Ruth 2:8-16 – “Beautiful People”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁸And Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen, my daughter; do not go to glean in another field, and also do not leave from this, and remain here with my young women. ⁹Your eyes in the field which they (masc., plural) reap, and go after them (fem., plural). I have commanded the young men not to touch you, and you are thirsty and go to the vessels and drink from which the young men draw water. ¹⁰And she fell upon her face and bowed herself down [to] the ground and she said to him, “Why have I found grace in your eyes to notice me and me [being] a foreigner?” ¹¹And Boaz answered and he said to her, “It has surely been told to me all which you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband and you left your father and mother and the land of your birth and you went to a people which you did not know in the past up to now. ¹²May the LORD reward (intensively) your conduct and may your wages be complete from the LORD, the God of Israel, which you have come to seek refuge under His wings.” ¹³And she said, “I have found grace in your eyes because my lord has comforted me and because you have spoken upon heart of your maidservant and I, I am not like one of your maidservants.” ¹⁴And Boaz said to her at the time of the meal, “Draw near here and eat from the bread and dip your morsel in the vinegar and sit at the side of the reapers and he held out to her roasted grain and she ate and she was satisfied and she had spare. ¹⁵And she arose to glean and Boaz commanded his young men saying, “Even between the sheaves she may glean and do not humiliate her ¹⁶and also you shall surely draw out to her from the bundles and you will leave and she will glean and do not rebuke her.”

I’m not even close to being finished studying this passage but I have to stop and exclaim – this has to be one of the most beautiful exchanges of dialogue that ever two human beings shared.

The matchless beauty of this encounter issues from two genuinely godly and virtuous hearts. Two people here cross paths first of all because they are godly and virtuous. Boaz arrives because, as an employer, he would personally mind the affairs of his workers. Ruth arrives, of course, because she would care for herself and her mother-in-law, though it meant humiliation and possible danger for her, a defenseless young woman among strangers.

Notice that the encounter doesn’t somehow make them virtuous – it happens because they’re virtuous. Everything they say and do only proves and displays the virtue already resident in their hearts. Here, seemingly by pure coincidence, meet two people of real faith, two people who are what they are, who do what they do, who say what they say because their faith in the God of Israel has given them virtue.

See what happens: Because Boaz is a genuinely good man, in verse 10, he speaks graciously and kindly to this poor widowed foreigner. In verse 11, Ruth responds to that kindness out of the goodness of her own heart, which shows itself in sweet and genuine humility. That genuine humility, in verse 12, moves the good man Boaz, it would seem, to explode in a well-earned recounting of her character! In v13, she responds to all that praise by putting the focus back on his kindness and noting that he does it all in spite of the fact that she doesn’t have the standing of even one of his servant girls. See how virtue engenders virtue. Each one’s virtue only calls out more of the others’. Their very encounter cannot help but broadcast to the world that here before our eyes are two people in whom faith has restored the likeness of God and made them people the rest of us can admire.

I’m belaboring this point for a reason. I would suggest that, in American Christianity, we have completely forgotten that one of the great aims of grace is to make us people of virtue. The entire point of grace is that we might truly know God (John 17:3) and the inevitable result of actually knowing Him is to be changed into His likeness (II Cor 3:18). The average American Christian would, of course, object and say, “Of course we know that!” but, I would suggest that knowing and doing are two very different things. American Christianity has fallen victim to pervasive “bait and switches,” this being one of them. We say with our mouths that faith should change us, but then we deviously insert our own traditions, “making the Word of God of no effect.”  When someone longs to be “truly” committed, we urge them to volunteer and spend more time at the church building (and call it ministry). The more they volunteer, the more we congratulate them for being so spiritual. We tell them the whole point of it all is “to tell people about Jesus,” and let them think it’s actually a good thing to rudely force truth on people whether they’re ready to hear it or not. We give them lists upon lists of important rules to keep and let them think they’re “growing” because they got a haircut.

No doubt Jesus watches from Heaven and says, “Martha, Martha, you are troubled about many things, but only one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.” As Martha bustled back and forth all it got her was tired. As Mary sat there at Jesus’ feet in the wonder of Who He was, she was being transformed into His image, even as she listened. When she got up to walk away, she would be different, her life would be a testimony to grace, her life would adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. She would have become even in some small way a more virtuous woman, because she sat at His feet, because she knew the priority was to nurture her own personal relationship with her God.

