In the 1990’s, Baptist representatives from the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) entered into “pre-conversations” with authorities in the Greek Orthodox Church.  These conversations, regrettably, did not continue for very long.  I quote here from Ken Manley’s “A Survey of Baptist World Alliance Conversations With Other Churches: Some Implications for Baptist Identity” from July of 2002, posted on the BWA website.

The Baptist World Alliance has now completed four inter-church conversations. The first was with the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (1973-77); the second with Roman Catholics through the Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity (1984-88); the third with the Lutheran World Federation (1986-89); the fourth with the Mennonite World Conference (1989-92). Since then conversations have been held with the Orthodox Church or, more precisely, ‘pre-conversations’ have been shared with the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul (1994-97) although these seem to have been discontinued by the Orthodox representatives…

Tensions between Orthodox churches and Baptists have at times been severe with Baptists enduring discrimination and persecution. For this reason the BWA welcomed the possibility of conversations in the wake of the changes in many Eastern European countries in the 1990s. Preliminary meetings were held in 1994, then a major dialogue was held in Istanbul May 10-13, 1996. These ‘Conversations between Baptists and the Ecumenical Patriarchate’, or ‘Pre-conversations’, were with a view to later full conversations between the BWA and representatives from the 15 autocephalous and autonomous Orthodox churches. The last ‘pre-conversation’ meeting took place at Oxford, May 16 to 19, 1997. The only meaningful contact since then has been a meeting between Dr Lotz and Dr Popkes with the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Bucharest in December 1997. Relations between Baptists and Orthodox in a number of European countries have since become quite difficult with Baptists characteristically being accused of being a foreign sect. A striking illustration of this stance is the publication in 1995 of a pamphlet, with the imprimatur of the Patriarch of Moscow and all of Russia, entitled Baptists. The Most pernicious Sect.

The BWA sent a prestigious group to Istanbul for the 1996 meetings. Denton Lotz spoke on Baptist identity and Tony Cupit gave an overview of BWA world statistics; Wiard Popkes introduced Baptists in Europe, Euro-Asia and the Middle East; James Leo Garrett outlined the authority of the Bible for Baptists; Bruce Milne gave a Baptist perspective on evangelism in the life of the church. Others to participate included Dr Gerald Borchert, Dr William Brackney, Dr John Briggs, Dr Russ Bush and Dr Paul Fiddes. It was not that the Orthodox had no awareness of Evangelicals, as a consultation between Evangelicals and Orthodox, sponsored by the WCC, was held in Alexandria, Egypt in July 1995. None the less, it was apparent that there were deep-rooted differences, especially about the place of mission in the life of the church. Dr Bruce Milne had included a thoughtful distinction between proselytism and evangelism in his paper, but this remained a problem issue. Dr Erich Geldbach of Germany linked evangelism with religious liberty in a paper to the Vancouver (1997) Study Commission on ‘Religious Liberty, Proselytism, Evangelism: Some Baptist Considerations’ and Paul Fiddes had addressed the topic, ‘Mission: Essence or Responsibility of the Church’ at the May meeting with the Orthodox in Oxford.

Baptists remain hopeful that conversations might resume. The observation of the General Secretary to the 1996 General Council in Hong Kong remains true:

Our understanding of evangelism and proselytism may differ, as well as our understanding of church and state, and authority. Nevertheless, we rejoice at the Orthodox defence throughout history of the trinity, the divinity of Christ, the cross and resurrection, and the triumph of Christ and His kingdom. We pray that conversations will take place for the edification of both communions.

The collapse of these talks was and is regrettable and the tension between Baptists and the Greek Orthodox Church remains in many quarters to this day.  Even so, two of the statements that emerged from these pre-conversations are particularly helpful.  I am referring to the two papers presented by retired Emeritus Professor of Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. James Leo Garrett, Jr.

I have written often of my esteem for Dr. Garrett.  A consideration of the careful, scholarly, reasoned, and thorough nature of these papers will reveal why. The papers are (1) “Major Emphases in Baptist Theology” and (2) “The Authority of the Bible for Baptists.”  Both were published in the Southwestern Journal of Theology and I am making pdf’s of both presentations available here.  They should be read as one Baptist’s attempts to explain who Baptists are to a non-Baptist audience.  As such, I consider them very pertinent and helpful today.  Take a look:

“Major Emphases in Baptist Theology”

“The Authority of the Bible for Baptists”

Ruth 2:14-23

¹⁴ And at mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine.” So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her roasted grain. And she ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over. ¹⁵ When she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men, saying, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her. ¹⁶ And also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean, and do not rebuke her.” ¹⁷ So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. ¹⁸ And she took it up and went into the city. Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also brought out and gave her what food she had left over after being satisfied. ¹⁹ And her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean today? And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you.” So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, “The man’s name with whom I worked today is Boaz.” ²⁰ And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!” Naomi also said to her, “The man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers.” ²¹ And Ruth the Moabite said, “Besides, he said to me, ‘You shall keep close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest.’” ²² And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, lest in another field you be assaulted.” ²³ So she kept close to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley and wheat harvests. And she lived with her mother-in-law.

I recently read a fascinating story that struck me as equal parts beautiful and sad.

This is the true story of twin brothers from Australia. As they were growing up, Leslie and Karl were close throughout their chaotic childhood. But after their dad abandoned the family, a week after their 22nd birthday, Karl disappeared. For 23 years Leslie kept searching for his brother. Finally, on May 5th, 2013 the police found Karl dead on York Lane in Sydney. Karl had died where he had spent much of the second half of his life—on the street as a homeless person.

When the police contacted Leslie, he travelled to Sydney to take his brother back home and bury him. Much to his surprise, Leslie found a bank account in Karl’s name that was worth $30,000. The Australian Department of Human Services had been depositing a check into Karl’s account every month for the past 23 years. Leslie wanted to use the funds to support the dedicated people and shelters which had supported his brother. Unfortunately, the money was earmarked for the next of kin, which in this case was Karl and Leslie’s father, the man who had abandoned both brothers decades ago.

But Leslie also discovered an exception to the financial regulations: He could use the money from the account to pay for Leslie’s funeral and burial expenses—the entire balance of $30,000. So Leslie organized a lavish service for Karl. Before the funeral, he hosted a delicious hot lunch with a bouquet of flowers on every table for all the men and women who lived at the shelter that Karl frequented. For the funeral Leslie hired the finest organist in Sydney to play hymns. Leslie designed and printed a beautiful order of service on the best paper available. Flowers filled the church.

