Joshua 2

One of the take aways we want the students is to notice how little information Rahab had and needed to have faith in God, but yet believes and later is mentioned in the book of Hebrews as a faithful believer and takes part in the lineage of Jesus. Therefore, we do not need to be intimidated by our concerns of not having enough biblical knowledge to share with others and bring them to Christ.

The flip side of this is we ought to be thankful for the blessing of the biblical knowledge we have and have access to. Having the access we have to the word of God is not the stand throughout world history and there are even still groups of people in the world that do not have access to the entirety of scripture as we do. For example in the Philippines, where we have a new Acts 29 partnership, there are many peoples who have yet to get full access to scripture in their primary language.

The Moro Joloano Tausug People (1.4 million) – New Testament completed in 2018 but entire bible has yet to be fully translated

The Yakan People (207,000) – New testament was completed in 2019 but the entire bible is yet to be completed

Iranun People (287,000) – Have portions of scripture but yet to have a complete the old or new testament.

We truly are extremely blessed to have full access to the word of God.

One of the discussions that might come up is if it was the right thing for Rahab to do to tell a lie. There are many people who have looked deeply into this and there is still differing opinion so it is very unlikely that we will come to the bottom of it in the hour or so of discussion that we will have this week. Therefore we want to challenge the students to further look it up on their time while giving them the following context and advice. It is fundamentally wrong to believe that the word and honor of God is protected by the works of man. Belief that God cannot accomplish his tasks without you or me is a very flawed and unbiblical position which leads one down dangerous roads of compromise. No matter what Rahab said to the servants of the king, God was going to accomplish what he set out to do lie or truth.

Also the story of Rahab ought to be an encouragement to all of us because she is the ultimate example of making the choice to follow God overcoming all the failures and sins she had committed in the past. We might have made bad choices in the past or be stuck in current sins and moral failings but there is the ever-lingering question of whom will trust my life and faith and that question demands an answer. If we choose to put our lives in the hands of God, then he can overcome all the things that we have holding us back from following Gods will for our lives. Rahab did not have to jump through a ton of hoops before she was able to be a part of Gods plan, she just had to believe. We don’t need to practice self-deprecation, focusing on all the things that may be wrong with ourselves or lives, but we need to be living in the hope and promises that comes with being a follower of Christ.