James 2:1-4 – “Glorious”

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

¹My brothers, do not with favoritisms have the faith of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. ²For if a man having rings of gold on his fingers should come into your synagogue in a magnificent robe and a very poor one should also come in a filthy robe ³and you should look upon the one wearing the magnificent robe and say, “You sit here excellently,” and say to the very poor one, “You stand there or sit under my footstool,” ⁴are you not distinguishing among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Well, I’m back. Took a break for a while to do some OT study in the book of Ruth. Will study a chapter or two of James and then go back to Ruth, Lord willing. Studying the Bible is like buying several hundred acres of land to mine for gold, then discovering it doesn’t matter where you dig – there’s gold everywhere!

God’s Word utterly amazes me. For nearly 35 years, I have been reading it from cover to cover and studying one book or passage after another. There isn’t a nook or cranny anywhere with which I’m not familiar. Yet when I slow down to study any particular book or passage, the Lord just floors me with truths that rock my world. He promised that when I knew the truth, the truth would set me free. And so it does. Week after week after week He shows me truth that explains life, why things are the way they are, what is truly good and best. Again and again, His truth dispels some aspect of the fog of confusion I live in and reveals to me my petty selfishnesses that ruin my life. But He doesn’t do any of it in a way that like “beats me down.” It’s always in a way that totally lifts me up. He’s so awesome.

“More about Jesus would I know,
More of His grace to others show;
More of His saving fullness see,
More of His love who died for me.

More, more about Jesus,
More, more about Jesus …”

Such is the case before me. This is another passage that I would have said is not one of my “favorites.” It’s James 2 and the whole thing about being “respecters of persons.” I don’t know why but way down deep in my heart I always found the passage kind of boring. It’s the story of the usher who’s impressed with the rich man and gives him a good seat, then despises the poor man and makes him sit on the floor. I don’t know if it’s the pettiness that bothered me or maybe it’s just so obviously wrong, it didn’t even seem to need explaining? I don’t know. But, here I sit, again, having been studying down through verse 4 for a couple of weeks, and I’m just floored. What a treasure chest – of course! I will try to enumerate some of the treasures I’ve found.

The greatest treasure of all, of course, is Jesus Himself, and we meet Him right away in verse 1. Even the Greek itself is a little unusual and causes one to pause and ponder. It calls Him “our Lord Jesus Christ” then adds something like “of the glory” or simply “the Glory” or perhaps “the glorious One.” So it might be translated, “our Lord Jesus Christ of the glory,” or “our Lord Jesus Christ, the Glory,” or perhaps “our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious One.” I chose to translate it, “our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.” That is the point, I think, however one translates it – He is glorious!

But then note what the Lord has done here. He sets this glorious Christ in direct contrast to the problem of favoritism. “Have not the faith of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with favoritism.” His point is that, in the light of the glory of Christ, it doesn’t even make sense to be playing favorites with people. In the light of His face we are all in the same boat. “There is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Like the old saying, “The ground is level at the foot of the Cross.” Rich and poor meet alike at the foot of His Cross. But then it isn’t even just in our sinfulness that we are all the same in His eyes. We all have been made in the image of God. In the light of His glory all human beings have dignity and deserve to be treated with respect. All believers are counted His children, all are loved.

In the light of His glory, who could say to a poor man, “You sit here on the floor?” It just doesn’t make sense.

For myself, I would suggest that therein lies our problem: “In the light of His glory.” What that means is that we must be seeing the world “in the light of His glory.” It is a choice we must make to be living in His presence, aware of His presence, aware of that glory, seeing the world through His eyes. It is a choice we must make. And for me it is something I easily forget. When we are not living in the light of His face, we are left to measure others by whatever standards our minds may concoct, and those fabricated standards invariably lead us into a very faulty view of others. We are then too much like our father the devil, murderers from the beginning, and too prone to value our world through the lens of the lust of our flesh, the lust of our eyes, and our love of applause. That is precisely why we would offer the rich man “the best seat” and make the poor man sit on the floor – without the glory of Christ, we live driven by our lusts, by what appeals to our twisted desires.

The only escape – and a glorious one at that – is to live in the light of that Glory.

I am finding in my life that “doing right” is not so much something I must focus on any more. Instead, I must stay “God-connected,” I must “practice His presence,” and constantly strive to see the world through His eyes as I live in His presence. If I can keep myself mentally in His presence, then I find the “doing right” is much easier, much more natural, and hopefully I can practice it in ways that bring Him glory, whether I realize it or not.

Back to verse 1, I think that is exactly James’ point, that favoritism is simply and logically inconsistent with having the faith of our glorious Lord Jesus. It is quite possible to be a person of faith and yet live inconsistently. But the answer, I would suggest, is not so much to say to ourselves, “I must quit playing favorites,” but rather, “I must live more in the awareness of the glory of Christ.”

