Rahab
So this semester i am taking Joshua and Judges with Dr. Saxon. Did i ever tell you how much i love Dr. Saxon? He is the best Bible teacher I have ever had! This is the second class i have taken with him. we have only had 4 classes so far this semester, but i have already learned SOOO much! on tuesday we talked about Rahab and whether it was okay for her to lie about the spies. we tossed around several ideas in class and my brain was going haywire trying to figure it out Biblically. you see, she lied about the spies being in her house, yet God blessed her and her house. you shoulda heard everyone's ideas: "It was okay to lie because she didnt know better", "it was okay to lie because it was a war strategy", "she had to choose the lesser of two evils...", and on and on it went. well, i was loving this class because my paper for this class (which is due on the 30th) is on rahab so i was feeding on all these different directions i could take my paper. anyways, we concluded at the end of class that...well, before i tell you what we concluded...what do you think? was it right or wrong for rahab to hide the spies and lie about it? why or why not?
posted by Jennifer @ 7:28 PM
6 Comments:
The questions you should ask are:
Was that Rahab the Arab?
Did he have a camel?
If so, what was his camels name?
hahaha very funny jimmy.
Though it wasn't right for her to lie, God still used her. God still uses us sometimes when we aren't doing things the right way.
Check your email...
The National Review has a review of the book A Secret Life: The Polish Officer, His Covert Mission, and the Price He Paid to Save His Country.
The subject of this remarkable book, Col. Ryszard Kuklinski, died in a Tampa military hospital on February 10. His had been one of the most dangerous — and successful — intelligence careers of the Cold War. Recipient of the CIA’s Distinguished Intelligence Medal, he was the West’s most important source in the Warsaw Pact between the time of Oleg Penkovsky’s reports during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the end of the Cold War. Although only a colonel, Kuklinski was more valuable than several generals put together: He was director of the operational-planning directorate of the Polish general staff and liaised between Warsaw and Moscow. Over nine years, he delivered 40,265 pages of documents, including plans of Soviet exercises of the invasion of Western Europe, the location of Soviet wartime command bunkers, plans for the imposition of martial law in Poland, and the details of numerous weapons. He gave successive U.S. administrations a direct insight into the planning of Warsaw Pact militaries and became the standard by which other intelligence from behind the Iron Curtain was judged. Kuklinski avoided detection. He was exfiltrated from Poland, with his family, only after being compromised by a leak from the U.S. government.
The big question is the ethics of what Kuklinski did. Was he a hero for his work against the Soviet puppet state or was he a traitor for spying against his own country?
If your country has been taken over by a regime that is an agent of a foreign power, is it legitimate to use treachery to topple that regime? Is a country run by a repulsive ideology still your country — right or wrong — or do you owe loyalty to the nation rather than to the alienated state? Does patriotism have to be rooted in higher values or does tribal solidarity trump all? Finally, can one man be so sure of his moral compass and the consequences of his actions as to take it upon himself to judge that a normally distasteful act will serve the greater good?…
What comes shining through in Weiser’s story is not just Kuklinski’s idealistic motivation but the kind of selfless patriotism that is usually felt by men from nations that have just faced the abyss of extermination. A witness to Warsaw’s wartime martyrdom — his father had been murdered by the Nazis — Kuklinski was in many ways a typical Pole of his generation. He tried to lead a normal life after the war, accommodating himself to the new Communist Poland by joining the army and the Party. He contacted the Americans only in the early 1970s, partly out of disgust at the invasion of Czechoslovakia and partly because he was alarmed at what Soviet invasion plans against Western Europe would mean for Poland. Because the Warsaw Pact enjoyed superiority over the West in conventional arms, NATO planned to respond to an attack with nuclear weapons — but because an attack against the USSR would provoke a full-blown strategic nuclear retaliation, NATO planned to nuke the Second Strategic Echelon of Soviet forces as they streamed West: across Poland. Kuklinski told me on one occasion that Soviet maps even showed areas — tails broadening east with the prevailing wind — that would be contaminated after hundreds of warheads struck. Was it treasonous for a Polish officer to try to preempt such a scenario, or was it treasonous to go along with it? One can’t help agreeing with the 30 Communist generals who wrote — in a public letter protesting Kuklinski’s exoneration — that “if he is a hero, then we are traitors.”
Kuklinski’s story raises the question for us: Is it morally acceptable to spy against your own country?
Biblically, we are called to deal honestly with each other. The Ninth Commandment states:
Exodus 20:16
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
But are we called to deal honestly with an unjust government? And is the possibility of saving lives from the unjust government ever justification for disobeying or subverting that unjust government?
Scripture gives us two examples of just such actions. The first is from Egypt just prior to the Exodus.
Exodus 1:15-21
15 Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” 17 But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. 18 So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?” 19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” 20 So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.
Notice that scripture explicitly tells us that the midwives were rewarded for their fearing God more than fearing Pharaoh. They are rewarded for disobeying and lying to Pharaoh.
The second case is from when the Israelites came into Canaan.
Joshua 2:1-21
1 And Joshua the son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” And they went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and lodged there. 2 And it was told to the king of Jericho, “Behold, men of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land.” 3 Then the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying, “Bring out the men who have come to you, who entered your house, for they have come to search out all the land.” 4 But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. And she said, “True, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. 5 And when the gate was about to be closed at dark, the men went out. I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them.” 6 But she had brought them up to the roof and hid them with the stalks of flax that she had laid in order on the roof. 7 So the men pursued after them on the way to the Jordan as far as the fords. And the gate was shut as soon as the pursuers had gone out.
8 Before the men lay down, she came up to them on the roof 9 and said to the men, “I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. 10 For 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 who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction. 11 And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. 12 Now then, please swear to me by the LORD that, as I have dealt kindly with you, you also will deal kindly with my father’s house, and give me a sure sign 13 that you will save alive my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.” 14 And the men said to her, “Our life for yours even to death! If you do not tell this business of ours, then when the LORD gives us the land we will deal kindly and faithfully with you.”
15 Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was built into the city wall, so that she lived in the wall. 16 And she said to them, “Go into the hills, or the pursuers will encounter you, and hide there three days until the pursuers have returned. Then afterward you may go your way.” 17 The men said to her, “We will be guiltless with respect to this oath of yours that you have made us swear. 18 Behold, when we come into the land, you shall tie this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and you shall gather into your house your father and mother, your brothers, and all your father’s household. 19 Then if anyone goes out of the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head, and we shall be guiltless. But if a hand is laid on anyone who is with you in the house, his blood shall be on our head. 20 But if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be guiltless with respect to your oath that you have made us swear.” 21 And she said, “According to your words, so be it.” Then she sent them away, and they departed. And she tied the scarlet cord in the window.
The writer to the Hebrews makes it clear that what Rahab did in protecting the Israelite spies from the rulers of Jericho was right.
Hebrews 11:31
By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.
I’ve heard R.C. Sproul state it this way: We always tell the truth to those to whom the truth is due. But we do not always owe the truth to a corrupt and unjust state. It is a very rare situation that most of us will never face, but there are occasions when we must act in opposition to an unjust state and resort acts of deception in order to preserve the greater good. It appears that Kuklinski was in one of those rare situations. Unfortunately, there were too few men like him and too many like the Polish generals who now realize what they have done when weighed against Kuklinski’s actions.
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well, pj you didnt say what YOU think...
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