During the eulogy for his brother Leslie said, “I never gave up looking for my brother.” Leslie chose the following verse from the Gospel of Luke: “‘My son,’ the father said [to the prodigal son], ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.'”[1]

That is beautiful because of the wonderful fact that a homeless man had a lavish funeral. It is sad because a homeless man had a lavish funeral.

It strikes me, hearing that story, that that is how many people view the Christian life: a life of misery here and now but a lavish party after we die. Somehow the story of Ruth strikes me as a much needed corrective to this idea. If Ruth tells us anything, it tells us that the astonishing grace of God begins to be lavished upon us here and now. That may or may not translate into physical comfort and provision, but it certainly translates into provision for the heart and soul here and now. In other words, while the full benefits of grace will not be realized until we stand before the Lord, very real benefits are open to us here and now.

You do not have to die to experience lavish grace, though, through Christ, we certainly will experience inconceivable joy after we die. The Lord Jesus came to give us life, and that abundant (John 10:10). As we rejoin Ruth gleaning in the fields of Boaz, let us continue our consideration of Boaz as a type or picture or foreshadowing of Jesus and let us continue to consider his actions towards Ruth as an unfolding vision of grace. In the process, however, let us not lose sight of the beautiful love story unfolding before our eyes as well.

God’s grace is lavish and blesses us with more and more as we draw closer and closer to Jesus.

One of the truly fascinating developments in the story of Ruth is how Ruth draws closer and closer to Boaz throughout the book. It begins with Ruth in Moab and Boaz in Bethlehem. Then Ruth moved to Bethlehem with her mother-in-law, Naomi. Then Ruth moved to the field of Boaz. Then Boaz saw Ruth and inquired about her. Then Boaz addressed Ruth, telling her not to leave his field but to stay near his women where she could continue to glean the grain that was dropped or left behind. This gradual but consistent diminishment of distance continues in our text.

¹⁴ And at mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine.” So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her roasted grain. And she ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over. ¹⁵ When she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men, saying, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her. ¹⁶ And also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean, and do not rebuke her.” ¹⁷ So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. ¹⁸ And she took it up and went into the city. Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also brought out and gave her what food she had left over after being satisfied.

Her distance from Boaz decreased as the blessings she received increased. Boaz, as we saw in the first half of chapter 2, had already blessed her by (1) acknowledging her, (2) granting her a degree of status, and (3) offering her protection. In the second half of the chapter, the blessings increase to a degree that can only be described as lavish. In our text, Boaz (1) invited Ruth to sit closer, (2) passed her roasted grain, (3) personally told his young men to let her glean not only where grain had been left behind but also “among the sheaves,” among the bound bundles of grain stalks, (4) told the young men actually to pull stalks from the bundles and drop them for her to gather, and (5) personally and directly forbade the young men to harass or harm her (as opposed to his initially sending word to the young men through his servant).

Whatever Boaz’s actions are, they are not subtle. This is outlandish, lavish, over-the-top, eyebrow raising grace! So outlandish is this kindness, that when Ruth threshed what she had gleaned, she ended up with “about an ephah of barley.” An ephah is roughly 29-50 pounds, according to our reckoning. An ephah would be enough grain to provide a single person enough food for a number of weeks.[2] She took the grain home to a very surprised Naomi, as well as the left overs from her earlier meal of roasted grain cakes.

Here is a picture of Boaz’s growing affection for Naomi. Here is a picture of how God blesses us.

But do not forget: the blessings increase as the distance decreases.

I suppose that one of the more common and more frustrating phenomena I have encountered are Christians who complain that they are not experiencing the blessings and peace of God but who will, in the same breath, admit that they have not drawn closer to Jesus in their own walks. The blessings increase as the distance decreases. Simply put, there is something patently absurd about complaining that you do not feel God near when you are refusing to go to Him consistently in prayer, to read and immerse yourself in His word, and to serve Him. Remember: the father allowed the prodigal son to run away. When the son hit bottom and started home, however, the father ran to him with open arms. The blessings increase as the distance decreases.

The Lord Jesus had obliterated all distance by coming to us, yet we still seek to keep Him at arm’s length. Why? The closer we draw to Jesus, the more we are able to see and understand and receive and celebrate the amazing and lavish blessings He gives us. We are Ruth. We are the recipients of an embarrassing amount of grace! The Lord has opened the treasury to us in Christ and his given us stunning amounts of love, grace, mercy, peace, hope, and joy!

God’s grace gives us spiritual healing, allowing us to move from anger to praise.

What is more, there are healing properties in grace. This can be seen in the effect that Boaz’s kindness had on Naomi. Naomi, understandably, wanted to know who had shown her daughter-in-law such unexpected kindness.

¹⁹ And her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean today? And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you.” So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, “The man’s name with whom I worked today is Boaz.” ^20a And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!”

Naomi was stunned to hear that Ruth had gleaned in Boaz’s field. But her reaction is telling for another reason. For the first time since Naomi’s bitter complaint against God’s treatment of her in chapter 1, the realization of the grace that God had shown her and Ruth moved her to praise God. Katharine Doob Sakenfeld proposes that Naomi’s response “may be regarded as the turning point of the story both theologically and rhetorically.” She furthermore suggests that, “Naomi has begun a healing journey, a journey from despair to hope, a journey from a living death to a life worth living.”[3]

This would seem to be the case. Naomi moves from anger at God in chapter 1 to worship and praising God in chapter 2. Old Testament scholars are divided on just what Naomi is saying in verse 20: “And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, ‘May [Boaz] be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!’” The question is, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead, Boaz’s kindness or God’s kindness? It is notoriously difficult to translate.

Many scholars suggest that the rendering is intentionally ambiguous, however, and that it is making the point that God’s kindness is all bound up in Boaz’s kindness. This would support the idea of Boaz as a type or picture of the lovingkindness, the hesed, of God.

Regardless of how you render it, Naomi turned to God now with praise and not complaint. The name of the Lord was no longer bitter on her lips. It was sweet. She asked that God bless Boaz because God, through Boaz, had blessed her and Ruth.

It is almost certainly the case that Ruth saw beyond the blessing of food, lavish though it was, and foresaw the eventual marriage of Boaz and Ruth, or at least the possibility of such. Old Testament scholar Robert Hubbard has pointed out how similar Ruth 2 is to Genesis 24. In Genesis 24, Abraham sends his servant to Mesopotamia in order to find a wife for his son, Isaac. You may recall that the servant goes and waits by the well and asks that God reveal Isaac’s bride by having her respond to his request for water by saying that she will draw water for him as well as for his camels. In that context, when the servant discovers Rebekah, he says, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken his steadfast love and his faithfulness toward my master. As for me, the Lord has led me in the way to the house of my master’s kinsmen.” This is very similar to Naomi’s words in verse 20: “May he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!