Isn’t it interesting that here in one simple little verse James would remind us that the foundation of true religion is “the faith of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ” – that to be enamored with Jesus is the foundation of true religion?

“Let us run with endurance

the race that is marked out for us,

having our gaze fixed upon

Jesus,

the Author and Finisher of our faith, …”

(Heb 12:1,2).

Ruth 2:17-23 – “Jesus”

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

¹⁷And she gleaned in the field until the evening and she threshed [that] which she had gleaned and it was about an ephah of barley. ¹⁸And she carried and she came [to] the city and her mother-in-law saw [that] which she had gathered and she brought out and she gave to her [that] which she had spared from her fullness. ¹⁹And her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean (intensively) today and, oh, please, [where] did you work? Blessed be the one noticing you.” And she made known to her mother-in-law whom she had worked with and she said, “The name of the man with whom I worked today [is] Boaz.” ²⁰And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “Blessed be he by the LORD, who has not left his kindness to the living and to the dead” and Naomi said to her, “The man [is] near to us. He [is] [one of] our kinsman-redeemers.” ²¹And Ruth the Moabitess also said, “He said to me, ‘Stay near my young men until they finish the all of my harvest.’” ²²And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, “[It is] good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women and not will they (masc. pl.) hurt you in the field of another. ²³And she clung to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the harvest of the barley and the harvest of the wheat and she dwelt with her mother-in-law.

Just a few random observations, then I’m going back to my James study for a while.

As I have studied chapter 2, I’ve been very pleased to meet this man Boaz who is so much like Jesus. Of course he typifies Jesus as the kinsman-redeemer of the story. But it goes far deeper than that – he actually is a man like Jesus! One of the ways I see this is in how he protects Ruth. Notice, in v5, Boaz asked, “Whose young woman is that?” In their culture every woman would (or should) have a man who protected her, whether it was her father, her husband, a brother, or her master. Boaz is probably immediately wondering that very thought – who protects this girl? When he’s told she is Ruth, Naomi’s daughter-in-law, he immediately would have realized how vulnerable she was. He addresses her as “my daughter” and then make provisions for her care and safety. He perhaps sympathetically knew there was no one else.

Think how encouraging it would have been for Ruth to have “a man of standing” publically address her as “my daughter.” Everyone else standing around heard that. Word travels fast in small towns. The instant the words left his mouth, everyone would have known that this young woman Ruth has somehow come within the protective reach of Boaz. He of course leaves nothing to chance and tells them all to “leave her alone,” but I suspect that only reinforced what everyone already knew: Mess with this Ruth and you’ll have Boaz to deal with! Even in her humility, Ruth would have known this was true the minute he addressed her as “my daughter.”  

What a wonderful blessing for Ruth, to suddenly no longer be this unprotected young foreign widow. Now someone (a man of standing) has stepped forward to be her protector. A sweet, godly girl suddenly finds herself drawn under the protective embrace of a good, godly man.

Another random observation – see how Ruth exemplifies a Proverbs 31 woman. She
“looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness… she gets up while it is still dark and provides food for her family … she sets about her work vigorously.” Ruth will make a good wife for Boaz because she’s first of all simply a good person. That shows particularly in the fact that she is a hard worker. This hard working young woman, who will scrounge in a field all day just for a single meal for her and Naomi, will work just as hard to take care of a husband and family. We can’t emphasize too much how important it is to be a hard worker. I would suggest that is something faith should produce in anyone who truly believes.

One of the things that attracted me to my wife was that I could see she was a very hard worker. And I’ve certainly not been disappointed. That same hard work has meant endless blessings for me for a lifetime. There’s never anything I think she “should have done” that doesn’t get done anyway, because she just simply “looks well to the ways of her household.” She simply is a good woman. I’ve also been very proud of my children. I knew early they would all do fine because they weren’t afraid of work. I remember seeing them as little tikes standing on a chair by the sink doing dishes and just knowing in my heart, “They’ll do okay.” Daniel’s track coach pulled me aside one day and told me how much he admired his “work ethic.” He said, “Just when you think Daniel’s got to be finished, he’ll run another lap just as hard.” Ruthie finished the top girl in her class in school and Esther has always been a girl who puts her mind to a job and then nothing stops her.

Just like Ruth, when a young person is obviously a hard worker, you know they’ll “do okay.”

One last thought – observe how Naomi responds when Ruth gets home. As I said in my posts regarding chapter 1, I completely disagree with the nearly unanimous opinion that Naomi was a bitter old woman. I believe she was a very sweet, godly woman who got run over by a freight train of overwhelming trials. Like Job and Jeremiah (in Lamentations) and like David in Psalms 88, she is a fragile human being who takes a while to recover after their entire beings get crushed. Back in 1:8,9 Naomi is thanking her daughter-in-laws and praying God’s blessings on them. Even when she sounds bitter in 1:11-13 and 20-21, notice that to her everything in life has to do with God. Like Job, she may be misinterpreting what the Lord is up to (and again, remember this woman buried her husband and her only two boys), but at least she sees everything as having to do with the Lord.

