Welcome to Roseville Covenant Church!

In recent years there's been a shift in the objections people have against Christian faith. In an earlier time, skeptics would ask, "Is the Bible true?" More often these days people ask, "Is the Bible good?" The problem of religious violence has become a bigger objection than the plausibility of miracles. For believers and skeptics alike, one of the most challenging books of the Bible is Joshua. Its description of the conquest of Canaan has sometimes been described as genocidal, barbaric, confusing, and occasionally boring (about a 1/3rd of the book is devoted to ancient land surveys), but if a reader can patiently wrestle with theses stories, you may find the Holy Spirit illuminating God's love and justice, the limits of human strength, and the ruinous nature of sin. When one looks close enough, you may even find Jesus (after all, his Hebrew name was Yeshua).

This Sunday we start a new series in the book of Joshua with a story that immediately upends our assumptions. Rather than a narrative of ethnic annihilation, we read a story that valorizes a Canaanite woman, positions the book's historical background, and most importantly contains signs and signals of the boundless grace from Christ's death on the cross (Joshua 1:9-10, 2:1-14).