Russell concludes that “the similarity of Ruth 2 and Genesis 24 suggests that Naomi’s remark probably has marriage in mind.” He also quotes Alter to the effect that “the entire dialogue between Boaz and Ruth conforms to a common Hebrew literary convention, the ‘betrothal type-scene.’ That is, in reporting vv.8-17, the author employed certain literary conventions well known to his audience in order to portray the episode as a betrothal – more precisely, a prelude to betrothal.”[4]

Did Naomi know for sure that Ruth and Naomi would eventually marry? Who knows, but she appeared to realize that there was more in the air than just kindness. She seemed to suspect that love was in the air as well.

Regardless, Naomi was now overwhelmed by grace and its life-changing possibilities, and this grace healed her spiritually.

Are you struggling with bitterness or anger toward God? Let me challenge and encourage you to do this one thing: take some time and reflect long and hard at all the many acts of grace and kindness and hesed and love that God has shown you and is showing you now. How do you do that? Take some time and reflect long and deeply on the cross of Jesus. Consider what He has done for you, what He has won for you, what He has secured for you! Even in the midst of pain, consider what grace Jesus has lavished upon you! It will be medicine to your soul! Grace heals the hurting heart!

God’s grace provides us with a family, a people to whom to belong.

And it is God’s grace that gives us a family. Boaz had already granted Ruth a kind of familial status in his field, at least to some extent. Naomi, however, did two things to suggest that Ruth’s meeting with Boaz meant that Ruth now had family status.

^20b Naomi also said to her, “The man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers.” ²¹ And Ruth the Moabite said, “Besides, he said to me, ‘You shall keep close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest.’” ²² And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, lest in another field you be assaulted.” ²³ So she kept close to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley and wheat harvests. And she lived with her mother-in-law.

First, Ruth tellingly uses the pronoun “our” in speaking to Ruth: “The man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers.” In doing so, Naomi appears to have warmed to Ruth. The rudeness she showed her in chapter 1 has now given way to open acceptance and acknowledgement of her. Ruth is now part of “our family.”

More significantly, Naomi identified Boaz as “one of our redeemers.” This had rich implications. Boaz was a kinsman-redeemer. The kinsman-redeemer referred to the closest relative who had the right and responsibility to care for destitute members of the extended family by doing certain things:

• The redeemer was to repurchase clan land sold because of economic hardships (Leviticus 25:25-30).
• The redeemer was to buy back relatives who had sold themselves into slavery as a result of poverty (Leviticus 25:47-55).
• The redeemer was to avenge murdered family members by hunting down the murderers and killing them (Numbers 35:12,19-27; Deuteronomy 19:6,12; Joshua 20:2-3,5,9).
• The redeemer “was the recipient of money paid as restitution for a wrong committed against someone now deceased (Num[bers] 5:8).”
• The redeemer assisted clan members in lawsuits.[5]

Thus, Naomi pointed out to Ruth the possibility that Boaz could do more than merely feed them. After all, the harvest was ending soon. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Even if we did not have the rest of the story, Boaz had already changed Ruth’s familial status. He had seen her, acknowledged her, drawn her into the circle of his people, extended to her his protection, provided for her above and beyond all expectation, and had blessed her extended family as well, her mother-in-law. He had taken a foreign woman who had no significant connections in Bethlehem and given her a name, in essence, a family.

In Romans 11, the Apostle Paul made a fascinating statement about (1) Israel’s rejection of Jesus and (2) the acceptance of the Gentiles into the family of God. He uses the imagery of branches.

¹¹ So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. ¹² Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean! ¹³ Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry ¹⁴ in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. ¹⁵ For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? ¹⁶ If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches. ¹⁷ But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, ¹⁸ do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. ¹⁹ Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” ²⁰ That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. ²¹ For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. ²² Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. ²³ And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. ²⁴ For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.

It is a compelling image. Paul says that we Gentiles are like branches from a wild olive tree that have, by God’s grace, been grafted into a cultivated olive tree. The cultivated olive tree stands for God’s covenant people. The wild olive tree stands for the Gentile world, the pagan world. The two do not naturally belong together. It is an act of grace that welcomes the wild branch into the cultivated tree.

Ruth does not naturally belong with Boaz. She is accepted into the circle of his people because of his grace.

You and I do not naturally belong in the family of God. We are accepted into the circle of his people because of His grace.

Grace is so powerful. Grace is so beautiful. Grace is so amazing.

It is lavish. It is powerful. It is has the ability to heal, to welcome, to draw, to include, to protect, to fill, and to bless.

All of this and more is offered to all of us this very day in Jesus Christ, the lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the world and offer grace.

[1] https://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/2013/july/2072913.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium =feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+preachingtoday%2Fillustrations+%28Preaching+Today+Illustrations%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

[2] Kirsten Nielson, Ruth. The Old Testament Library. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), p.61.

[3] Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, Ruth. Interpretation. (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1999), p.47-48.

[4] Robert L. Hubbard, Jr., The Book of Ruth. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1988), p.187.

[5] Robert L. Hubbard, Jr., p.188-189.

Last Sunday afternoon through Tuesday I took a personal sabbatical at the campuses of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, TX, and Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas to try to slow down, catch my breath, and assess my life.  One of the things that has become abundantly clear to me is the need to minimize somewhat my relationship with technology.  To that end, I deactivated my Twitter account yesterday (you will notice the feed is now gone from the right column), am in the process of shutting down Words With Friends (a relaxing game to which I am way too addicted), and, biggest of all for me, will be changing my phone number next Monday in an effort to better guard my time as well.

All of this is difficult for me to do.  I do not see social media as necessarily inherently pernicious (nor do I see it as inherently benign – I’m still chewing on this).  Rather, for me, it kind of became a too-easy-venue for time wasting and for viewing reality through a series of 140 character sound bites.  I will say that I have begun thinking a great deal about the nature of social media and what it does to our view of the world, of others, of human interactions, etc.  I suppose the jury will be out for some time on the overall effects of social media on the national psyche, but I do wonder if it does not have certain damaging effects.  (I have been off of Facebook for two years now.  That was easy.  I came to hate it.  I have never missed it.  My advice:  start doing a lot of marriage counseling for struggling couples and you will soon see the other side of some of these social media platforms.)