So now notice how she responds to Ruth. She asks her, “Where did you glean today?” and immediately adds, “Blessed be the man who took notice of you!” The first thought in her mind is to wish blessing on someone. That is not a bitter, angry woman. A bitter mind might have thought even an ephah not enough, or griped that now, when night has already fallen, they still have yet to prepare a meal. She could have immediately suspected Ruth of using some less than honorable means of acquiring so much. There are so many ways a bitter, angry person might have (and would have) responded. Yet Naomi’s immediate response is to wish blessings on people.

And when Ruth tells her it was Boaz, what does she say? “The Lord bless him!” Naomi is a woman who, in spite of her own very deep sorrows, still wishes only kindness and blessings on people around her. Think about it – in Boaz we see the kindness of Jesus in His strength, in Ruth we see the kindness of Jesus in His humility, while in Naomi we see that same kindness of Jesus which He shared even as He Himself suffered on the Cross. “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me,” He cried, then said to the thief beside Him, “Today you shall be with me in Paradise” and prayed, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” I would suggest that our misunderstanding of Naomi is actually a result of our own immaturity, not hers. We know little of her kind of faith and perhaps few of us have ever been clobbered as hard as she was. I suspect it is the old proverbial case of a bunch of spiritual pygmies hacking on the ankles of a giant. Like Job’s miserable comforters, we, in our own immaturity, can’t comprehend a relationship with God so deep it allows us to be completely (and feebly) human.

Ah, what a treasure, this book of Ruth. I feel so blessed to have spent the last few weeks with such sweet, godly people as Boaz, Naomi, and our Ruth. What particularly warms my heart is that I feel like I’ve been not so much with them but with Jesus! What a blessing that people of real faith turn into people who remind us of Jesus! That’s how it should be, yes? As we bask in the wonder of His grace and nurse on the bounties of His kindnesses, as we behold His gentle face in our hearts, He makes us just like Him! Would that were true of all of us!

Lord help us all, whether it be in times of our strength or of our humility or even of our own deepest trials, may the world around us see Jesus.

“But thanks be to God,

who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ

and through us spreads everywhere

the fragrance of the knowledge of Him”

(II Cor 2:14).

Ruth 2:17-23 – “A Day”

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

¹⁷And she gleaned in the field until the evening and she threshed [that] which she had gleaned and it was about an ephah of barley. ¹⁸And she carried and she came [to] the city and her mother-in-law saw [that] which she had gathered and she brought out and she gave to her [that] which she had spared from her fullness. ¹⁹And her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean (intensively) today and, oh, please, [where] did you work? Blessed be the one noticing you.” And she made known to her mother-in-law whom she had worked with and she said, “The name of the man with whom I worked today [is] Boaz.” ²⁰And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “Blessed be he by the LORD, who has not left his kindness to the living and to the dead” and Naomi said to her, “The man [is] near to us. He [is] [one of] our kinsman-redeemers.” ²¹And Ruth the Moabitess also said, “He said to me, ‘Stay near my young men until they finish the all of my harvest.’” ²²And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, “[It is] good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women and not will they (masc. pl.) hurt you in the field of another. ²³And she clung to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the harvest of the barley and the harvest of the wheat and she dwelt with her mother-in-law.

There is something I have wanted to post ever since I started chapter 2 and now seems an appropriate point to interject it. I suppose as I type someone could consider this negative, but I don’t intend it that way at all.

What is amazing to me is to realize the significance of this specific day in the life of Naomi and particularly for Ruth. I will focus on Ruth to try to communicate my point. Basically for Ruth life has been a series of disappointments and heartaches. If I’m not reading too much into the text, I suspect, as I’ve related earlier, that Ruth was particularly drawn to Mahlon and his family because she saw the real love they had for each other. Ruth grew up in a culture where parents sacrificed their children and I suspect that fact alone made them a culture where you couldn’t trust anyone, not even your own mother. Ruth married into this unusual family, then before they could even have children, her husband is dead. For whatever reason, she couldn’t or didn’t want to go home. She took up with Naomi but eventually their money ran out and all Naomi could do was go back to Israel. Ruth had to make the painful choice to leave everything she knew and go with Naomi to a place where she would be not only a widow but a foreign one at that. There would be no one in Israel that cared if she lived or died. They arrived in Israel and they were so destitute Ruth had to resort to going out and gleaning behind the harvesters. That would have been about a half a step above begging. And Ruth would know she had no protector – that being a woman and a foreigner she could be very rudely treated.

