Ruth is one of my favorite women of the Bible, and tomorrow I will tell you why! Today, I just want to tell you her story.
Ruth is a destitute widow. We follow her as she joins God's people, gleans in the grain fields, and risks her honor at the threshing floor. She begins with no hope and is an alien with no part in the kingdom of God. She risks everything by putting her faith in God. And God saves her, forgives her, rebuilds her life and gives her blessings that will last through eternity. Ruth's story was written in a dark time in Israel's history. People lived to please themselves, and not God. Ruth tells the world that there is a better way.
During the days of the Judges there was a famine in the land of Israel Judah, and a man from Bethlehem by the name of Elimelech, went to live in Moab with his wife, Naomi, and their two sons. While they were living there the two sons married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other named Ruth.. After about ten years, Elimelech died.
This created quite a problem for Naomi. She needed to go home once again, as Judah had food, and in Moab a famine had come. So she had no food, no husband and no son and no one to help her to return to Israel for Naomi did not want to ask her daughters-in-law to take her.
But they insisted on going with her and she prepared to return home. Finally, with her two daughters-in-law, she left the place and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah. Naomi felt sad that her new daughters had to leave their own country for her sake, and finally, she spoke out. "Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? I am never going to have more sons who could become your husbands. Return home. I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me--even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons--would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord's hand has gone out against me."
At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodby, but Ruth clung to her. Naomi said to Ruth, "Look! "Your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her." But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my god. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely if anything but death separates you and me." And Naomi accepted Ruth's plea.
So the two women went on, until they arrived in Bethlehem. The whole town was stirred because of them, and the women of the town exclaimed, "Can this be Naomi?" But Naomi, rejecting her own self said, "Call me Mara because the Almighty has made my life bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me." So Naomi returned from Moab in sadness and without hope, accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.
We'll end our story here until tomorrow, if God allows it. I really don't want to leave anything out for the story of Ruth is precious to me.
Study/ Ruth was a Moabitess, but that didn't stop her from worshiping the true God, nor did it stop God from accepting her worship and blessing her greatly. The Jews were not the only people God loved. God chose the Jews to be the people through whom the rest of the world would come to know him. This was fulfilled when Jesus Christ was born as a Jew. Through him, the entire world can come to know God. The book of Ruth is a perfect example of God's impartiality. Ruth was blessed because of her faithfulness. No one should feel disqualified to serve God because of race, sex, or national background. And God can use every circumstance to build his kingdom.
What a blessing, the story of Ruth! Perhaps, you can understand why I love it! I'll tell you more about it tomorrow! We ran out of time today........Shoot dang!
Love,
Jo INMN
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