A Whimsical Dictionary: H is for Harlot

A Whimsical Dictionary of Surprising Influences.

H is for Harlot –

A person who unfortunately needs to sell him/herself for a living. Nonetheless, we have much to learn from these and other sexual offenders, who are fellow human beings and thus made in the image of God. Society has deemed them worthless, but not God, and hopefully not us.

Rahab, the madame of ancient Jericho, saved Joshua’s spies and evidenced enough good qualities, like faith, mercy and wisdom, to be mentioned with the likes of Abraham, Isaac, and Moses in the Epistles of Hebrews and James. Or how about Gomer, the whoring wife of the prophet Hosea, through whom God taught Israel’s infidelity and His infinite compassion.

And have you ever studied and marveled at the gracious interactions involving Jesus and the promiscuous, most notably the woman at the well (John 4), the woman who washed Jesus’ feet (Luke 7),and the woman about to be stoned (John 8)?

Also, just how are we to understand the fact that two prominent branches on our Lord Jesus’ family tree were Bathsheba and Rahab? Jesus’ blood line was hardly free of what the world might consider impurities. All this should remind us that everyone is worthwhile, including the impure, and no one is worthless, including you and me. As Oscar Wilde once said, “Every sinner has a future and every saint has a past.”

Are you curious as to why Jesus had a soft spot for the untouchables and the too-touchables? Could it be that those who live with passionate hearts of flesh may be closer to the pulse of the Kingdom that those religious folk who grimly plod on with hearts of stone? Is that why, in Matthew 21, Jesus told the Chief Priests and Elders that the prostitutes are entering the Kingdom of God ahead of them?