Every Christian has encountered a portion of Scripture that they have found to be, say, less exciting or even useful to them. Believers know Scripture’s self-claim regarding its profitability (2 Timothy 3:16); however, some passages seem to contradict the claim.

Those unexciting, even boring portions of the Bible cannot compare in terms of interest with such texts as the parting of the Red Sea, the miracle of the sun standing still while Joshua and his fellow warriors engaged their and Yahweh’s enemies, and certainly the Psalms, which resonate with believers because “we meet ourselves in them.” The Incarnate One’s display of omnipotence, as seen in feeding five thousand from five loaves and two fish, healing congenitally blind people, and dismissing demons with a word of command, provides compelling reading. Such texts remind us afresh of God’s power, wisdom, grace, and mercy, eliciting praise and proving their profitability by nourishing us on the words of faith.

However, passages such as Joshua 15 do not offer us such spiritual usefulness (read it again or for the first time). That passage contains sixty-three verses, which are, for the most part, stultifying to the less-than-insightful reader. They are a recitation of Judah’s inheritance in the promised land. The rehearsal of that historical event includes geography (rivers, cities, towns, boundaries); all places that are foreign to many Bible readers.

There is partial relief when the narrative breaks its pattern and includes information about Caleb. Other than that, the passage seems devoid of any spiritual nourishment for the soul. How is it profitable?

This is where we go wrong in our assessment. God did not put words in the Bible to fill up the white spaces. He reveals Himself with His words! Even the seemingly dull parts carry His self-revelation that is profitable for us.

In his commentary on Joshua, Old Testament scholar, professor, and pastor Dale Ralph Davis answers our queries as he expounds on the chapter. “First of all, then let us stress that the chapter deals with the details of God’s promise to Joshua. Chapter 15 is simply one of the birds on the tree of Genesis 12 and Genesis 15. The land promised had long ago been given to Abraham (Genesis 12:6-7; 15:7-21) and was often reaffirmed and was picked up in Joshua 1; here we see part of its concrete fulfillment.”

Further commenting on the concretized nature of God’s word in history, Davis states: “God’s word is seldom about some bare, purely spiritual inner abstraction (dealing with ideas rather than events, definition supplied by this writer). The God of the Bible tends to be concrete, his gifts tangible and visible. The inheritance He bequeaths is not an idea but boundaries, not thoughts but towns: in a word, real estate.

            Yahweh has always been this way and His infleshment is the great witness to the fact (John 1:1, 14). We must realize that even enjoying the grand act of the Kingdom of God will not mean floating as a beeping soul in some sort of spiritual ether but walking around with a resurrection body in new heavens and a new earth (Revelation 21-22). So, perhaps we can say that Israel’s concrete and tangible Canaan is a foreshadowing of our own.”

            Davis is right! The actualization of divine promise in a real, visible, tangible (plow the field), physical reality, as demonstrated by Joshua 15, helps us to see the profit in a text that seems, on its surface, to be anything but useful to us. For such texts do not yield their value in superficial reading any more than diamonds lie on top of the earth. Scripture must be mined, and then it will yield its spiritual wealth to one willing to dig.