3 weeks of reading down! As the days have progressed I have grown more and more excited about getting to spend time in His Word. I love seeing all the connections that are occurring as I progress through the Bible. While reading through the Bible in 90 days is not an easy task, it is one that I am realizing just how important it is to have read my entire Bible. Even though, I will finish up right before Easter, it is never too late to start. Check out the reading plan to get started!
Ruth is often told as a love story, but not in the way often thought. Ruth is about a women being redeemed by God at a time when most of Israel chose more often than not to do what they thought was right. Ruth married a foreigner in her own country and then 10 years later, he died leaving her a childless widow. She makes a choice to follow her mother in law: go where she goes, stay where she stays and gives up her gods for Naomi’s God. The love that Naomi must have shared with Ruth would have been incredibly strong for a daughter in law to leave everything she had ever known and travel to a foreign land as a widow. Nothing happens in Ruth by coincidence, it is all orchestrated by God; put into place years ago. Every step along the way Ruth is guided and protected. Just as Ruth was redeemed by Boaz by first giving up her gods, we are redeemed by God when we accept Christ as our Savior.
But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” Ruth 1:16-17 ESV
Passage:
Ruth
Discovered:
- Time: During when judges ruled the land
- Elimelech (House of Judah) took his wife Naomi and 2 sons: Mahlon and Chillion to Moab because there was a famine. (They left the promised land)
- Elimelech died and her sons married Moabites: Ruth and Orpah
- After 10 years: Maholon and Chillion died leaving the 3 widows alone.
- Naomi heard that the famine had ended (Lord gave His people food) and wanted to return to Bethlehem. Her daughters-in-law went with.
- Naomi told the women to return home-they refused.
- Naomi told them to turn back: I have nothing for you-no sons. Orpah left.
- Naomi tried again to get Ruth to go, “your sister-in-law went”. Ruth refused.
- Ruth: Where you go, I go. Your God is my God.
- When Naomi and Ruth reached Bethlehem everyone was excited for her return, but Naomi replies, “I left full and came back empty.”
- Ruth went to glean/collect barley behind the harvesters in Boaz’s fields.
- Boaz noticed Ruth and inquired of her and was told who she was. He told her to only glean in his fields for safety reasons.
- She was invited to eat lunch with them, she ate enough to be full and set some aside for Naomi.
- As a result of her work and Boaz’s generosity, she took an ephah (23 liters or about 6 gallons) of barley home to Naomi.
- Naomi sent Ruth to wash and anoint (perfume) herself and return to Boaz. After he went to sleep, she was to uncover his feet and sleep at his feet. He would tell her what to do.
- Boaz was woken due to his cold feet and noticed Ruth was there. He praised her for not going after young men when she asked him to be her redeemer.
- He would love to be her redeemer, but there is someone ahead of me, let me ask. Go back to sleep for the night. Boaz sent her home at dawn with 6 measures of barley.
- Boaz went to the city gate and found the first in line redeemer.
- Naomi is selling her land and if you want it, it is yours, but if you don’t let me know and I’ll buy it. He wants to redeem the land. Boaz continues by letting him know that the land comes with a widow, Ruth and you’ll need to honor the original owner regarding the inheritance.
- First in line redeemer: I don’t want to redeem the land, it will mess up my inheritance! He took off his sandal to seal the deal.
- The elders blessed their marriage and offspring.
- Ruth and Boaz get married. The Lord opened her womb and she gave birth to a son, David.
- Obed -> Jesse -> David (King David) Line leads to Christ.
Help me to remember:
Ruth’s choices and actions to love Naomi and accept her God lead to being repeatedly protected and blessed, plus she got to be David’s great grandma!
Lord, I ask that . . .
I go where You go and stay where You stay.
Heavenly Father, I am thankful for . . .
the blessing of being redeemed by You just as Ruth was.