That being said, I again want to stress that I am not trying to make judgments about social media per se or those who enjoy being on it.  All of this is much more a commentary on me than social media.  Many people use it well, benefit from it, and enjoy it.  For me, it became somewhat counterproductive.

As for my phone, this is a tricky one.  I am an odd mixture of recluse and extrovert.  That is simply a matter of temperate.  Ministry dynamics play a role in this as well.  It’s interesting being a pastor:  you love and care for and want to be accessible to the people to whom you have been called to serve, but you cannot let the church utterly consume you.  It’s a balance.  Regardless, it has become clear to me that, simply put, way too many people have my phone number.  Central Baptist Church is averaging just over 500 people in attendance this year.  A sizable percentage of those 500 people have my phone number.  This means that it is very difficult to ever really detach and rest, even if the phone is cut off.  (The moment you turn the phone back on, a stream of messages and texts are waiting.)

I say this is tricky because I fully believe that a pastor should indeed be accessible to his people, and, to the best of my ability, I have striven to be and will continue to strive to be.  To that end, I am working on a plan whereby church members will have an emergency line that will be manned by a ministerial staff member, myself included, on a rotational basis on weekends.  In this manner, Central Baptist Church members will be able to get ahold of ministerial staff members at any time (in the case of emergency of great need), as it should be.

On the other hand, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that boundaries are necessary in all relationships, even (especially?) those closest to you.  A failure to establish boundaries can destroy relationships.  My previous church ran around 200 folks.  My current church, 500 folks.  But I have taken the same approach to my phone in a church of 500 as I did in a church of 200.  Eventually, that will catch up to you.

Thus, I am now trying to make adjustments so that I can be a better husband, father, pastor, son, brother, and friend.

This is not about me wanting to do less.  It is about me wanting to be more.

I will be keeping this website.  It is a creative outlet that I am mainly using now for posting sermon manuscripts and audio as well as the odd random post here and there.  I have a much more relaxed approach to this site.  It takes a little more to actually post on it, as opposed to the immediate availability of something like, say, Twitter, so I don’t really sit around looking at this site other than when I feel the need to post.

We only have so much time in a day, and managing that time is a matter of great importance.  I would covet your prayers as I try to hit the right stride in managing the time allotted me, and I would encourage you to do so as well.  We all face this challenge in an increasingly busy world.

When I pastored in Dawson, Georgia, a church member gave me a cd by The Be Good Tanyas, a bluegrass(ish) group of three ladies from Canada.  The sound was gloriously eclectic and beautiful.  I have not heard them in some time, but recently I heard their song “Gospel Song.”  It’s not really a gospel song, but it struck me as particularly beautiful and I thought I’d share it here.

Ruth 2:1-13

¹ Now Naomi had a relative of her husband’s, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. ² And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” ³ So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech. ⁴ And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, “The Lord be with you!” And they answered, “The Lord bless you.” ⁵ Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?” ⁶ And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, “She is the young Moabite woman, who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. ⁷ She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.’ So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.” ⁸ Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. ⁹ Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.” ¹⁰ Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?” ¹¹ But Boaz answered her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. ¹² The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!” ¹³ Then she said, “I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants.”

Shane Clairborne tells a story about a friend of his who had fallen upon hard times and was panhandling on a street corner. He made up a little sign, as folks begging on street corners sometimes will. His cardboard sign said this: “In need of grace.”[1]

There is something compelling and convicting about that: “In need of grace.” I suspect I find that moving because I could make up a sign like that on any day of the week and just stand out on a street corner as well. “In need of grace.” The reality is that we all could hold signs like that because we all need grace. It is a basic human need, like the need for food or sleep.

Grace is the unmerited, undeserved mercy of God. R.C. Sproul put it well when he wrote:

            It is impossible for anyone, anywhere, anytime to deserve grace. Grace by definition is undeserved. As soon as we talk about deserving something we are no longer talking about grace; we are talking about justice. Only justice can be deserved…God never “owes” grace….God reserves for Himself the supreme right of executive clemency.[2]

I suppose that is what makes grace so fascinating, so amazing, and so beautiful: it can only be given to us by the God whom we have sinned and rebelled against…but it is exactly what He gives us in Jesus! He who reserves “supreme right of executive clemency” has granted it willingly and lavishly in Jesus.

In the unfolding of the story of Ruth, we now come to chapter two and the fascinating character of Boaz. As we consider Ruth 2:1-13, I am going to use Boaz unapologetically as an allegory for the nature of grace. Not to put too fine a point on it, I am going to argue that Boaz is a type or a depiction of Jesus. How Boaz treats Ruth is going to serve as an image for how Jesus treats us.

I say I am going to do this unapologetically for it seems clear to me that this is one of the intentions of the story: to depict the love of God for His people in and through the actions of Boaz toward Ruth. I will also point out to you that the first and last statements we hear from Boaz in our text involve the blessings and goodness of God.

⁴ And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, “The Lord be with you!” And they answered, “The Lord bless you.”

¹² The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!”

I want to argue that those two statements about the goodness of God form what is called an inclusio. An inclusio is a literary tool by which identical or similar words or phrases bookend a text. That is, a similar phrase or word or idea comes at the beginning of a text and at the end. In so doing, the inclusio informs what happens in the middle. Thus between the invoking of God’s name and blessings at the beginning and end of our text, Boaz demonstrates hesed, lovingkindness, and grace.

How Boaz treats Ruth is what grace looks like. How Boaz treats Ruth is how God treats us. Let us watch this beautiful scene unfold.

Boaz saw Ruth.

It will sound overly simplistic, but the first step of grace is when the one who is able to give grace sees the one who needs it. This happens in the beginning of our text when Boaz sees Ruth.

¹ Now Naomi had a relative of her husband’s, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. ² And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” ³ So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech. ⁴ And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, “The Lord be with you!” And they answered, “The Lord bless you.” ⁵ Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?” ⁶ And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, “She is the young Moabite woman, who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. ⁷ She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.’ So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.”

Here is the setting for our drama of grace: Ruth, the foreigner, has come to Naomi, her mother-in-law’s land. She, Ruth, has no status. She has, from a human perspective, risked a great deal in coming and in rejecting her mother-in-law’s initial advice that she stay in her own homeland of Moab. She returns with Naomi instead. The two women are widows and are impoverished. Their husbands are deceased. They are in a precarious position to be sure.

