I Thessalonians 1:3 – “Faith, Hope, and Love”

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

³…remembering unceasingly your work of faith, and labor of love, and endurance of hope of our Lord Jesus Christ before God and our Father, …

Faith, hope, and love. “And now these three remain – faith, hope, and love – but the greatest of these is love” (I Cor 13:13). As I have studied, it was interesting to find that apparently there was a day when it was generally understood that faith, hope, and love are the three principal graces of Christianity. Matthew Henry, for instance, commenting on I Cor 13:13, wrote, “True grace is much more excellent than any spiritual gifts whatever. And faith, hope, and love are the three principal graces, of which love is the chief, being the end to which the other two are but means.”

One writer called them “the three cardinal virtues.” One even went so far as to maintain that these three graces inhere in the fundamental Trinitary structure of reality. He compared it to, of course, God who exists as a Trinity, and also to light which, in the visible spectrum, is actually made up of the three colors – red, yellow, and blue – that all other colors derive from these three (and in fact white light is the summation of them all). Particularly since I believe the entire universe is logically fractal, I find these suggestions fascinating. I’ve been pondering over the Bible to see if in fact, the case can be made that faith, hope, and love are “the three principal graces.” I Cor 13:13 certainly points toward that conclusion. I think right now I would have to say I’m not 100% convinced, but I am intrigued enough to wander down the path. I think I will consider such a paradigm in this post and then, beyond that, I will start trying to be aware of the proposition as I’m reading and studying through the entire Bible, to see if I think in fact that position is defensible.

Faith, hope, and love.

Another interesting (to me) observation is that the Greek structure at this point is odd. It is literally, “…remembering of you the work of the faith and the labor of the love and the endurance of the hope …” The article “the” is used six times. If anything, Greek tends to drop the article where we, in English, would want to add it. Instead, in English, here in I Thess 1:3,we drop them all – just the opposite of what one usually sees. I wonder why they are multiplied in the Greek? I want to say Paul is making some kind of point, but frankly I don’t know what it is. I don’t remember ever seeing this construction before. Guess I’ll just have to note it and then hope I stumble across something that explains it. None of the commentators I read offered any technical suggestions in this regard.

I also think it interesting to note that the three concepts, faith, hope, and love, are abstract nouns. It is somewhat difficult to define them. One has to do lots of explaining just to pin down exactly what we mean by each of the words “faith, hope, and love.” But Paul turns them very practical by referring not to the concepts themselves, but to their evidences. He remembers their “work of faith, and labor of love, and endurance of hope …”

Real faith works. James, of course, drives this point hard. You cannot truly “believe” something and not have it change who you are and what you do. And that change doesn’t necessarily occur because you’ve decided to change. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God – and when you have seen and understood Biblical truth, it changes how you see the world. It changes what you value. It changes your paradigm of life and reality and, even if it is in some small way, still it will change who you are and what you do.  John Eadie noted, “No principle of action is so powerful as genuine faith …” Real faith works.

Interestingly, Paul notes of the Thessalonians their labor of love. Faith works. Love labors. The word translated “labor” means wearisome work. It refers to a work that goes on to exhaustion. Like faith, love works, but love takes the work of faith and carries it on even to death. Jesus is of course the ultimate example, “Having loved His own, He loved them to the end.” He not only came to “do the work of His Father” but it was love that drove Him all the way to the Cross. I would suggest the clearest and most common human example of this is a mother. It is a lot of work to carry and bear and care for children. It’s a lot of work to change all the diapers and prepare the bottles and make the meals and sew the clothes. But a mother isn’t doing it “dutifully.” It is love that drives her heart. It is love that keeps her doing it when she only gets three hours of sleep a night and when she herself is sick. It is love that makes her not just work but toil to exhaustion for her babies. Like Jacob, even seven years of hard labor mean nothing when love drives us: “So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her.”

And so it is in hearts captured by real faith. “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I but Christ liveth in me; and the life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave His life for me.” Faith changes how we think. Love lives out what we value. And what real Christianity causes us to value is God and others, to love God and others. Someone wrote, “The labor of love is kindness.” Paul could see clearly that the Thessalonians have truly been captured by Christ because he saw in them “the labor of love.”

