Who is welcome amongst the people of God? This is not just a theological question, but an eminently practical one. Who is welcome to attend and join with our church? On the one hand, we would not want anyone to feel unwelcome. But on the other, what happens when those of other faiths and none turn up? Does involvement make any demands, either in terms of belief or behaviour? What is the relationship between belonging and believing?
This is a question that the people of God have been wrestling with since they began to settle as a nation in the land that God had promised. In Joshua 2, the advance party of spies encounter Rahab the prostitute, who on every count would surely be excluded from the promises and privileges of the people of God. Yet we f ind her treated in the New Testament as a model of faith (Hebrews 11:31) and someone who, like Abraham, is considered righteous because of her actions demonstrating her trust in God (James 2:25). She is even part of the genealogy at the beginning of Matthew’s gospel (Matt 1:5).
When God’s people are settled in the land, clear boundaries are put in place – not just in geo-political terms, defining the physical borders of the land, but in terms of belief and behaviour. Repeatedly we are told that the people of Israel are not to be like the nations that surround them, or the nations that dwelt in the land before them; their distinctiveness is part of their identity as the people of God (Deuteronomy 9:4, 18:9). Dwelling in the land brings both blessings and obligations, and you cannot have the one without the other.
