Weekly Sermons

Ruth Overview

The book of Ruth shows clearly that God is working to bring people to Himself even during wicked days.

Ruth is one of two books in the Bible named after a woman.

What is the other one?                 The book of Esther!

Ruth is the only Old Testament book named after someone who had not been Jewish.

Ruth shows God’s love reaching others even during the dark days of the Judges, when “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

Read 1:1

Where’s the land of Moab?   East of the Dead Sea, South of the tribe of Reuben.

What’s sad about this is that Israel would not have experienced a famine if they had served God. But they served idols instead of God, and God stopped providing.

So God’s people went among those who were anti-God to make ends meet.

Moabites were the ones who had seduced Israel during the days of Balaam (Numbers 22ff)

Elimelech and his wife Naomi moved to Moab with their two boys Mahlon and Chilion. After dad’s death they married Moabite women.

Deuteronomy 7:3 and 23:3-6 forbid Jews from marrying foreign women who worshipped idols. What was being forbidden was not the inter-racial marriage but the mixing of faith backgrounds, as the book of Ruth demonstrates.

Read 1:6

The Lord had not forgotten His people! Verse 6 tells us He paid attention to their needs!

The word return is used four times in chapter 1 (verses 6, 11, 12, 22). It is also translated as repent in the Old Testament. Naomi returned to her faith even as Ruth was turning to it!

We are always looking for the reasons individual book are in the Bible, and how they connect to the Big Picture of the Bible.

We see traces of God’s unconditional covenant promise to Abraham, even as the table is being set for the coming of God’s unconditional promise to David.

Read 1:8

The word for kindly in verse 8 is “hesed,” the key word that speaks of God’s faithful, steadfast, everlasting love. Many translations use kindness.

Ruth is a book of kindness, showing people being kind to one another, and God’s overarching kindness to humanity.

“Or do you despise the riches of His kindness, restraint, and patience, not recognizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance.”                     -Romans 2:4

Read 1:16-17

Key verses:

But Ruth said: “Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go; and wherever 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. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.”          -Ruth 1:16-17

So Ruth embraces both Naomi and her faith, despite the fact that Naomi, whose name means “pleasant,” is dealing with bitterness. When they get to Jerusalem, she tells people to call her “Mara” now, which means bitter.

Read 1:22

Now we read that they came to Bethlehem and we think of all that happened later in Bethlehem – the birth of Jesus!

What’s exciting for us now is we are reading the prequel information behind why Bethlehem becomes such a big deal as part of the Davidic Covenant that includes the coming Messiah!

In chapter 2 Ruth goes to the fields to get food for the family.

There she is treated with great kindness by Boaz, a relative of Naomi’s dead husband.

The kind response Ruth had gotten from Boaz’s servant in charge shows the respect Boaz had for God’s law, which commanded Jews to leave part of their crops for the poor and needy and foreigners in their midst (Lev. 19:9; 23:22; Deut. 24:19, 22).

Boaz had already heard of the kindness Ruth had shown Naomi, and he makes clear it has inspired him to be kind to her.

Read 2:12                 Isn’t that beautiful?

Before this refuge is a place you went to – For Boaz refuge was a relationship with God. His great-grandson David will put that thought in many of his psalms!

“God, Your faithful love is so valuable that people take refuge in the shadow of your wings.”                                   -David in Psalms 36:7 (HCSB)

That word for wings will take on greater significance in the next chapter!

Read 2:20

When Naomi hears what Boaz has done, she realizes Boaz may be willing to fulfill the role of Kinsman Redeemer for the family (Lev. 25:25).

God’s beautiful law is about to come alive in practical application and in powerful type of what the future Messiah will do!

“When a poor person in ancient Israel had to sell is or her property to make money to live on, the nearest relative, or kinsman, was to come and redeem what the family member sold. This law ensured that nobody became landless and locked in a cycle of poverty, It was an inside the clan welfare system, where debts and obligations would be paid by one family member so that the poor family member could be freed, or restored. In a similar way, Boaz offers to be Ruth’s redeemer after he is asked, on the threshing floor, to do so.   -Dever, 237

Read 3:8-9

Boaz agrees to “spread the corner of his garment” over her, which symbolizes him accepting her request for protection! The word wing is the same one used in 2:12! This is a beautiful picture of our salvation – Jesus Christ is the ultimate kinsman redeemer who has taken us under His wing!

The one thing they had to clear up was that there was a closer relative they had to check with first – he was able to redeem but not willing.

Boaz was both able to redeem and willing!

Aren’t you glad that Jesus is BOTH able and willing to redeem those who turn to Him for salvation?!

There is a point to this beautiful love story!

Read 4:11-12

Tamar had tricked her father-in-law Judah into impregnating her with Perez. But the children born were blessed by God, not cursed.

Perez became the founder of the Bethlehem Ephrathah area.

More significantly, like Judah, he is in the genealogy of Christ given in Matthew 1, where his mother is mentioned!

Rachel was Jacob’s favorite wife who was actually buried near Bethlehem; Leah was her sister -together with their maids all the tribes of Israel descended from them.

The people bless Ruth the Moabite convert, asking God to make her like the most significant Jewish women in their history!

Read 4:17-22

Ruth becomes the great-grandmother of King David and the coming Messiah, which we will learn about in the Davidic Covenant given in 2 Samuel.

So the entire 8^th book of the Bible is a clear indication of God’s heart for all people to know Him and get in on the covenant blessings of Abraham!

Ruth is a foreign convert to Israel, as was Rahab, and both are in the line of Christ!  

Bethlehem Ephrathah, you are small among the clans of Judah; One will come from you to be ruler over Israel for Me. His origin is from antiquity, from eternity!               -Micah 5:2

I bet as Jesus looked down on Bethlehem and saw these events unfolding, He smiled- one day I’m going to be born there so people can be born in Zion!

Just as my great great great granddaddy Boaz redeemed my great great great grandmommy, I’m going to Redeem God’s people!