WOMEN IN THE WORD: REHAB

Rehab was the great, great, great… grandmother of Jesus (Matthew 1:5).

She didn’t deserve that honor! She was a Canaanite! Worse still, she was a prostitute! Why would God choose her as a link in the genealogy connecting Abraham to Jesus?

Why? God’s grace! And her faith!

The Canaanites were the enemy! God had commanded Moses and the Israelites to defeat them and destroy them! “When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess … you must completely destroy them. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy” (Deuteronomy 7:1–2). A Canaanite prostitute didn’t deserve God’s grace … any more or any less than you and me.

Everyone in Jericho was aware of the throngs of Israelites down the hill at Gilgal. They had heard the stories of their victories in the desserts of Sinai. They had witnessed their miraculous crossing of the Jordan. Something, someone, had stopped the waters pouring down the river channel. They’d never seen anything like it! The Israelites crossed the mighty Jordan River on dry land.

When Joshua sent men to investigate the great walled city, they found refuge in “the house of a prostitute named Rahab”(Joshua 2:1).

Everyone in Jericho was fearful. Rahab was faithful! “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and everyone who lives in the land is panicking because of you. For we have heard how the Lorddried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two Amorite kings you completely destroyed across the Jordan. When we heard this, we lost heart, and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on earth below” (Joshua 2:9–11).

“By faith Rahab the prostitute welcomed the spies in peace and didn’t perish with those who disobeyed” (Hebrews 11:31).

Grace … plus faith … equals life.

“… think on these things” (Philippians 4:8, KJV).