Joshua 11:16-23
After a church service where the great Swiss theologian Karl Barth had preached, a man greeted him at the door and said, “I’m an astronomer, and as far as I am concerned, the whole of Christianity can be summed up by saying, ‘Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.’”
“Well, I am just a humble theologian,” Barth replied, “and as far as I am concerned, the whole of astronomy can be summed up by saying, ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are.’”
Life can be like that. We tend to eschew complexity, and embrace what appears simple and manageable. The astronomer appears to compliment Barth but, in doing so, he implicitly dismisses as irrelevant all other claims of Christianity – about God, creation, revelation, incarnation, the cross and resurrection, grace, the Trinity, prayer, the Church, the new creation.
Barth’s response exposes the flaw in the other man’s reasoning: if it is absurd to reduce astronomy to a nursery rhyme, suggests Barth, it is equally absurd to reduce Christianity to a single ethical principle. Non-specialists often underestimate the complexity of a field of inquiry. Hold that thought as we come to Joshua chapter 11 and what scholars call the question of the “Canaanite genocide.”
Did God really command the destruction of the Canaanites? If so, what does that tell us about God’s character? If not, why should we trust the Bible to tell us the truth? These are questions of honest faith that have troubled Christians for centuries. They are not signs of weak faith but of thoughtful faith.
Scripture encourages such wrestling. Job questioned God’s ways; the psalmists brought their doubts and fears before God. Christian faith never requires us to stop thinking when we open the Bible.
The first task is to take the text seriously. Joshua clearly presents Israel’s conquest of Canaan as something commanded by God. It is tempting to dismiss the problem by saying that the text cannot really mean what it says. Doing that risks failing to respect the biblical authors and editors, who really did know what they were doing. Responsible interpretation begins with careful listening to the text, allowing the text to speak in its own historical and theological context before asking how it relates to the wider witness of Scripture.
Christians have always interpreted individual passages of Scripture within the larger story of creation, covenant, Israel, Christ, the Church, and the coming kingdom. Above all, we confess that Jesus Christ is the fullest revelation of God. Every part of Scripture finds its ultimate meaning in relation to Jesus.
This means that the Book of Joshua must ultimately be read in conversation with Jesus. We don’t ignore the difficult passages or explain them away. We try to find a way to make sense of the text and its implications. Joshua remains an essential part of Scripture, but it is not the final word about God’s character or the pattern for contemporary geopolitical conduct. Its theological meaning and ethical significance must be discerned within the unfolding story of redemption.
Faithful Christian scholars have proposed several ways of understanding the conquest of Canaan narratives.
One view holds that God commanded these actions as a unique act of divine judgement upon societies whose violence and injustice had reached extraordinary proportions. Supporters point to Genesis 15:16, where God delays Israel’s entry into Canaan because “the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” On this reading, the conquest was a singular event in salvation history and was never intended to establish a permanent model for warfare.
A second approach emphasises the literary conventions of the ancient Near East. Kings commonly described their victories in absolute terms, claiming to have destroyed every enemy even when members of those communities continued to exist. The Book of Joshua itself later acknowledges that many Canaanite communities remained in the land.
On this reading, the language of total destruction may function as conventional military hyperbole rather than precise historical reporting as we expect of our history books today. This interpretation allows the theological claims of Joshua to stand without requiring the literal extermination of every inhabitant.
A third approach highlights the progressive nature of biblical revelation. Scripture faithfully records Israel’s developing understanding of God’s purposes across history, while God’s self-revelation reaches its fullest clarity only in Jesus Christ.
The Bible tells the truth because it truthfully narrates God’s long work of forming and correcting his covenant people. Earlier generations genuinely encountered God, yet their understanding of God and God’s ways was partial. As biblical revelation unfolds, God’s character is seen with increasing clarity until it is fully revealed in Jesus.
Christians differ over which of these approaches is most persuasive, and each has strengths as well as unresolved questions. Whichever approach to interpretation we adopt, one conclusion remains clear. These texts cannot be used to justify violence today.
Throughout history, biblical conquest narratives have sometimes been invoked to support crusades, colonial expansion, ethnic cleansing and even genocide. During the Crusades, some preachers likened the crusaders to Israel reclaiming the Promised Land. Historians generally regard this as a political appropriation of biblical typology. Spanish conquistadors compared Indigenous peoples of the Americas to the Canaanites to legitimise colonisation and dispossession.
Some Puritans interpreted the settlement of New England through the lens of Israel’s entry into Canaan, with conflicts such as the Pequot War occasionally framed in Joshua-like terms. These readings are now widely criticised as expressions of settler-colonial theology.
