Rahab is a fascinating character. She lives in Jericho, one of the first cities to be attacked by Joshua and the Hebrews as they start to take the Promised Land. She is also a prostitute and therefore doubly condemned under God’s law.
She encounters spies from Joshua’s armies and knowing that the God of the Hebrews would win the fight she bravely changes sides and hides the spies from her own people.
The two spies honour her bravery and tell her to tie a red cord in her window and bring her whole family into her house.
After Joshua’s fateful march around the walls one section did not fall – the section containing a house marked by a red cord! God was faithful.
Rahab knew how big God was – she knew He was all powerful. I wonder if that made it easy to be brave, or whether betraying her own people was a very hard thing to do?
Where do our loyalties lie? With God or with our “tribe” or nation or family?
Jesus said “‘Truly I tell you,’ Jesus replied, ‘no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields – along with persecutions – and in the age to come eternal life.” – Mark 10: 29-30
But that’s not easy to do. Having a proper respect and awe for God can help us make the right decisions on difficult days!
