Was Rahab a Swiftie

Episode Transcript

Ethan (00:01):
Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast
dedicated to faithful parentsnavigating their families
through a stormy culture
I was given the assignment lastweek to teach the 4th and 5th
graders about Rahab and I got totell you I was a little bit
anxious about trying to explainhow a deceptive prostitute in
the city of Jericho filled withall kinds of wicked people who

(00:24):
are about to be destroyednegotiated and concealed some
Israeli spies.
In order to save herself.
How am I going to explain this?
And then my granddaughterintroduced me to a Taylor Swift
song called the anti hero, and Ihad it.
This is raising joyful childrenin an angry world.
I'm Paul Osborne.
The contrast between thecharacter in that Taylor Swift

(00:47):
song, and rehab.
Boy, it's something that Ithought, man, Christian parents
need to understand.
I love the story because there'sso much contrast between our
humanity, our fallen humanity,Rahab is the biblical picture of
an anti hero.
That means somebody whoselifestyle and whose system of

(01:12):
way they live is anything butthe virtues of a hero.
And I think part of the reason Iwant to share this is we often
get caught up in vocation.
What do you want to be when yougrow up?
I can tell you the fourth andfifth grade kids, by the way,
hate that question.
This story takes, instead ofwhat do you want to be when you

(01:33):
grow up?
Who do you want to become?
And the story of the anti hero,Rahab, takes us to that more
profound question.
I want to start with TaylorSwift's song though, before I
get to the story.
And I, I would advise you toread it.
I, in respect to copyright andthe length of time, I'm going to

(01:54):
summarize it.
But there's a person in thesong, and she recognizes she's
got issues.
She's selfish and manipulative.
She recognizes that the circleof friends that she's in, Agree
with her assessment.
It causes restlessness anddepression, and yet the song
concludes, oh, this is tiring dedebilitating to cheer for the

(02:18):
anti-hero.
And it is first and foremost atestament.
You wanna know why Taylor Swiftis so successful?
She empathizes and relates tothe struggles of her audience.
And, but the thing about thesong is all of this deep search
inside herself and self analysisand trying to root for herself

(02:41):
leaves her restless, depressed,and sleepless.
There's no transformation.
Now we go to rehab.
The anti hero, she is aprostitute, she is deceptive,
she is manipulative, and yet sheconceals the spies of Israel
before God is about to destroythis wicked city Jericho.

(03:03):
And despite her flawed andmanipulative and even perverse
occupation, she worked with thespies to save herself and her
family.
And the Bible tells us, inHebrews, it was because of her
faith.
How did she get the faith?
Well, if you listen to hertestimony in the story, she says

(03:24):
when she heard, really when weheard, about how God parted the
Red Sea, and God gave you thevictories over other kingdoms on
your way here, we knew you hadthe true God.
It was a statement of faith.
She heard the story, rememberfaith comes by hearing, and God
planted faith where there was nofaith.

(03:44):
There was nothing but rebellion,nothing but rejection of God,
and yet God takes this womanwith all of her anti hero
attributes and saves her byplanting faith in her through
sharing of his story.
And he actually, as she'sconcealing the spies, he's

(04:04):
revealing to Israel who he wantsto save.
And then comes transformation,right?
You see the salvation by grace.
She doesn't get what shedeserves.
She, she escapes what she doesdeserve and becomes the mother
of Boaz, gets married, and nowis in the bloodline of the Lord

(04:27):
himself.
Man, that's transformation whoshe became because of God's gift
of grace and of righteousness toher and putting it into her
heart.
Man, that's, that's a, that's afundamental story, but it points
to us now.
Then what is the purpose ofChristian education, which is

(04:49):
really the purpose of what Iwant to say today.
John Milton, the great poet,Paradise Lost says, he answers
the question, the chief end ofeducation, that's the purpose,
old way of saying it, is torebuild what our original
parents broke.
To rebuild what our originalparents broke.
It's not that we can fix ourkids or that we can fix

(05:11):
ourselves, but when weunderstand in that story.
That the Bible story, thestories of the greatness of God
is how God gives us faith.
And then you see, once she getsthe faith, she gets on mission
with God, which is the secondpart of what Milton tells us is
we have to learn to championGod's providence.

(05:34):
That's his provision and hisgifts.
and God's ways, ah, championingand advocating for what God is
about and what he wants toaccomplish.
Getting on mission with God.
That is Rahab's story.
It's a story of salvation bygrace, unmerited favor, escaping
what she did deserve, andthrough God's providence, God's

(05:58):
grace, and then getting onmission with God's mission.
Your kids and your family Youneed to understand how to get
out of the anti hero evaluation,how to get past the sinful
nature.
And that is told in this storyand throughout the scriptures.
And this is part of the secondpart.

