Logos: Ruth and Naomi

Melinda Song on Mother's Day 2012

Logos wishes all mothers reading this blog a very Blessed Mother's Day!

Two years ago I preached on Mother’s Day – “The Longings of A Woman” from the life of Hagar.
This year’s Mother’s Day message is from one of my favourite books of the Bible – Ruth.

Intro to Ruth
Everyone loves a good story and Ruth as been called "the greatest piece of literature ever written."
It is a love story and one writer has called the story of Ruth "the Cinderella of the Bible." Because this love story is in the Bible, it’s more than just a romance novel. Romans 15:4 “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.”

The book of Ruth is also very significant to Jewish people because it is sung or read out loud in the Jewish Synagogue at the feast of Pentecost, which marks the first day of the Gentile church. The book of Ruth tells the story of a rich, powerful Jewish man who takes a Gentile bride and exalts her, the way that Jesus Christ raises up the Gentile church to be His Bride.

Ruth is love story with a happy ending involving ordinary people who become heroes because they choose to do the right thing at the right time in the right way for the right reason.

Ruth is a story of a woman which makes it very appropriate for Mother’s Day. Women are relational creatures from sharing our food, to going to the toilet together. 52.4% of book, 55 out of the 85 verses, is dialog.

Ruth is a story that celebrates the family and the way it continues through many generations.

Ruth is a book of prayers. All the prayers were prayed by the characters for others, not for themselves and every prayer was answered by the end of the book. Boaz even became the answer to the prayer he prayed for Ruth.

Ruth is a story that showcases the hesed of God. According to rabbinic tradition, the main theme of Ruth is steadfast love. In Hebrew, hesed, means "faithfulness born out of a sense of caring and commitment".

All the main characters in the book — Ruth, Naomi and Boaz — acted with hesed (found 1:8; 2:20 and 3:10). They acted well above and beyond the expected and the book of Ruth shows that even when it appears as if we have nothing going for us, our own loving service may be repaid to us in ways that we cannot predict.

Today we shall look at how the hesed of God and the hesed displayed by the Naomi, Ruth and Boaz that brings glory and honour to God and the persons involved.

A. Naomi & Ruth (In-law relationship)

1. Naomi (Ruth 1:8-13)
Naomi must have been an amazing woman to inspire such affection in her daughter-in-law. She showed loving and caring hesed in thinking of the future of her daughters-in-law when she wanted to send them home.

By the time the story starts she had changed from being “pleasant/lovely” to a bitter woman (v. 20) with a spirit of complaining, faultfinding, and fretfulness.

Later in the story Naomi again acted with hesed when she “matchmade” Ruth and Boaz.

2. Ruth (Ruth 1:16-18)
Ruth followed Naomi with no expectation of marriage and children, but rather the bleak prospect of poverty in a place where she was a despised foreigner. She was referred to as Moabitess five times in 1:22; 2:2 & 21; 4:5 &10.

Ruth devoted herself to meeting the needs of her mother-in-law and helping her the best she could. Love and concern for her mother-in-law were her only apparent motives as Boaz pointed that out later in the story: “All that you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband has been fully reported to me, and how you left your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and came to a people that you did not previously know.

Ruth uttered one of the most moving pleas of hesed in the entire Bible: "Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me" (Ruth 1:16-17, NKJV).

She was willing to serve Naomi for the rest of her life.

Application today:
Many a woman who loves her husband cannot seem to love his mother. And men seem to have the same problem with their wives’ mothers, as evidenced by the mother-in-law jokes that have circulated through the years. The fact is that there are good, bad and ugly in-laws but much of the problem arises out of a clash of cultures.

My cousin in his wedding vows said, “I promise to love and care for you and those whom you love.” A wedding does not just unite two individuals but two families.

Where does love like Ruth’s or Naomi’s come from? It comes from the Lord of all love. When we have experienced the love of God, it will spill over and we will express it in our family relationships—parents, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, children, and in-laws.

B. Ruth & Boaz (Husband and wife relationship)

1. Ruth
Ruth was devoted to the family (Ruth 1:15-18). She had initiative, “let me go to the fields” (2:2) and she was hardworking, she “worked steadily from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter” (2:7).

Nowhere does it say that Ruth was a beautiful woman like Sarah, Rebekah, or Rachel, but we do know that she had an inner beauty, a meek and quiet spirit, an unpretentious humility that made her one of the loveliest women in Scripture. (Ruth 2:10; 2:13).

