love, mercy joy

I feel like the story of Rahab is one of the stories in the Bible that a lot of religious people try to ignore. Like, they kind of pretend she didn't exist, or if she did, they paint her in this glorious picture as some kind of special, holy prostitute. Because God wouldn't really use a whore, would he? “Then Joshua secretly sent out two spies from the Israelite camp at Acacia Grove. He instructed them, “Scout out the land on the other side of the Jordan River, especially around Jericho.” So the two men set out and came to the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there that night.” Rahab was a hooker. You get me? She got paid to have sex. Actively. Not, she used to be a bad girl but now she's redeemed. No, she was a working girl, and she worked hard for the money. I haven't thought about Rahab for years. I was one of those good little Christian girls who read that story and wrote it off as a "Bible" story so I didn't have to relate it to r