Was Tamar a woman of prayer? What about Rahab? No, they were Gentile women. They were not Jews. They were more from idol pagan cultures. So what does this teach us?
Perhaps Judah was a man of prayer, keeping his obligated religious duties. What do we know of Adam? He was passive, and therefore Eve fell into sin. This weak characteristic of passiveness may have been passed on inherently to humanity.
God is showing us through non-jews how they, in their persistence, react. They react when they are desperate. This is not to discount prayer. We need to be a people who pray. But we need to be people who react, or else we fall into passiveness and end up observing our downfall. This is what Adam witnessed. He witnessed his own downfall by being passive.
God allowed two Gentile women to be part of the genealogy of Jesus. HE brought in the “I react” DNA into the genealogy.
Who was Ruth? She is another Gentile woman. She was a Moabite injected into the genealogy of King David and Jesus. What main characteristic did she possess? She was excellent in obedience under Naomi, and she was a hard worker, working the fields to get leftovers.
We can know Rehab chose in faith with action when the Israelites were yet to come. She had no prayers accumulated. She had no deep knowledge of God. All she knew was that their God destroyed Egypt, and based on that, she reacted!
Are you a person of prayer? Are you a person of faith? Are you a person of action?
You must be a person well-balanced in all areas of spiritual warfare, or else you shrink back, and that does not please our Lord!
Senior Pastor Steve Kim