I’d like to inject here that it might be worthwhile to consider the opposite of love. What is it? Our most natural response, I think, would be to say it is hate. And that certainly is true, but I wonder if it wouldn’t be more immediately practical to think that the opposite of love is fear. “There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear.” As long as Peter was looking at Jesus, he could walk on water. But what went wrong? He saw the wind and the waves and feared and down he went. As long as his eyes and his heart were filled with Jesus he could do amazing things. But, in that moment, fear conquered his love. I would suggest, if we would love well, we must pray and guard constantly against fear. To be born again is to carry in our very souls the love of Jesus. That love will express itself – unless we give way to fear and let it stop the flow of grace from our hearts. Love labors.

But there is one more grace which must prevail in our hearts: hope. It is hope that gives us endurance. For the Christian, it is particularly the “hope of our Lord Jesus Christ,” as Paul includes here. Faith works and love will even toil to exhaustion, but in this world we face many, many discouragements. Faith sometimes has to work with no apparent success. We all know what it is to pray and strive, only to wonder if it will ever do any good. We all know that love is to a large extent unrequited. In this world, we stick out our heart in love, and all too often those we would love simply step on it. Why should we go on? What keeps us believing and loving in spite of the disappointments? Hope. Hope endures. We Christians have the ultimate hope because we believe we will beyond this life see Jesus, that He sees our work of faith and our labor of love, and that He will say to us, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” Every moment of our lives matter because of Him. “Even a cup of cold water” matters to Him. All day every day, I can work and love and keep on working and loving – in spite of the discouragements – because I know it matters to Him. Hope endures.

And, of course, we should also note from the verse it is all “before God and our Father.” For real believers, all the work and love and endurance is not a put-on. It isn’t done for some kind of “show.” It’s all for real, it’s all genuine, it’s all sincere because we do it “before God and our Father.” We “practice the presence of God.” The Thessalonians had “turned to God from idols” and immediately Paul (and all the world – v.8!) could see it was real because he saw in them “the work of faith, and labor of love, and the endurance of hope.” He could see those three graces blossoming in these people’s lives and he knew Jesus had captured their hearts.

I Thessalonians 1:2 – “Really”

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

²We give thanks to God always concerning all of you, making mention [of you] upon our prayers …

At first glance, these words would seem like simply part of a courteous introduction to Paul’s letter. However, since this is God’s Word, every sentence is precious and certainly packed with encouraging truth if we but slow down and ponder it.

And so I do.

First of all, stop and ponder that Paul immediately says he “gives thanks to God.” That might seem almost cliché, but is it? Is it not rather the very essence of faith itself that we see God in everything? When Paul is moved to gratefulness for his friends at Thessalonica, his heart immediately thinks of God. Why? Because he sees God as the Great Cause. He sees that “in Him we live and move and have our being,” that “of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to Whom be glory for ever. Amen.” Think about it: Peter could walk on water, as long as he kept his eyes on Jesus. He only sank when he looked away and saw instead the wind and the waves. I would suggest that it is true in my own life -- that as long as I can “see” the Lord, as long as I see Him in everything that is happening around me and to me, I can stay calm, love, and work hard all at the same time. My problem is that so easily I see only the wind and the waves and my heart fills with fear. In a sense, the problem is not that I’m seeing the wind and the waves, but rather that I’m not seeing God! Oh, the power in those simple words, “I thank God …” I need to be much more deliberate about thanking Him constantly – no matter what is happening – because in so doing I remind myself He is the Great Cause. We can totally trust Him who is our Rock and our Peace and our Shelter, our good God who does us good, and so, no matter what, we can thank Him. Seeing Him we can thank Him. Thanking Him we can see Him. Lord help me be more thankful and let me know the joy and peace Your presence brings.

Note too he says he thanks God for “all of you.” Again, that might seem like simply a polite cliché, but is it? I want to pause and remember for a minute this is one of the wonders of grace, this love “to all.” “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden …” “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me …” “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” “Whosoever will may come.” Other than my parents, from my earliest memories as a child, it was always true that people’s love was very conditional. Whether it was just adults in general, or teachers, or coaches, or even church people, if you did well, you were on their A list, when you didn’t do well, your name was mud. Approval was always very, very conditional. I had one teacher/coach, Louis Baker, who always, always, always encouraged me and supported me whether I was having a good day or bad. But sadly, including my parents, that makes three people who loved me unconditionally.

