Ruth: Saying ‘Yes’ to Love (or ‘How does God do it?’)
Reading Ruth is like reading a cross-section of any one of our newspapers. There’s the natural disaster of famine, the focus on refugees, a bit of romantic love to spice things up, the heart warming account of family love, the awareness of differences between nations and how it affects individuals, the interest of the pedigree of a royal family, a positive note with the story of a happy ending to a difficult life and a section on legal tradition in Israel during a particular period in history. The amazing thing is that each one of these forms part of the same story – it’s more like a condensed newspaper!
1. Quick overview of the story
- one of two books where principal character is a woman (the other is Esther)
- author unknown (maybe Samuel)
- time of the judges – not a very stable government. There seems to have been constant warring between factions, with very few periods of relative peace.
- Moab: The story starts with Naomi. She and her husband, Elimelech, had left their hometown of Bethlehem to go to Moab, because of a famine. In Moab, Naomi’s husband died, and her two sons married Moabite women. But before they could have children, amazingly after ten years (they seem to have had trouble conceiving!), both of the sons died. Naomi was left alone.
- Return home: Naomi hears that things are better in Judah, and she decides it is time to go home.
- Ruth gleans in Boaz’s field
- There is marriage, a son, and a genealogy that leads, through King David, to Jesus
The theme of the book of Ruth could be defined in various ways.
Reversal of Fortunes Theme
The book starts with a catalogue of misfortunes, all of which Naomi attributes to God. Her awareness of the sovereignty of God cannot be faulted! This does not stop her, and perhaps it encourages her, to go back to her own people. When things get really bad, we know who we belong to by the people we turn to, don’t we?
By the time we’ve got to 1:6, the tide of Naomi’s fortunes has changed: When she heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. We get the feeling that even when God allows misfortune, it is for a good purpose in His overall plan.
From that point on, the curve of Naomi’s life climbs upwards. The story as we have it ends with Naomi having a new family and a new life: 4:16-17a Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him. The women living there said, ‘Naomi has a son.’ In the ‘reversal of fortunes’ scenario, we could say that Naomi is the principal character of the story.
God Has a Plan Theme
Or, we could draw a line from Naomi to her people, the Ephrathites in Bethlehem in Judah, to the Israelites, to all the Jewish people, then to us, since we know that the genealogy which ends with 4:22 Obed the father of Jesse and Jesse the father of David, continues in Matthew 1:6b with Jesus’ genealogy. In this scenario, God is the prime mover, if not the central character! But without Ruth’s ‘yes’ to Naomi, God, and later Boaz, none of this would have happened!
The ‘God has a plan’ theme is a much broader one, encompassing not only the whole of the Bible as we have it, but we ourselves as we trust that God has a plan for us, too. And this is where the wonder of Ruth begins to dawn on us – it isn’t just that God has a plan, but that He has a wonderful way of bringing that plan about – a beautiful tapestry that he weaves of our lives.
HOW does God do it? Theme
If we focus on how God brings His plans for people’s lives to pass, then the principal character is Ruth. God uses other people. And in the case of Naomi, that other person happens to be an outsider: a widow and an alien – thus demonstrating God’s incredible grace. God’s plan for our lives always includes other people, and sometimes some rather surprising people!
Ruth said yes to God. She was God’s willing servant, used to bring His gracious plans to fruition in other people’s lives, including ours! And the way God does the whole thing centres on a beautiful love story. God delights in good things for us, and love stories are among those good things!
This is a relationship that is famous for its difficulties, however we explain them – jealousy, possessiveness, or whatever. And yet when Naomi loses everything, the only ray of light in an otherwise barren existence is the relationship with her daughters-in-law. They stay with her through the worst. How do we explain the positive account of these women?
Deuteronomy 7:1-6 - there were rules about not marrying foreigners. And although the Moabites, along with the Ammonites, were the descendants of the children Lot had by his two daughters (Genesis 19:36-38), and were therefore related to the Israelites, they were still considered separate nations.
Ezra 10:10 The men are chastised for marrying foreign women and following their gods.
