the book of joshua - tell

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This is Day 2 of a series of posts for the month of October. I’m joining Kate Motaung over at Five Minute Friday for the annual Write 31 Days challenge.  I will write about themes found in the book of Joshua each day, with a different word prompt.

Today’s word prompt is TELL.



The story of Rahab is one of the most redemptive stories in scripture for me.

Remind me? Rehab was the prostitute who took care of the spies Joshua sent to check out the situation in Jericho. Why is she a big deal? Because she wasn’t one of God’s chosen people and she was ordered by the king of Jericho to bring the spies to him. (She ran an inn, so it was likely the spies, once the king caught wind of the plan, would come to stay with her.) she she ignored the King of Jericho and instead hid the spies and lied to him. Seriously. Good for her. That could not have been easy.

After hiding the spies, she tells them that she has heard the stories of their God, YHWH, and she asks that when them come to overtake Jericho they spare her and her family. Which they do, which is pretty important... because she became the mother of Boaz, who married Ruth from whose son, Obed, Jesse the father of David came, through whose line Jesus was born. 

Despite her saucy past, Rahab was used by God in one of the most powerful ways possible in Scripture. She had the courage to tell the King of Jericho a lie, and the courage to tell the spies that she knew of their God. Her story is echoed in many of the faithful people in scripture willing to risk their lives, willing to speak though oppressed, in order to help further the kingdom of God on earth.

We live in the tension of being already forgiven and not yet restored to the glory. Rehab stands as a perfect picture of this tension: an unlikely heroine whose place in Jewish history is unprecedented. And she wasn’t even Jewish herself.

What a story to tell.


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