So here she is. She made this choice to embrace the God of Israel, moved there with Naomi, and basically nothing has changed. She gets up one morning, a destitute widow, probably hungry, and with no choice but to basically go out begging, hoping perhaps to return home in the evening with enough food for a single meal for her and Naomi. Then she could get up early the next morning and do it again. As she arose and headed out that morning, for all she knew nothing would ever change. Life has been very hard. Other than faith, she had no observable hope that anything would ever change.

But today is a very special day for Ruth. Little did she know that it was “over.” Today everything will change. Today she will meet Boaz. Today she will enjoy a kindness beyond her wildest expectations. Today she will bring home not just a single meal but five days’ worth and a plan in place to end up with a six months’ supply! The events of this day will set in motion her marriage to this wealthy man Boaz, the birth of a son, and Ruth’s inclusion in the very lineage of the Messiah. Little did she know that this day would be the day when everything changes.

Job had a similar experience. He fell into his trials, lost his family, his wealth, and finally his health. Everything went badly wrong and then things just drug on and on and on in this black seemingly hopeless world. But there was a day, one day when he woke up like any other day not realizing that today it would be “over.” His time of trouble came to a very clear end and the Bible says, “After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before…After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. And so Job died, an old man and full of years” (42:10,16,17). There was an “end” to his trials. There was a day when everything changed.

Here’s my suggestion: First of all, we all have our trials and troubles and in this world we always will. Hebrews 12:7,8 says, “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.” So trials and troubles in and of themselves are just part of life. However, like Ruth and Job, there may be extended periods of very painful trial that seem endless. We may find ourselves going through months or even years when “nothing goes right.”

In this kind of world David said, “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord” (Ps 27:13,14). Notice he says, “In the land of the living.” “I will see the goodness of the Lord, … in the land of the living.” He means in this world. He says he is sure no matter how black things seem, he is confident somehow, in this world, he will yet see the goodness of the Lord – he will see a day when the darkness ends and the Lord’s light shines on him again, just like it did for Job and Ruth.

I don’t know if this is a common experience for all believers, but it certainly happened in my life. My wife and I went through a period of darkness that lingered seriously for ten years. It finally got to the point where we told each other, “This is it. We either trust God or we don’t.” We resolved that even if nothing ever changed, we would never stop trusting Him. We knew that, worst case, one day we would die and then it would all be over.

But David’s words, “in the land of the living” kept coming back to my mind. Could I believe I would see the goodness of the Lord “in the land of the living?” I had no doubt that death would usher me into paradise, but could I say I was confident there would be a day, a turning-point while I yet lived in this world?

We read in Hebrews 11:12-40 about some who “through faith conquered kingdoms” but others who “wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute and afflicted.” These words suggest to me that apparently there are people who suffer prolonged affliction in this world and their only release is death itself. That is a possibility and I concluded that I cannot (at least at this time) say with confidence that “I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” It might go on until I die.

But … knowing the Lord and knowing how kind He is, I concluded that the most likely scenario would be an end to the troubles. Yes, He might sometimes, in His wisdom, let someone suffer right through death’s door, but I doubt that is His normal plan. Similarly, He does allow that some people never marry, never have children, but that isn’t the “norm.” He is a God of blessings and his modus operandi is to bless His children. He lovingly allows trials because we need them but behind it all is His great big fatherly heart of love.

So, in my own life, I surmised that, most likely, someday it would end. Like Job, one day I would wake up and that day it would be “over.” That day would be a turning point. That day the darkness would end and from then on everything would be different. On the other hand, I would just get up every day, trust the Lord He knows what He’s doing, do whatever I believed was good and right for me to do today, and by His grace keep it up until I died, if that was His plan.

And that day did come. The phone rang and nothing has been the same since. That awful darkness is gone. Every day it seems He has gone ahead and cooked up such blessings we can’t comprehend it all. We still have trials and troubles. My back and legs ache almost unbearably. Money is still always an issue.  There are constantly problems that have to be dealt with. But this is totally different. It’s clear that the overall context of our life now is blessings “exceedingly abundantly above anything we could have asked or thought.” The troubles now are just sort of the spice that keeps life interesting, rather than a cold suffocating endless darkness.

I am suggesting this is exactly what happened to Ruth. I saw it before in Job. Then I saw it my own life. And now I believe I see it in Ruth. Part of the Lord’s plan for her life was this period of endless darkness. Even while she trusted Him, she didn’t necessarily get to see the benefit of that faith. And she seems to have resolved to go on trusting Him and just being who she was supposed to be, even if that meant something a half step above begging. But, while the Lord may need to allow this for a person’s eternal good, it isn’t His normal plan to let it go on forever. He just enjoys blessing too much. And so there was a day when it all ended for Ruth, a day when a man said to her, “Listen, my daughter …”, a day when suddenly the sun broke through the clouds and things were never the same.

It happened in Job’s life, it happened in mine, and it happened to Ruth.

The conclusion of it all for me is that I will say with confidence, “I will yet see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” … and if not, then may He grant me the grace to say and keep on saying, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”

“Wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord” (Psalm 27:14).

