical possession and experience of them depends upon conflict and conquest. These are never attained through the energy of the flesh, but through the power of the Holy Spirit in the yielded life of the believer. The Book of Joshua is the pattern, and it illustrates the method by which the believer can possess what God has given to him.


J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible Commentary: History of Israel (Joshua/Judges), electronic ed., vol. 10 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1991), ix–x.

December brings us a new quarter at Focus and new course offerings for the School of Ministry's live and recorded study programs. We will start two new courses at the beginning of December. If you are interested in becoming a part of either program, please contact the office at focusbiblecollege@gmx.com or call us at 402-306-0559.

We have a chapel service and one teaching session afterward. We've been recording the sessions, so those who are unable to attend can still study. However, we are hoping to have a live session via YouTube or Google Meet in December. Whether you are looking to pursue a college degree or personal spiritual growth, we hope you will join us. You'll be happy you did.



Blessings in His Name,
Dr. Patrick Vossen, FBC

THE WISDOM OF THE SPIRIT




  GOD’S POWERFUL MYSTERY
  1 Corinthians 2:1–5

  1 When I came to you, I didn’t come and proclaim God’s mystery to you by means of a superior style of speaking or wisdom. 2 No: I decided to know nothing in my dealings with you except Jesus the Messiah, especially his crucifixion. 3 I came to you in weakness, in great fear and trembling. 4 My speech and my proclamation were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in transparent proof brought home powerfully by the spirit, 5 so that your faith might not be in human wisdom but in God’s power.


Life is full of mystery. The deepest, richest and most complex theories that science can ever come up with only serve to highlight the fact that there is still a depth of mystery which goes way beyond it all. You can study biology and human genetics, and know everything there is to know about fertilization, reproduction, pregnancy, birth and childhood; but when you see your own new-born child, and two eyes meet yours with a look that seems to say, not ‘Who are you?’ but ‘So—it’s you!’ you glimpse a mystery which no physical explanation can ever begin to explore.

It’s the same with music. The physicist can in principle explain what happens when a particular instrument is played. But why Mozart makes us want to laugh and cry and dance, why some music is deeply consoling and some deeply disturbing, remains a mystery.

The deepest mysteries of human life—love, death, joy, beauty and the rest—have for millennia been believed to point to the deepest mystery of them all, the mystery of God. Sometimes in the ancient world people developed whole systems for trying to penetrate this mystery, often in relation to a particular divinity such as Isis or Mithras. People believed that by going through particular initiation rites and disciplines they would get to the heart of the mystery, and would discover things that would change their lives completely.

Most Jews believed that the one true God had already invited them to share his own life and purpose, so they didn’t go down this route. But they, too, knew a strong sense of mystery as they tried to understand the truth about how and why God had made the world, and in particular what his purpose was for them and for the future. Among the writings of ancient Israel, both in the Bible and in other books, there are many which try to penetrate to this truth, to discover what was going on in God’s world, and where different people might fit into his purposes.

This is where Paul comes in. He picked up this Jewish tradition and declared that God’s past, present and future had at last been unveiled in and through Jesus the Messiah. Jesus was the clue to all the secrets of God. Paul spells this out elsewhere, for instance in Colossians 1:26–2:3. And Paul wants the muddled Corinthian Christians to see that, though the message about the crucified Jesus is indeed a foolish, scandalous thing in the eyes of the rest of the world, at the heart of the Christian message there is the clue to the deepest mystery of life. In speaking like this, here in verse 7, and elsewhere, Paul may be teasing them a little about the way their culture and philosophy liked to probe into ‘mysteries’ of the pagan sort. He is pulling them over onto solidly Jewish ground.
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One of the reasons, in fact, why the mystery of the gospel is a mystery is because nobody in Corinth or most other places would ever think of looking for the secret to life, the universe, God, beauty, love and death in a place of execution outside a rebellious city in the Middle East. Crucifixion was regarded in the ancient world as so horrible, so revolting, so degrading that you didn’t mention it in polite society. Imagine somebody at a fashionable dinner-party going on in a loud voice about how he’d seen rats eating the body of a dead dog in the street; that’s the kind of impression you’d make by standing up in public and talking about someone being crucified. No self-respecting sophist or rhetorician would dream of doing it. But Paul believed, and the new-found faith and life of the Corinthian Christians bore this out, that this was the clue to the mystery of life.


Tom Wright, New Testament Wisdom for Everyone (London: SPCK, 2013), 1–3.

Found this quote in an article concerning the writings of John Calvin. I thought I would share it with the FBC family.

We have finished three full workbook and audio series in our Short Courses curriculum at FBC. The newest addition will be on " Ten People In The Bible Like Me. " We will examine ten biblical characters in truly amazing fashion, and get into some very revealing insights into our very lives in so doing. I hope you will be a part of this journey in the Word.

I will post on the College website, as well otherwise when the first lessons become available.

All Short Courses are free to listen to and take advantage of the study materials. If you desire college credit, the course is discounted to 50.00 for two credit hours at Focus. 

God bless you all, and have a fantastic upcoming Thanksgiving.


In His Grace,
Dr. Patrick Vossen, President
Focus Bible College