An Interesting Perspective on the “Decline” of Christianity

I ran across this video today in my daily internet perusal and I thought it would be of interest to you as well. In it Dr. Ed Stetzer describes what he calls “the rise of the ‘nones'” and explains why, at least from what he has been able to research and observe, “conversion” Christianity is actually on the rise, and what is in decline is the nominal Christianity of primarily mainline denominations. I think most importantly in the process he points out that many of these statistics, such as the one that says 94% of America’s youth leave the church after leaving high school, are not accurate, but can become dangerous self-fulfilling prophecy for those who give it too much credit.

Introduction to Ephesians (Pt. 1)

The apostle Paul wrote his epistle to the Ephesians from prison.  Repeatedly in this book Paul calls himself a “prisoner for the Lord,” an identity derived not from metaphorical suffering on behalf of Christ, but from actual suffering at the hands of his captors.  Paul was in prison on behalf of Jesus.

This mode of self identification is a favorite of Paul’s in this book.  He seems intensely interested in sharing it with his readers, using phrases like this again and again.  “I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles,” “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord,” and my favorite, “I am an ambassador in chains” (3:1, 4:1, 6:20).  This, Paul is telling us, is his identity.  One taken into captivity because of his proclamation of the gospel.

On the other end of the spectrum are the Ephesians.  These are men and women Paul knows only by reputation.  He implies several times that what he knows about them is based completely on what he has heard and what he assumes (1:15, 3:2, 4:21).  Even still, Paul is bold to proclaim the mysteries of the gospel to these individuals, and in the midst of this proclamation to tell them who they are.  He writes to them about their identity in Christ.  He knows them not because he has met them, but because he knows Christ.

In Ephesians we find Paul, the prisoner on behalf of Christ, writing to the Ephesians about the identity won for them in Christ, an identity he calls the Church.  It is this identity that stands as the theological crux of Paul’s letter.  It is toward this end that Paul works throughout the first half of his letter, and it is from this identity that Paul draws implications for life as the church in the second half of the letter.

As we study this book, we will come to see that the church is something far greater than we are inclined to think.  Far from the squabbling, backbiting, contentious mass we so often see today, the church is the picture of Christ’s work to unite all things in Himself.  The church is to be a testament to God’s unifying and reconciling plan, that God is reconciling all of creation to himself through Christ Jesus.  In some ways we see this at work today.  Christianity has brought brothers and sisters together from all over the world under one banner and brought reconciliation between peoples who once despised one another.  But most of the time this is, at least on the surface, not the case.

As we study this book, we will look at how we have forgotten the importance of the Church.  We will attempt to redefine our understanding of the Church in light of the teachings of Scripture.  Paul gave his freedom to proclaim a gospel that at its heart is about Christ and through Him the work of building the church.  The question remains with us, how highly do we prize the Church, what will we give to minister to her, each one of us, as her people, as members of the bride of Christ?  How will we seek to be the picture of God’s reconciling work in the church, and so be a beacon of hope to this world?

Devotion

So, I’ve decided on Ephesians, and I will get to it soon, I promise.  It has been a rather busy couple of weeks.

As far as why Ephesians, given the focus of my blog, “theology in community,” I thought it might be profitable to spend some time in a book that has a great deal to do with the community of the Church and how God in Christ has been working to reconcile all things to Himself, the primary place where that should be evident to us being the church.

So, as I begin Ephesians (sometime next week) begin to think about how Christ is working to reconcile all things to Himself, especially the diverse and chaotic group we know as the church, and Christ calls His very bride.

Ruth 1:19-22 A Loss of Identity

(This was a lesson I taught at Brookwood Baptist Church for our college sunday school class in our series on Ruth)

Let me begin with a question, something to consider to place us in the right frame of mind:  Where do you see yourself in ten years?  Think about where you want to be, where you hope to be ten years down the road.  Think about the plan, as little or as fully developed as it may be.

The Passage:

            [19] So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, “Is this Naomi?” [20] She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. [21] I went away full, and the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the LORD has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?”

            [22] So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.

(Ruth 1:19-22 ESV)

We need to get involved with this story and feel its characters, its setting, put ourselves into it to really get a sense of what is going on here.  If we do this well, we will see that this is a very powerful and moving scene, and we will see as well that what we have here is a hard but honest portrayal of the difficulties of living in a world like ours.

