Rahab's Place: Position Yourself for a Change

By D. Dean Benton

Rahab exemplifies a business woman in a brutally male world who leveraged her skills, business ability and vision into a deal with the men Joshua sent to check out the best way to conquer Jericho.
She is tagged a prostitute when she may have been a hotel owner who positioned her home and business location on the Jericho wall for safety for her family and herself. "Your life for ours." There is a difference between being the madam of a house and being the madam of the house.
Change is inevitable. Author D. Dean Benton tells Rahab's story with stories of 21st Century families, contemporary business tales and challenges.
Some historians and sociologists say we live in a time of hollowness, hopelessness, and the lack of heroes. Rahab becomes an action hero. Using stories and eclectic sources, Dean ties Rahab--who became one of Jesus great-grandmothers--to satisfying family life, personal growth and fulfilling one's destiny.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. Dean Benton
• Release date: Dec 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310231490

D. Dean Benton

A native Iowan, husband of one, father of two and grandfather of three. A pastor, seminar leader, author of 27 print books and 15 ebooks, singer, songwriter. After 14 years in the pastorate, Dean and his wife Carole, with family, worked in concerts, seminars and conferences for three decades before returning to the pastorate. The Bentons worked in forty states in about 3000 venues.

Book preview

RAHAB’S PLACE

Position Yourself for a Change

D. Dean Benton

Published by Spring Daisy Publications

A division of Benton Family Ministries, Inc

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 D. Dean Benton

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One—A Place To Discover Yourself

Chapter Two—A Place To Do Business

Chapter Three—A Place To Build

Chapter Four—A Place To See

Chapter Five—A Place For Action Heroes

Chapter Six—A Place To Remember

Chapter Seven—Lists Are My Life

Chapter One

A PLACE TO DISCOVER YOURSELF

Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies… ‘Go, look over the land,’ he said, ‘especially Jericho.’ So they went and entered the house of a prostitute name Rahab and stayed there (Joshua 2:1).

Rahab may have been slandered. Wherever her name appears, she is identified as a harlot or a prostitute. Beside each of those names is an asterisk. The footnote says, May be translated ‘Innkeeper’ or ‘hostess.’

Excuse me! There is quite a difference between being the madam of the house and being a madam of a house. Probably, Rahab was an enterprising entrepreneur. She operated Jericho’s Best Mid-Eastern Hotel—a bed and breakfast which also housed two other businesses, none of which included naked bodies.

Whatever her past, Rahab was an established member of the Jericho business community. The Chamber of Commerce probably ate lunch there. The Bible doesn’t spell out the details of her past, but we know what she did with her life and how she changed world history. She didn’t have a grand dream. She was trying to make ends meet, make her life count, care for her parents, and make it as a single woman in a man’s world.

She responded to a challenge that came knocking at her door. Divine intervention traipsed through her house all the way to the open tomb and into your life. She was one of the grandmothers in Jesus’ lineage.

My mother was a single-parent. She operated a small café that provided adequate income to buy us shoes, a house, and some vacations. It also provided me a job and a learning place. I washed dishes; cooked some really bad meals, but mostly I waited tables.

I learned a lot while pouring coffee and serving hamburgers and home-made pie. Early on, I learned secrets. One, you never say to a customer, Is that all? or Will that be all? The business question was always, What else may I get for you? I learned that you never put the ten-dollar bill in the cash register until the customer has the change in his hand. That way there is never a question whether it was a ten or twenty dollar bill.

Mom turned a run-down café into a profitable business. One of the first things she bought was a top-quality mirror. It was mounted behind the counter stretching about fifteen feet from one end of the counter to the other. Customers would sit at the counter to watch themselves and look at everyone behind them in the booths.

Pour the coffee, ask about the family and listen. Patrons will say things to a barkeeper or waitress/waiter they will not say at other times. If you keep your mouth shut while serving the pie, you can pick up a lot of information without trying to eavesdrop. Customers mesmerized by their own reflection in the mirror will talk about marriage, family, business deals and hatreds. They will tell you what they feel about political events and figures and what they expect is going to happen in the Stock Market, gas prices and to their company.

Rahab made the beds, cleaned the rooms, poured the coffee and listened to customer’s gossip. She tucked the tips in her pocket and the information into the place where such news is stored for later use.

She listened to the travelers, business owners and political leaders as they talked of the tribes across the river. Occasionally, one of the king’s military power brokers would get a little drunk and talk a little loud. Jericho was concerned about the Israelites who had marched miraculously out of Egypt a generation before with plans of taking over the entire land border-to-border, river-to-sea. Something happened that Jericho residents didn’t understand. The Hebrew tribes, after escaping from Egypt, stopped short of their goals and for forty years had just wandered around in the wilderness across the Jordan River from Jericho posing no threat to anyone.

Traveling merchants spoke often of the strange images of smoke, fire and pillars of clouds. Shoemakers had tried to break into that market, but for reasons they never understood, the Hebrews never needed shoes, nor did they import food.

Rahab took longer than usual to wipe crumbs off the counter as she heard that Moses had died. Joshua was now the recognized leader. Rahab remembered her parents talking of a man named Joshua who had entered their country many years before. She scrunched her eyebrows to remember the other names on that mission. Caleb. That was one of the men with Joshua. There were others, but she could not remember having ever heard their names. Whatever they reported from their reconnaissance had created a power struggle within the various clans. She never believed that Joshua and Caleb were scared off. Instead of invading and conquering, the Israelites just backed away, moving only when their cattle needed new territory; they were without direction.

Now, the police were saying that the Hebrews had a new plan to invade the land. Jericho would be the first city confronted. No military man thought their city vulnerable. Not with these walls. Still, guerilla warfare would be bad for business.

Rahab’s family had lived in this city so long their neighbors viewed them as naturalized citizens. When she visited her parents’ or brothers’ homes, she would mention what she had heard. Her parents reminded her that they also had Hebrew blood in their veins and retold the stories of the Exodus, Passover and Yahweh.

She was not surprised when two travelers happened to mention that Joshua said hello. She knew these men were not there to buy linen, but to check out the most vulnerable spots in the double walls. These men were Israeli spies and Rahab was in on the deal whether she wanted to be or not. A traveler with no family in Jericho would have been sent to Rahab’s Place; however, the authorities would know her Hebrew connection and that would make her immediately suspect.

She knew why the local CIA agents were at her door. She had to hide the spies to protect her family and herself. Regardless of her politics, she knew the danger. Women business owners were tolerated, but cut no slack. She had survived by her ability to out talk a client who had demanded more than she intended to give. She also knew how to defend herself with the hidden knife. Now, she concocted a story about the strangers who had spent one night and some money before leaving earlier in the day. She gave the police directions to what she thought was their next destination. She couldn’t be sure, she claimed, but that was their best bet. They bought the story. She watched them as they ran in the direction she had given.

Rahab slowly closed the door, quietly pushed the dead bolt into place and sagged against the door. She stood with her forehead against the bolted door. Then she turned around with her back to the door and slid to the floor. Shaking