We never know what a day will bring.

Ruth 2:17-23 – “My Daughter”

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

¹⁷And she gleaned in the field until the evening and she threshed [that] which she had gleaned and it was about an ephah of barley. ¹⁸And she carried and she came [to] the city and her mother-in-law saw [that] which she had gathered and she brought out and she gave to her [that] which she had spared from her fullness. ¹⁹And her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean (intensively) today and, oh, please, [where] did you work? Blessed be the one noticing you.” And she made known to her mother-in-law whom she had worked with and she said, “The name of the man with whom I worked today [is] Boaz.” ²⁰And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “Blessed be he by the LORD, who has not left his kindness to the living and to the dead” and Naomi said to her, “The man [is] near to us. He [is] [one of] our kinsman-redeemers.” ²¹And Ruth the Moabitess also said, “He said to me, ‘Stay near my young men until they finish the all of my harvest.’” ²²And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, “[It is] good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women and not will they (masc. pl.) hurt you in the field of another. ²³And she clung to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the harvest of the barley and the harvest of the wheat and she dwelt with her mother-in-law.

The jewels just keep coming. Verse 17 tells us much. Ruth gleaned “until the evening.” In Hebrew the word for “evening” refers to dusk or sundown. So Ruth apparently worked from sunrise to sunset, probably on the order of a 12-hour day. This would not have been unusual in that culture but still, Ruth did it and she did it willingly. It’s hard to imagine working stooped over for 12 straight hours in the hot sun, especially knowing that you’ll get up tomorrow (early) and do it again. But that’s our Ruth.

When she threshed it, she found she had gathered about an ephah. In Exodus 16, the Israelites were to gather one omer of manna for each person per day. At the end of that chapter we’re told an omer was one-tenth of an ephah. So an ephah was enough food for one person for ten days, or (in Ruth’s case) two people for five days. It was suggested that gleaning after the harvesters usually only would have provided enough for Ruth and Naomi for a single day. For her to get five days was bounteous.

For whatever it’s worth, it has been suggested that “five” is the number of grace in the Bible. I don’t know if that is true but I will start watching. Interesting that it occurs here. Someone noted that David put five stones in his bag, knowing he’d probably only have time to sling one. Why? If it is true that the Jews regarded five as the number of grace, it might make sense. Will keep watching. Our Lord does all things “decently and in order.” I’m never surprised to find that order showing up in a myriad of different ways.

Note again that Ruth carried her ephah back to the city. An ephah is estimated to be just less than a bushel. A bushel of barley weighs 48 pounds. Ruth’s load probably weighed about 40 pounds. Sometime pick up a five-gallon jug of water – that’s about 40 pounds. I’m a man and I wouldn’t want to have carry 40 pounds very far. Then what did this young woman have to carry it in? The load would be heavy even in a nice modern backpack, designed to distribute the weight on one’s shoulders. But Ruth had no such contrivance. She may not have even had a basket, not having expected to get any more grain than she could have carried in a fold of her shawl. Regardless, it would have been heavy. And she had to carry it after having worked all day in the hot sun to begin with. Once again, that’s our Ruth.

Then we find, she is not only a hard worker, she is also surprisingly unselfish. She actually kept her roasted grain from lunch and brought it back to Naomi. Think about that. After working all day, she had to be famished. And there was that roasted grain all ready to eat. The barley would have to be prepared in some way, even after she got home. No one would fault her if she had gone ahead and eaten the remaining roasted grain herself. She’s worked all day. She deserves it. And she’s bringing home a week’s worth of food, for crying out loud! What more could anyone ask? Yet our tired hungry girl kept her “doggie-bag” from lunch and brought it home and gave it to Naomi. She just proves that “kindness brooks no rules.” She just is kind because she’s got a heart full of love. That’s our Ruth!

Well does Naomi call Ruth “my daughter” in verses 2 and 22. Interesting that Boaz calls her, “my daughter” too in verse 8. I find myself having the same feelings as I read about Ruth. Anyone would be honored to have her for a daughter. I’ve noticed the same feelings at work as I’ve grown old enough to be the young women’s father. When I observe one who is consistently a hard worker and a pleasant person, I have to remind myself, “She’s not my daughter. She is a co-worker.” I’m not at all surprised that these two “older” people (Naomi and Boaz) address Ruth as “my daughter.” My own daughters are both hard workers who have always made me proud, but I have to say, I would love to add this Ruth to my family (I already have a Ruthie! Ruth 1 and Ruth 2, I guess!).

Again a couple of “for whatever it’s worth’s” – Ruth is called “my daughter” 3x in this chapter. Interesting that 3 is definitely God’s number. I wonder if, even as I notice that, the Lord doesn’t have a little twinkle in His eye. “Ah, you caught that,” He says. “Yes. She’s my daughter too!”

