Rahab

Most of you should be familiar with the Old Testemant story of the battle of Jericho: When Israel came out of Egypt, they wandered in the wilderness for forty years, and when they finally entered into the Promised Land, they found that cities had been built there by the Canaanites. God told Joshua to first attack Jericho, a heavily fortified city with massive walls around it. Maybe 'attack' isn't the right word: the battle didn't happen for at least a week. First Joshua sent two spies inot the city, presumably to get a sense for the feelings of the people of Jericho. To be honest, the spies report had no real bearing on the outcome: God told Joshua what to do, each step of the way. But while the spies were in Jericho, they were found out, but a woman known as Rahab the harlot helped them to escape. As a result, she, and her household, were allowed to convert to Judaism after Jericho was destroyed. It's almost as though God had Joshua deploy spies just to see who was ready to accept Him as their God.

It's an odd thing: In ancient times, it was commonly believed that if two peoples, with different belief systems, went to war with each other, then their gods also went to war; so the victor was believed to have the stronger gods. In other words, if you can defeat me, that doesn't necessarily mean that you are stronger than I am, but it does mean that your gods are stronger than mine; clearly, I should accept your gods as my own. The problem that the Jews kept running into was that, even though this belief was widespread, they were uniquely monotheistic. Other peoples had a hard time with the idea that one God was stronger than all of their gods (even Rachel had a hard time giving up the gods that she had grown up with, even after seeing how Jacob's God blessed him).

For some reason, most preachers don't want to talk about Rahab's profession. We had a visiting preacher at our church once that commented on it: He pointed out that everyone in Rahab's house was saved, and he postulated that she must have had mom and dad and grandparents and cousins by the dozens in her house. He made a little joke, that she must have been a very good harlot--apparently she was able to buy the hotel that she worked out of. Of course, that's all supposition; the Bible doesn't tell us how many people were in Rahab's house. I have to wonder, myself, how many of her family could she have told about her agreement with the spies? I'm sure that there were lots of people that she would have liked to have had with her when the Israelites attacked, but that would have turned her in if they had known that she was consorting with the enemy.

I feel confident that she found another line of work once she became a Jew, but isn't it interesting that out of all the people in Jericho, the one that God chose was a harlot. We know something about her heart, because she helped the spies. The Bible doesn't give us any indication as to how she knew who the spies were. Maybe God knew that she had a willing heart and revelated that to her; maybe she realized who they were simply because they were the only men in Jericho that didn't treat her like a harlot (after all, it didn't make any difference to them--all of the people of Jericho were non-believers that were destined to be slaughtered).

Sometimes we, as Christians, get very caught up in our own image. I don't want to be seen with that woman, she's a prostitute; someone might think that I'm soliciting her (or being solicited by her. Whatever). It doesn't help that some very prominent people (both televangelsts and politicians) have been caught actively seeking sex with someone other than their spouse. Most people automatically assume that a man talking to a woman is more interested in her physically than spiritually, because that's the way our world works. But, if you stop and think about it, one sin is very much like another in God's eyes. A prostitute and a liar occupy the same moral ground. We are taught to love the sinner but hate the sin; all too often the hatred of the sin bleeds over, though. What we need to understand is that it isn't what a person does outside of Christ that is important; it's the fact that they are outside of Christ. The Bible says that to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin (of course the obverse is true: if you know not to do something, and then do it anyway, that is also sin). We can't expect those outside of Christ to have a clear understanding of what they should and shouldn't do (although it would be nice if they would at least be discrete about their sins, so that we would not be tempted), and it really doesn't matter what they do; quite frankly, if they aren't going to seek God for salvation, then their 'final destination' is the same, no matter what sins they commit here on earth.