Such is the world we all live in. Conditional love. Performance-based approval. But, thank God, that is not His world. It is our world, perverted by our sin. Being incorrigible legalists, our very being is shot through with this performance-based approval system. God’s world is rather a world of grace, a world of “whosoever will.” His love is offered and available and free to all who will simply accept it. Is this not precisely why Jesus was so loved by the tax-collectors, prostitutes, and ‘sinners?’ It’s because He loved them – unconditionally – because He communicated a respect that could even say, “Go and sin no more,” but say it in a way where they knew He loved them. As Paul writes to the Thessalonians, he’s not stupid. He’s not somehow delusively imagining they’re all perfect. But he can honestly say to them, “We thank God for all of you.” Why? Because he sees them through God’s eyes – as people who Jesus died for. That is exactly how each of us needs to be seen. Right? If I’m loved conditionally, I’m lost. I need to be loved unconditionally. And what about how I see the rest of the world? I need to see them God’s way. I need to communicate to them the same love their God in Heaven loves them with. Grace will make us that way. It made Paul that way.

Finally, I want to note Paul’s words, “mentioning you in our prayers.” What a blessing is it to know someone somewhere actually prays for me? For me. They mention me by name. To God. In prayer. The Thessalonians could be confident that this guy Paul actually, really prays for them. What a blessing is that? What does it mean today to have someone who actually, really does pray for you? Then let’s turn it around: who knows I’m praying for them? Is there anyone I am praying for? Do we all realize just how much it would mean to others to really know we’re praying for them? I say this almost fearing that the words “I’m praying for you,” are so cliché that I wonder if we even believe each other? We need to make it a point to in fact lift people up in prayer and then make it a point to follow it up with asking them how it’s going.

May I really be a far more thankful person, seeing our good God as the Great Cause. May knowing Him really make me a gracious person who not only enjoys grace but then extends it to others. And finally may I really truly bless other people by being one of the people they can genuinely count on to keep their name lifted up in prayer. Really.

I Thessalonians 1:1 – “Blessings”

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

¹Paul and Silas and Timothy to the church of [the] Thessalonians in God [the] Father and [the] Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace.

This should be an interesting study. I actually studied through this book about 25 years ago. At the time I thoroughly enjoyed it and felt like I learned a lot. What usually happens when I come back to something I studied years ago is I feel like I just skimmed it the first time. Everything is so much more meaningful now. It doesn’t mean anything different than it did before, just so much deeper. So it should be fun!

The main reason I’m going back to it is that some time in the last few years Joan gave me a copy of John Eadie’s commentary on I & II Thessalonians. He is my favorite commentator and exegete and this work is the only one of his books I’ve never been through. So it will really be fun to follow along with my old friend once again.

This first verse is, as usual, chalk full of profound truth, even though it is, in a purely human sense, “just a greeting.” As usual, the Bible reminds us there are and always have been people who do things “differently” than us. We start our letters with whom they’re written to and sign them at the end. In the ancient world, they first said who they were, then identified the intended recipient. Perhaps this came from writing on scrolls? If they had put their name at the end, their recipient would have had to unroll the whole scroll just to see who was writing to them! Perhaps that is the case, but, regardless, they did things “differently.” It is very provincial and, I would suggest, unchristian to think everyone else should be like us, do it our way, and that if they don’t, they’re wrong. The Lord gave us a world with only a very few non-negotiables and beyond that, He intended it to be a world of almost infinite variety.

I also notice some encouraging thoughts. Note that it is “Paul and Silas and Timothy” who address the Thessalonians. Of course only Paul is writing the letter, but he has Silas and Timothy with him, they were very familiar to the Thessalonians, and they wholeheartedly support Paul’s ministry to the church there. My thought is that the Lord could have sent Paul alone, but one thing our Lord is never is stingy. He always gives a full measure, pressed down and running over. He sends not one but three men to care about the Thessalonians. So it is with all of us, if we have the eyes to see it. He has blessed our lives with countless hundreds, if not thousands, of people who have benefited us in a million different ways. “More are they that are for us, than they that are against us.” It is a good thing from time to time to stop and just remember all the people who have done us good, from parents to teachers to pastors and leaders to bosses and co-workers and friends. The night sky of our lives is lit with the stars of those who’ve done us good. Paul and Silas and Timothy were those people in the Thessalonians’ lives. God help each of us to be one of those stars in someone else’s life today.