But Ruth shows a courageous and industrious spirit. She says to her mother-in-law that she wants to go glean in the fields after the reapers. You will recall that chapter one concluded with the significant fact that Naomi and Ruth returned to Bethlehem during the barley harvest. Thus, the famine had ended. Even so, you can starve to death next to a buffet if you have no means of receiving the food yourself, so Ruth, the foreign daughter-in-law, proposes that she go and glean.

Gleaning refers to the process of picking up the stalks and grains that the reapers accidentally dropped or intentionally left while harvesting the crop. It is important to realize that gleaning was viewed by Israel as a kind of welfare program for those in need. Thus, it was legislated by God in Israel’s laws. For instance, we read this in Leviticus 19:

⁹ “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. ¹⁰ And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.

In other words, those who owned and those who harvested fields were to leave some of the harvest on the edges and in the corners for the poor to glean. Deuteronomy 24 says the same.

¹⁹ “When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. ²⁰ When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over them again. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. ²¹ When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not strip it afterward. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. ²² You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this.

The edges of the field were to be left unharvested and any of the grain that was dropped was to be left there for the poor. And this was what Ruth proposed to Naomi: that she go and glean behind the reapers of the harvest. Naomi gave her blessing and Ruth went to the field of Boaz, unbeknownst to her, who was a kinsman of Naomi’s late husband Ebimelech.

While resting, Boaz, who owned the portion of the field in which Ruth was gleaning, came along and began talking to his servant. While talking to him, he noticed this strange foreign girl.

⁵ Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?”

May I suggest that this is the very doorway to grace: when the one who has grace to give sees and acknowledges the one who is in desperate need of grace? Nothing happens without that: he sees her!

Perhaps you feel as if nobody at all sees you. The good news of the gospel of Christ is that God sees you. The amazing statement, “For God so loved the world,” means, at its most basic level, that God sees the world and has compassion upon it.

“Look at the birds of the air,” Jesus says in Matthew 6:26, “they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” Yes. Yes you are. God cares for the little birds and the you are more valuable than the little birds. He sees you! He loves you!

Ruth certainly did not miss the significance of her being seen. Near the conclusion of our text we read this:

¹⁰ Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?”

She marveled that Boaz took notice of her. But he did! And God notices you as well!

Boaz included Ruth among his own people even though she was not originally his people.

Not content with merely seeing her, Boaz also drew her near to his own people.

⁸ Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. ^9a Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them.

Boaz tells her two things initially: (1) stay in my field and (2) stay close to my young women. Robert Hubbard suggests that Boaz’s invitation for Ruth to stay in his field with his young women “is not as unimportant a detail as it might seem.” He explains:

First, his instruction seemed to grant Ruth some sort of status in Boaz’s household…Certainly Ruth’s reaction suggested that she got more than she originally sought (see v.10)…Probably the most one can say is that Boaz granted Ruth an informal status as – again, by modern analogy – “most favored gleaner.” His workers would treat her as if she belonged with them because he said so (see vv.15-16)…As a follow-up to 1:14-17…here she stepped from “outside” Israel to the outer edge of the “inner” circle. Second, the instruction in effect placed Ruth under Boaz’s protection…[3]

How wonderfully beautiful this! Ruth, the outsider, is welcomed into the company of Boaz’s people. Leon Morris agrees with Hubbard that this invitation to Ruth “apparently indicates some form of status in Boaz’ household.”[4] Status was simply more than Ruth could have hoped for. Remember her vulnerable position: a foreign widow woman who did not know a soul in Boaz’s field comes and dares to seek the leftovers…and she is not rebuffed! She is welcomed.

The Church has often failed to welcome the outsider into the family of God. At times we have not been Boaz to Ruth. In Larry Eskridge’s fascinating history of the Jesus people, God’s Forever Family, he passes on one such example. Many of the Christians who were ministering to the hippy kids on the streets of San Francisco in the 1960’s turned to established churches in an effort to get them to help reach and house these oftentimes homeless and drug addicted youth.

One woman’s response to a request to house one of the hippie kids that they were trying to get off the street spoke volumes of the attitudes of many conservative church members. Evangelical Concerns board member Ed Plowman remembered that after he had made the request, the woman just stared at him in disbelief and blurted out: “Pastor— THAT between my clean sheets?”[5]

How heartbreaking! What a tragedy the Church’s failure to welcome the outsider in is! That was not Boaz’s posture toward the foreigner Ruth. More importantly, that is not God’s posture toward us, who are naturally outsiders to the Kingdom of God. God does not shame us and reject us. God opens the door of the Kingdom to us through Jesus.

In Hosea 2, the Lord God speaks of a day of ultimate restoration when He will save His people and when forgiveness will conquer. The wording is fascinating.

²¹ “And in that day I will answer, declares the Lord,
I will answer the heavens,
and they shall answer the earth, ²² and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and they shall answer Jezreel, ²³ and I will sow her for myself in the land.
And I will have mercy on No Mercy,
and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’;
and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”

“I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”

This is why I said earlier that I am unapologetic in presenting Boaz as a type or a foreshadowing of the Lord Jesus, for this is precisely what Boaz does: he says to “Not My People,” “You are now my people!”

This is what Jesus does for us. He opens the door to the outsider and to the foreigner, to the stranger and to the person in the back of the crowd who feels unworthy to be present. Jesus is in the business of spotting Ruths and welcoming them in. This is what grace is: welcoming the outsider in.

Boaz offered Ruth protection and security against those who would harm her.

But he did not stop there. Boaz next extended to Ruth his personal protection against any threat of harm.

^9b Have I not charged the young men not to touch you?

This is a revealing and unsettling thing for Boaz to say. It implies, of course, that without his edict the young men would have possibly harassed or assaulted Ruth. This likely reveals a number of dynamics at play in the cultural setting of the story of Ruth: the status of women in this culture, the status of foreigners in this culture, and the status of the gleaning poor in this culture. To be a woman was risky enough because of the low view of women that many had at the time, but to be a foreign poor woman gleaning the fields of another was an extremely precarious position to be in. While the rights of gleaners were spelled out in the law, it is easy to imagine how tensions might arise between the paid field laborers and the poor seeking to gather up what was left behind.

Ruth, then, was in a profoundly vulnerable situation. It is therefore all the more moving that Boaz the landowner extended to her his protection. Daniel Block makes the fascinating observation that “Boaz is hereby instituting the first anti-sexual-harassment policy in the workplace recorded in the Bible.”[6] He is correct. By identifying Ruth with his young women and by warning the young men not to harass her, Boaz brought her under his care and his mantle of protection, a most welcome gift indeed.

