Contemplative Bible Reading

Joshua 24:27 (New English Translation)

Joshua said to all the people, “Look, this stone will be a witness against you, for it has heard everything the LORD said to us. It will be a witness against you if you deny your God.”

Joshua tells the people that the stone heard what the LORD said. The stone would be there for thousands (millions) of years. The stone would be a witness to what the LORD had said.

Okay, let’s get real. Stones don’t hear things, right? Well, I’ve never had a conversation with a stone, so I can’t prove they do hear. Can you prove that stones do not hear? Of course you can’t. It is impossible to prove a negative. So here we are in the 21^st century with all our “gee whiz” science and technology, and someone asks us to believe that a stone can hear the LORD.  Later in the New Testament we are told that the stones would cry out the glory of the LORD.

These must all be figures of speech, right? I’ll go 98.6% to the figure-of-speech theory, but not 100%. After all, just because I haven’t spoken with a stone doesn’t mean it is impossible.