kept safe

Good morning brothers and sisters,
Yesterday we read how Joshua sent spies to Jericho to check out the area before Israel attacked. The spies found refuge in a prostitute named Rahab's house where she hid them from the King of Jericho's soldiers. Today we see what she has to say to them about why she is helping them. Matthew's Gospel adds Rahab to the genealogy of Jesus. One of the things I love about the Bible is how the heroes are often surprising people: women in a sexist society, poor people, the sick, the forgotten. God's kingdom looks very different from the pages of a celebrity magazine. Each of us may has a part to play in God's story.

God bless,
Sam

Joshua 2:8-16
⁸Before they went to sleep, she came up to them on the roof ⁹and said to the men: “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that dread of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt in fear before you. ¹⁰For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites that were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. ¹¹As soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no courage left in any of us because of you.

The Lord your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below. ¹²Now then, since I have dealt kindly with you, swear to me by the Lord that you in turn will deal kindly with my family. Give me a sign of good faith ¹³that you will spare my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.” ¹⁴The men said to her, “Our life for yours! If you do not tell this business of ours, then we will deal kindly and faithfully with you when the Lord gives us the land.”

¹⁵Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the outer side of the city wall and she resided within the wall itself. ¹⁶She said to them, “Go toward the hill country, so that the pursuers may not come upon you. Hide yourselves there three days, until the pursuers have returned; then afterward you may go your way.”

spying out the land

Good morning sisters and brothers,
Forty years earlier, when the Israelites arrived at the border of the Promised Land for the first time, Moses sent spies into the land to see what it was like. Ten of the twelve spies reported that the people were too scary to fight and the Israelites lost their courage. That led to forty more years of wandering in the desert. Joshua was one of the two spies who brought an encouraging report. Now Joshua is leading the people of Israel, and he decides to send spies as well. The spies go specifically to Jericho, which is the first town they will attack. This time the outcome will be very different as Israel begins a new phase in their life.
blessings,
Sam

Joshua 2:1-7

Then Joshua son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” So they went, and entered the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab, and spent the night there. ²The king of Jericho was told, “Some Israelites have come here tonight to search out the land.” ³Then the king of Jericho sent orders to Rahab, “Bring out the men who have come to you, who entered your house, for they have come only to search out the whole land.” ⁴But the woman took the two men and hid them. Then she said, “True, the men came to me, but I did not know where they came from. ⁵And when it was time to close the gate at dark, the men went out. Where the men went I do not know. Pursue them quickly, for you can overtake them.” ⁶She had, however, brought them up to the roof and hidden them with the stalks of flax that she had laid out on the roof. ⁷So the men pursued them on the way to the Jordan as far as the fords. As soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut.