Week 14 Day 6 Spies Like Us

Joshua 2

I know, I know. I am doing a terrible job reading and reporting. Not that I have many readers but that isn't who my true audience should be anyway. And I can feel it. I feel it in my heart, in my thoughts, in my mind. I could give a list of excuses (like the fact I fall asleep each night sitting in the chair in the living room, warm dog curled up on my lap) but there isn't a true excuse other than I need to prioritize better.

Anyway, Joshua 2. A well known story.

Joshua sent spies into Jericho to check it out.

While there, the spies happen upon a prostitute...yes, a prostitute...named Rahab.

Rahab lets the spies hide out in her home, on the roof to be exact. It is a good thing the typical roof at that time was flat.

Meanwhile, all the King's Men and all the King's Horses were on the search for these spies.

Rahab does lie. She tells the king's men that the spies headed on out of town, sending them on a wild goose chase. Or rather wild spy chase.

And I struggle a bit with the whole lying thing. Does the means justify the end? Is lying okay if it is for the good of the people?

I don't know.

God doesn't say one way or another in this particular passage.

I do believe that even if Rahab had told the truth, God was bigger than those king's men. And He would have protected them regardless. Or is it irregardless?

I do like what Rahab tells the spies. She lets them know her people are afraid of their people. They know that God is on their (the Israelites) side. What is even more interesting is why her people know that. It is the things God has done, like drying up the Red Sea when the people left Egypt.

What I find ironic about that is that Rahab's people, unbelievers, could tell that God was God by what He had done while the Israelites seemed to forget. Yet those things had happened TO them and FOR them.

What is even more ironic is that it is easy for me to sit here in disgust that the people have forgotten over and over what God did for them, yet I do the same thing.

Anyway, the spies finally escape with a promise to Rahab that since she saved their lives, they will save hers (and that of her family).

Which leads to tomorrow's reading.

Joshua 3-5.

And I really do hope to make it TOMORROW.

Reba