(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.
Theology in Community 