Women of the Bible
And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted; neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you, for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. Joshua 2:11
Imagine hearing the unsettling news that an army is approaching your home. Now imagine that the approaching army had been a nation of slaves, delivered from their oppressors through a miraculous opening of the sea before travelling through the wilderness. Since then, you’ve heard that this approaching army has thoroughly routed all opposition as it carved a path toward your home.
That is where we meet Rahab in chapter 2 of Joshua. However, where her fellow countrymen saw an approaching enemy, she instead saw salvation. In her words above, she confessed her faith to the Israelite spies that she hid in her house. What an amazing example of the kind of faith that Jesus commends in John 20:29 “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Rahab would go on to witness the miraculous defeat of the Canaanites at Jericho, but her faith was founded on hearing about the great works of God. We may, at times, dearly wish to witness firsthand evidence of God’s power, but “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)
Rahab’s faith, evident in both her confession and her actions of protecting the Israelite spies , saved her from both the destruction of Jericho and from eternal torment in hell. She was adopted into the family of God, through faith, and was blessed to be an ancestor of Christ (she was David’s great-great-grandmother). May God grant us a trusting faith like Rahab's.
We walk by faith and not by sight,
No gracious words we hear
From Him who spoke as none e’er spoke,
But we believe Him near.
We may not touch His hands and side,
Nor follow where He trod;
But in His promise we rejoice
And cry “My Lord and God!”
Lutheran Service Book 720:1-2