2024_03_06 Insight Post- Rusty Coram
This week’s reading- Joshua 2, Joshua 6:17-25, Matthew 1:5, Hebrews 11:31, James 2:25
For many reasons, the story of Rahab is one of my favorites. She was a Canaanite who grew up believing in multiple gods and she made her living as a prostitute. Either of these facts would lead many to judge her and mark her as far from being a candidate for God’s favor and grace. Yet, she became a true heroine in Israel’s conquest of the land promised to them by God.
We met Rahab as two soldiers running reconnaissance for Joshua crossed her path in Jericho. She was identified as a prostitute, but she was much more. She negotiated with the two soldiers to help them, in exchange for them protecting her AND her extended family when Israel overtook Jericho: “Give me some guarantee that 13 when Jericho is conquered, you will let me live, along with my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all their families.” Joshua 2:12,13 (NLT) Rahab doesn’t mention a husband in the list, and we don’t know if she was a widow, never married, or divorced. In that culture, there weren’t the social programs we take for granted today, so it may be that prostitution was the avenue she chose that allowed her to eat and care for her family. We also learn that along the way, Rahab had come to believe that Israel’s God was above all others, “For the Lord your God is the supreme God of the heavens above and the earth below.” Joshua 2:11 (NLT). We don’t know how she arrived at this, just that she did. After Joshua and his people took over Jericho, Rahab and her family joined them and she became fully connected with the community, marrying Salmon, and later becoming the great-great-grandmother of Israel’s king David.
One of the things we learn from her story is that regardless of a person’s track record, if they surrender their life to God, He will take them and remake them from the inside out – a brand new person. The biblical historians could have easily edited out Rahab’s past as a prostitute. They could have also left out the immorality of her great-great-grandson David. Instead, by telling the unvarnished truth, we gain a picture of hope. Hope that we are never too far gone and that a humble and repentant heart will find God’s forgiveness and love. “But if we confess our sins to God, he will keep his promise and do what is right: he will forgive us our sins and purify us from all our wrongdoing.” 1 John 1:9 (GNB).
Rusty Coram
Senior Pastor