This, too, is the nature of God’s grace: it draws us under His protective wings. Boaz will invoke this very image a bit later in our text, but before he invoked the image he enacted the reality. He offered the protection that he prayed for. In doing so, He was a type of the protecting Christ.

In 1 Peter 5:8, Peter wrote, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” We, too, need protection!

There is a telling scene in Luke 22:31-32a in which Jesus said to Peter, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.”

Here we see Jesus acknowledging the pernicious intentions of the devil against the people of God but also His intention to stand with us and for us. In Matthew 22:37, Jesus proclaimed his desire to gather unrepentant Jerusalem under his wings “as a hen gathers her chicks.”

Make not mistake: the Lord Jesus offers you spiritual protection from the enemy who would destroy you. He loves His people and He will see us through to the end. He does not promise the avoidance of pain, but He does promise that He will never abandon us and that our inheritance is secure through His blood and resurrection.

Biblical grace is protecting grace, grace that assures the people of God that they will not be left alone before the vicious wiles of the devil.

Boaz went beyond mere provision to excessive generosity.

And grace is lavish grace. There is an interesting final gift that Boaz gave to Ruth, though it may not seem lavish on the face of it.

^9c And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.”

Boaz saw Ruth. Boaz welcomed Ruth into the company of his people. Boaz offered Ruth his protection. And Boaz capped it off with an act of lavish generosity. He informed her that she too was welcome to drink the water from the vessels the young men would fill.

There are good reasons to see this as a surprising kindness. Customarily, women drew water for men and foreigners drew water for Israelites. In telling Ruth to take water with the Israelites that was drawn by his young men, Boaz was removing yet another occasion for Ruth to experience stigma and shame.

“What an interesting touch,” Hubbard observes, “a foreign woman who customarily would draw water for Israelites was welcome to drink water drawn by Israelites. Further, coupled with his granting of permission, the gesture marked a very generous, unexpected concession.”[7] Katharine Doob Sakenfeld further notes that “although we do not know any details of the customs surrounding gleaning, it is quite likely that this was a special privilege not usually granted.”[8] Furthermore Daniel Block sees this as “indeed extraordinary.”[9]

Water is a glorious luxury to those who are thirsty. It is even more so to the thirsty one who has no inherent right to the water. It was an act of grace, this invitation to drink with his people. That Ruth recognized it as amazing grace can be seen in her moving response.

¹⁰ Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?” ¹¹ But Boaz answered her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. ¹² The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!” ¹³ Then she said, “I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants.”

Boaz’s words revealed the foreshadowing nature of his own offer of grace: “The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!”

It is as if Boaz said, “I have shown you grace, yes, but God will complete the gift. He will give you a full reward.”

In response, tellingly, Ruth said, “I have found favor in your eyes…”

In bringing the attention back to Boaz, Ruth was not neglecting the goodness of God. Instead, she was recognizing that God’s goodness had already begun in and through Boaz’s treatment of her.

It is a powerful moment.

Church, hear me: the grace of God is a seeing, accepting, protecting, blessing grace! And it is found in Jesus.

In John 4, Jesus also spoke to a woman about her need for water.

¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Behold the lavish grace of God! We hope for crumbs and God gives us a feast in Jesus. We hope for a sip and God gives us a never-ending spring of water in Jesus. We simply want to crawl through the door of heaven and sit contentedly in the back corner but God gives us a room and a home in Jesus.

The grace of God! The amazing grace of God in Christ!

[1] Shane Clairborne, The Irresistible Revolution (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006), p.245, fn.1.

[2] R.C. Sproul, Holiness (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1998), p.127.

[3] Robert L. Hubbard, Jr., The Book of Ruth. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1988), p.156.

[4] Arthur E. Cundall and Leon Morris (2008-09-19). TOTC Judges & Ruth (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries) (Kindle Locations 4023-4024). Inter-Varsity Press. Kindle Edition.”

[5] Eskridge, Larry (2013-05-31). God’s Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America (p. 39). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

[6] Daniel I. Block, Judges, Ruth. The New American Commentary. Vol. 6. Gen. Ed., E. Ray Clendenen. (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 1999), p.660.

[7] Robert L. Hubbard, Jr., p.160.

[8] Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, Ruth. Interpretation. (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1999), p.43.

[9] Daniel Block, p.660.

Just a quick note of praise for David McCullough’s amazing book The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914.  I actually listened to this book being read by my Kindle over the last many months of driving. I must say it is absolutely astounding in its breadth, its detail, and its ability to maintain interest even though it is so very long.  The Panama Canal, as McCullough tells the story, is a symbol of all that is great and all that lamentable about human society:  the amazing ingenuity and determination, the astounding cruelty and injustice, the capacity to care about human progress, and the raw caprice of political power manipulation.  It’s all here in this one story of the epic construction of this one canal.  A great, great book. Highly recommended.

Ruth 1:6,19-22

⁶ Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food.

¹⁹ So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, “Is this Naomi?” ²⁰ She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. ²¹ I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?” ²² So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.

Have you ever been in a store or country restaurant or something along those lines and seen this sign: “Lost Dog. Three legs. Blind in one eye. Missing right ear. Tail broken. Accidentally neutered. Answers to the name ‘Lucky’”?

The joke is, of course, in the surprising disjunction between the dog’s description and the dog’s name.

Naomi would have gotten that joke. In her own mind, Naomi was that joke. For Naomi means “pleasantness” or “sweetness,” but her life had become anything but. In our text, Naomi, “pleasantness,” returned to her home broken and defeated. More than that, she returned bitter. This is because she believed that God had dealt bitterly with her.

Nonetheless, she returned to the small town of Bethlehem, her hometown. She returned with her foreign daughter-in-law, Ruth, in tow. And when she returned, the townswomen gathered around to gawk at her.

This is the scene that unfolds before us. If we read it carefully, we will be able to understand the reason for Naomi’s bitterness and we will be better equipped to evaluate our own, should bitterness come into our lives.

Naomi’s bitterness was the result of very real pain and loss.

I do not wish to sit aloof and cast cold judgment on Naomi. To be sure, I will judge a bit, but I will do so very carefully. That is because whatever blind spots Naomi had developed, there was indeed very real pain and very real loss behind the frame of mind in which we find her in our text.

¹⁹ So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, “Is this Naomi?” ²⁰ She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. ²¹ I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?”

“I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty.”

People have wondered at that saying. The beginning of chapter 1 tells us that she and her husband and sons left because famine had gripped the land. In what sense, then, had she gone away full?