What have we learned so far?

Naomi left Bethlehem, a word that means “house of bread,” with her husband and two sons to go to Moab because there was a famine in the land, and the house of bread had run out.

During that time, her husband died, her two sons were married to Moabite women, and then they too died, leaving Naomi and her two daughters-in-law alone with no male support, a death sentence in the Ancient Near East.

Ten years have passed in Moab, and Naomi heard that Bethlehem, the house of bread, was again filled with bread, because Yahweh had visited his people and stopped the famine.  So, Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem, and in the process told her two daughters-in-law to return to their homes and their gods and seek a better life, because with her there was no hope for the future.  In Bethlehem two Moabite women would be nothing better than despised outcasts.  They had no husbands to give them credibility in this culture or provide for their needs.  Naomi’s advice makes sense.  Orpah leaves with sadness, but Ruth insisted on staying with Naomi, and claimed Yahweh as her God and Israel as her people.  And so, Ruth and Naomi have struck out for Bethlehem.

Where are we now?

The scene fast-forwards to the end of the journey, and we find Naomi and Ruth in Bethlehem, having just arrived.  We aren’t told how they got there.  The journey doesn’t seem to be important.  We skip past all that and are deposited in this scene where Naomi and Ruth have just arrived at Bethlehem, and their arrival has caused a stir in the community.  Ruth drops out of this scene.  If we had time we might try to think about what must have been going on in her mind at this point, but it would be purely speculation.  What we must do, in order to go deeply into this story, is to view it from two perspectives.  We need to put ourselves in the place of the people at Bethlehem, see it as they would have, and we need to see it as Naomi would have, put ourselves in her shoes.

Two perspectives:

The People – verse 19 gives us the perspective of the people and their reaction to the return of Naomi to Bethlehem.             

[19] So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, “Is this Naomi?”  (Ruth 1:19 ESV)

Bethlehem was a small town throughout its history, but especially at this time.  The most Bethlehem ever had was around 200 people, and here it was likely much less than that, more like 100 or so.  A small town like this would have recognized Naomi at once, and likely everyone would either have known, or been told who this woman was.  So when Naomi arrives, the whole town is set to talking.  The word used here translated “stirred” is a homonym, a word that sounds like our English hum.  They were making a great hum about Naomi.  She was the talk of the town.

Now, put yourself in their place.  Have you ever run into someone you hadn’t seen in years and done a double take?  That’s what’s happening here.  It would be like running into an old friend whose lost 20 pounds or whose hair style has completely changed, and it takes a minute to recognize who they are.  Only, in this case, what has changed isn’t just cosmetic, what they are seeing is an embittered, destitute woman.  This was someone they knew well, who had a family and hope and a future who had left for a better land with more food.  Now she has come back to them haggard and weary.  They barely even recognize her.  The women of the town ask “Can this be Naomi?”  They can barely believe their eyes.  They are stirred by her.

Tragedy has a way of doing this to us.  We have probably all been a part of a community where something tragic has taken place, and the whole community becomes agitated by it.  Sometimes it can cause such a stir that it can really weigh heavily on the person to whom the tragedy has occurred.  I can only imagine how much this stir in the community would have made the wounds and troubles that Naomi has gone through once again fresh in her mind and heart.  It must have been a very painful experience.  The people of Bethlehem can’t believe their eyes.

Naomi – The majority of this passage is given to us from the mouth of Naomi.  She answers the murmuring of the people, and she reacts against their question, “Can this be Naomi,” in a powerful way.             

[20] She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. [21] I went away full, and the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the LORD has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?” (Ruth 1:20-21 ESV)

Why did she leave for Moab?  Why was she there the last ten years?