Notice too it is “to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Thessalonica was a large and very important city in Paul’s day. Yet he didn’t write to the whole city. He wrote to the church that was there. It is easy to forget how singularly we are blessed to be found “in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Of course, God loves everyone, even the “120,000 who don’t know their right hand from their left, and much cattle,” but, if I am born again, I have a very special place of blessing in the eyes of God. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ …” Paul isn’t writing to just anyone and everyone in Thessalonica. He’s writing to the church. He’s writing to what is probably a very small segment of the total population. He’s writing to this small gathering of people who know what it is to be saved, to know God, to be indwelt by His Spirit, to have hope, to be forgiven, to be loved and to be able to love. May we never forget how blessed we are. I don’t know why the Lord chose to save me. I certainly don’t deserve it. But here I am today in my 59^th year and, although I’ve made a lot of very bad decisions and failed Him almost constantly, yet He has been my Savior and my Rock and my Redeemer. He has carried me all these years and I live in the hope of who He is and always will be. Let us never forget our blessing and may it move us all to pray for that blessing on everyone He puts around us.

Finally, notice what the Lord wishes for us: grace and peace. Paul is an apostle. He is writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He’s writing the Word of God. He’s writing God’s words. He’s writing the very words that God Himself would speak to the Thessalonians. And he’s writing the very words God Himself would say to us. And what does He say? What does the Creator of the Universe wish for us? What does the Judge of all the earth, He who holds the keys of death and hell, the One who sits on High, wish for us? Grace and peace.

The vast majority of the human race (and that of professing Christians too, I’m afraid) sees God as austere, demanding, dissatisfied, irritated, distant. He says in one place, “You thought I was such a one as you are.” Well, He’s not. That isn’t who God is at all. God is love. His thoughts toward us are not judgment and hell. He Himself describes hell as a place “prepared for the devil and his angels.” Not people. He is the father who runs to the returning prodigal. He is the One who says, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to do you good and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope.” He is the One who bore a Cross and said, “Whosoever will may come.”

Can He be angry? Of course. Can He mete out horrible judgments? Of course. But even that is done in love. He is a good Father, a good Coach, a good King. And in a fallen world of evil, He’d better be able to swing a sword against evil and even to subject His children to hardship to whatever extent is necessary to help them rise above their self-destructive sins. In Deut 12:28 He said to the Israelites, “Be careful to obey all these regulations I am giving you, so that it may always go well with you and your children after you …” “So it may go well with you …” Even in the OT, even under the Law, what the Lord wanted for His people was that “it go well with them.”

He hasn’t changed. His name is Jesus. He is a redeeming God. Jesus came into the world, “Not to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through Him” (Jn 3:17). Grace and peace. Unmerited kindness and the peace that flows from it. That is what our God, the true God, the only God, wants for you and me. If we don’t enjoy grace and peace, it will be because we refused it, not because the God of the Universe was somehow unwilling to give it. It’s what He wishes for us.

And that is what godly people are like too. The closer we get to God, the more we see the world through His eyes, the more we’ll wish for others grace and peace. The Pharisees’ “religion” of rules and “standards” made them into proud, cruel, judgmental, hateful people – people who would crucify Love itself. But, for all their “religion,” they did not know God. It’s only in looking into His face that we are “changed into that image, from glory to glory.” It was Mary who sat and the feet of Jesus while her sister was “encumbered with much serving.” And it was Mary of whom He said, “Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.” To know Him, to see His face, to know His grace and peace, transforms us into people of grace and peace.

Oh, may we ourselves embrace the grace of the gracious One and enjoy the peace He gives, His peace, and may somehow the world around us see the One who would give them grace and peace as well.

Lots of blessings in one little verse. On to the treasure trove!

