Sun. July 24, 2011 (Rosie Perera)

Rosie Perera continued our summer series on Women in the Bible by speaking on Joshua chapters 2 and 6 which tell the fascinating story of "Rahab the prostitute". Moses had recently passed away and Joshua had emerged as the new military strategist. He decided that his first conquest would be the fortified city of Jericho. Rahab openly ran a brothel/inn, possibly as its madame, possibly as a retired former concubine of the king, and possibly because her family had rejected her and would not support her. She most certainly was not merely your ordinary inn keeper. She lived "in" the city's wall, which placed her on the edge of Jericho's society, protected yet vulnerable as a prostitute. We surmise that she was wealthy because she had enough flax drying on her roof to hide grown men from the king's police investigation. Hers is a story of deception, which was considered acceptable in war then, as now. Yet her story is also one of an emerging faith in this Yahweh, whose followers were enjoying unusual success. The writer of The Book of Judges concluded that Rahab was saved physically because of her open expressions of faith, and notes that she saved all of her family (even if they likely had possibly not helped her because of her work) and that she saved all of the working women in her establishment. Rahab through her daughter-in-law Ruth, became the great grandmother of King David, and therefore an ancestor of Jesus. [JEK]

Listen to the sermon audio MP3 recording from Sunday, July 24th, 2011 using your browser's preferred media player.