Perhaps she feels as though the last ten years were wasted.  Ten whole years devoted to preserving her family and now she finds them all dead and she has only one companion left, a young Moabitess who can barely be of any help.  Her whole plan, her whole life is down the drain.  She doesn’t even feel like she can be called by the same name any more.  Her whole identity has been stripped from her.  It would be as if you had gotten married and had children, and you had made a stable and healthy home, sacrificing a lot of things for the sake of that family, and then it was all stripped away from you.  I can only imagine she was left wondering what in the world it was all for.  She has been emptied of all that she is.  People are staring at her, talking about her, she feels isolated and alone in the midst of her people.  She is in the pit of despair, and she doesn’t have anywhere to look for hope.  Her husband is dead.  Her sons are dead.  Her line has failed.  Her purpose has been stripped from her.  And it seems that the only one upon whom she could hope for a miracle, Yahweh, her God, has turned against her for some reason she doesn’t know but believes must be just.  She feels like she has failed.  In some way, she has done something that has put her at odds with her God.  And so she is no longer Ruth, a name meaning “pleasant,” but she is Mara, “bitter,” the most bitter of all women.  She doesn’t want to be known as the woman who left so full, because that is an identity that she has lost.  She is without hope in the world.  She is isolated and alone, even in the midst of her people.  No one can understand her, and even God seems to have left her side.

It is interesting to think about her statement “I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty.”  She says here that she went away full, but in reality she went away hungry, she left in the midst of a famine.  She left precisely because she was not full.  Clearly what she is talking about here is not physical well-being.  She is talking about her life and family, though in the midst of famine, that was her fill.  What she had was much more important to her than her physical health.  She would rather be in the midst of famine than in the torment of this loss of husband and sons, of all well-being.  Next to this suffering a famine is nothing in her mind, lost to her memory.

But there is hope.  The final verse of our passage speaks words that for us mean little, but are very important to the development of the story.             

[22] So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest. (Ruth 1:22 ESV)

The verse recaps their arrival, but in so doing it tells us that this is the beginning of the barley harvest.  There is foreshadowing here.  The writer is using his literary skills to point us toward what is about to happen.  The fields are ripe.  Yahweh has visited His people to bless them with produce.  And this is the beginning of the barley harvest, the very first of the major harvest seasons.  They have arrived just in time to see the yield of God’s blessing.  It is time to gather God’s provision.

For Us:

I want you to think again about where you see yourself in ten years.  Think about the plan in your mind, why you are in school and life, what you are working toward, all that you can imagine and are looking to make happen.

Here’s the deal.  Some of you, ten years down the road, are going to be facing the same situation as Naomi is facing here in this passage.  The details will be different, but the dilemma will be the same.  You are smart, thoughtful people.  Some of you have a plan, some of you are still trying to figure it out, but I am certain that in some way you are in the process of making the same decision that Naomi made ten years ago.  You are looking around, trying to figure out where there is famine, and where there is food, and you are going to make a plan and head that way.  But I can guarantee you that at some point, no matter how good and logical the plan you have is, it will fail you.  There will come a point of tragedy, a point of loss.  You will feel as though the past ten years of your life have been wasted.  For some of you, it will be these years of schooling, you will find yourself out there looking for a place to work and there will be none.  Your plans will fail, and the identity you have been hoping to make for yourself will seem to have fallen at your feet. For others it will be ten, twenty years down the road, when all was going according to your plan, and all of the sudden out of nowhere tragedy strikes.  And there will come a time in each of our lives when we feel that our only hope, our God, has judged against us.  We are so easily blind to His plan that we will fail to understand how anything good could possibly come out of this.  We will all face the problem of Naomi, to one degree or another, whether you think you are invincible or not.  Human plans fail.  What we have to remember when our very identity seems lost and our hope in God seems vain is that He has a plan.  Even when it feels cliché and we don’t want to think about it, He is working all things for the good of those who love Him.  We have to maintain that perspective, even in the midst of such deep suffering.  When you get to that place, though you may forget it in the mean time, remember Naomi.  The Bible gives us real people to turn to, to see that we are not alone in our suffering.  Turn to this destitute woman, and remember that though no good seems possible, and all seems lost, God is sovereign, He is in control, and in the end, all things will work for His glory, and for your good.

We know this most assuredly because we can look back on the cross of Christ, and on his resurrection.  Just as Naomi lost everything, Christ gave everything in sacrifice for us.  Just as Naomi lost her relationships and her hope and her identity, Christ stepped down out of his identity as God almighty and took on human suffering.  When we are in the midst of suffering like Naomi’s, we can look to the cross and remember the suffering of the One who stood in our place.  We can remember that God is not against us, but rather even when it seems He has turned His face against us we know that his plan has been worked out through Christ, and we are reconciled to Him.  Naomi’s greatest hopelessness here is in her feeling that God was against her.  We have the cross to remind us that God is for us, and we have the resurrection to remind us that God has a plan, an end to suffering and tragedy.  Even when we feel in the depths of Hell, we look to the cross, and then to the resurrection.  When all seems lost, our only hope is to be found in this perspective, in a perspective that recognizes though God seems absent, behind the scenes we know He is working, and we must look forward to and wait for the resurrection of the dead and the wiping away of every tear from our eyes.