Ruth 1:8-13 – “Clear Commitment”

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

⁸And Naomi said to the two of her daughter-in-laws, “Go. Return each to the house of her mother. May the LORD do love with you as you have done with [the] dead ones and with me. ⁹May the LORD give to you and may you find rest each [in] the house of her husband.” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voice and they wept. ¹⁰Then they said to her, “No. We will return with you to your people.” ¹¹Then Naomi said, “Return, my daughters. To what you will go with me? [Are there] again to me sons in my abdomen and will they be to you to husbands?  ¹²Return, my daughters. Go, because I am [too] old to become to husband. If I say there is hope to me also to be tonight to a husband and also I bear sons, for them will you wait until which they grow, ¹³for them will you restrain yourselves to not to be to a husband? No, my daughters, because bitter to me much from you because the hand of the LORD has gone out against me.

I’m thinking today about this whole section, from verse 8 through 13. One question that many have pondered over the years is whether Naomi is right to send these girls back to Moab.

Obviously, Moab is the dominion of their god Chemosh with all the evil practices which that idolatry imparted, not the least of which was child-sacrifice. I have lamented before how this one practice must have utterly destroyed any culture, not just because it was so evil, but because growing up in that world would mean a child couldn’t even trust his own mother’s embrace. No matter how much your parents might profess love to you, at any second they could decide to propitiate their evil god by killing you. I hope anyone reading this can see what I mean. These children would grow up in a world without the security of parental love. The entire nation – mind you – grows up suspicious, grows up having to always fear even another’s embrace. This is NOT the world the Lord wants children to grow up in. His world, the world of the Jewish people when they were even remotely following the law, is a world where children are born and raised surrounded by genuine love, where parents actually sacrifice themselves for their children, where “home” is a place of security.

But Moab’s godless world is where Naomi seems to be sending these girls.

She certainly seems to be trying hard to get these girls to go back there. Three times she tells them to “return.” She does her best to paint a bleak picture of their future with her – a future where it is very unlikely they will ever remarry, and so to discourage them from following her to Israel.

So is she right or wrong?

I would say most modern commentators are quick to condemn Naomi. They would accuse her of being concerned only for the girls’ temporal state, that, as a mother figure, all she cares is about is getting these girls “hitched.” The modern writers compare her to mothers who are more concerned that their daughters marry at all, than that they should marry good godly young men.  They condemn her because there would seem to be much greater hope for them spiritually if they at least live in Israel rather than in Moab, that she should actually do almost anything to get them to “come with her” to the Lord’s land.

All of that may be true. Maybe in her grief that is all Naomi is seeing – just the very temporal issue of whether these girls are married or not.

Interestingly, reading the old writers, they almost unanimously commend Naomi for her kindness and wisdom. What they see is the selflessness in Naomi’s urgings. She could easily have thought how much she needed these girls to take care of her. To urge them to leave is cutting off the only support Naomi is assured of. She’s leaving herself not only husbandless and destitute and old, but now she will also be alone. The older writers believe this good godly woman is too kind to put her own welfare ahead of theirs.

Personally, I am strongly inclined to agree with the older writers. As I described above, this is the very difference between these two cultures. In Moab, parents sacrifice their children for themselves. In Israel, parents sacrifice themselves for their children. In fact, I would suggest this very difference is exactly why Ruth will be so determined to go with Naomi. In being married into Naomi’s family, Ruth has seen for herself what a totally different world Israel must be. Instead of all the suspicion and fear, it’s actually possible to bear children and raise them in a world of love and security. She, for herself, has already resolved in her heart to go with Naomi back to that world.

So, what I see is that this admonition from Naomi is just more of the selflessness of good and genuine believers.

But the older writers go on. When it comes to this issue of faith, they would suggest that what Naomi is doing is a very good thing – that she is actually pushing the girls to “count the cost.” The old writers would suggest this is actually a matter of considerable wisdom for Naomi. If the girls would follow her into what potentially could be nothing but destitution and poverty and hopelessness (as far as remarriage is concerned), then she would have them make that decision fully realizing what they were getting into.

Interestingly, what the two girls say to Naomi is “We will go back with you to your people” (v10). “…to your people.” When Orpah decides to in fact go back to Moab, Naomi says to Ruth, “Look, your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods.” “…and her gods.” What Ruth says to Naomi is “…and your people shall be my people and your God my God.” At least based on these few words recorded for us, this is the underlying difference between Orpah and Ruth. Orpah obviously had seen the difference in this Israelite family and she longed for that world – the world of Naomi’s “people.” But Ruth saw much deeper, that it was not only a better “world” of people, but it was so specifically because in Israel, the Lord was God. She somehow could see that the Lord Himself was the root of it all.

