{"id":4869,"date":"2009-05-14T13:02:55","date_gmt":"2009-05-14T13:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/a-brothers-wisdom-52.html"},"modified":"2009-05-14T13:02:55","modified_gmt":"2009-05-14T13:02:55","slug":"a-brothers-wisdom-52","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/a-brothers-wisdom-52.html","title":{"rendered":"A Brother&#8217;s Wisdom 52"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Rahab.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/120\/import\/imgs\/Rahab.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 20px 20px;float: right\" height=\"344\" width=\"245\" \/><\/span>No one knows for sure why James moves to Rahab as his second example, though some suggestions are clever. Hospitality seems the best explanation: the messanists for not showing it to the poor, Abraham for entertaining strangers, and Rahab for welcoming Israel&#8217;s spies. <\/p>\n<p>The Canaanite prostitute Rahab, whose story of hospitality is told in Joshua 2 and whose reward is found in 6:16-25, creates problems for modern interpreters and historians while she resolves a faith-works relationship for James.&nbsp; The writer of Hebrews also saw Rahab as an example of faith and hospitality (11:31), while Matthew seems to depict her as a sinful Gentile woman who played a role in the Messiah&#8217;s geneaology (1:5). Josephus makes her an inn-keeper instead of a prostitute and therefore the spies are only there for dinner (Ant 5.7-15). In 1 Clement 12 we discover a prophetic type of atonement in the red cord and in later Judaism Rahab was classified as a proselyte but this isn&#8217;t James&#8217; point.&nbsp; For James, Rahab was (1) a prostitute,&nbsp; (2) justified by works, and (3) one who welcomed the spies and sent them off surreptitiously.<\/p>\n<p>For James, she illustrates that faith accompanied by deeds of mercy (works) is the kind of faith that works\/saves.<\/p>\n<p>James closes the sub-text (2:24-26), the unit (2:20-26), and the entire chp with this conclusion: &#8220;As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.&#8221; That&#8217;s been his point all along and it&#8217;s his intent. If read within that point and with that intent, James should make sense for Protestants.<\/p>\n<p>Faith and works are inseparable for James.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No one knows for sure why James moves to Rahab as his second example, though some suggestions are clever. Hospitality seems the best explanation: the messanists for not showing it to the poor, Abraham for entertaining strangers, and Rahab for welcoming Israel&#8217;s spies. The Canaanite prostitute Rahab, whose story of hospitality is told in Joshua&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-james"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Brother&#039;s Wisdom 52 - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/a-brothers-wisdom-52.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Brother&#039;s Wisdom 52 - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"No one knows for sure why James moves to Rahab as his second example, though some suggestions are clever. Hospitality seems the best explanation: the messanists for not showing it to the poor, Abraham for entertaining strangers, and Rahab for welcoming Israel&#8217;s spies. The Canaanite prostitute Rahab, whose story of hospitality is told in Joshua&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/a-brothers-wisdom-52.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-05-14T13:02:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Rahab.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Brother's Wisdom 52 - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/a-brothers-wisdom-52.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Brother's Wisdom 52 - Jesus Creed","og_description":"No one knows for sure why James moves to Rahab as his second example, though some suggestions are clever. Hospitality seems the best explanation: the messanists for not showing it to the poor, Abraham for entertaining strangers, and Rahab for welcoming Israel&#8217;s spies. The Canaanite prostitute Rahab, whose story of hospitality is told in Joshua&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/a-brothers-wisdom-52.html","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2009-05-14T13:02:55+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Rahab.jpg"}],"author":"Scot McKnight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/a-brothers-wisdom-52.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/a-brothers-wisdom-52.html","name":"A Brother's Wisdom 52 - Jesus Creed","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/a-brothers-wisdom-52.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/a-brothers-wisdom-52.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Rahab.jpg","datePublished":"2009-05-14T13:02:55+00:00","dateModified":"2009-05-14T13:02:55+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/19879975236b70da80f4cbea933c59d0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/a-brothers-wisdom-52.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/a-brothers-wisdom-52.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/a-brothers-wisdom-52.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Rahab.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Rahab.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/a-brothers-wisdom-52.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Brother&#8217;s Wisdom 52"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith for today","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/19879975236b70da80f4cbea933c59d0","name":"Scot McKnight","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c10\/c10b0226ed6cfd8319b2b8742ac4088ax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c10\/c10b0226ed6cfd8319b2b8742ac4088ax96.jpg","caption":"Scot McKnight"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/author\/smcknight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}