Why Rahab?

God chose Rahab, a harlot in Cannan, to be the refuge and hiding place of the two spies Joshua sent. Why? One of the obvious ways of looking at this is that she was chosen by God because she chose to be faithful to him and protect the spies. This is made clear in the text even when the spies promise her blessings, which later did come to fruition for her once the Israelites took over the land. However, what still must be addressed is why God chose her first. The Bible does not explain this part. However, we can lean on other scriptures to build a likely theory. There are a few simple answers the Bible in reference about God choosing specific people. One reason God chooses people is because he is God and his ways are not only perfect, but often mysterious. It’s the holy version of “because I said so” that many of us often heard from our parents when we asked why about something. This is a simple enough answer. It could be more helpful though to also concern that sometimes God chooses people specifically because of their sinful history. We see this in the Bible several times. It’s God using people to show his wonderful grace and mercy and power and all encompassing love that is equally available to everyone. And these people in the stories, such as Moses, our upon post analysis of the event we can see how those circumstances in their life are actually used by God to a real impractical benefit that has led them to victory or accomplished the goal got had for them. Nobody else could’ve done a better job because of the experiences and life circumstances of these people specifically. This is the point I want to focus on with why God chose Rahab. It makes perfect sense why God would choose a harlot in this case. Since she was a harlot by trade, it was not unusual for men to visit her and stay overnight. This provided a seemingly legitimate excuse for this woman in particular to receive into her home out of towners without getting accused of treason. And it also provided a believable lie when she had to acknowledge the men had stayed with her, but were then gone. So look at how impossible the statistics of this would be. The spies needed safe passage through the city . They needed to make it out alive so they could accomplish their task and report back to Joshua. The situation of the city has they planned their attack upon it. At the same time, the home they chose happen to be of a woman who accepted strange men into her home regularly, who also happened to have the faith to serve God by obeying him. In the story of Israel’s victory over the Canaan Knights I’m not sure there is another character as important who required as much faith who was simultaneously, and probably the only position in her life circumstances to play her part for God. Or we can learn from this is God uses us and every single thing we’ve been through in every single thing about our life is perfectly and uniquely positioned for a role that only we could do to further his kingdom if we simply have faith and obey God‘s plan for us. Even our past sins will be used for God’s good just like the prostitution, the most sinful and shameful main identifier of this woman was the very thing used to give Joshua the insider information he needed to conquer the land of milk, and Honey.