BUT here comes God’s grace, and maybe a sticky theological problem! Naomi’s two sons had married Moabite women…God had strictly forbidden the Israelites to marry people from other nations, but Naomi allowed it. Do you suppose she ever thought that her later misfortune came about because of disobedience to God? We are sometimes like that, thinking that it is God who makes us suffer because of something we’ve done which we know to be wrong. But God is not vindictive, though He is Judge. We need to know the reasons God forbade it! – other gods. God does not want us to put anything before Him – He knows that only through Him can we have the best. He does not want to spoil our fun – rather the opposite.
On their way back to Judah Naomi tries to send both daughters-in-law back to Moab, but Ruth refuses, showing a love that goes beyond that which even blood family often provides:
Ruth replied, ‘Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.
How did Ruth get to know Naomi’s God? She acknowledges that should anything happen, it will be the Lord (God of Israel) who will deal with her – in a very real way!! Naomi, despite her many difficulties, all of which she was honest about, faithfully expressed her unswerving belief that God was the only God, and what’s more, He was a living God, who was involved in every event of life. When she and Ruth arrive in Bethlehem, the women of the town appear shocked by the look of her and ask, ‘Can this be Naomi?’ And she replies, ‘Don’t call me Naomi….Call me Mara (which means bitter), because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi (which means pleasant)? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.’ Do you know what your name means? Naomi does not hesitate to make it clear that she blames God for every circumstance of life – good or bad – and is willing to have her name be a constant reminder of her present condition! But the reality of her God is what communicated itself to Ruth…
Man/Woman
The love story between Ruth and Boaz is the primary way in which God fulfills his will for everyone in this story and beyond. The genuine love between a man and a woman is the central analogy that God uses for the relationship between Himself and His people.
Individual/Community
The backdrop for the relationship between Ruth and Boaz is the wider community that is made up of all God’s people. In our individualistic society, we tend to think that it’s no one else’s business who we go out with or what we do with our lives.
· Gossip
We’ve already mentioned that no sooner does Naomi arrive in Bethlehem, than ‘the whole town is stirred because of them’ and there is a general comment on her appearance. Later, 2:11 records – ‘Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband – how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before.” Ruth did not know Boaz, but he certainly knew something about her! He repeats town hearsay again in 3:11b – ‘All my fellow townsmen (notice the men!) know that you are a woman of noble character.’ There seems to have been plenty of interest, not to say gossip, on the part of the community. What I find intriguing is how positive it all was – I would love it if people were gossiping things like that about me! I think the positive gossip was a wonderful environment within which Ruth could feel truly accepted and loved. This is the way to create a community to which people can belong:
1. Be the kind of person who others cannot fault.
2. Limit yourself to positive comments about others – or maybe limit is the wrong word – maybe ‘lavish’ positive comments about others would be better!
· Community gatherings
In chapter 3, when Boaz has agreed to see what he can do about redeeming Ruth, it must be done publicly. So he gathers elders to witness his intentions. And when he makes his final legal agreement, he announces what he has done ‘to the elders and all the people’. And this is even before the marriage!
When Naomi’s grandchild is born, all the women are there, with more positive comments about Ruth, acknowledging that Naomi’s misfortune has been turned around because of her.
We do not live private lives, nor should we.
The Love Story: Ruth – a model of trust
Chance?
Ruth had already named her intention of making Naomi’s God her God. Further, this intention must have quickly been made public on arrival in Bethlehem (do we proclaim our faith so readily?). Boaz knows all about it through the grapevine. 2:12 – ‘May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.’ It is in this context that we can almost see God wink, when it is recorded that ‘As it turned out(!), she found herself working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech.’ Any Jewish reader would already know what was going to happen, with this broad hint. But this is one of those stories where knowing what’s going to happen does not take the enjoyment out of hearing the whole story.
When the relationship between Ruth and Boaz develops, Naomi eggs Ruth on, giving her good advice, which Ruth obeys implicitly. Ruth trusted Naomi not to ask her to do anything that was not for her own best. Could you trust your mother-in-law in that way? And as mother-in-laws, is everything that you ask (or would like to ask) of your daughters-in-laws, specifically because you know that it is for their own good? One of their other motivations was love for their lost men - that is, to provide a living memory of them through Ruth’s children.
Within Israel there were rules for the family of a widow, which is why Naomi had said to Orpah that they should go back to their own country – ‘Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands?’ Male relatives were to ensure the care of a widow by marrying her. BUT any child they had together would then inherit on behalf of the widow’s first husband. This meant that, in effect, the first husband lived on through the children of his wife and second husband. Cf. Deuteronomy 25:5-10 for more details of God’s family law.
