Old Testament books aren’t often high on the list of go-to books for women’s Bible studies. They can seem intimidating, with difficult narratives and prophecies we can’t easily interpret. Yet Jen Wilkin believes women not only can study the Old Testament but should study it. She has authored several Bible studies on Old Testament books, including deep dives into Genesis and Exodus, a coauthored study of Proverbs, and a new study on Joshua. I asked her to reflect on her passion for studying the Old Testament, best practices for studying Joshua, and why we can all benefit from studying this often quoted yet easily misunderstood book. While many believers shy away from the Old Testament, you love to teach it. Why does helping women study these books excite you? Most of my students fall into one of two buckets when it comes to the Old Testament: unfamiliarity or overfamiliarity. The unfamiliar person is a marvelous blank slate. I want her to learn a new book with good tools in a way that builds her library of Bible knowledge and also fuels her faith. If she has spot-knowledge of a book—maybe she knows the story of the fall of Jericho thanks to VeggieTales—I want her to gain the full sweep of the narrative of Joshua. The overfamiliar person has likely been in church her whole life. She has done reading plans and studies and has heard Sunday school lessons and sermons for years. I want to help her discover how much more there is to learn or perhaps that what she already knows needs to be placed in the larger story of redemption. How does the book of Joshua fit into the full story of Scripture? Many of us are familiar with the metanarrative structure of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. This arc plays out across all of Scripture, with the book of Joshua falling within the story of redemption, but it also plays out in smaller arcs. In the Old Testament, we see an arc stretch from Genesis 12 to the end of Joshua. Israel is “created” as a people in Genesis 12–50, the story of the patriarchs. Israel “falls” into slavery in Egypt and is “redeemed” by Moses. Joshua then “restores” their inheritance. We can trace an even smaller arc if we see Passover as “creation” of a free nation, wilderness rebellion as “fall,” Canaanite conquest as “redemption,” and promised land allotments as “restoration.” Joshua, the man, is often looked to as a hero of our faith. But why is it important that we ultimately understand Joshua as pointing forward to Jesus? The “main characters” of the Old Testament all contribute something to our ability to anticipate Christ’s person and work. When we look at our own lives as a wilderness wandering, we see Christ’s first coming typified in the work of Moses, who institutes sacrifice for sins and accomplishes our freedom from sin’s slavery. The ‘main characters’ of the Old Testament all contribute something to our ability to anticipate Christ’s person and work. We see Christ’s second coming typified in the work of Joshua, who places every enemy under our feet and grants us our inheritance. Israel’s conquest of Canaan under Joshua’s leadership was ultimately incomplete. When Christ appears as a warrior king in Revelation—eradicating wickedness and establishing justice, inaugurating the eternal promised land—he shows himself as the true and better Joshua. What does a book like Joshua—hard moments and all—teach us about God’s character? It teaches us that God hates sin more than we do. It also teaches us he is more committed to justice than we are. One of the biggest misconceptions about the book of Joshua is that it displays God’s hatred of the Canaanites and his love of the Jews. Only a spot-knowledge of the book can support this reading. When Achan disobeys God in chapter 7, he receives the same fate as the Canaanites: herem, devotion to destruction. His story shows us that God does not hate Canaanites; he hates sin. All of it. No matter who commits it, the penalty is the same. I don’t mean to imply that we should feel fine about the account of the Canaanite conquest. I think we’re right to feel discomfort. But by the time we reach the book of Joshua, we have the entire Torah testifying to the goodness of God. Thus, we read Joshua through that lens, asking, “How might this account speak of the goodness of God in a way I can’t readily see?” And then we take our time letting the answer emerge. What are some best practices for studying Old Testament books like Joshua? Joshua is one of the Old Testament’s historical narratives. In one sense, narratives are easy reading. They move at a storytelling pace, which is less verbally dense than a psalm or an epistle. As we read these narratives, it’s important to read for detail, looking for the shape of each individual “scene” and noting how each one builds the story as a whole. It’s also helpful to look back at the first five books of the Bible for repeated themes, symbols, or imagery that are also included in Joshua. Then we look forward to the rest of Scripture to make more connections. Finally, we make application in three layers: (1) what the text meant for them and for then (original audience), (2) what the text means for us and for always (the church in any generation), and (3) what the text means for me and for now (individual application, if appropriate). Joshua is clearly written to serve us, the people of God, so we emphasize corporate application. One challenge in studying Old Testament narratives, as you mentioned above, is that some readers are ‘overfamiliar’ with them. How does gaining additional context into well-known stories in the Old Testament change or enhance our understanding? I want to answer this carefully because I don’t love when an obscure historical or grammatical fact is brought to bear on a text in a way that feels out of reach for the average learner. That being said, our job as readers is to ask what the original hearers understood. To answer that question, we should educate ourselves about their basic assumptions, shaped by their time in history, their geography, their communication rules, and their knowledge of the Torah. In other words, what should we assume the original audience knew intuitively? Let’s take geography as an example. I know Texas geography, so if you mention Amarillo, I immediately know the scenery is as flat as a pancake. The original audience for Joshua knew the geography of Canaan. They knew that the Jordan sat in a deep valley and that Jericho was in a strategic location for military conquest. When we study passages that reference specific locations, we need to consider how these locations relate to critical scenes. These are not obscure details, and they help us understand the placement and the movement of the narrative. Consider Rahab’s mention of the Red Sea crossing and of Sihon and Og (Josh. 2:10). These two events mark the beginning and the ending of Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness. They are specifically mentioned for a reason. Because the original hearers knew the Torah, that reason would be immediately apparent to them in a way that it isn’t for modern ears unschooled in the Old Testament. Why do those date stamps matter to Rahab? Why should they matter to us? When we apply context to a passage, we begin to ask better questions. What encouragement and advice would you offer women about studying Old Testament books like Joshua that might seem intimidating? My general rule for myself is this: The more boring, scary, or opaque a book of the Bible feels, the more I need to press myself to learn it. Those are the books that languish while we return again and again to short books of more accessible genres (I’m looking at you, Pauline Epistles). If all Scripture is indeed profitable, we should seek understanding from all of it. Life is short. We can’t afford to play favorites with a handful of New Testament books at the expense of the rest of Scripture. We can’t afford to play favorites with a handful of New Testament books at the expense of the rest of Scripture. And we can’t expect those New Testament books to yield the depths of their treasures without their Old Testament foundation. We need treasures both old and new from the storeroom of God’s Word. I no longer see the Canaanite conquest as an embarrassing episode in Israel’s history, incongruent with the character of a loving God. I no longer think land allotments are something to skip over in a reading plan. That took work, but it was work worth doing. It’s work that’s meant to be done with others, not just alone in your room with a journal and a pen. I write studies as a means to draw others into conversation about books of the Bible they either think they already know or they’re afraid to tackle alone. Joshua is a book you need on your Bible literacy bookshelf. Let’s explore it together.