The Outcasts

It’s something I don’t talk about often, but is a reality that I have lived with throughout my life. As a kid in elementary and middle school I was an outcast, the object of bullying and ridicule. Somehow, in some way, I got singled out from the moment I walked in the doors of Lascassas elementary as the kid everyone could use as an outlet for their hatred and spite. For a long time I lived in fear and pain each day, and I bottled it up, not letting anyone know what was going on. In the end, it was this experience that taught me the cruelty of the world, and it drew me with great power to the love and grace of Christ. No matter how much I tried to fit in and gain acceptance with the kids at school, the ridicule just grew, but it helped me to know that the only constant, the only reliable, faithful, loving individual I could turn to and find my identity in was Christ.

I ran across this video today shared on facebook by Roger Dunn, an old friend of mine from college whom I haven’t talked to in a while. It reminded me that I am not the only one who faced these kinds of trials, and that there are so many who face them even today. My hope is that if any of you have influence in the lives of kids in situations like this, the video will help you to understand what it is they are facing, not some kids’ dilemma of mere words, but physical and emotional scars that are re-opened every day they have to enter the halls of their school.

This video focuses on the inherent beauty of those who have gone through this kind of trial.  What I would add to that, from a Christian perspective, is that this beauty comes not out of the individual worth, but out of the worth that Christ gives us.  For those who have faced or are facing this kind of thing, who might be struggling with the destructive message even to this day that tells them they are unworthy, ugly, worthless, what we can do is point them to Christ.  That one so beautiful, perfect, and worthy as the very Son of God would love and cherish us, and that He would sacrifice His own life so that we might live, places infinite value and worth on God’s children.  We are His bride, and despite the struggles of such a destructive world, and despite the self-destructive patterns of thought and behavior that this environment creates for us, we can find our value in Christ.  To destroy and defame ourselves is to destroy and defame the Bride of Christ.  Because of Him, we have a beauty that stands apart from the judgment of the world.

On the Side

You may have noticed that there is a new widget on the right side of this blog.  That widget is supposed to link you to sermons I have uploaded on Box.com.  The audio file is a sermon I preached at Southeastern Bible college in their chapel series on Ephesians, and the video file is a sermon I preach on Revelation chapter 4 for my second preaching course at Beeson.  

Let me know if you have any trouble getting them to work and what you think of the sermons.  I’m not entirely certain that the widget will work for everyone, but thus far it hasn’t given me any problems.

Direction

So, given the recent discussion regarding where to go next, I have decided to begin working through a book.  I plan to do this primarily in small chunks, so that it will be easier for those of you who do not have time to read through large in-depth posts all at once.  

That said, do you have a particular book that you would like to work through?  I have been particularly interested in Ephesians lately, and have worked through a good bit of it already.  I am also interested in studying Jeremiah, a book that I recently acquired a good commentary on and also one that I haven’t spent as much time as I would like in.  Romans, Genesis, and Mark are also good options for me right now.  Note that I will be posting another three lessons on portions of Ruth over the course of the next three months as well, but these are part of a series that I am only teaching segments of for our college sunday school class.  Your thoughts would be appreciated!

A Question

I have been considering how I should proceed with this blog, and I would like your opinion.  Many of you know my writing, my interests, and my thoughts well, and can therefore give me some direction.  As I write, I find that while much of the time I am not certain of a topic upon which to muse, more of the time my problem is with deciding which topic to pursue and how to proceed.  Most of my posts come as flashes of insight, and are therefore rare.  But, I would like to be more productive, and more regular with my posts.  So, the question then:

Those of you who know me well, what are some topics/interests that you would like to read about from me?  Should I choose a book of the Bible and work through it with short regular reflections?  Should I start a conversation about the importance of the church and frame a Biblical vision for it?  Should I look at how to approach the Bible, giving some insight from my Seminary training?  Should I talk about something else you know I have interest in?  Any and all suggestions are welcome and encouraged.  If I can figure out where to focus, based on what will be most beneficial/interesting to you, I can begin to pursue those topics that are not quite flashes of insight, and more topics I must pull out of the clutter of so many other thoughts.