Finally notice that Ruth kept up this routine until the end of not only the barley harvest but the wheat harvest as well. It is reported that the barley harvest began about the time of Feast of Passover, while the wheat harvest ended with the Feast of First-fruits, some seven weeks later. If Ruth gathered an ephah a day, working six days a week for the seven weeks, she would have gathered enough grain for her and Naomi to last over six months!

But then think about that too – that she probably not only gleaned from sunrise to sunset on this one hot day. She probably did it all day, every day (except Sabbaths) for seven weeks straight. That is one very, very hard worker.

That’s our Ruth. I’m very proud of you, my daughter.

Ruth 2:8-16 – “Heart 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.”

There is one last thought I’d like to record before I leave this beautiful passage. This is one of the places in the Old Testament where we need to observe the effects of real faith. What I mean is that in the Old Testament, the people were “under the law.” At Mount Sinai, the Israelites had said, “All that the Lord commands us, we will do.” He responded, “Oh that they had such a heart in them” but they did not, so He gave them the Law. Since their heart wasn’t “in it” He gave them an extensive catalog of rules to keep. We know from the New Testament, the real purpose of those rules was to show them they didn’t keep them, yea couldn’t keep them, and to lead them to the Savior.

Another problem they had in the OT was that they were not indwelt by the Holy Spirit. He was there to help them but did not take up residence in their hearts like He does for us. The downside of all of this is that it would have been much more difficult for them to grow spiritually than it is for us. We have the Spirit living in us so that we can actually be free from law, free to in fact have “such a heart in us,” to actually embrace not just God’s “rules” but His heart. In this church age, we should be ashamed that we do so little with the treasures of grace we’ve been afforded. But, that said, what is amazing is that there were people in the OT who did “get it right,” people who did rise above “the rules” and, with what help the Spirit offered, did manage to become “heart” people. There are a number of people in the OT whose faith somehow helped them to so know God that they did become “heart” people, people who even challenge us who live in the NT. My point is that is what real faith always does – it makes us “heart people.”

David was one of those people. The Psalms are not the works of a man busying himself about “keeping the rules.” They are the celebrations of a man who truly knew God and lived in His presence. We could speak of Moses, of Abraham, of Daniel, and so many others. But today I want to consider Boaz and Ruth.

Notice how both Ruth and Boaz live out their faith in ways that go far beyond anything the law could (or even can) prescribe. Boaz was required to leave the corners of his field and to allow the poor to glean in the fields behind his harvesters. To simply allow Ruth to do so “fulfilled” the law. But Boaz isn’t about “keeping the rules.” His heart is in it. He has embraced God’s goals, God’s heart which produced the “rule” to begin with. He went far beyond anything the law could have required and not only “allows” Ruth to glean, but addresses her as “my daughter” and encourages her to stay with his servant girls and commands the young men to leave her alone. He provides her with water and then with his own hand provides her with roasted grain – and that so much that Ruth can’t eat it all. Ruth responds to it all in a gracious humility that simply cannot be prescribed. She isn’t just “acting” humble because somehow she’s supposed to. She has a humble heart. And she isn’t there working because she “has to” but because her heart is willing and she loves her mother-in-law. This is precisely what is supposed to happen for us NT believers. The fruit of the Spirit is supposed to be love and joy and peace – qualities which God Himself says, “Against such things there is no law.” Ruth and Boaz would be exemplary NT believers, heart-people. What is amazing and instructive is that they embraced all of this living “under the law.” But that is my point, I guess ... that this is exactly what faith will always produce, in any age or place.

From another perspective, think about it this way – for the Jewish people, the Pharisees always represented the “truly” religious. And what were they? Heartless, wicked men who whitewashed the outside of their tombs while their hearts went on rotten. They not only minded the 618 laws God gave them, they made up thousands more. Like pretty much everyone yet today, “religion” for them was about prodigious efforts “to keep the rules.” And what did that produce? Men who were, just like today, self-righteous, proud, mean-spirited, petty buffoons. Though they appeared to be “religious” the fact is they missed the point of it all. It didn’t change their hearts.

But was that the effect of living “under the law?” I answer “No!” the same then as now. It wasn’t that, in the OT, the best you could hope for were Pharisees. They were in fact the people who missed the whole point of faith! Boaz and Ruth were examples of people who had real faith even under the law. For Boaz and Ruth, real faith was about knowing God, it was about being like Him. It was about being changed into people of love and humility and genuine strength – “heart” people. And that has always been the point of faith … and always will be.

Unfortunately, even now, in the Church age,  in the age of the indwelling Holy Spirit, I would suggest that few people who would call themselves religious actually become “heart” people. Few really become people like Boaz and Ruth. We’re all too easily content to add a few “rules” to our lives (to make us look and feel “religious”) but then just go on living lives that really show little of Jesus.

