Rahab, part 2 -- An Unlikely heroine

Day 80

OT Reading: Joshua 4-6

NT Reading: Luke 2:1-24

If we picked heroes of the Bible like we pick teams for kickball...Rahab would have been chosen last. In fact, it's quite possible that the teams would have gone out and left her standing there all by herself. Granted we read her story and think it's a nice little tale, but consider the following:

* She was a woman. Shocking statement to make, I know. But the truth is that during this time most cultures viewed women more as property than people. For instance, the testimony of a woman often was dismissed from legal proceedings. So to have a woman as the example of faith and heroism...that was a switch.

* She was a foreigner. In other words, she wasn't of the right blood line and one of the "in" crowd. If you haven't noticed, the Israelites wanted to pretty much keep to themselves and didn't play nice with the surrounding nations (partly because of what God told them would happen if they started following said nations). This feeling ran so deep that during the time of Jesus it was said that a typical Jewish man would thank God every day for two things. One, that he was not a woman. And two, that he was not a gentile. Of course it's debated which "fate" they would have considered worse.

* She was a prostitute. Did ya catch that little part? Seriously...a prostitute. Sure that may be the oldest profession in the history of the world (so I'm told), but prostitutes are not generally held up as examples of godliness.

Put these items together and Rahab becomes unlikely to receive the role of "example of faith" for most people. Yet, that's exactly what we see. And oh, by the way, this same Rahab - the gentile prostitute - ends up being an ancestor of Jesus (Matthew 1:5). This same woman is used to bring about God's promised Messiah into the world.

So what does all this tell us? Well the fact is that each time we run into a new Bible character, it's often apparent that each one has flaws (except for Jesus). Each one messes up, each one falls, and often God uses the most unlikely of individuals to achieve His purpose.

So with that in mind let me ask, what's the thing in your life you feel may be disqualifying you from doing something great for God? Because what we'll see over and over is that God uses ordinary, average, messed up people like you and me to do something extraordinary for Him.