The Gospel according to Rahab - Part 1 - Woman of Faith
Mention "Rahab" and many would remember her as the prostitute who helped the Jewish delegates that came to spy out Jericho. It is so easy to be transfixed on her illicit profession that we miss the fact that She did become king David's great, great grandmother by marriage to Salmon and therefore in the lineage of our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ.
"..Nahshon had Salmon, Salmon had Boaz (his mother was Rahab), Boaz had Obed (Ruth was the mother), Obed had Jesse, Jesse had David, and David became king.."
(Matthew 1:4-6 MSG)
There is more to this woman than meets the eye. I suppose we see too much of the acts of "sinners" that we fail to realize that they are all prodigal children, whose return; the Father of all creation, lovingly awaits. The story in Luke 15:11-24 illustrates God's attitude towards such people. God receives with great joy all those who have given up trying to live for themselves and come to Him for the real life that only He can give.
Rahab undertook such a journey, which ended up with her marrying a Jew and becoming a part of the heritage of our Savior. There is hope for all manner of people with God, regardless of their starting point. As always, all you need is to believe, speak and act like God can and He will. Let us follow her trail.
"Joshua chose two men as spies and sent them from their camp at Acacia with these instructions: "Go across the river and find out as much as you can about the whole region, especially about the town of Jericho." The two spies left the Israelite camp at Acacia and went to Jericho, where they decided to spend the night at the house of a prostitute named Rahab. But someone found out about them and told the king of Jericho, "Some Israelite men came here tonight, and they are spies." So the king sent soldiers to Rahab's house to arrest the spies. Meanwhile, Rahab had taken the men up to the flat roof of her house and had hidden them under some piles of flax plants that she had put there to dry. The soldiers came to her door and demanded, "Let us have the men who are staying at your house. They are spies." She answered, "Some men did come to my house, but I didn't know where they had come from. They left about sunset, just before it was time to close the town gate. I don't know where they were going, but if you hurry, maybe you can catch them." The guards at the town gate let the soldiers leave Jericho, but they closed the gate again as soon as the soldiers went through. Then the soldiers headed toward the Jordan River to look for the spies at the place where people cross the river." (Joshua 2:1-3 CEV)
I am not sure why the spies chose the house of a prostitute to stay, I suppose its strategic position on the city wall, might have had something to do with it. Rahab turned out to be their greatest ally. She demonstrated wisdom and bravery to help them at the risk of losing her own life. The motivation behind her actions can be seen from the following text.
"Rahab went back up to her roof. The spies were still awake, so she told them: I know that the LORD has given Israel this land. Everyone shakes with fear because of you. We heard how the LORD dried up the Red Sea so you could leave Egypt. And we heard how you destroyed Sihon and Og, those two Amorite kings east of the Jordan River. We know that the LORD your God rules heaven and earth, and we've lost our courage and our will to fight. Please promise me in the LORD's name that you will be as kind to my family as I have been to you. Do something to show that you won't let your people kill my father and mother and my brothers and sisters and their families. "Rahab," the spies answered, "if you keep quiet about what we're doing, we promise to be kind to you when the LORD gives us this land. We pray that the LORD will kill us if we don't keep our promise!" Rahab's house was built into the town wall, and one of the windows in her house faced outside the wall. She gave the spies a rope, showed them the window, and said, "Use this rope to let yourselves down to the ground outside the wall. Then hide in the hills. The men who are looking for you won't be able to find you there. They'll give up and come back after a few days, and you can be on your way." The spies said: You made us promise to let you and your family live. We will keep our promise, but you can't tell anyone why we were here. You must tie this red rope on your window when we attack, and your father and mother, your brothers, and everyone else in your family must be here with you. We'll take the blame if anyone who stays in this house gets hurt. But anyone who leaves your house will be killed, and it won't be our fault." (Joshua 2:8-17 CEV)
What leaps out at you from this conversation is that progression had been made from merely believing into knowing that God is who He said He is and He was going to do what He said He would do. All this is evident by the words and actions of those involved. If they were right, then lives will be saved and if not then the converse would be the case.
I admire the logic of Rahab's faith. Having heard of the acts, of the God of the Jews, she deduced that He must be the God who rules heaven and earth and therefore overthrowing Jericho was as good as done, if He willed to do so(Romans 10:17). There are a few things to glean from this. The Jews themselves experienced these acts first-hand but seemed to fail to reach the same conclusion with the exception of a few. This is why they had just spent the last forty years roaming the wilderness. It is also worthy of note that the acts to which Rahab referred happened 40years ago, but were still alive in living memory. A testimony to the fact that such a God did not suddenly become impotent over time.
Forty Years before...
"After forty days of scouting out the land, they returned home. They presented themselves before Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation of the People of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They reported to the whole congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. Then they told the story of their trip: "We went to the land to which you sent us and, oh! It does flow with milk and honey! Just look at this fruit! The only thing is that the people who live there are fierce, their cities are huge and well fortified. Worse yet, we saw descendants of the giant Anak. Amalekites are spread out in the Negev; Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites hold the hill country; and the Canaanites are established on the Mediterranean Sea and along the Jordan." Caleb interrupted, called for silence before Moses and said, "Let's go up and take the land--now. We can do it." But the others said, "We can't attack those people; they're way stronger than we are." They spread scary rumors among the People of Israel. They said, "We scouted out the land from one end to the other--it's a land that swallows people whole. Everybody we saw was huge. Why, we even saw the Nephilim giants (the Anak giants come from the Nephilim). Alongside them we felt like grasshoppers. And they looked down on us as if we were grasshoppers."
