Joshua's Spiritual Warfare [Paperback]

I've come to appreciate chiasms more and more through study facilitated by this book. In the beginning, I thought they were interesting in a more academic sense, but as I progressed I'd be looking for the meat of the message in each chiasm. God's messages to me in Joshua became more real and alive! Jesus being the rock at the end (Joshua 24:27) was the crowning diadem of the book! Jesus, the Rock of all Ages, is our witness and our strength in spiritual warfare.

I never knew how useful Joshua was, especially in dealing with spiritual warfare, until I read this book. The author explains what a chiasm is and shows how helpful it is in studying God's Word. Clarke got my mind rolling as he explained what the Lord is trying to show us through the chiasms that are scattered all over this scripture. After reading Clarke's book, I have a much better understanding of Joshua, I am able to look at verses all throughout the Bible using the chiastic approach, and I am much more familiar with the history and geography of Israel and it's surroundings. Clarke's insights are so thought provoking that it encourages me to study more scriptures using this approach.

Joshua's Spiritual Warfare is a book written by Thomas B. Clarke. This book is not for the casual reader, and though I found the book a little hard to read, I determined to take my time and weed through it to glean the most important information he had to share. Chiastic structure, the subject of his book, intrigues me. My first experience with chiastic structure was in a Beth Moore Bible study. In Joshua's Spiritual Warfare, he has focused on the patterns in Joshua and used them to point out what God says about spiritual warfare and how they can be managed by the use of His Scripture.

Mr. Clarke read my post about how Beth Moore pointed out chiastic structure in the book of Esther and offered his book to me for review. If you are the type of person who likes to study the Word by delving deeper than most, and enjoy dividing the Word of God word by word, thought by thought, then this might be the book for you. I was disappointed that it was not solely KJV, though he did make reference many times to it. He used mostly the NIV, which most don't consider to be a good translation. That said as my disclaimer, I do believe his comparisons to be very helpful.

One of the most interesting statements he made in the book had to do with anger. Having raised some "interesting" children, I've always wondered how to defeat anger. It seemed the more I tried to reason with the angry child, the hotter they got. The only solution seemed to be letting them sit alone until they cooled off. Thought it didn't seem to be the best solution, it was the only one that worked. Anger is such a controller and can maim relationships in a flash, and over time can alienate and destroy a person and those close to them.

In chapter 10, Clarke discusses the chiasm in verses 1-28. His study pairs (A) verse 1 where Ai was totally destroyed by Joshua's army with (A) verse 28 where Makkedah is totally destroyed as well by Joshua's army. Then he pairs (B) verses 2-6 where the five Amorite kings attack Gibeon with (B) verses 16-27 where the five Amorite kings are killed. The center (C) verses 7-10 where the Lord defeats the king's army by confusion are paired with (C) verses 11-15 where the Lord defeats the king's army by supernatural events. The pattern is an A-A, B-B, C-C pattern where you take the first and last together, the second and fifth sets of verses are paired and then lastly the two middle sections are paired, showing the main point to be the center of the group of verses, a C - C combination.

Put simply, the two cities are totally destroyed (A-A) with the focus on the 5 kings (B-B), and the demise of their armies by the Lord (C-C) becomes the main point. I've used the same patterning to parse other Scripture myself and find it to be quite enlightening - it's like finding a hidden treasure.

Now, back to anger. Clarke used the story in Joshua 10:1-28 to demonstrate how anger protects a ruling spirit, a demon. When the kings lost their armies, their only choice was to flee because they were left exposed and unprotected. This is much like how when the demons are a ruling spirit in a person's life. When their army (a spirit of anger) is extinguished, the ruling spirit (the demon) must flee. The demon = the king, their army = anger. No army (anger), no protection. Anger actually is the protecting element of a demon who is actually the controlling spirit behind the anger. Hence, when we deal with an angry person, we ought to know that there is a controlling demon behind the anger.

I'll leave the rest of the book for you to experience if you want to know more. Mr. Clarke sent me the book to give an honest review, as I have so done. Thank you for the book. I will definitely be looking for chiastic structure in future Bible study.