Ruth beautifully says to Boaz, “You have spoken upon heart of your maidservant.” What she said obviously doesn’t translate well into English, but we get the point. What went on between them was between two “heart” people.

Lord help the rest of us to “get it right.” May we never be content to “keep the rules,” no matter how impressive they may seem and no matter how much others may approve of such a “faith.” May we ever be people whose hearts are Yours. Make us kind, humble, faithful people like Boaz and Ruth – and Jesus. Heart people.

My son, give Me your heart.

Above all else, guard your heart,

for out of it are the issues of life.

Ruth 2:8-16 – “Wise Kindness”

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.”

This passage is a goldmine rich beyond imagination! As I ponder over it, it seems a bottomless well of blessings.

Boaz is a very kind man. When he sees this young woman’s virtues, he is moved to shower her with kindnesses and encouragement. That in itself is profoundly instructive. May we be ever ready to minister a cup of cold water to any one in need, be they righteous or wicked, friend or enemy; but, on the other hand, may we, like Boaz, let our eyes ever be open for those who bear their poverties in virtue. Though we live under the duress of our own many poverties, yet may we do all in our power to encourage true virtue wherever we see it.  As it seemed for Ruth, this world can be an ice-house. May we, like Boaz, be ready to do what we can to bring a ray of sunshine into that cold world. The Lord’s March sun melts the snow and ice of winter and urges the plants to sprout and flower. When we find a person of virtue, though they be a poor, widowed foreigner, may our hearts be moved to shine some sunshine in their world and know full well, it will sprout flowers!

All that said, however, what is truly amazing me at this moment is how wise Boaz is in his kindness. I have been marveling over this for several days, and then I ran across the following quote from Lyman Abbott, D. D. which expresses so well exactly what I was seeing:

“You will see, in the first place, that Boaz does not give her the wheat. Generous as he is, she earns what she gets. He does not send her back home and send the young men with sheaves after her; he lets her work for what she receives. To give something for nothing is always a dangerous piece of business. Sometimes we must do it, it is true, but it is not the ideal kind of benevolence. If you desire to do something for the poor that will endure, let them do something to earn that which they receive from you. …Boaz thus allows her to earn what she receives, so that she is no pauper, no beggar, has no self-respect taken away from her … In our benevolence let us maintain the self-respect of those we aid; let us not make paupers of them; and strive how we can do the most good with the least possible display. That is not the ordinary rule, but it is a good one.

But this story of the benevolence of Boaz is also a parable. It indicates the way in which God does His good works among men. Did you ever think how true it is that God also maintains our self-respect when He gives to us--how very little He gives unless we do something to get the gift? When we pray for bread for our need, He does not give us the bread; He gives us a piece of land, and a plough, and a hoe, and we must sweat for the bread. … The world is full of wisdom, full of the resources out of which wisdom is gathered; but we must gather it; we cannot get our wisdom ready-made. It is not handed to us. And this is equally true in the spiritual realm. God no more hands the bread of life ready-made than He hands the material bread ready-made. … The world is full of God’s gifts. He only waits for us with pick and axe and hoe, with sweat of brain and sweat of body, to find a way to realise them.”

Lyman hits upon the very truth I was noticing. Boaz had it within his power (and wealth) to simply “fix” Ruth’s problem. He could have just said, “Here’s a bag of gold. Take care of yourself and Naomi.” But he didn’t. His giving provided Ruth with the opportunity to provide for herself and Naomi in her virtue.

And as Lyman points out, Boaz’s actions are not just some notable human qualities. They are godliness! … or should I say, God-likeness? God Himself doesn’t just hand out blessings. He proffers his kindnesses in wisdom. He would set us in a Garden of Eden, then charge us to “keep it and to till it!”

What an example to ponder, both in the workings of God and as illustrated in the life of this godly man!

Herein, of course, we see the great failure and foolishness of our American welfare system – a system that gives but in its giving only further impoverishes its people. Millions of immigrants poured into this country for centuries looking not for a handout but rather for an opportunity. We were never known as the “Land of Handouts” but as the “Land of Opportunity.” Virtuous people are happy, yea they expect to earn their own bread. They just often lack the opportunity. I’ve marveled for years at how Paul told Timothy to “honor those widows who are widows indeed” (I Tim 5:3ff). What he was talking about was supporting them, providing them with money or food or whatever they needed. But he said to do it only for those “well known for their good deeds.” In other words, those who’d earned it! It wasn’t a handout. It was an honor. To do that is not only a blessing to the woman herself but also a great blessing to those who can help, giving them the opportunity to say “Thank you” for so much blessing received. Sometimes what is needed is a little bag of gold, or a few sheaves of barley. But it needs to be given in ways that honor people and allow them to further express their virtuousness! It is so sad that in America, once the Land of Opportunity, we’ve now created what has been called a “Welfare Sub-Culture” – an entire culture of people who are in reality slaves to the whims of the government.

