The Twelve Stones (Joshua 4)

Is it good to create memorials of important events? May the church create traditions that remember important Christian events or are we restricted to the scriptures alone? Let’s begin in Joshua 4.

Did Israel set up a pile of stones, a cairn as a memorial?

After Israel had crossed the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua: Tell one man from each of the twelve tribes to pick up a large rock from where the priests are standing. Then tell the men to set up those rocks as a monument at the place where you camp tonight. Joshua chose twelve men; then he called them together and said: Go to the middle of the riverbed where the sacred chest is, and pick up a large rock. Carry it on your shoulder to our camp. There are twelve of you, so there will be one rock for each tribe. Someday your children will ask, “Why are these rocks here?” Then you can tell them how the water stopped flowing when the chest was being carried across the river. These rocks will always remind our people of what happened here today. (Joshua 4:1-7 CEV)

Where did Joshua command that the cairn of stones be set up?

And the people of Israel did just as Joshua commanded and took up twelve stones out of the midst of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, just as the Lord told Joshua. And they carried them over with them to the place where they lodged and laid them down there. And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the covenant had stood; and they are there to this day. For the priests bearing the ark stood in the midst of the Jordan until everything was finished that the Lord commanded Joshua to tell the people, according to all that Moses had commanded Joshua. (Joshua 4:8-10a ESV)

Did the people hurry across? When did the priests cross?

The people hurried across, and after everyone had finished crossing, the priests with the ark of the Lord crossed in the sight of the people. The Reubenites, Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh went in battle formation in front of the Israelites, as Moses had instructed them. About 40,000 equipped for war crossed to the plains of Jericho in the Lord’s presence. On that day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they revered him throughout his life, as they had revered Moses. The Lord told Joshua, “Command the priests who carry the ark of the testimony to come up from the Jordan.” (Joshua 4:10b-16 HCSB)

What happened once the priests had come up from the river?

So Joshua ordered the priests, “Come up from the Jordan River.” As soon as the priests who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord had come up from the middle of the Jordan River, and the soles of the priests’ feet came up to dry ground, the water of the Jordan River returned to normal, covering its banks as it had done so before. (Joshua 4:17-18 ISV)

What was the purpose of the cairn placed there by a man from each tribe?

And the people came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, in the east border of Jericho. And those twelve stones, which they took out of Jordan, did Joshua pitch in Gilgal. And he spake unto the children of Israel, saying, When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones? Then ye shall let your children know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land. For the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red sea, which he dried up from before us, until we were gone over: That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty: that ye might fear the Lord your God for ever. (Joshua 4:19-24 KJV)

What does the Protestant mantra sola scriptura, the scriptures alone, mean? Is it self-contradictory, because it’s not a quote from the Bible? Is it true if we mean that the words of the prophets, apostles and Jesus Christ are our sole foundation?

So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being joined together, is growing into a holy sanctuary in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22 LSB)