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Matthew 1 list 40 generations of Jesus’ males descendants, but only names 5 women—Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary. Today, we will here the story of Ruth the redeemed refugee.
Ruth is a short book. It only takes 16 minutes to read it. I encourage you to read the whole thing. I'm going to share much of it today and make some comments as we go through the story. However, I encourage you to read the whole book.
Ruth 1
In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land.
So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to
live for a while in the country of Moab. 2 The man’s name was
Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon
and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab
and lived there.
I
just want to point out that the famine was so bad in Israel that this family left their
homeland in search of food. How bad
would life have to be for you to move your family out of America in search of
food?
3 Now Elimelek, Naomi’s
husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 They
married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they
had lived there about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and
Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her
husband.
Remember, this
is a patriarchal (male dominated) society.
Women have no way to make it on their own. With out a husband or sons, Naomi and her
daughter’s in law are destitute.
6 When Naomi heard in
Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by
providing food for them, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to
return home from there. 7 With her two daughters-in-law
she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would
take them back to the land of Judah.
8 Then Naomi said to her two
daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May
the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your
dead husbands and to me. 9 May
the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of
another husband.”
Then she
kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud 10 and said
to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”
11 But Naomi said, “Return home,
my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who
could become your husbands? 12 Return home, my daughters;
I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope
for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons— 13 would
you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my
daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s
hand has turned against me!”
Now, that's the way Naomi thinks. She assumes the Lord is against her, but that isn't necessarily true. However, it's easy to fall into this negative thinking when life is hard for a long time.
14 At this they wept aloud
again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to
her.
15 “Look,” said Naomi, “your
sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with
her.”
16 But 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. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be
buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if
even death separates you and me.” 18 When Naomi realized
that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
Ruth
What we see
here is amazing and I don’t want you to miss it. What we have here is a decision by Ruth to follow
God. Both Orpah and Ruth were
Moabites. Moabites did not worship the
God of the Bible. Moabites worshiped
idols and false gods. But Ruth and Orpah
both saw something special in Naomi’s family.
Naomi’s family worshiped the God of the Bible—the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. And Orpah and Ruth must have
saw something special in this family.
There is always something special about people who worship the One True
God of the Bible. And it was so special
that both Orpah and Ruth wanted to leave their own people’s ways behind in Moab
and convert to Naomi’s people and religion in Israel.
Very
often, a person’s decision to follow God is closely linked to the people of God they know. Most people don’t care
that much about whether Christians can quote the Bible or explain the theology
and doctrines of Christianity. What they
do care about is how you live. Does your
life embody the Christian faith so that people want to join with you in
following God? Is your life a witness
for Christ? If Ruth were your daughter-in-law, would she see God in you so strongly she would want to leave behind her former way of life apart from God and follow your people instead?
But Naomi
explains how hard it will be to follow her home to Israel… Living as God’s people is not necessarily easy. Jesus even taught that you should count the
cost before your decide to follow him.
To one man who wanted to follow him, Jesus said, “Foxes have dens and
birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no where to lay his head.” (Matthew
8:20) I.E. Jesus and his followers often must lead a hard life not even knowing where they will sleep at night.
Orpah decides
the cost is too high and decides to go back to Moab. However, Ruth is determined. She has found in Naomi’s family a life that
is better than her former life in Moab.
She would rather face hardship with God’s people than remain in Moab
apart from the One True God.
19 So the two women [Ruth and Naomi] went on
until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole
town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be
Naomi?”
20 “Don’t call me Naomi,” she
told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very
bitter. 21 I went away full, but the Lord has
brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has
afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”
22 So Naomi returned from Moab
accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in
Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.
Ruth 2
Now Naomi
had a relative on her husband’s side, a man of standing from the clan
of Elimelek, whose name was Boaz.
2 And Ruth the
Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover
grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.”
Naomi said
to her, “Go ahead, my daughter.” 3 So she went out,
entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned
out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of
Elimelek.
The ancient
Israelites had a form of social welfare.
When farmers harvested their fields, the would leave the corners and
edges of the field. Then, the poor, the
widows, and orphans could come harvest what was left. It wasn’t much, but it might be enough that
they wouldn’t starve. Of course, the
poor, widows, and orphans were vulnerable and often mistreated (just like they
are today; people often treat them scornfully and they have very little recourse). So Ruth is going to go try and glean enough
from the leftover harvest to keep herself and her mother-in-law alive. Can you imagine being in her situation…
4 Just then Boaz arrived from
Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, “The Lord be with you!”
“The Lord bless
you!” they answered.
5 Boaz asked the overseer of
his harvesters, “Who does that young woman belong to?”
6 The overseer replied, “She is
the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi. 7 She
said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the
harvesters.’ She came into the field and has remained here from morning till
now, except for a short rest in the shelter.”