She also had a good reputation, “I have been told all you have done…” (2:11)

Her trust in God and her love for God (Ruth 2:12) were the sources of an inner strength and beauty, She was submissive “I will do whatever you say…did everything her mother-in-law told her to do” (3:5)

She did not go after younger men (3:10) and was known as “a woman of noble character” (3:11). In short, she was a Prov. 31 woman.

2. Boaz (Ruth 2:8-9, 14-16)
Boaz was “a man of standing” (NIV) or “a man of great wealth” (NKJV). Helived a God-saturated life. He greeted his reapers in the field. “May the Lord be with you.” And they responded, “May the Lord bless you” (Ruth 2:4). To Ruth he declared, “May you be blessed of the Lord, my daughter” (Ruth 3:10). And again, “I will redeem you, as the Lord lives” (Ruth 3:13).

The first prerequisite for a successful marriage is that the man be a man of God. One reason so many marriages are floundering is because the husbands are still spiritual babies, ill-prepared to assume the spiritual leadership of their homes.

Boaz was a kind man, thoughtful, considerate, and gentle. Some men have the strange notion that kindness and gentleness are effeminate traits and they go out of their way to avoid them. Not at all! Surveys show that kindness and gentleness rank near the top of the characteristics women are looking for in a husband. They would be good traits for Christian men to ask God to help them develop.

Boaz was generous to Ruth publicly (Ruth 2:8-9) and privately (Ruth 2:14-16).

Boaz was a man of moral integrity (Ruth 3:12-13). His actions in a threshing floor showed that he was a godly, moral, honourable, self-disciplined, Spirit-controlled man.

Naomi recognized that he was a man of his word (Ruth 3:18).

Application today:
Young men should look for a wives like Ruth, a Prov. 31 woman.

Bishop Taylor came the closest of anyone to capturing the sentiment of Proverbs 31 when he wrote: "If you are for pleasure, marry. If you prize rosy health, marry. A good wife is heaven's last best gift to a man; his angel of mercy; minister of graces innumerable; his gem of many virtues; his box of jewels; her voice, his sweetest music; her smiles, his brightest day; her kiss, the guardian of innocence; her arms, the pale of his safety; the balm of his health; the balsam of his life; her industry, his surest wealth; her economy, his safest steward; her lips, his faithful counselors...and her prayers, the ablest advocates of heaven's blessing on his head."

Young ladies should look for men like Boaz who fulfilled our friend, Chin Thuan’s, 4 H criteria to look for in a husband – Happy, Honest, Hardworking, Holy. It works as well for ladies looking for a husband.

The word husband literally means the bands of the house, the person who keeps it together as the band keeps a sheaf of grain together. There are today many married men who are not husbands, because they are not the band of the house. The key to happy families lie in the leadership of the husband.

There is also a Mr No Name (Ruth 4:1-6) who remained nameless in the story. Boaz addressed him as “my friend” (4:1), which in Hebrew means so-and-so.

Why did he refuse? He used a calculator and he was overly concerned with securing his own future.

Hesed is intervention on behalf of someone suffering misfortune or distress and those whose names are remembered – Naomi, Ruth and Boaz – live for the good of others.

C. A Child is Born

The book of Ruth closes with a genealogy from Perez to David. Obed was the grandfather of King David, the great shepherd king of Israel. Ruth and Boaz were ancestors of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Boaz, not Mahlon, is recognized as the father of Obed. The reward of God for the hesed he showed to Naomi and Ruth.

Ruth is one of only three women named in the genealogy of Christ in Matthew 1.

The most unusual aspect of this story is the continuing role Naomi played in their lives from this point on. As a former mother-in-law, we would expect her to drop out of the picture, but Boaz and Ruth are too loving and caring to let that happen. In Boaz’s case, Naomi is not even his mother-in-law!

Application today:
Like Naomi and Ruth we have been brought to fullness and hope through our kinsman-redeemer Jesus Christ. As we receive His love and experience the hesed of God in our lives we too can show such kindness—such covenant loyalty—in our own lives.

When we do so, in turn, God may end up repaying us in ways we cannot foresee. Though Ruth, Naomi and Boaz could not see the end result of their acts of hesed to each other, they acted out of love anyway. So should we.

Ruth, Boaz and Naomi’s story were part of God's story in history because of hesed. We too can be part of God's story -- He invites us to be part of it.

Pastor Gideon giving special gifts to the oldest mother, the most recent mother (no takers as they were on the third floor's Children Church), and the mother with the most children. Last but not least to her beloved wife Sis Serena.