Welcome to Tuesday and today's entry into the Tuesday's Musical Notes blog family!!! Tuesday's Musical Notes always strives to keep the highest standards and make our time with each other one that is fun for the whole family. However, on occasion, as you can probably discern from our featured song, we deal with less family-friendly topics than our normal fare. We trust that you will determine appropriateness for your family as today, we are talkin' 'bout a bad girl...
Spending five weeks, from July 14, 1979, to August 11, 1979, at the #1 spot on Billboard's Hot 100, "Bad Girls" would go on record as the biggest song of 1979 and would also serve as the title track from Donna Summer's seventh studio album. Released at the height of Disco, it was written by Donna Summer et. al. in response to one of her assistants becoming quite offended after being accused of street prostitution by a police officer. The single would sell over two million copies and was one of four #1 hits ("MacArthur Park", "Hot Stuff", and "No More Tears (Enough is Enough)" with Barbara Streisand ) in 1978-1979 for Summer cementing her Disco queen status and making her a certifiable musical star of the decade.
You may find the opening riff, "toot, toot, hey, beep, beep" a bit familiar. It was from "Bang, Bang" - 1966 single released by The Joe Cuba Sextet and featured on the soundtrack to the motion picture The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).
Upon her passing in 2012 from lung cancer, Donna Summer had sold over 100 million records, and won five Grammy awards. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013 and in December 2016, she was listed at #6 on Billboard's Greatest of All Time Top Dance Club Artists.
What many folks don't know is that Donna Summer left behind a legacy that was separate from her music career. She was one of the founding members of a Bible Study in Los Angeles that would become the 3000 member Oasis church. This church sponsored a star only a few minutes away from the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Jesus Christ which was unveiled in 1998 and located in front of one of the church's previous locations. This star obviously caused a bit of controversy but remains to this day. It would seem that despite the musical success and the nature of some of her songs, at some point Donna Summer found the redemption that other bad girls before her had discovered.
Who doesn't love a good redemption story after all?
The new leader of Israel, Joshua, was preparing the fledgling nation to go to battle for lands that God had promised Abraham over 500 years earlier. As a part of this preparation, Joshua sends spies into Jericho, the first city to be taken. It is interesting to note that Joshua only sends 2 spies and he doesn't tell the whole nation about it. Perhaps as a member of the original raconteurs some 40 years earlier, Joshua had learned a couple of lessons from the previous soiree into the land. (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Spies Like Us" (Paul McCartney)) The spies find themselves wanting to be super stealth, so they go into the "seedy" part of Jericho.
Based on historical context, Jericho was a Canaanite town that was so bad that God had decided to destroy them due to their idolatry. They even went as far as child sacrifice to their gods. So imagine how bad a "seedy" part of this place had to be.
The spies encounter the "harlot" Rahab, who had heard about the impending invasion. "Harlot" is how the Bible describes a prostitute and is used throughout the Bible with a negative connotation from Genesis to Revelation (48 times in the NASB, "Harlot" - Easton's Bible Dictionary - biblestudytools.com.).
Rahab hides the spies and then lies about their existence in her establishment to the guards who came to inquire of their presence. She diverts the guards and continues to hide the spies overnight on her rooftop. She confesses to the spies that she knows the God of Israel is up to something in Jericho and she wants out. She goes as far as to acknowledge that the God of Israel is the "God in heaven above and earth below". This is quite the statement coming from a prostitute in a pagan, child sacrificing city. But it just shows how loving and merciful God truly is. His redemptive process is there for EVERYONE. No matter the ugly past that may exist in their history. God is waiting to redeem, even up to the moment of destruction.
Rahab's kindness was rewarded not only in the redemption and salvation of her family from the destruction of Jericho. We hear about her a few more times in the Bible.
In fact, Rahab can be found in the ancestry of Jesus, through both the lines of Mary and Joseph.
Rahab was the mother of Boaz. Yup, that Boaz from the book of Ruth. (We'll give that Hallmark Movie Channel moment the Notes treatment soon, but for now, let's stay with Rahab). Upon tracing both Joseph and Mary's ancestry, you find the name Salmon listed. We're not sure when he came into the picture, but chances are he intermarried with Rahab after the fall of Jericho when her family settled outside of the camp of Israel. Salmon is listed as the ancestor of King David. David had 19 sons total. 4 of these sons were born to Bathsheba (another journey into the world of sexual indiscretion). Mary's lineage comes from the line of Bathsheba's son, Nathan, (#3), and Joseph's from Bathsheba's son, Solomon (#4). So following the ancestry both ways, you come up with Jesus having several women in his lineage with a bit of a sketchy past.
But you see friend, that is the way God works. Now you and me, we're both the same. We are redeemable. No matter what may be in our past. We're exactly the same as Rahab in the eyes of God. No one gets left out who doesn't choose to get left out. Rahab found redemption in the God of heaven and earth and she saved her entire family. Not only that, she established a familial legacy that reaches all the way to Jesus, who brought about everyone's redemption by His sacrifice on the cross.
Rahab is such a prolific character of faith that she is listed by name 2 other times in the New Testament (making a total of 3 name drops for Rahab in the NT...there goes that numerology thing again!). The other two times are testimonies of Rahab's faith. Let's take a look:
Here we find Rahab mentioned with the likes of Abraham, Moses, and others who had exemplified such faith in God that the writer of Hebrews included them all as examples of what true faith is. This passage is commonly known as the "Faith Hall of Fame". Here we find a pagan, Caananite woman found among the patriarchs of Jewish history. Those are some pretty good props, but the next mention of Rahab is equally mind-blowing.
In this passage, Rahab's faith is given legs by her taking tangible action to demonstrate the change she had in her life. She housed the spies, hid them from the guards, and then assisted in their escape from Jericho. These "works" were an expression of and motivated by the faith that she had in the God of heaven and earth. She is being written about as a model for faith and works being coequal in their importance in the Christian life. Rahab is being written about by a man who was late coming to the Jesus party, but once he got there he was completely sold out. This man had instant credibility to speak about Rahab as she was listed in his ancestry.com account. Oh, yeah he was also the half-brother of Jesus as well as the writer of one of the most impacting books of the New Testament, James. And now you know the rest of the story...
Yes, Rahab was a bad girl. Yes, she had lived a life that was contrary to God in a town that was an anathema to God. Her promiscuity coupled with the fact of her serving pagan gods should have been enough to see her destroyed when the walls of Jericho came tumblin' down. But her life was changed as she heard the truth about God's love and recognized God as her Redemption. She saw the coming doom and decided that there had to be a way out. Rahab found that way out through the God of heaven and earth and this discovery changed her life. Her faith in God was exhibited by her kindness and help to the spies of Israel. Because of her faith AND her works, she had an ancestral legacy that resulted in her Redeemer being born from her lineage. Her faith and works are also why the Bible books of Matthew, Hebrews, and James, as well as Tuesday's Musical Notes, you're favorite blog, are all talkin' bout this bad girl, she's no longer sad girl...toot, toot, hey, beep, beep...
'Til Tuesday,
Serving HIM by serving You,
randy
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