(Numbers 13:25-33 MSG)
"Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, members of the scouting party, ripped their clothes and addressed the assembled People of Israel: "The land we walked through and scouted out is a very good land--very good indeed. If GOD is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land that flows, as they say, with milk and honey. And he'll give it to us. Just don't rebel against GOD! And don't be afraid of those people. Why, we'll have them for lunch! They have no protection and GOD is on our side. Don't be afraid of them!" But, up in arms now, the entire community was talking of hurling stones at them. Just then the bright Glory of GOD appeared at the Tent of Meeting. Every Israelite saw it. GOD said to Moses, "How long will these people treat me like dirt? How long refuse to trust me? And with all these signs I've done among them!" (Numbers 14:6-11 MSG)
"But as I live and as the Glory of GOD fills the whole Earth-- not a single person of those who saw my Glory, saw the miracle signs I did in Egypt and the wilderness, and who have tested me over and over and over again, turning a deaf ear to me-- not one of them will set eyes on the land I so solemnly promised to their ancestors. No one who has treated me with such repeated contempt will see it. "..this whole generation of grumblers and grousers. Not one of you will enter the land and make your home there, the firmly and solemnly promised land, except for Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun... These children of yours will live as shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, living with the fallout of your whoring unfaithfulness until the last of your generation lies a corpse in the wilderness. You scouted out the land for forty days; your punishment will be a year for each day, a forty-year sentence to serve for your sins--a long schooling in my displeasure...Only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh were left alive of the men who went to scout out the land.
(Numbers 14:21-38 MSG)
Back to the present...
Another point to consider is that Rahab is not the only one who held the belief that the God of the Jews could overcome Jericho, but she is the one who decided to fall on His mercy. This is the crust of repentance, when you realize you can't prove God a liar(Romans 3:4) by sustaining true life outside of Him, it's time to come to Him and submit to His life and let Him live through you instead(Galatians 2:19-20). Her faith and submission was manifested in her actions to preserve the spies at the risk of her own life(James 2:25-26). I suppose she died to her own life that she might receive it again when Jericho fell(Luke 9:23-25).
We can now consider the deal that was brokered between Rahab and the spies. As previously mentioned, this deal left no room for doubt that the fall of Jericho was a done deal, even though none of the parties knew how it would be achieved. I suppose it sufficed to say that God was able(Luke 1:37). Rahab asked for the preservation of her and all those in her household. She was then given a token of a red rope(a prophetic shadow of the blood of Christ) which had to be tied to her window to designate it as the safe haven of salvation from the destruction that was to come. Anyone who was found in that house, when death struck the city, would be saved. Anyone who was not, would be killed. A simple model of salvation.
"I'll do exactly what you said," Rahab promised. Then she sent them on their way and tied the red rope to the window. The spies hid in the hills for three days while the king's soldiers looked for them along the roads. As soon as the soldiers gave up and returned to Jericho, the two spies went down into the Jordan valley and crossed the river. They reported to Joshua and told him everything that had happened. "We're sure the LORD has given us the whole country," they said. "The people there shake with fear every time they think of us." (Joshua 2:21-24 CEV)
Rahab's promise of obedience was further evidence of her confidence in the imminence of Jewish triumph. It is my belief that the statement made by the spies in the last verse reveals the purpose God had, in sending spies into the land. He wanted the Jews to know that their enemy was afraid of them and they need not be intimidated. God knew all that needed to be known about the enemy and could have revealed it to them. I was however important for the Jews themselves to hear their enemies confess their dread of them because of their God's might. This reveals several things.
All have the ability to believe, the question is how we respond to it. The people of Jericho believed God could overcome them and were afraid, but chose to fight rather than surrender, Rahab believed and was afraid but decided to corporate, the Jews believed helped by Rahab's testimony and were encouraged to attack.
This also reveals the need to look beyond mere perception. It would be easy to perceive that the people of Jericho were impenetrable because of their walled fortress and lack of outright surrender, but inside they were afraid but maintained a brave persona as a last wall of defense. The bible reveals that the demons believe there is a God and tremble(James 2:19), yet we, in whom that God lives are deceived by their false persona and tremble(1 Peter 5:8). If they tremble, we should be encouraged and confident that victory is ours because of our God, who rules the heaven and the earth, has promised us that we would triumph in all things(2 Corinthians 2:14) because greater is He that is in us than He that is in the world(1 John 4:4, 5:4-5).
We could speculate that God was trying to achieve similar results with the spies who went out 40 years before, but they were thrown off by the perception of being grasshoppers in their enemy's eyes. I have often maintained that as spies, they could not have obtained that information first hand, as they would not have wanted to be noticed. They looked at the physical appearance of their enemies and were overawed by their own relative inability. The real lesson is that, it was never about them but the God they served. He was the one that promised to give them the land, if they would go in and possess it. This point was not lost on Joshua and Caleb, who declared they were well able to take the land, their enemies were lunch for them because God was with them. There is no telling what the giants may have said if they were asked what they thought about the God of the Jews, I believe they would have made a similar proclamation to Rahab's and the spies would have been encouraged. I guess we may never know.
We will look at the invasion and the resulting transformation of Rahab's destiny in Part 2 of this blog. Click here to read Part 2.
Every blessing
Breadoflife
To view others installments in the series, click here
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Author: breadoflife
Location: London United Kingdom
Gender: Male
Age: 43
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i have been a christian for over 20 years, but i was unfulfilled. some years ago, i was set free from religion to live in union with christ. i love to explore the new found freedom, unravel the mystery of "christ in us the hope of glory" and share my...
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