The old writers would commend the wisdom of Naomi to actually force these girls to make a decision. The parallel with Matt 19:16-22 is to me striking. There a young man comes to Jesus and says, “What must I do to be saved?” Jesus’ answer was, “Go, sell all that you have, and give to the poor.” The young man of course went away sad, because he couldn’t part with his wealth, even to gain eternal life. There stood that young man, like Orpah, right on the border. Both had their sights set on the “right” place. Yet both clearly needed to count the cost of going forward. Unfortunately both apparently chose poorly, but that was their choice.

I am again inclined to agree with the old writers. Naomi is an “old” woman. She’s seen them come and she’s seen them go. She has the wisdom of years on her side. And I personally see throughout this book the evidences of a very strong and mature faith (like Job’s). She is not so much encouraging the girls to go back to idolatry as she is getting them to make a very clear choice of their own.

I guess I would like to say I think this is a huge case in point of the shallow immaturity of our current world of faith. If someone came to us and said, “What must I do to be saved?” we would immediately give them the Gospel and urge them to pray. It would be almost unthinkable that we should do anything that might “discourage” them from such a profound interest. Yet that is what Jesus did. I remember reading once in Richard Baxter’s “Directory” (ca. 1650) how a woman asked him that very question and he simply sent her home to read the Bible. I remember reading that and being “surprised,” and yet being vaguely aware of his wisdom.

Just as with the sower and his seed, there is good ground and there is rocky ground. Although some of the sower’s seed invariably falls on the rocky ground, it is clearly his intent that it should all fall on good ground. So should it be in our hearts, I think. Naomi had that wisdom.  Frankly, I don’t think I do, except it does make sense that we have to give people the space to genuinely come to their own conclusions. I fear our Arminian over-emphasis on human effort has taught us to push and shove and extract “decisions” from people who simply are not ready. I suspect Naomi didn’t have that problem. Obviously Jesus did not. Perhaps the  whole matter even reaches all the way back to respecting the dignity of the individual human being, granting them the freedom to make their own choices, even when that leaves open the possibility they might make bad decisions. That is precisely how God deals with the human race. I wonder if that is how the rest of us think. I wonder really if that is how I think?

Naomi pressed the girls. One made what we think was a bad decision, but the very circumstances allowed the other to make a very clear and very positive decision. When Naomi and Ruth reached Bethlehem, even Boaz could say to Ruth, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law … May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge” (2:11,12).  How did he know so much about Ruth? Because it was true and because there was no doubt in Naomi’s mind exactly where Ruth was coming from. You can bet she's introduced Ruth with something like those exact words, "This is Ruth. She has come here to be a worshiper of the Lord." There was no doubt where Ruth stood. Having to make clear commitments does that for us.

Ruth 1:10 – “Carried”

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

¹⁰Then they said to her, “No. We will return with you to your people.”

I’m thinking it worthwhile to pause and consider what is going on here in the book of Ruth. Our girls, Ruth and Orpah, are at a point in their lives where they must make a decision.

They must make a decision.

Here they stand, probably at a ford on the east side of the Jordan River, at the border between Moab and Israel. They must either go forward, cross the Jordan into Israel, or turn around and go back to Moab.

They must make a decision.

Either choice offers attractive possibilities, but is also fraught with fearful possibilities. Apart from faith, I don’t know why the girls would want to go with Naomi. Obviously there was a very strong bond of love between them (much to Naomi’s credit). But faced with a life of destitution with this older woman or “going home to mother,” I don’t know why they would choose the former. On the negative side of the ledger, it would seem like the decision to go with Naomi is social suicide. As I have often noted before, Israel and Moab are bitter enemies. These girls will be foreigners in Israel and widowed foreigners at that. Going to Israel means saying “Good-by” to their families and everything they’ve ever known. It means going to a world of very different customs, and a world where they may, rather than finding a new husband, actually be shunned.