As I sit here and read again and again this exchange between Boaz and Ruth, what I see is two people who “got it right.” Faith has made these two people beautiful. Grace has effaced Adam’s image and stamped Jesus’ in its place. As I read it again and again, it’s almost unbelievable how much Boaz is like Jesus. If I could read it for the first time and someone had inserted the name Jesus everywhere Boaz appears, there would be nothing in the text to make me suspicious of the ruse, besides the fact that of course Jesus didn’t have servant girls, etc. Boaz talks and acts and treats people just like Jesus would some 1200 years later. Take a minute and read the account of Jesus and the Centurion in Luke 7:1-10. The parallels are amazing. And Ruth beautifully pictures the humble, self-effacing submission of Jesus to His Father, Him who “made Himself nothing and took the very nature of a servant” (Phil 2:7).

Grace should change us. And the change is that it should make us like Jesus – not a person who’s “busy” at church or who “keeps the rules” but rather people who, because we know our God and because we spend time at His feet, have been transformed into His image – people of real virtue that can’t help but display itself even in dusty barley fields in the middle of hot afternoons outside obscure little villages, in the seeming humdrum of simple everyday life…just like Boaz and Ruth.

God deliver us all from the seemingly “good” traditions we’ve let “make the Word of God of no effect.” May our hearts be consumed with knowing You and may Your very face in our hearts make us like You. Even as we struggle and bump along, may people actually see the Gospel in our lives, may our lives be the “aroma of Christ” and may He “spread everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him among those who are being saved and to those who are perishing” (II Cor 2:14-16), like Boaz and Ruth...two people who “got it right.”

Two truly beautiful people.

Ruth 2:4-7 – “At Work”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁴And behold! Boaz coming from Bethlehem, and he said to the harvesters, “The Lord [be] with you!” And they said to him, “The Lord bless you!”⁵And Boaz said to his young man, one set over the harvesters, “To whom [belongs] this young woman?” ⁶And the young man, one set over the harvesters, answered, and he said, “Young woman Moabitess, she one who returned with Naomi from the fields of Moab. 7And she said, ‘May I gather (nah) and I will gather among the sheaves after the harvesters?’ And she came, and she remained since the morning and until now, this to dwell [in] the house a little while.”

It never ceases to amaze me how much the Bible says about people’s work and how important it all is to God. That the Bible would make much of people’s work should not surprise anyone – it’s a book about life, and “work” is basically where people spend their lives. It is my constant lament that church teaching never refers to people’s work. Every sermon is about church or devotions or maybe they might at least touch on family. But work is a non-subject. It’s is too bad because it isn’t helping people live their faith in the real world where they live every day. People’s work is the one very specific thing God says believers do (or can do) that “adorns the doctrine of God our Savior in all things” (Titus 2:10).

But laments and rants aside, just look at this passage! Everyone is working. And what we see is a situation where that work is commended to our notice. Boaz, though a wealthy man, goes out to his fields personally to observe the work. And one cannot help but wonder at the relationships we observe. “The Lord be with you,” he hails to his workers and they respond, “The Lord bless you!” I do not believe we’re reading anything into the text to observe that this man’s faith has changed the way he treats his employees and, not surprisingly, they respond in kind. Here’s a man whose love for God finds its way into his love for his employees and suddenly a whole bunch of people get to live in a much more pleasant world.

Then note that Boaz’s interest in his workers is such that he specifically notices there is someone present he doesn’t recognize. Boaz is a man who is seriously familiar with his workforce, even though he has a young man to serve as the immediate supervisor. Boaz knows when there’s a new person around. Then notice that his supervisor can give him an immediate, clear, accurate, and informative answer when Boaz poses a question. “Whose young woman is this?”

Finally, we can’t help but notice the supervisor’s assessment of Ruth. What does he tell Boaz? There are so many things he might have said. Yet, what he tells Boaz is pertinent. And what does he tell him? He tells him about a young woman who is humble – she asked if she could glean. Perhaps other poor people just wandered into the field to get what they could get before someone threw them out? Not so Ruth. She politely asked permission first. One thing in Hebrew that can’t be translated into English is the injection of the word “nah” into her request. See my translation above where I show it. In today’s world, if a young person wants to acknowledge someone over them, we will “dip” our heads just a little as we speak to them. It is a way of showing humility and respect. In Hebrew they would inject the word “nah” to communicate exactly those same thoughts. So Ruth is a person who understands authority and happily accepts the authority positions under which she finds herself.

Then, of course, he tells Boaz that she has worked “from morning until now, except for a short rest in the shelter.” Ruth was no sloucher. The supervisor has already noticed her diligence and is ready when Boaz asks to tell him about it. Again, he could have told Boaz a lot of things, but what has stood out to him is this girl’s humility and her hard work.