An early Jewish commentary on Ruth called Ruth Rabbah deduced from Ruth’s statement that Elimelech, her husband, did not take the family away from their home in search of food per se but rather because he was wealthy and did not want to have to share his wealth with the townspeople during a difficult time. And this particular commentary further theorizes that this is why Elimelech and his sons died in Moab.[1]

That is, to be a sure, a provocative hypothesis, but also a fairly uncharitable one. The most natural reading would be that she is referring to her husband and her sons. When she left, they were alive and they were all a family together. Whether they had money or not, they had each other. But now, she was returning empty. In this approach, the emptiness refers to her deceased husband and sons. I do believe that this is what is happening, for almost certainly Naomi would have wanted to address the elephant in the room, if, that is, word had not already gotten back home in some other way.

Whatever we may think of Naomi, let us remember this: this is a woman who had undergone very real loss, and, simply put, nothing mitigates against our trust in God and our faith more than the existence of pain and suffering and devastating loss.

Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22 is widely considered a masterpiece in 20^th century comedic literature. That being said, it is also a very serious work in many ways and, at times, a very troubling work. For instance, consider this scene in which Yossarian launches a diatribe against God while speaking to Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s wife. Ironically, both are atheists, but they are arguing about the kind of God they do not believe in.

“And don’t tell me God works in mysterious ways,” Yossarian continued, hurtling on over her objection. “There’s nothing so mysterious about it. He’s not working at all. He’s playing. Or else He’s forgotten all about us. That’s the kind of God you people talk about – a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?”

            “Pain?” Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s wife pounced upon the word victoriously. “Pain is a useful symptom. Pain is a warning to us of bodily dangers.”

            “And who created the dangers?” Yossarian demanded. He laughed caustically. “Oh, He was really being charitable to us when He gave us pain! Why couldn’t He have used a doorbell instead to notify us, or one of His celestial choirs? Or a system of blue-and-red neon tubes right in the middle of each person’s forehead. Any jukebox manufacturer worth his salt could have done that. Why couldn’t He?”

            “People would certainly look silly walking around with red neon tubes in the middle of their foreheads.”

            “They certainly look beautiful now writhing in agony or stupefied with morphine, don’t they? What a colossal, immortal blunderer! When you consider the opportunity and power He had to really do a job, and then look at the stupid, ugly little mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering. It’s obvious He never met a payroll. Why, no self-respecting businessman would hire a bungler like Him as even a shipping clerk!”

            Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s wife had turned ashen in disbelief and was ogling him with alarm. “You’d better not talk that way about Him, honey,” she warned him reprovingly in a low and hostile voice. “He might punish you.”

            “Isn’t He punishing me enough?” Yossarian snorted resentfully. “You know, we mustn’t let Him get away with it. Oh, no, we certainly mustn’t let Him get away scot free for all the sorrow He’s caused us. Someday I’m going to make Him pay. I know when. On the Judgment Day. Yes, That’s the day I’ll be close enough to reach and grab that little yokel by His neck and –“

            “Stop it! Stop it!” Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s wife screamed suddenly, and began beating him ineffectually about the head with both fists. “Stop it!”

            …”What…are you getting so upset about?” he asked her bewilderedly in a tone of contrite amusement. “I thought you didn’t believe in God.”

            “I don’t,” she sobbed, bursting violently into tears. “But the God I don’t believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He’s not the mean and stupid God you make Him out to be.”

            Yossarian laughed and turned her arms loose. “Let’s have a little more religious freedom between us,” he proposed obligingly. “You don’t believe in the God you want to, and I won’t believe in the God I want to. Is that a deal?”[2]

Or consider dying Ivan Ilyich’s anger at God in Leo Tolstoy’s novel, The Death of Ivan Ilyich.

He cried about his helplessness, about his terrible loneliness, about the cruelty of people, about the cruelty of God, about the absence of God.

            “Why hast Thou done all this? Why hast Thou brought me to this? Why dost Thou torture me so? For what?”

            He did not expect an answer, and he cried because there was no answer and there could be none. The pain started up again, but he did not stir, did not call out. He said to himself: “Go on then! Hit me again! But what for? What for? What have I done to Thee?”[3]

Or consider Voltaire’s Poeme sur le desastre de Lisbonne that was his complaint against God for allowing the 1755 Lisbonne earthquake to happen. That earthquake hit on Sunday, All Saint’s Day, 1755.   Between the 9.0 Richter force quake, the fire that swept Lisbonne, the massive tsunami that hit a half-hour after the earthquake began (killing many who were trying to flee up the Tagus River to escape), and the disease and pestilence that spread out from Lisbonne to Portugal and North Africa, well over 70,000 people died. So Voltaire penned his complaint, which reads in part:

These women, these infants heaped one upon the other, these limbs scattered beneath shattered marbles; the hundred thousand unfortunates whom the earth devours, who – bleeding and torn, still palpitating, interred beneath their roofs – end their lamentable days without comfort, amid the horror of their torment.

What crime and what sin have they committed, these infants crushed and bleeding on their mothers’ breasts?

No, no longer place these immutable laws of necessity before my agitated heart, this chain of bodies, spirits, and worlds. O the dreams of savants! O how profoundly chimerical! God holds the chain in his hand, and he is not in any way enchained; by his beneficent will all is determined; he is free, he is just, he is never implacable. Why then do we suffer under so equitable a master?[4]

My point in mentioning all of this (and many more examples could be cited!) is simply to say that Naomi’s response is quite natural given her devastating loss.

²⁰ She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. ²¹ I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?”

Perhaps you have felt like that. Perhaps you feel like that right now. The sentiment is understandable as a raw emotional response. However, as people of God, we need to speak back to our own bitterness and our own pain with gospel truth. So allow me to make two further observations about Naomi’s bitterness that I think must be made.

Naomi’s bitterness was the result of her refusal to imagine that God might be creatively blessing her in unforeseen and nearby ways.

It could just be that pain oftentimes blinds us to God’s more creative blessings. I would propose that this happened in the case of Naomi. As you hear her complaint, you will notice something interesting about the way in which she refers to God.

²⁰ She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. ²¹ I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?” ^22a So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab.

In verse 20 and the end of verse 21, Naomi refers to God as “the Almighty.” In doing so, she is using the Hebrew word shaddai, “almighty.” Many of you will remember the great Christian song “El Shaddai” from some years back. This is that word, but without the “El.” “El Shaddai” means “God Almighty,” but Naomi refers to God simply as “Shaddai,” “the Almighty.” That is interesting because the “el” is almost never dropped from that divine title unless somebody is speaking in poetic form. In prose, it is very unusual. But this is the word that Naomi uses in her complaint.