Faith introduces a whole different set of factors to consider. To go to Israel is very deliberately to forsake Chemosh and embrace Yahveh. These girls grew up in a world ruled by this god named Chemosh. To step forward is to forsake him and hope that Yahveh, the God of Israel, is in fact the true God and that He will accept them. To step forward is to walk into Naomi’s world – which I believe was a world the girls saw as a world where people actually love and trust each other – which was very different than their world where they grew up having to fear every moment their parents might choose to sacrifice them to Chemosh. As I have noted before, I do not doubt that the very practice of child-sacrifice would have created a world of suspicion and doubt, where even your own mother’s embrace could not be trusted. So, to go back would mean going back to the comfort of the known, but to a world far less than they now know it could be.

What will they do?

They must make a decision.

I am pausing to point this out because this is precisely where we find ourselves from time to time. We must make a decision.

There simply is no “I don’t want to decide today.” We must make a decision.

And those decisions are sometimes life altering. As Frost wrote, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

People down through the years have been merciless to poor Orpah. She’s the evil, worldly, godless, faithless one who came to this point and chose badly. For myself, I sincerely wish she had chosen to go on with Naomi. I wish she had chosen the God of Israel. But I have a difficult time being so hard on her. She had to make a decision. I know how that feels. I know how it feels when it seems like none of our options are good ones, where no matter what we do, it’s hard to say how it will turn out. Yet we must make a decision. I personally can’t be too hard on Orpah because, having been at this same point in my own life many, many times, I have often made what turned out to be very bad decisions. And I can honestly say that much of the time, I really thought I was making good decisions. I thought I was doing what the Lord would have me to do. I prayed, I even sought counsel, and I had to make a decision, and so I did. But the years pass, I learn more and more to see my world through the Lord’s eyes, and I realize they were bad decisions. How can I be too hard on poor Orpah? There she stands, crying her eyes out, a young girl who ought to have a father’s or a husband’s strong arms around her, but instead she lives in a tragic, bleak world. And now she has to make a decision.

Here is where I believe faith enters. Here is where faith is indispensable to sanity.

Now, I need to insert here that my young idealistic heart would have quoted Prov 3:5,6 at exactly this point: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.” I would have said, “You just pray and trust God and do what’s right and you’ll always be on the right path!” That would be nice, if I had some kind of perfect “follower” button I could push. The problem is that I know from hard experience that I bring to even a promise that simple my own blindness and arrogance and, in spite of it all, can still make what turn out to be very bad decisions.

What I need is a God who is bigger than my endless stupidity. I need a God who is bigger than even my bungling attempts to have faith! I need a God who is bigger than my bad decisions.

And now an old man says, “Praise God – that is precisely who my Lord is!”  In Isaiah 46:3,4 He says to me, “Listen to me, …you whom I have upheld since your birth,

and have carried since you were born. Even to your old, old age and gray hairs, I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you …”

“From birth, even unto old, old age, I will carry you.”

 He will carry me.

He’s bigger than me.

He’s bigger than my bad decisions.

As I sit here and the events of my life pass through my mind, I see the whole mixed bag of good decisions and bad, and some I still don’t know whether they were good or bad. And what I see is a God who’s been bigger than it all. I see how He took even my bad decisions and used them for my good. Even while I was being an idiot, He was carrying me. He gave me my choices, He let me choose the path, and sometimes the path led straight into the fire. Yet He knew I needed to get burned. He knew He could use it for my good. On the other hand, there have been many paths I would have taken, but He blocked my way. At the time, I couldn’t understand. It seemed like the right thing to do, yet something stopped me. And now I look back and think, “Thank God!” He kept me from bad decisions that would have in fact been my ruin.

You see, I love Prov 3:5,6. I love that promise “Trust in Lord with all thine heart …” But my greatest comfort isn’t to be found in what a great job of trusting I’ll do, of how my choices will turn out so well. My hope is in this One named Jesus, “for He shall save His people from their sins.” My hope, when I look ahead to life, when I look ahead to what seems to me like too many decisions I have to make, my hope is my great Savior God who carries me.

And so, back to our girls, my hope is that, like Ruth, when I come to those momentous, life-changing decision points, that I will choose well. Sadly, I fear for Orpah, she chose to go back “to her people and her gods,” while Ruth said, “Your people shall be my people and your God my God.” My hope is that my faith, even as small and fickle as it may be, will be the victory, not because it is great, but because He is great.