(06:20):
This is the offense of spiritualwar.
Last time in Exodus 17, I talkedabout the enemy wanting to
destroy our trust, the envy ofpeople outside of us.
And when, when the enemy candestroy your trust in God and
your kid's trust in you and God,he can then start to rob them of
their peace.
There's the character in TaylorSwift's anti hero song, lost

(06:41):
their peace.
The defense is to prevent theenemy from doing that.
The offense is to get on missionwith God.
And then when we're on missionwith God, our trust in him is
strengthened and our trust inour parents is strengthened as
well.
The enemy's goal is to weaken.
God's goal is to strengthen.
Why is this so important?

(07:03):
Because there's two philosophiesthat are dominating the American
landscape.
They're being led by twoincredibly brilliant
billionaires, Bill Gates andElon Musk.
In fact, the last election youcould see these two
philosophies, if you got pastall the name calling and all the
hyperbole, you got down to thesetwo things.

(07:23):
Bill Gates, he espouses thatmost of the problems in the
world are because of humanbeings, right?
It's what we drive, what we eat,how we manufacture, how we
deliver energy.
It's all wrong and it's causingall the problems and It's
harming the world and theuniverse, the climate.
And he's right.
To a certain extent, humanbeings do do things that are

(07:44):
harmful.
And his solution is law, law,law, more regulation.
Elon Musk on the other sidesays, no, no humans are the
answer.
Science, technology, innovation.
We've got the ability to inventall these things.
Don't you realize how fast AIcan process these days?
And his belief is that humanbeings can solve everything.

(08:08):
Man, but neither one of themunderstands the fall of man.
Neither one of them understandsthe providence of God.
God created Elon Musk.
God created the innovators.
See, the problem in thesephilosophies is that neither of
these men understand that peopleare created in the image of God

(08:29):
and The card reels that Gateswants to put up have to be lined
up with God's ways and thetechnologies that Musk tells us
are going to help us have to beseen as those things that
advance the ways of God.
Because God created the personthat created the innovation.

(08:52):
Modern science gives uswonderful things, but it seems
to lack the wisdom on how to useit.
The old saying, physician do noharm.
It's kind of useless if youdon't have the right
understanding of what is harm.
It's how we got the opioidcrisis.
It's how we have this distrustin national institutions that
incentivize with royalties topeople who approve drugs.

(09:14):
Now, Charlie Munger used to say,show me the incentive.
I'll show you the outcome.
I think we have to show our kidshow to understand.
God's provision and God'smission, particularly as they
enter into this super advancingtechnology and this continuous
philosophical battle across theWest.

(09:37):
I think there are three thingsthat help give the lens to your
children for them to understand.
Number one is understanding thesin nature of man and the fault
of man.
The modern church doesn't spendenough time explaining what
happened in the fall of man, theconsequences of it, the wrath of
God, eternal damnation, and whathell is all about.

(10:01):
We've got to understand and helpour kids understand that
connection.
And then when you understandthat, that's the only way you're
going to grasp it.
What's so special about God'sgrace and then trying to restore
what the fall.
The source of all good is numbertwo.
The source of all good is God'sprovidence, including our grace,

(10:23):
including our understanding, thenew heart and the renewing of
our mind.
But we have to see thatinnovation is also God's gift.
And we have to know that thosegifts are designed to benefit
mankind.
And so thirdly, I want to say,we've got to get on mission with
God so that we see that thesegifts, especially just for our

(10:46):
own use, have to align withGod's mission.
If God gave us the gift throughanother person, we've got to see
that these technologies andadvancements are to better serve
our neighbor, not merely forwealth generation.
We can't have laws that aren'taligned with God's providence
and God's mission.

(11:07):
And, and God's laws and missionsbasically comes down to loving
God and loving our neighbor.
This is what Christian educationis all about.
I suggest we try and find acause, one I might suggest just
heard about recently, Unbound,the fight against child
trafficking.
You see it in the movie Sound ofFreedom.

(11:28):
But helping your children getthe stories, the word of God, is
what gives them faith.
It's what gives them thetransformation to get past the
anti hero attributes in all ofour lives.
And then getting on mission withGod strengthens the trust and
allows us to navigate thiscoming innovation and seeing we

(11:49):
use it in the ways God wouldintend.
The ultimate battle for theheart and soul is a fight for
identity.
Our king invites our kids toknow who they are, what to
believe, and where they belong.
Until next time, let's rememberthe words for theirs is the

(12:10):
Kingdom of Heaven.