Thoughts on Youth Ministry

Over the past eight years I have been able to minister to college students fresh out of their respective youth ministries and see how they have been prepared for the life that is ahead of them and the choices that they are being faced with.  So much of the time the perspective I have gained is one of startlingly ill-prepared individuals who, because of the focus and organization of their youth ministries have entered into a world that they knew nothing of previously.  These individuals come out of their youth groups having been coddled and milk-fed, taught simple truths such as Jesus loves me and I should be a good person, but the flesh and blood of a gospel that consumes the whole of history is left behind as too complex for a youth group talk, or the philosophical and theological underpinnings of the faith that show the depth and the majesty of God’s plan are deemed to boring or not enough to the point.  Instead we teach them to love this man who lived 2000 years ago, and in so doing save themselves from the fires of hell.  At most we send them away with the moral platitudes that gave rise to the WWJD movement and leave our need for a savior reduced to a moral example we must follow.

A strong emotional faith based on a few choice Christian mantras has been the foundation of their perspective on the world, and all of the sudden their perspective is being challenged on every level.  This challenge comes from a variety of sources, some ill conceived and clearly bankrupt, but quite often these challenges come by way of schools of thought or philosophical perspectives that hold much more depth and merit than they have ever received from their Christian training in the church.  These students are often individuals who proceed through youth ministry apparently dedicated and motivated to serve Christ, students who assume that when presented with other ways of thinking they would be able to quickly see through the mirage for what it really is because they “love” Jesus.  When they begin to realize that these other schools of thought have depth and substance they don’t know how to proceed, and often abandon the faith because they have nothing to challenge these new perspectives with.  Those who proceed with intellectual honesty often become the biggest proponents of a perspective that calls Christianity the mirage and the grand delusion of the masses.

If it isn’t the intellectual philosophical side that gets to them, it is the matter of emotional and pseudo-spiritual delusion.  This is likely more present in our time.  Our youth ministries are centered around the students so exclusively that we are teaching by deed, if not by word, that the center of the universe is our students.  We create an atmosphere in which the students are kept entertained, held within their comfort zones, and given a social club within which to operate for the advantage of their personal happiness.  By the time their experience with youth ministry is over, they have concluded that the purpose of church is to find spiritual and emotional fulfillment, and so “big church” is too boring and full of problems for their tastes.  Lacking a youth ministry to turn to, they leave the church altogether.  This is especially true when our youth find themselves out in the world and making choices for themselves, seeking to fulfill their personal desires and find a solid social foundation in which their happiness can be catered too.  It is no wonder they turn to the pleasures of sex and drugs, or dive into easy spirituality of an I’m ok you’re ok variety that requires little to no depth of relationship with one greater than themselves, or even find themselves wrapped in the sustainable ease of money and business security, every i dotted and every t crossed, creating an image of a happy life and shoring up their walls in the name of caring for their family when internally they are rotting from a decay of the soul, returning to church only to appear socially conscious and morally responsible, so that their image is upheld and their future in society secure, an image that the church won’t be responsible for upholding before long.

But it’s not enough to simply critique the problem.  We must look for an answer.  I believe that answer, in large measure, must begin with the way we think about our youth ministries.  If we are to show ourselves relevant and prove our depth, we must offer what only we as the church can: a deep and complex understanding of the world resulting from a deep and abiding understanding of the gospel and our need for it.  We must paint the picture of a fallen world, show them its depravity and horror, and we must reveal to them the intense need for a savior that resides not only with the individual soul, but in the very fabric of creation.  We must show how all the world is being torn apart by sin and death, and how Christ has come “to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph 1:10b).  All things are being drawn together, and the world only makes sense in light of these truths.