God records all of the above and commends it to our attention, our observation, and our imitation. Oh that believers everywhere realized how important it is to God that we all learn to be humble and work hard. It isn’t so important to God what work we’re doing, but how we do it. “Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God!” I’ve known too many people who profess to be believers in the workplace, are very vocal about their faith, and yet they were anything but humble or hard workers. No one took their supposed faith seriously – because it didn’t change them where it really showed. On the other hand, I’ve known people in the workplace who said very little but commanded the respect of everyone there specifically because they always worked hard and treated people well. Those people really do “adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.”

God help us all to be like Boaz and Ruth and let our faith make us people whose daily lives adorn the Gospel – in the run-of-mill of our lives where we constantly interact with people who need a Savior, people who need to see Jesus in the eyes of someone they work with, in the words of one of the other moms who bring their kids to soccer … or whatever, wherever.

(Oh, and by the way … isn’t it cool – the first words are, “And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem.” The Kinsman-Redeemer comes from Bethlehem! Who else does that remind you of!)

Proverbs 27:18, "Whoso keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof:

 so he that waiteth on his master shall be honored."

God cares about our work!

Ruth 2:1-3 – “Interesting”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹And to Naomi one being known to her husband a man of great standing from the family of Elimelech and his name Boaz. ²And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Let me go (nah) [to] the field and gather in ears of grain after whom I find grace in his eyes.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” ³And she went and she arrived and she gathered in a field after the harvesters and her occurrence encountered the portion of the field to Boaz who [was] of the family of Elimelech.

These three little verses are so interesting. I’ll try to record a few of the things that stand out to me.

One thing is that these verses leave me wishing I could know more about Ruth. She is an amazing young woman. We already have seen her faith and her love in chapter 1, “And your God shall be my God ... The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.” Now we see a young woman of amazing humility and courage. Note it is Ruth’s idea to go glean in the fields, not Naomi’s. It would take a huge dose of humility for Ruth to go out like a beggar woman and scrounge for grain in the harvested fields. Of course the Lord had made provision for this very thing in Israel, but still, to be one of those people I think you would really have to swallow your pride.

It also took a lot of courage. Although the Lord required the Israelites to leave the corners of the fields unharvested specifically so the poor could glean there, one still had to secure the permission of the landowner or the foreman in order to glean. No doubt many were abusive. Later Boaz tells her he has warned his men “not to touch her” (v9). She is not only a woman, but a young woman and a foreigner, and a girl with no one to protect her. That may be in part why Naomi didn’t ask her to go. The whole thing could have turned out very differently. But she went anyway. Ruth’s courage is really quite amazing.

She is also a very hard worker. Gleaning in harvested fields is no easy job and probably usually wasn’t very productive. It was back-breaking work in the hot middle-eastern sun all to gather probably at best a meager amount of grain. Yet the foreman tells Boaz in v7, “She came into the field and has remained here from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.”  She definitely wasn’t afraid of work!

It all makes me wish I knew more about her. Is all this amazing character something faith has so quickly produced in her? I know faith is and should be transforming, but it usually takes time for it to build character in people. Goodness, I’ve known the Lord for over 30 years and I feel like He’s just beginning to help me learn humility and courage! So I just wonder if Ruth didn’t already have a lot of character before she same to know the Lord. If that is the case, I wish I could read about her life and what made her this way. I wish I knew more about her.

It’s also interesting to note that Boaz was a “man of great standing” and yet also a very admirable man of faith. It’s not often those two are found in the same man. It will always be true that God has “chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith” (James 2:5), yet once in a while there is a prosperous person who maintains their faith. That is always a wonderful thing because that same person has the wherewithal to do a lot of good in this world. It sure will be a blessing for Ruth as this story unfolds.

It’s also interesting to note that as late as David (Ruth and Boaz’s great grandson), the faith of Ruth and Boaz is still very strong in their descendants. Young David’s faith as he stands against Goliath is really much the same as his great-grandmother Ruth’s faith as she stood there in the road with Naomi and said, “Your people will be my people and your God my God.” We see in both of them the same humility and the same courage. God help us to be all we can for Him, and then, if this world lasts that long, may there be people generations from now living in faith perhaps in part from the example we left behind! Little could Ruth or Boaz have imagined what a blessing their faith would be to the world through the life of a great grandson probably neither of them lived to see!

It’s interesting to note that, in verse 1 we learn about Boaz but in verse 2 Ruth knows nothing about him. She has absolutely no idea she’s doing anything more than going out to scrounge up a few handfuls of grain. Verse 3 has a really unusual way of describing what happened: “her occurrence encountered the portion of the field to Boaz.” “Her occurrence encountered.” The impression is it “just so happened” that she ended up in Boaz’s field. Of course we all know that wasn’t the case at all. The Lord knew all along that is where He would send her. But how like life that is. “A man plans his way but the Lord orders his steps.”

Such an interesting few verses! So much to learn!