It’s not so surprising then that when Boaz pointed out to a nearer kinsman than he was that ‘On the day you buy the land from Naomi and from Ruth the Moabitess, you acquire the dead man’s widow, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property.’ (4:5), the man suddenly was not so sure he wanted to buy Naomi’s property from her. He would in effect be giving up any right to call anything his own. Boaz, on the other hand, was so taken with Ruth’s love for her mother-in-law, gossiped about throughout the village, that he was willing to give up any right to himself.
- to Naomi (just three of the examples in the book – there are more)
2:2 – Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favour. Ruth asks Naomi’s permission to do something that will be good for both of them by providing food.
When Naomi comments in 3:1, ‘My daughter, should I not try to find a home for you, where you will be well provided for?’ and gives instructions to Ruth about how this is to come about, Ruth replies (3:5) ‘I will do whatever you say.’ Notice again that the context for submission is a relationship of trust, where Ruth knows Naomi wants the best for her and vice versa.
As the relationship with Boaz develops, Naomi advises Ruth to ‘Wait, my daughter, until you find out what happens. For the man will not rest until the matter is settled today.’ (3:18) By this time, we are assuming that Ruth does just what her mother-in-law suggests, because there is no recorded comment of her response.
- to Boaz
2:8-9 – So Boaz said to Ruth, ‘My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with my servant girls. Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the girls. I have told the men not to touch you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.’
Boaz is being rather directive here, isn’t he? But again it is so very clear that he has only Ruth’s best interests in mind. And that is what communicates itself to Ruth, because she is enormously touched by Boaz’s kindness and responds in a classic sign of submission: (2:10) At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She exclaimed, ‘Why have I found favour in your eyes that you notice me – a foreigner?’
- to God
Ruth’s submission to God is not mentioned specifically. But the whole book communicates life in the context of a sovereign God who directs events for the ultimate good of His people. Naomi’s faith is Ruth’s faith. Our introduction to Boaz indicates that he lives and moves and has his being in God, too: Boaz greets his harvesters with ‘The Lord be with you!’ and they reply, ‘The Lord bless you!’ 2:4.
Some analogies:
- Boaz was willing to sacrifice what was rightfully his by marrying Ruth. The first child would carry on Elimelech’s family name and property. And if he had no other issue, then that would be that! The wonderful thing about God’s grace is that it is precisely through that child that Boaz is remembered (cf. the genealogy at the end of the book).
- Boaz begins and ends what we know of his relationship with Ruth wanting her best. He makes sure that she is provided with food (generously) and keeps the promise he makes to her that he will redeem her (pay for her to belong to him) if no one else does. I am sure that Ruth had no complaints about belonging to Boaz!
This story of redemption helps us to understand what it means that Jesus has redeemed us. He had to pay the price, but we now belong to him. Do we rejoice in that knowledge, knowing what a good thing that is?
- No respecter of persons. It is enough for Boaz that Ruth has committed her life to the sovereign hand of God. He welcomes her into the wider family in Bethlehem.
Jesus also welcomes anyone and everyone who turns their life over to Him.
Ruth responds to Boaz’s goodness in trusting submission. He wants the best for her. And Jesus wants the best for us!
- The honour that God bestows on Ruth and Boaz, integrating them into the family of Jesus is something they could not have foreseen. We know now, but all they knew then was the blessing of a loving family, in a community that acknowledged their integrity. They weren’t looking for fame, as so many do today…
- I expect that we would not have exactly the same human form of Jesus, if the characters in this story had not been trustfully submissive. The best came from the union of the two – Ruth and Boaz. And we can only have the best as a church if we are truly united to Jesus – otherwise the fruits will not be there.
- The end of the book of Ruth expresses such a community spirit of celebration. Everyone felt blest by the union of Ruth and Boaz and the fruit of it. And the praise went straight up to the Lord their God (4:14). When we as a church submit to the God who wants the best for us, both individually and corporately, everyone is blest! And that blessing is what God has planned for us, because He loves us.
To trust God because we know Him to love us so much that His plan for us is for our best!
Therefore to OBEY HIM, so that His good plan will come to pass.