Ruth 1-4

The book of Ruth is one of the most beautiful, soul-warming love stories that has ever been told.  As we unpack the story and the Gospel that is told throughout, lets get some context for the situation.  The primary characters in these events are Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz.  Naomi, a Jewish woman, has migrated with her husband and two sons to Moab.  The Moabites were viewed as unclean, sinful people by the nation of Israel because of their conception.  The Moabites were born out of the incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughters has they were encamped around the outskirts of the city of Sodom.  Due to a major drought and military strife within Israel, the people of Israel were forced to look to other nations for resources.  This is why Naomi had migrated there with her husband Elimelech and her children.  Her children did what was natural, they married Moabite women whose names were Orpah and Ruth.  When Naomi becomes a widow and her sons die, she makes a decision to return to her hometown of Bethlehem.  Orpah decides to remain, and much to the disdain and reluctance of Naomi, Ruth commits to Naomi and returns to Bethlehem where they are placed under the provision of Boaz as she begins to work and glean their fields.

So now that we have the back story, we need to focus on who Ruth is.  Ruth is a woman who is viewed as unclean and unwanted.  We see that in verse 15 of chapter 1, Naomi was even coercing her to stay with her people like Orpah because of the disgrace in returning back to Bethlehem with the widow of her son who was not a woman of Israel.  Naomi, the very woman Ruth was committing to, was trying to reject her and did not want her in her life anymore.  She was an unclean, sinful woman who no one wanted.  Then we have Boaz.  A man who is well liked, blameless, and true man of Israel.  He obviously is a wealthy man who owns fields and has enough to provide for himself and the people who work for him.  The drastic differences between these two are very clear and it almost shocking that he would provide a very place at his table for her to eat.

So as we approach the end of the story, Boaz will eventual take Ruth and take her to be his wife.  He takes this woman that no one wanted, who was seemingly undesirable, unclean, and he marries the woman.  The fancy theological term for the role that Boaz plays in this story is know as the kinsman-redeemer.  He takes a woman who is not of his people, unclean, and makes her a daughter of Israel by his loving desire to choose this undeserving woman to be his wife.  This is the Gospel clearly displayed in the Old Testament.  Just like Jesus takes us, an unclean and undeserving people, and redeems us from death to become his bride (the church).  We are now adopted into the kingdom of  God through Christ and we are now his children.  Redeemed like Boaz redeems Ruth.  To end this blog, I want to point out something even more beautiful.  This broken, sinful, unclean woman we would later learn would be listed in the lineage of Jesus Christ.  Not only was it wrong to place a woman in the lineage of any Jewish person, let alone a woman who is not of the nation of Israel.  The Gospel is good news for sinners and we learn that Christ came to redeem the very sinners that he was born from.  This is the beauty of the Gospel and the great hope which we all believe in.