8 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 the women who work for me. 9 Watch
the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I
have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go
and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.”
10 At this, she bowed down with
her face to the ground. She asked him, “Why have I found such favor in
your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?”
11 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. 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.”
13 “May I continue to find favor
in your eyes, my lord,” she said. “You have put me at ease by speaking
kindly to your servant—though I do not have the standing of one of your
servants.”
14 At mealtime Boaz said to her,
“Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.”
When she sat
down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate
all she wanted and had some left over. 15 As she got up to
glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, “Let her gather among the sheaves and
don’t reprimand her. 16 Even pull out some stalks for her
from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.”
17 So Ruth gleaned in the field
until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it
amounted to about an ephah. [An ephah is about 30 pounds.]
18 She carried it back to town, and her
mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her
what she had left over after she had eaten enough.
19 Her mother-in-law asked her,
“Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took
notice of you!”
Then Ruth
told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. “The
name of the man I worked with today is Boaz,” she said.
20 “The Lord bless
him!” Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. “He has not stopped showing his
kindness to the living and the dead.” She added, “That man is our close
relative; he is one of our guardian-redeemers.”
21 Then Ruth the
Moabite said, “He even said to me, ‘Stay with my workers until they finish
harvesting all my grain.’”
22 Naomi said to Ruth her
daughter-in-law, “It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with the women
who work for him, because in someone else’s field you might be harmed.”
23 So Ruth stayed close to the
women of Boaz to glean until the barley and wheat harvests were
finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law.
Ruth 3
One
day Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi said to her, “My daughter, I must find a
home for you, where you will be well provided for. 2 Now Boaz, with
whose women you have worked, is a relative of ours. Tonight he will be
winnowing barley on the threshing floor. 3 Wash, put
on perfume, and get dressed in your best clothes. Then go down to the
threshing floor, but don’t let him know you are there until he has finished
eating and drinking. 4 When he
lies down, note the place where he is lying. Then go and uncover his feet and
lie down. He will tell you what to do.”
5 “I will do whatever you say,” Ruth answered. 6 So she went down
to the threshing floor and did everything her mother-in-law told her to
do.
7 When Boaz had finished eating and drinking and was in good
spirits, he went over to lie down at the far end of the grain
pile. Ruth approached quietly, uncovered his feet and lay down. 8 In the middle of
the night something startled the man; he turned—and there was a woman lying at
his feet!
9 “Who are you?” he asked.
“I am your
servant Ruth,” she said. “Spread the corner of your garment over me, since
you are a guardian-redeemer of our family.”
Boaz was Naomi and Ruth's guardian-redeemer (or family redeemer). That meant, it was his responsibility to make sure the family line of Naomi's dead husbands and sons did not perish from the earth. It was his duty to care for. protect, and provide family heirs for his dead kin's surviving family.
Boaz
had the power to redeem Ruth and Naomi—to save them from a life of hunger,
poverty, shame, and death. He had the
power to save their family name. But to
do so would be costly. Caring for them meant more mouths to feed, and we've already seen in the story how famine could strike and devastate a community. Furthermore, redeeming Ruth and Naomi would draw resources from his own family.
Jesus Christ is
the Great Redeemer of all humanity. He
redeems us from spiritual hunger, poverty, shame, and death. His redemption assures our names remain among
God’s people. But our redemption comes
at great cost to Christ too--much greater than Boaz's. Jesus paid for our redemption with his own blood. He suffered and died on the cross to pay the price for our sins. His redemption brings us back into the family of God, as heirs of eternal life, forgiven of sin, blessed with eternal life. His redemption adds our name to the Book of Life.
Ruth 4:13-16
13 So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When he made
love to her, the Lord enabled her to conceive, and
she gave birth to a son. 14 The women said to Naomi: “Praise be to
the Lord, who this day has not left you without a
guardian-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! 15 He will renew your life and sustain you in your
old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you
than seven sons, has given him birth.”
16 Then Naomi took the child in her arms and cared for him. 17 The women living
there said, “Naomi has a son!” And they named him Obed. He was the father of
Jesse, the father of David.
Jesus the Redeemer
And
David was the great King of Israel—the model for the coming Messiah, The King
of kings. And the Messiah is Jesus
Christ—the great, great, great, great… grandson of Ruth, the redeemed refugee
from a foreign land. Isn’t it good to
know our Lord and Savior, our Redeemer was willing to pay the ultimate price to
redeem us from our sin? For Jesus Christ
laid down his life on the cross of Calvary to pay the price for our sin. If He was willing to do all that, isn’t He
willing to redeem whatever other brokenness or shame or misfortune you face.
But
do you trust Him? Will you put all your
faith in Him? Will you be like Orpah and
turn and go back to your false gods and unfaithfulness? Or will you be like Ruth, who counted the
costs and said in Ruth 1:16, “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I
will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.
The
choice is yours.
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