In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab. Ruth 1:1a [ESV]
The book of Ruth begins in brokenness. The time of the Judges had seen people go from obedient and devoted followers of God to fickle and nameless wanderers who came to Him temporarily in their times of greatest distress. The first chapter records how one family even leaves God’s “Promised Land” to seek life elsewhere. The book of Ruth is short but deep. We see suffering, but we see restoration. The hope of the Gospel is very much alive even centuries before the arrival of the Messiah. This outsider and foreigner teaches us what it’s like to be an insider with God. In the midst of broken times, we are reminded that God knows us by name. When we are tempted to look back at how things used to be, we learn that there is nothing better behind us than the God before us. For all of us whose paradise has ever been broken, let’s make Ruth’s God of restoration our God too! Where He goes, we go.
Here are some illustrations, analogies, and insights you may find helpful in a personal or corporate study of Ruth:
1. “If a church is such as Christ can love, it is such as I can love”
Five of Charles Hadden Spurgeon’s (1834-1892) sermons from the book of Ruth are readily available today. Here are two excerpts from the message entitled “Ruth Deciding for God” (based on Ruth 1:16) preached a few days after Easter on 21 April 1881.
“I will join the church when I can find a perfect one”
This decision should lead us to cast in our lot with God’s people as well as with Himself, for Ruth said, “Thy people shall be my people.”
She might have said, “You are not well spoken of, you Jews, you Israelites; the Moabites, among whom I have lived, hate you.” But, in effect, she said, “I am no Moabitess now. I am going to belong to Israel, and to be spoken against, too. They have all manner of bad things to say in Moab about Bethlehem-Judah; but I do not mind that, for I am going to be henceforth an inhabitant of Bethlehem, and to be reckoned in the number of the Bethlehemites, for no longer am I of Moab and the Moabites.”
Now, dear friend, will you thus cast in your lot with God’s people; and though they are spoken against, will you be willing to be spoken against, too? I daresay that the Bethlehemites were not all that Ruth could have wished them to be… I have heard people find fault with the members of our churches, and say that they cannot join with them, for they are such inferior sort of people. Well, I know a great many different sorts of people; and, after all, I shall be quite content to be numbered with God’s people, as I see them even in his visible church, rather than to be numbered with any other persons in the whole world. I count the despised people of God the best company I have ever met with; and I often say of this Tabernacle, as I hope members of other churches can say of their own places of worship, —
“Here my best friends, my kindred dwell, Here God my Saviour reigns.”
“Oh!” says one, “I will join the church when I can find a perfect one.” Then you will never join any. “Ah!” you say, “but perhaps I may.” Well, but it will not be a perfect church the moment after you have joined it, for it will cease to be perfect as soon as it receives you into its membership. I think that, if a church is such as Christ can love, it is such as I can love; and if it is such that Christ counts it as his Church, I may well be thankful to be a member of it. Christ “loved the Church, and gave himself for it;” then may I not think it an honour to be allowed to give myself to it?
Ask Not What the Church Can Give to You
Ruth was not joining a people out of whom she expected to get much. Shame on those who think to join the church for what they can get! Yet the loaves and fishes are always a bait for some people. But there was Ruth, going with Naomi to Bethlehem, and all that the townsfolk would do would be to turn out and stare at them, and say, “Is this Naomi? And pray who is this young woman that has come with her? This Naomi, — dear me! How altered she is! How worn she looks! Quite the old woman to what she was when she left us.” Not much sympathy was given to them, as far as I gather from that remark; yet Ruth seemed to say, “I do not care how they treat me; they are God’s people, even if they have a great many faults and imperfections, and I am going to join them.” And I invite all of you who can say to us, “Your God is our God,” to join with the people of God, openly, visibly, manifestly, decidedly, without any hesitancy, even though you may gain nothing by it. Perhaps you will not; but, on the other hand, you will bring a good deal to it, for that is the true spirit of Christ. It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Read the full sermon here.