There is no question in my mind, for the Ruth’s and the Orpah’s of this world, for the me’s of this world, the only real hope, the only real sanity in the long run is to lay hold of this great Savior God, our Father, to try to trust Him, to try to have faith, to try to make good decisions, and in the end, to live in the quiet peace of knowing He’s carrying me!

Ruth 1: 9a – “Menuchah”

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

⁹May the LORD give to you and may you find rest each [in] the house of her husband...”

I’ve already noted how Naomi’s simple prayer alludes to the fundamental responsibility of a husband to provide to his wife “rest.” Before I leave this verse, I want to note how this is actually and ultimately true because Jesus gives His people rest. Naomi here prays that the girls might find “rest” in the home of another husband. Later, in the opening verse of chapter 3, when Naomi realizes Boaz’s affection for Ruth, she says to her, “My daughter, should I not seek for you a place of rest which will be good to you?”

In both cases, the word translated “rest” or “resting place” is the Hebrew word “menuchah.” I’ll record a lot more thoughts when I come to 3:1, but this “rest” is such a wonderful thing, I can’t resist scratching down a few thoughts now.

Jeremiah will write (about 500 years later!), “Stand at the crossroads and see, and ask for the old paths, wherein lieth the good way, and walk ye in it, and ye shall find rest unto your souls” (6:16). Isaiah writes, “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and confidence is your strength…” (30:15). Isaiah also says, “But the wicked are not so, they are like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. ‘There is no peace,’ saith my God, ‘to the wicked’” (57:20,21). In John 14:7 and 16:33, Jesus said to us, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you … I have told you these things, so that in Me you might have peace.”

These verses are a very small recounting of the many, many, many verses in the Bible where we learn that our God wants us to enjoy menuchah, “rest” and peace. Even as I type, more such verses come to my mind. But, probably the crowning passage of them all is Matthew 11:28-30: “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and heavy-laden, and I shall give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”

What an utterly unfathomable blessing – to embrace this Jesus as our King, only to find that, far from being a demanding, austere ruler (as too many people imagine Him), His rule brings us peace and rest! That is the kind of King He is – One whose rule means great happiness – menuchah – for His people.

And that is precisely why a husband should provide a place of “rest” for his wife – because their marriage is modeling Christ and His church. Just as we’re told in Eph 5, “…Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives …” Being a husband and having a wife is all about what we give to them. It's all about providing for our wives menuchah.

When a girl wakes up in the morning to realize, “I’m married now,” the very thought ought to bring her a sense of joy and expectation, of security, and of love. She ought to be able to look at the man lying next to her and see a rock. Hopefully her father has always been that for her and all that’s changed is that the Lord has given her a new rock. But whether that was the case or not (and perhaps more so if it wasn’t), it’s a husband’s place to be the rock that gives to his wife a world of menuchah.

Now, the fact is, in the real world, life is hard and always will be. To be a wife is going to be very, very hard work. Regardless of whether she will be a stay-at-home mom or a working mother, it will be hard. But there is a vast difference between the “hard” of taking care of a baby who doesn’t sleep at night, as compared to the “hard” of a husband who is insensitive, or unreliable, or unfaithful, or even cruel. I’m certain that, even after marrying Boaz, Ruth still had a very busy schedule. The woman of Proverbs 31 is a very busy, hard working woman. But, again, there is a vast difference between facing the very painful realities of life alone or facing them under an umbrella of love.

What Jesus calls us to is, in fact, a yoke. It is a yoke that is “easy” and a burden that is “light,” but it is still a yoke. We need only read Hebrews 11 again to be reminded that His yoke may cost us our very life itself. But, again, I would suggest that even deep pain is a different experience whether we face it alone or under an umbrella of love. In Jesus’ case, the very yoke itself is bringing us menuchah. Consider His words again, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and heavy-laden, and I shall give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” The menuchah He offers is a menuchah under a yoke! Even the best husband can’t shelter his wife from the fact that life is hard. But, like Jesus, what he should provide her is that umbrella of love that turns her “yoke” into a menuchah.

Words fail to express how much I enjoy the book of Ruth. But is not part of the charm of the book the very fact that in the end, our man Boaz provides Ruth with the very thing our hearts know is good and right – a menuchah, a place of rest, a place of love and hope and security.

We husbands should hear the Lord’s words, “Go and do thou likewise.”