In apartheid South Africa, some Dutch Reformed theologians appealed to Israel’s separation from the Canaanites to defend racial segregation. South African churches have since repudiated these interpretations as incompatible with the biblical vision of reconciliation in Christ.
More recently, Christian Zionists have used the conquest narratives to support exclusive territorial claims for the State of Israel while minimising Palestinian displacement. Many theologians reject this as an illegitimate transfer of ancient Israel’s unique covenantal role to contemporary geopolitical aspirations.
White supremacist and extremist groups have occasionally appropriated the Book of Joshua to justify racial violence or ethnic nationalism. And then there is Israel and Gaza.
All such interpretations lie outside mainstream Christian teaching and are overwhelmingly rejected by our churches and biblical scholars as contrary to the way of Jesus. Such appeals fundamentally misunderstand the gospel. Jesus rejects the use of violence to establish God’s kingdom and commands his followers to love their enemies, pray for those who persecute them, and overcome evil with good.
The New Testament transforms the very meaning of warfare. Paul reminds believers that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood” but against the spiritual powers that enslave humanity (Eph 6:12). Our true enemies are sin, idolatry, pride, greed, injustice, hatred and death. We are called to put on the armour of God, not to wage war against other peoples.
This points to the need for a fresh theological reading of Joshua. Our calling is not to fight our neighbours or fund Middle East conflicts, but to wage moral war against hatred, racism, violence, greed, injustice and the sin residing in our own hearts.
Even Joshua contains signs that God’s purposes extend beyond ethnic boundaries. Recall that Rahab, the Canaanite woman who trusted Israel’s God, is welcomed into the covenant community and ultimately becomes an ancestor of Jesus. Her story reminds us that ethnicity was never the decisive issue. The mercy of God was always available to those who turned to God in faith. The biblical story moves towards the inclusion of all nations in God’s covenant family, culminating in the church’s mission to proclaim the gospel of the grace of God to the ends of the earth.
The conquest narratives in Joshua conclude by declaring that “the land had rest from war” (Jos 11:23; 14:15), but we soon discover that such declarations of peace were premature. Israel’s conflicts continued, kingdoms rose and fell, and human violence remained unresolved. True and lasting rest awaited another Joshua. The Hebrew name “Joshua” is the same name as “Jesus.” He accomplishes the greater conquest – not by taking life but by surrendering his own life; not by defeating the Canaanites but by defeating sin and death through the cross and resurrection. The kingdom is established through reconciliation rather than destruction, through love and not by way of force.
And so, we read the conquest narratives of the Hebrew Bible with honesty about their difficulties, humility about our interpretations, and confidence that God has not left us without light. Above all, we read it with our eyes fixed on Jesus, who reveals the deepest truths about God’s character and about political, social and ethical life in community.
The Bible does not ask us to imitate every action it records. The Bible invites us into God’s unfolding story of redemption, a story that reaches its climax in the crucified and risen Jesus. Through the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, and the excellence of his ethical and theological vision, we learn that God’s final purpose for humankind is not hatred but love, not vengeance but forgiveness, not isolation but reconciliation, not endless violence but enduring peace.
As Uniting Church President Rev Charissa Suli observed in her message for Intercultural Neighbouring Sunday, “the Church is at its best when people of different cultures, languages and traditions recognise they belong to one another as the Body of Christ.”[1]
Sermon 863 copyright © 2026 Rod Benson. Preached at North Rocks Community Church, Sydney, Australia, on Sunday 19 July 2026. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Christian Standard Bible (Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020).
Rev Dr Rod Benson is General Secretary of the NSW Ecumenical Council and a minister of the Uniting Church in Australia serving at North Rocks Community Church in Sydney.
Taking it further…
Reflection questions
- Rod begins with Karl Barth’s “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” story. Why does he use this illustration, and how does it prepare the congregation to engage with Joshua 11?
- The sermon presents three major Christian approaches to interpreting the conquest narratives: divine judgement; ancient Near Eastern military hyperbole; and progressive revelation culminating in Jesus. What are the strengths and unresolved questions of each approach?
- What historical examples does the sermon give of people misusing Joshua’s conquest narratives, and why are these interpretations rejected by mainstream Christianity?
Application questions
- When you encounter a difficult or troubling biblical passage, what habits can help you wrestle with it faithfully rather than dismissing it or uncritically accepting it?
- Have you ever heard Scripture used to justify prejudice, exclusion, or violence? How might you respond in a way that is both biblically faithful and gracious?
- Rahab’s story reminds us that God’s mercy extends beyond ethnic and cultural boundaries. How can your church or small group better reflect God’s welcome to people from different backgrounds and cultures?
Reference
[1] https://www.nswact.uca.org.au/blog/inside-the-intercultural-neighbouring-sunday-resource-guide-2026/
Image source: Center for Barth Studies
All Told 