But, all of that aside, I want the Lord to make these truths from Ruth sink deeply into my own heart. I hope I can be a kind person. That I should be is and has been very clear to me from the Scriptures. But may I also be wise in my kindness. I feel I have very little to give, yet, whatever it may be, great or small, may my giving only serve to honor those I would help.

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!

Ruth 1:19-22 – “The Ruth Beside Me”

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

¹⁹And they went both of them until they coming into Bethlehem. And it was when they coming into Bethlehem. And the all of the city was moved because of them. And they said, “This Naomi?” ²⁰And she said to them, “Do not call me Naomi. Call me Marah, because Shaddai has caused me to be very bitter. ²¹I, I went full and the LORD has caused me to come back empty. Why do you call me Naomi and the LORD has crushed me and Shaddai has caused to hurt me?” ²²And she returned, Naomi and Ruth the Moabitess her daughter-in-law with her, one returning from the fields of Moab. And they came into Bethlehem in [the] beginning of [the] harvest of barley.

I want to record another observation before leaving this passage. There is one thing I see in Naomi that reminds me so much of me. Think about it. Here she is at the lowest point of her human existence. I’ve already pondered her situation and I hope I have seriously tried to sympathize with the very deep grief and loss she has dealt with. Her seeming bitterness is very understandable and, as I said earlier, I am quite confident the Lord could handle it and that it was in the end all an expression of what was actually a strong relationship she had with Him.

But, all that said, she is still, humanly speaking, in a very dejected, discouraged, seemingly hopeless state in her life. She does speak like a hopeless person. I don’t doubt at all that, in spite of her relationship with the Lord, she feels her world a very dark place. She feels crushed and abandoned. She doesn’t see any light at the end of her tunnel.

I think we can all relate to where she is at this point. We’ve all felt it. I’ve certainly never been hit as hard as she has but I know those same feelings and I think we all do.

But there is one thing she is missing. There is something we are all missing in those moments. In her case, it is standing right beside her. It is her Ruth. Naomi says, “I went full and the LORD has caused me to come back empty.” That is how she feels and understandably so, but is it true? Is she “empty?” Obviously not. In her deep grief, she cannot see that one of the Lord’s richest blessings is standing right beside her. In the depth of her losses, she is not seeing that, standing right beside her, right there with her, there is a gift from the very Lord she feels has abandoned her. The Hebrew says, “And they went both of them …And she returned, Naomi and Ruth the Moabitess her daughter-in-law with her …”  

Isn’t that so much like all of us? When we suffer losses, when we get down, it is so easy to only see the negative and completely miss the blessing that may be standing right beside us.

I guess my prayer would be that the Lord would help me, when I’m down or when I suffer losses, that I would remember Naomi, and maybe, just maybe, remember to lift up my eyes and look around and perhaps actually see that blessing right beside me. I’m sure it’s probably always there, if we but had eyes to see it. I’m sure sometimes it really is a Ruth – a person God has given us like an angel in our hour of need. Or perhaps it is some other provision, some blessing we haven’t noticed. But God give us eyes to see. With Him we’re never “empty.”

I feel sorry for poor Naomi and her grief is totally understandable, but I wish she could have looked and realized what we see – that this Ruth standing beside her was a blessing from God, that she was not “empty.” Perhaps it might have encouraged her heart even just a little and given her a measure of joy in the midst of her pain.

Lord give us eyes to see the Ruths beside us.

One last “for whatever it’s worth” – having said all of this, I do not in any way mean to suggest that somehow Ruth “made up” for Naomi’s losses. Ruth is a great blessing to her, again, an angel from God. But nothing could ever fill the holes in Naomi’s heart. This poor woman buried her husband and her (only) two sons. Death alone will free her heart from the pain she lives with day and night. No relationship on earth will ever “replace” what she has lost and we shouldn’t be thinking of Ruth that way. I know later on the women of Bethlehem ask her, “Isn’t Ruth better than seven sons?” There may be some measure of truth in that question, but, once again, Naomi doesn’t want seven sons. She wants her husband and her two sons. Ruth can’t fill that hole. She can only be another source of love and blessing in Naomi’s life. I would suggest it is true that no relationship is “replaceable.” Each one is a jewel all its own. We should never try to “replace” anyone. We need to simply be the jewel we can be in someone else’s life. And we need to appreciate each jewel God gives us completely in and of itself.

Sometimes when a child loses a pet, we adults say things like, “We should give them another one to ‘replace’ the one they lost.” Wouldn’t it be better to say to them, “You really loved your pet and he loved you. You’ll always remember him. But perhaps there’s another doggie out there that needs your love. Maybe there’s another doggie out there that wishes someone loved him like you loved yours. What would you think of seeing if we can find him?”

Just an idea, but thought it worth throwing in while I’m thinking about it all.

May the Lord fill your life with love!