2024 Devotions Week 21

RAHAB THE PROSTITUTE
Joshua 2 and 6

“I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you … for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.”

There is no need to whitewash Rahab and try to explain away the fact that she was a prostitute. Even Joshua in chapter 6 referred to her as such. Yet in Matthew’s record of Jesus’ genealogy, we read, “Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David.”

What is amazing is her spiritual insight into the God of the Israelites, not only that he is the Supreme Being of all Creation but also that his promise to give the land to them will come to pass; Jericho will fall. Everybody in Jericho had the same information; only Rahab drew the right conclusions and acted on them.

Even more amazing was that she was willing to risk her life by betraying her city on the clear belief that Jericho will indeed fall. Finally, her acumen to take the opportunity to strike a deal to save her family reveals to us the clarity of her insight into the situation that she, and her city, is in.

Imagine trusting all that she loved to the hands of two young strangers, that the commander of the invading tribe would care about a simple promise made to a prostitute, all hanging on a scarlet thread hanging from her window. It is true that she had few options but to trust but she trusted the words of the two men and did not run away in fear when the wall collapsed and the fighting took place in earnest.

God honoured the faith of Rahab the prostitute, while we may be uncomfortable with what she did with her body, or dismiss her as an inconsequential woman.

“By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.”

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