Scandalous Mercy and Divine Judgement

Of all things, the New Testament begins with a long list of people, a genealogy of Jesus. In the ancient world, as in our own, when you have a genealogy, you are often telling something about the person. When you consider the women who are highlighted in Matthew 1, you see just how deep and wide the scandalous mercy of God is. This second week of Advent we are looking at the second woman mentioned in Matthew 1, Rahab. The story of Rahab is found in Joshua 2, in the beginning of the story of the Canaanite conquest and the fall of Jericho. Rahab, a prostitute is the woman of faith and faithful works (as Hebrews 11 and James 2 tell us) and God spares her. She is a great lesson of the great mercy of God for all who turn to him.