Beyond this central theme of our teaching, we have to prepare our students to engage with the world and to interpret this truth out of the theoretical and into the reality that they engage in every day.  We show how this gospel penetrates the way we talk to a stranger, realizing that they are a part of a world that is falling apart, that they just like we are suffering in the darkness of this depraved world, and that it is not our place to judge their sin, but to bring hope in the form of a savior.  We must teach them how it transforms the way we look to our communities, not as places that serve our needs but as opportunities to invest in the lives of others and in so doing bring glory to Christ.  We must show them how it re-invents the way we think about the church, not as a place of spiritual self-satisfaction, but as a place of spiritual self-sacrifice in service of the other, how we are gifted through the Spirit each one in some way for the building up of the church, that this great bride of Christ might be spotless and pure before Him and be the picture of the very work of Christ as He unifies those that were once far off, as He gives loves to those who once only saw one another with hate.  We must show how this gospel necessarily draws our youth out of themselves, as Christ was drawn out of Himself to come to this earth and take on human form, dying on a cross for the sins of many, and being raised in newness of life, a life that is granted to us as our hope and our longing.

To be a Christian means to leave oneself behind in radical self-abandonment.  After all, one must lose his life to find it.  If our youth ministries keep focusing our youth on having a full and happy life with a fun and entertaining group of friends, how will our youth ever lose their lives, and so, how will they ever find them?

A great deal more could be said about the nuts and bolts of youth ministry, giving our students a theological language with which to study for themselves rather than assuming they can’t understand, giving them opportunities to serve both the church and the world in ways that push them out of themselves, giving them the tools to study the Bible beyond pulling verses out of context and reading it like a collection of potent sayings, but that would take much time that you likely do not have.  If we are able, though, to think through this vision and plant this foundation, how much of the future could be changed?  God promises to work through His word, and his Word is Christ, not just what Christ did, morally, or how he saved us, spiritually, but who He was, and who He is, fully God and fully man, beautifully complex, but so beautifully simple.  If we would just take the time to stop, to think, and to seek with every fiber of our being to understand how this Christ changes everything.

Introduction to Ruth

(This was a lesson written for the college Sunday School class at Brookwood Baptist Church in Birmingham, Al where we are beginning a series on the book of Ruth.  It was written to be taught, and while I have filed off some of the rough edges for this post, it still retains a somewhat fragmentary character.  I hope this will not hinder the reader, but if it proves overly burdensome, please let me know so that I can spend more time organizing the blog form for future posts.)

Sometimes the way we talk about he Christian life can be deceiving.  We have a tendency to move toward the incredible, the powerful, or the especially moving stories that arise out of God’s work in and through the lives of dedicated individuals in tough or abnormal circumstances, and then turn around and speak of how God can work in our lives in that way as well.  We paint a picture of a God that only works in showy and extraordinary ways.  In doing so, we create a scenario in which we as Christians are constantly looking for God to move in big and noticeable ways in our lives, and fail to recognize the slow and steady molding of our character and of our direction in life, these changes that seem ordinary and “simply human,” but that are in fact the result of God’s ultimate plan being worked out through His direction of even the minute details of creation.  The book of Ruth challenges our common desire to see God always moving in big ways by pointing to a God who works behind the scenes, orchestrating out lives, nature, history, and human schemes to work toward His plan, often without us even recognizing what is going on.

Ruth is a short story written by a nameless individual about the events that occurred in the life of a widowed Israelite from Bethlehem who lost her husband and both her sons, about her faithful Moabite daughter-in-law Ruth, and about the kindness and faithfulness of a stranger kinsman named Boaz, living ordinary lives, never knowing that three generations down the line the great-grandson of Ruth and Boaz would be the mighty King David, the head of the Royal line, and the line through which would arise the great savior of the universe, Jesus Christ of Nazareth.  This story shows that God does indeed work in mysterious ways, ways that we often cannot even see, perhaps through our entire lives.

In the midst of this though, we also see that He cares for His people, working in their lives to help carry their burdens and giving them the grace to proceed.  Naomi begins this book by blaming God for taking away all that she has, proclaiming her name to be Mara instead, which means bitter.  But by the end of the book, through the unlikely and selfless help of her daughter-in-law Ruth, Naomi is taken care of and blessed once more by God.

When was it written?/Why was it written?/Who wrote it?/Who was it written to?

There is a great deal of debate over the answers to these questions, and the book of Ruth itself doesn’t seem to be too interested in trying to explain the answers to us.  Rather, Ruth simply seeks to tell us a story, and out of this story we must do the best we can to make sense of the meaning and purpose behind it.

