Lesson 1: Introduction
There are many women named in the Bible. This in itself should be enough to make us take notice, because in the culture of those times women were rarely mentioned since it was their husbands who did whatever was needed to care for and protect them.

In this study we will examine the lives and testimonies of three women whose names are known to anyone who reads the Bible. They are Rahab of Jericho, Esther the Queen, and Ruth the Moabitess. Rahab was a prostitute, Esther was an orphaned slave, and Ruth was a young widow. Yet, God used each of them for His Kingdom because each, in her own special way, was willing to be His servant at a special time in her life.

As we will discover, each of these women chose to follow God. With the choices they had before them, it would have been much easier for them to turn their backs on Him and to find an easier path, such as letting someone else make the choices for them.

Today, whoever we are, we can learn from the choices and the faith these young women had, to help us determine which choices we ourselves will make. Joshua, the commander of Israel’s armies after Moses died, challenged the people to look carefully at the choices they had before them. They could follow the easy path of what others around them were doing, or they could choose the path God had laid out before them. God’s way is never the easy way – the path of least trouble or pain. His way often leads, as David wrote in Psalm 23, through the valley of the shadow of death. But this path, even though it is impossible for us in our own strength, is the best path because it leads to God’s glory and eternal joy and peace. The joy of victory we can know in Jesus as we allow Him to work in and through us (as these three women did) is a joy we cannot find anywhere else on earth.

We invite you to see, through these stories of their lives, how Rahab, Esther, and Ruth allowed God to work through them, “for such a time” as He needed them.