The Old Testament is filled with the stories of people who played an important role in history, but the extent of their contribution is enhanced when they are mentioned in the New Testament. Rahab is mentioned three times.<\/p>\n
Matthew 1: As a part of the genealogy of Jesus
\nHebrews 11: As someone who showed great faith in God
\nJames 2: Being right with God by her actions
\nThese are three pretty special ways to be mentioned \u2013 in the lineage of Jesus, in the faith Hall of Fame and as an example faith in action.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s ironic is that the \u201cfaith action\u201d that she did was a blatantly lie. This generated good discussion at our tables in both the morning and noon discussions.<\/p>\n
The action question of \u201clying to save one\u2019s own skin\u201d along with asking if it was okay for Rahab to lie caused each of us to wrestle with how we as men struggle with the question of lying. How often do I distort the truth just a little to make me look better. Or do I say, \u201cI got caught in traffic\u201d when in reality it was poor planning on my part or me not valuing the other person\u2019s time.<\/p>\n
The other interesting topic that came up was \u201cwhy the spies?\u201d Forty years earlier it was the lack of faith on the part of ten spies that led to the nation of Israel wandering in the wilderness. Now with Joshua at the helm he was not looking for the opinion of the spies. It was a given that they were to take the land. I don\u2019t think the spies were sent in to see how thick the walls were to determine if a trumpet blast could bring them down.<\/p>\n
This story is an example of how God often works by doing things in an unexpected way. Could it be that God\u2019s simple mission for the spies was to find Rahab so that she could be protected?<\/p>\n
As you enter the Christmas season where we celebrate another one of God\u2019s \u201cunexpected\u201d ways of doing things, enter with a heart open to letting God work in a way that defies human explanation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Old Testament is filled with the stories of people who played an important role in history, but the extent of their contribution is enhanced when they are mentioned in the New Testament. Rahab is mentioned three times. Matthew 1: As a part of the genealogy of Jesus Hebrews 11: As someone who showed great faith in God James 2:… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lessons","category-wrapup","xfolkentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":267,"href":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions\/267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}