From what we can gather, this book was probably written as a piece of evidence for the righteousness of the rule of King David.  By looking at the origins of David’s family lineage, the author proves that David comes from a good and faithful family line, and that through the preservation of the line of Boaz through Ruth God was at work to preserve this family for the coming chosen king.  Through revealing this divine intervention and focusing on the work of God in preserving this family, the author shows us that God has a special interest in getting King David on the throne three generations in the future.  God is at work preserving the royal line as He sees fit, and nothing, even famine and death in a foreign land will stop Him.

When does it take place?

The first verse of Ruth tells us the answer to this question.  It was written during the period of the judges, the period described in the book of Judges just previous to Ruth in our English Bibles.  This was a hard an lawless time, when everyone did what was right in their own eyes, but each time Israel was on the brink of total moral decay God raised up a judge to correct the course once more.  In the midst of this kind of environment we find the unlikely man, Boaz, who was willing to follow God with all that He was, the women Naomi and Ruth, who proved faithful, and a small community of Israelites who remained faithful to their God, and in the midst of such chaos, these individuals provide us with this wonderful story.

What is the cultural context?

We are dealing with the culture of ancient Israel before the reign of the kings, but we are also dealing with the culture of Ruth, the Moabitess.  This culture along with almost every other culture in the Ancient Near East attributed different gods to different regions.  The thought was that the gods had power and dominion over the particular region in which they were worshiped, and so no single God was in charge.  In accepting the people and the god of Naomi, it could be that Ruth was simply accepting the region she would be moving to.  But this doesn’t seem to be the case here.  Ruth, in her faithfulness to Naomi and her acceptance of Naomi’s faith, turns her life completely over to God, and finds favor for this.  Though there is the background of this polytheistic framework, in this story we see the sovereignty of God beyond the boundaries of Israel as He clearly works in and through Ruth for His greater plan.

What are the themes?

Discovering the themes of a narrative like this is a little more difficult than in most other forms of Biblical literature.  Whereas in other genres we generally have direct communication of the point being given to us, in narrative the themes are usually implied, and we have to do some thinking and some digging to draw that out.  But there are some advantages to looking at a story like this.  The story draws us in, and we get to experience these themes through our involvement with the story.  In addition, the historical nature of this story points to the fact that the truths here are not only theoretical but have been proven true in time and space.  God has proven Himself and His character time and again, and here we have another example in history that we can cling to.

There are two main questions we will ask to help us discover the themes in this book:

What does this book teach us about God?

What does this book teach us about God’s people?

What does this book teach us about God?

The Hebrew term hesed is used several times in Ruth as an expression of the character of God.  This term hesed “is a strong relational term that contains several concepts, all the positive attributes of God—love, mercy, grace, kindness, goodness, benevolence, loyalty, covenant faithfulness; in short, that quality that moves a person to act for the benefit of another without respect to the advantage it might bring to the one who expresses it.69 Naomi’s use of hesed as the direct object of the verb asa, “to do, act, demonstrate,” reflects the fact that this quality is expressed fundamentally in action rather than word or emotion” (Daniel Block, Judges-Ruth).

Boaz recognizes throughout the book that the source of his blessing is from God, and we see that he views God as the living God who stands opposed to the dead idols of the Moabites, Ruth’s former people.  Boaz views God as the source of all blessing even for someone like Ruth, showing that this God who is running the show has authority over all people.

The narrator frames this book with his only two references to God in 1:6 and 4:13, the first noting God’s gifting of food to His people, and the second noting God’s gifting of a son to Ruth.  These statements frame this book with an identification of the sovereignty of God over these events, and show that the human deeds are secondary to the outworking of God’s providence in the world and in their lives specifically.

Apart from these two references, the narrator makes no direct reference to God, and many commentators have determined that this book therefore lacks any real theology.  Many others have argued, however, that this book is an expression of the common experience of life in which God’s presence is not readily felt, but rather He is behind the scenes.  Some have called this “the hidden hand of God,” and this expression is apt for describing both the situation of this book as well as the situation most of us find ourselves in life.  This theme is extremely important for us as we look at how this book speaks to life as we know it and the often times discouraging apparent absence of God.  We will see that even in the mundane of life, events are being set in motion for the grand scheme of God’s redemptive plan in this world.