2. An Object in Motion
Most of us have watched enough sci-fi action to know that a rock hurtling through space will not change course unless acted upon by an outside force. The asteroid pummeling towards Earth has to be impacted or blown up or it will end life as we know it. The Laws of Motion remind us of this reality. Humans are not unlike this rock. When we face a hardship, we begin a downward spiral that often requires some outside force to impact us if we are ever going to change from that course.
Consider Naomi’s decision to change her name from “pleasant” to “bitter” in Ruth 1:20. She was prepared to permanently identify herself by her past suffering. Thankfully, her story doesn’t end there with her riding off into a Bethlehem sunset. She doesn’t die bitter! God’s restoration would make a life-altering impact and change her direction for good.
3. The Bride of Christ
Preaching from the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1, early church pastor John Chrysostom (349-407) considers why Ruth is included in the list. His answer not only explains God’s acceptance of outsiders in the Old Testament but also becomes an illustration of the Church as the Bride of Christ.
See, for instance, what befell Ruth, how like it is to the things which belong to us. For she was both of a strange race, and reduced to the utmost poverty, yet Boaz when he saw her neither despised her poverty, nor abhorred her mean birth; as Christ having received the Church being both an alien and in much poverty, took her to be partaker of the great blessings.
Chrysostom goes on to note that this blessing was only made possible by Ruth being willing to give everything up to follow God.
But even as Ruth, if she had not before left her father, and renounced household and race, country and kindred, would not have attained unto this alliance; so the Church too, having forsaken the customs which men had received from their fathers, then, and not before, become lovely to the Bridegroom. Of this therefore the Prophet discourses unto her, and saith, Forget thy people, and they father’s house, so shall the King have pleasure in thy beauty [Psalm 45:10ff]. This Ruth did too, and because of this she became a mother of kings.[1]
4. Commitment During Suffering
In Ruth chapter 1, Ruth made her bold commitment to stay faithful to Naomi and to God while the situation was still bad. She didn’t wait to commit to God until after her life was improved. What can the Christian learn from the timing of Ruth’s commitment? All of us commit ourselves to Christ “while we are still sinners,” and we must hold fast in this dedication through all seasons. A fair-weather God has no real leadership in your life anyway. God is not a politician who we skeptically employ to make our lives better before we commit to respect them. We follow Christ during the storm believing that He can get us through the storm. Consider this passage from 1 Peter 5:8-11:
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. [ESV]
5. When Ruth got Political
“For three millennia the Old Testament Book of Ruth has been synonymous with the abiding theme of divine deliverance associated with gleaning, and served to inspire depictions of her and Boaz throughout the centuries” writes historian Richard Scheuerman.[2]However, the beauty of this redemptive-provision story was lost for many centuries.
G. Freman, P. Bouche (engraver), Boaz Espouseth Ruth; From Richard Blome, History of the Holy Bible (London, 1688), 7 ⅛ x 12 ¾ inches.
During medieval times, many depictions of farm work emphasized it as toil and punishment for the Genesis Fall. The practice we see in Ruth that allowed the poor to find food among the grain harvest is absent. Instead, gleaning was viewed as a means to keep people down rather than God’s way to raise them up. It was assumed that peasants could hardly deserve any better status than the meager existence and protection granted to them by their earthly lords. Ruth upends this feudal structure by making farmers and gleaners equal heroes. When we think of Ruth’s story, let’s not make the medieval mistake of missing out on the smaller, social blessings that accounted for those in need during biblical times. Correcting our errant theology, Ruth reminds us that sometimes we labor for the cause of deliverance rather than punishment.
Read Scheuerman’s full article here.
[1]Some spellings have been modernized. From: Homilies of S. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, on the Gospel of St. Matthew, vol 16, (London: Walter Smith, 1885), 36-37.
[2]https://www.palouseheritage.com/blog/2019/3/6/ruth-and-boaz-past-and-present