Oh, baby names! We love them. One of my favorite things to do is to read through baby name books. My siblings and I have special memories of every birthday at our house: We would all sit down on the benches around our long table and listen to mom and dad tell the story about us: mom’s pregnancy with that specific baby, why they named us what they did, our exciting delivery stories, and what we were like when we were a baby.
Names are so important to us. And I think that’s a good thing because throughout the Bible we see that names are really important to God, too. God is passionate about His own name! And He has given Himself so many names to teach us about who He is. God is also passionate about the names of His people. He is in the business of naming people …… and renaming people.
God strategically names people. It was never because He liked the way the new name sounded better than the other one, and He was never just trying to keep up with the name trends by keeping his favorite peeps in the Social Securities list for the top ten baby names of the year. God chose to give some people a new name when He gave them a new identity. When God gives you a name it means something. Abram became Abraham (meaning, “father of multitudes”) when God promised him that He would have more descendants than the stars. His new name represented the new identity that God had given him. We see God giving people new names as an expression of His mercy on them. We also see the opposite to be true in the life of Hosea. God named Hosea’s children as an act of judgement on them naming them names that meant “Disaster,” “No Mercy,” and “Not My People.” Wow. So next time you are at your mom’s house you can thank her for not naming you something like “My Least Favorite,” or “The Ugly One.”
God named people based on who they were, who they would be, or how He would use them. Because of this, we have chosen to name our children based on who we pray they will be, who we pray God will make them, and how we pray that God would use them.
So why “Rahab?” You’ve probably been wondering that ever since we made the announcement, right? We’ve heard everything from, “What kind of name is that?” to “Isn’t that more of a boy name?” to “Well then what are you going to call her?” But it’s cool. We understand that it’s a little crazy to name your kid a name that isn’t even in the social securities list of top 10,000 for the last 200 years. We totally get it. But we also want you to know why we have chosen such a special name for her (because believe it or not, it’s not just because we like being weird….. although we do. My dad always told me that being normal is overrated. So i’ve tried my hardest to not be.)
We all know the story of Rahab in the Bible… God had revealed to Israel the land that He would give them and the twelve spies went to check it out. They sought refuge in the house of Rahab (who was a prostitute). She had faith that their God was the true God and she protected the spies by lying to the government about where they were, and in doing so she put her life on the line. Because of her faith, she and her family were the only ones from the city that were saved.
Rahab is evidence of God’s fabulous mercy towards sinners. Rahab was a prostitute… a professional sinner. She was easily among the “worst sinners” of the city that God was coming to destroy in judgement. She had no spiritual background, no Bible, no teachers. She was a pagan…. a gentile… not among the people of God’s chosen nation. But the beauty of Rahab’s story is that God loves to redeem sinners. He loves to make the most ugly things beautiful. He loves to make His enemies His friends. Even in the Old Testament God had a heart for saving people from every nation. It is amazingly good news to us foreigners …. God loves to reconcile people to Himself irregardless or their past and of their qualifications.
I feel like the average person would be ashamed to admit Rahab as a part of their family. She would be that crazy aunt that nobody talked about … the one that never got invited to the family functions. She would be the disgraceful black sheep that we try to sweep under the rug so that we aren’t forced into making excuses for her scandalous behavior. The crazy thing is that Jesus seems surprisingly unashamed to associate with people of scandalous reputations. During Jesus’ earthly ministry He was criticized for “eating with tax collectors and sinners.” And even starting with Jesus’ very genealogy God sovereignly seems to go out of His way to include uniquely unqualified women in His family line. Rahab, the pagan prostitute makes that list along with Ruth, another pagan, and Tamar, who got into the royal bloodline by pretending to be a prostitute and seducing Judah. Bathsheba, the wife that David stole from Uriah is in there, and so is Mary, Jesus’ earthly mother, who was pregnant before she was married. Her claim of having immaculately conceived is even still ill received by most. God uses broken stories. God weaves these evidences of grace throughout the whole Bible. Each of these women undeservingly entered into redemptive history proving to us that God delights in using the weak things of this world. These stories show us that God’s grace truly is big enough for us, too.
God used Rahab in a special way because of her belief, even though her faith was imperfect. Even in faith she did the wrong thing. She lied. But Rahab wasn’t accepted based on who she was or what she did. We are told that she was accepted based on Who she believed in. She sinned. But by God’s grace and because of her faith she was forgiven. And even in that we get another beautiful picture of grace from Rahab. It is possible and common that people who have great faith also have moments of complete failure. And in those moments we are devastated that we are doing the things that we hate. But we have confidence that we are not accepted based on the perfectness of our faith. But that because we do have faith, we are accepted based on Jesus’ perfect performance for us. Does that make her lying, or our lying, ok? No, it really doesn’t. It makes it heart breaking. The Bible never commends or approves of Rahab’s deception. It does commend her faith. God punishes sin. That’s part of Rahab’s story. But God is faithful to save those who believe. Always.
Another unique Rahab tidbit? Rahab was the mother of Boaz, the man who redeemed Ruth. How fabulous! Now we may have a better picture of the kindness of Boaz towards Ruth. Boaz was raised by a foreign harlot who was grafted into God’s family by His grace. The other workers in that field saw a foreign, pagan, poor woman scrounging around for any food she could get off of the ground. Boaz, in compassion, maybe saw something a little familiar to him: a dear woman who left her people and her nation and her way of life to embrace the True God. God clearly had especially prepared Boaz at the feet of his mother, Rahab, to be a kind and gracious redeemer for Ruth. It was truly a marriage made in heaven as God prepared the heart of the groom even as a child. The Bible really does contain the most beautiful romance stories to be found anywhere.
Was Rahab perfect? No! Was she moral at all? No. But when God came to judge an entire city, to wipe it out, Rahab was saved, not because she was better than any of the other people (no, she was truly equal to the worst), but because she was a sinner who had fabulous, but wholly imperfect belief in the One True God. And that’s the Gospel. And that’s our prayer for our baby girl.
Our prayer for her? That God would do a miraculous work of grace in her. That He would give her a new heart with great faith. That she would have so much love for the true God that she would even be willing to put her life on the line if necessary. That she would see that Jesus is the true pearl that is worth selling everything else for. That she would trust with all that she is that Jesus is better than any lifestyle this world has to offer her. That she would not distinguish herself by high intelligence, an exemplary lifestyle, a kind disposition, some sort of higher morals, but soley by her faith: a faith that is not dependent on circumstances. But by a simple faith that when tested is proven…. by a faith that works. Our prayer for her? That she would say with full confidence, just like her own name’s sake said:
“the Lord your God, He is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.”
Our Joyous Journey 