But where is God’s hand at work here, if it is behind the scenes?  There are at least four ways that we see God at work in this book that are not explicitly stated, and we will look briefly at them here.

1. He works through natural events.  There was a famine in the land, and if you are familiar with the covenant between God and His people in Deuteronomy, you will note that this was one of the curses God promised he would bring to His people if they were disobedient.

2. He works in seemingly chance events.  The writer of this story uses irony to describe the “luck” that brought Ruth to the field of Boaz, who just happened to be both a gracious, God-fearing man, and a relative of Naomi who could serve as a kinsman-redeemer.

3. He works in and through the schemes of humans.  Later on, through the suggestion of Naomi, Ruth will go to Boaz at night and sleep at his feet.  This kind of action suggests the action of a prostitute, though in this case it is a daring attempt to propose marriage to Boaz.  In this culture, one of two things should have happened.  One, Boaz should have forced Ruth away as soon as he woke, fearing that anyone might think this was an unethical prostitution and so denying loudly that he had anything to do with this, or two, if he let that go, the proposal of marriage by Ruth should have been seen as outrageous, a woman proposing to a man, a Moabite to an Israelite, a peasant to a wealthy land owner, etc.  But, as it were, Boaz being a good and caring man, he allowed this to go on, and sought and eventually acquired the ability to marry Ruth.

4. He works through the legal process.  Though the right of kinsman redeemer belonged first to another, the man to whom it belonged, though first accepting the land that would have been a part of the package, upon remembering that Ruth came with it gave up the right in a feeble and jumbled response, giving it instead to Boaz.

What does this book teach us about the people of God?

Next to the primary goal of the narrator to show the sovereignty of God in all situations is the desire to show what hesed, this concept of covenant love, looks like in the context of personal, family, and community life in Israel.  “But unlike the emphasis of some today, the symptoms and effects of the life of faith are totally unspectacular. No one in the book demands of God that he meet his/her needs, and no one demands specific miraculous divine intervention on his/her own behalf. On the contrary, true covenant faith is expressed by concern for the welfare of others. In the story this concern is expressed by loving actions that promote the next person’s well-being and by verbal expressions of prayer for the next person” (Daniel Block, Judges-Ruth).  These prayers vary from prayers for God’s general blessing upon His people to God’s fulfillment of the needs of an individual, but in every case these prayers are not made for oneself but for others in the community.  This is one mark of the kind of faithful love they have for one another.  But in addition to this kind of prayer, the characters in this book take action to serve one another’s needs.  This is especially evident in the way that Naomi and Boaz treat Ruth.  In spite of the fact that she was a Moabite, which was generally reason enough to be hated within this Israelite community, over and over again Naomi and Boaz do all in their power to help Ruth and provide for her.  Ruth as well shows this kind of love toward Naomi, doing all in her power to provide for her widowed and son-less mother-in-law.  We could easily go on about this.

In the end, what we see here about these people is a strong and vibrant faith, a faith that is not a formula for forcing God’s blessing or being held up as righteous, but that creates a character in the individual that upholds and blesses those around them, a character that seeks the good of others before oneself.  This is the kind of community that we as the church should be modeling with one another, one of hesed love based on the hesed love of God.

In summary, let me take a few points from our commentary.  The themes we see expressed here in Ruth can be summed up in 5 points:

1. God will not let his promises to Israel and Judah and David die.

2. God works in a mysterious way his wonders to perform and his goals to achieve.

3. In all things God works for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose (Rom 8:28).

4. Genuine piety is expressed primarily in devotion, sensitivity, grace, and kindness toward others and openness to the working of God.

5. God’s grace knows no boundaries. Even a despised Moabitess is incorporated into the nation of Israel. In fact, the royal [and Messianic!] line has Moabite blood in its veins.

(Daniel Block, Judges-Ruth)

In the end, what we have in the story of Ruth is one of God’s faithfulness to His plans and His people, the nature of his work behind the scenes, and a picture of a faithful community as they express to one another the love God has expressed to them.  In this way we see a picture of how God works in our lives, as well as how we should respond in our own community with both our fellow humanity, and especially our fellow sisters and brothers in Christ.