Read: Joshua 2

There’s a deep paradox I’ve long struggled with. A generally held and (rightly) understood belief is that good leadership makes a dramatic and quantifiable difference. Leaders of schools, churches, nations, health trusts and universities will, for better or worse, have a dramatic impact on those they lead. Good leaders can be game-changers, transformative and vital. Fact. A lifetime – much of it spent as a leader or observing leaders – tells me this.

But. BUT. As a recently re-tweeted observation states:

'Leader' is only mentioned six times in the Bible (the King James Version), but 'servant' is mentioned 900 times. So why do we have so many leadership conferences?

Surely our focus on leadership is wrong – except observation tells me it isn’t. Yet I know that servanthood is the key. How do I square the circle?

Enter Rahab. Not a leader perhaps, nor a ‘tart with a heart of gold’, but definitely a woman of strength, courage and determination who knew which way the wind was blowing. And God ‘used’ her. Not by manipulating her – quite the opposite. God allowed her, in her very role as an outsider – who the good burghers of Jericho delighted in both using and despising – to bring about their destruction and the fulfilling of his purposes.

This is an outsider story. Rahab – the abused, despised, misused prostitute – brings about the saving of God’s people by using her natural, God-given skills and abilities. And in so doing, her redemption is assured. It’s rooted in Rahab being Rahab. She’s told to stay put – her salvation involves not leaving the world but being a part of it.

As I reach out with God’s love, the challenge is not about building a few extra lifeboats for a select few, but rather similar-looking crew, and abandoning God’s creation. It’s about recognising and acknowledging God in his world, often in rather messy and inconvenient places.

So back to the service / leadership tension.

Leadership has its place.

Service is better (and much closer to the servant heart of God).

Servant leadership (or Level 5 Leadership, as author Jim Collins called it) is great too.

But, almost incredibly, God in his wisdom, mercy and profligate generosity made precious and important use of every aspect of his valuable creation. That’s why the role of a foreign prostitute is celebrated in the redemption of her family. God doesn’t ‘use’ people – a rather obscene and abusive idea, and one that’s nonsensical for a God who exists beyond time. But he does make precious use of gifts, talents and people.

What an amazing God who can weave the life of an outsider, Jericho prostitute into the redemption story of his people.