Leon Morris has offered some helpful insights on the word and what is likely happening here.

Naomi thinks of the irresistible power of God. When he determined that bitterness should enter her life there was no other possibility. It is worth noticing that, while the name šadday is sometimes used in contexts of blessing, it is also found when it is the severity as well as the power of the Lord that is in mind (e.g. Isa. 13: 6; Joel 1: 15). This is one of very few places where it stands alone in prose (this is not unusual in poetry, but in prose ‘God Almighty’ is more common). F. I. Andersen points out that Naomi’s speech may well be poetry. In verse 22 šadday is found in good, poetic parallelism.

The divine name rendered the Almighty in Ruth 1: 21 is the Hebrew šadday. This term is used in this way forty-eight times. It is especially common in the book of Job where it is found thirty-one times. In prose it is often linked with ’el in the expression translated ‘God almighty’, but in poetry it commonly stands alone, though ’el may be used in parallelism (e.g. Job 8: 3)…

When Naomi then says ‘šadday hath dealt very bitterly with me’ and ‘šadday hath afflicted me’ (Ruth 1: 20f., AV) the emphasis will be on God’s great power. He cannot be resisted. If he sends disaster on anyone, that disaster cannot be averted. The book, of course, goes on to bring out the complementary thought that God in his grace has mercy on his people. But our author does not choose to use this name of God when he brings out the point.[5]

With that in mind, remember that we early noted how Ruth the Moabitess took the name of God, Yahweh, on her lips in responding to Naomi’s earlier plea for her to return to Moab with Orpah. In other words, Ruth, a foreigner, takes the name Yahweh in her trust but Naomi, a Jew, refers to Him oddly as the Almighty in her bitterness.

It is almost as if Naomi is coldly referring to God as “the Power” to explain her pain. There is an indictment here. “The Almighty, the Power, has testified against me and brought calamity upon me. He did this to me!” Moffatt translates verse 20 as, “call me Mara, for the Almighty has cruelly marred me.”[6]

Hardee Kennedy makes the interesting proposal that “Naomi’s spirit was not less harsh than that of the gossiping women who judged her. Indeed, the religious viewpoint from which she interpreted her misfortune as divine punishment was essentially the same as theirs.”[7] Fascinating! Many of the Bethlehemite women were undoubtedly judging Naomi whereas Naomi was judging God!

But do you notice a kind of poignant irony that the author of Ruth slips in there?

²⁰ She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. ²¹ I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?” ^22a So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab.

“I went away full,” Naomi complains, “and the Lord has brought me back empty.”

“I have nothing!”

“I have nothing!”

And then the author of Ruth says this in verse 22: “So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab.”

While Noami is bitterly complaining about how God has taken everything from her and how God has testified against her and how God has wounded her and how the Almighty has ruined her, who is standing right behind her hearing all of this?

Ruth!

If you read this rightly, a terrible feeling of awkwardness starts coming over you. How did Ruth feel standing there hearing this? How did the women feel hearing this and cutting eyes nervously at this odd foreign girl standing behind her? And how could Naomi have allowed her pain to blind her to such an extent that she never stopped to think that all her loss, and all the pain that God allowed, and all the misery and the tears and the funerals and the loss might have been for His unforeseen, creative, and right-under-her-nose purpose of getting Ruth to Judah so she could eventually become King David’s great-grandmother, one of the heroine’s of Israel’s story, and eventually take her place in Matthew 1 in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus herself?

Church, I am not trying to be cold and stoic about your pain, but is it not just possible that sometimes it is not always about us? Is it possible that God has a plan that goes beyond us and that if He must at times use pain to bring about a greater good for the world He will do so?

Naomi was too busy whining to stop and consider the possibility that this weird extra baggage standing sheepishly behind her might be the whole point of the great drama she found herself in.

Naomi’s bitterness was the result of her allowing the moon of her personal tragedy to eclipse the sun of God’s larger, more amazing blessings.

Furthermore, Naomi allowed her pain to eclipse the greater blessings of God on others. Do you remember why Naomi went to Moab in the first place?

⁶ Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food.

There you go. They went to Moab in the first place because there was no food in Judah. There was no food! And did you notice the last little sentence of our text?

²² So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.

Have you ever seen an eclipse? A solar eclipse is when the moon passes between the earth and the sun, obscuring the sun in part or in whole. Now, I find this fascinating. It is fascinating because the moon is relatively small. The moon is 27% the size of the earth. The moon has a radius of 1,079.6 miles. The earth’s radius is 3,959 miles. So the moon is relatively small compared the earth. But the earth is very small compared to the sun. The sun has a radius of 432,450 miles. That means that the sun’s radius is about 110 times the radius of the earth.

But that raises a question. How on earth (no pun intended) can an object that is 75% smaller than the earth essentially blot out an object that is 110 times larger than the earth?

The answer is that although the sun’s diameter is 400 times larger than the moon, the sun is 400 times farther away. So a smaller object that is closer to us can blot out a much larger object that is farther from us.

I propose to you that this is what is happening to Naomi in our text and this is what happens to you and to me all the time! Our pain and our loss and our tragedy is the moon. Compared to the wider world, it is relatively small, true, but it is oh so close. But behind the moon of our own circumstances is the gigantic sun of God’s greater and wider and deeper work in the world, but these seem far away in moments of pain and suffering.

So we return to the barley harvest.

²² So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.

The text allows us to identify when the events that we are reading about happened since it locates them “at the beginning of barley harvest,” which is mid-to-late-April.[8]

They left Judah because of a famine. There was no food.

In Moab, calamity befell Naomi.

She returned to Judah because she heard God had removed the famine. They returned “at the beginning of barley harvest.”

When Naomi returned to Bethlehem and launches her bitter complaint against God, she allows the moon of her own suffering to eclipse and blind her to two amazing blessings: (1) the young lady standing behind her and (2) the men and women working the barley harvest standing behind the ladies.

All around Naomi were the deep, deep blessings of a good and merciful God but she could not and would not see it. Why? Because she had allowed her pain to get so close that it blotted out the horizon. It was all she could see.

Dear friends, God does not begrudge your pain, your tears, your questions, your fears…God is not stoic and unfeeling toward you! But hear me: if you allow your personal loss and your personal pain to get so close that it eclipses everything else around you, you are going to miss out on some amazing things that God is doing!

God knows this. God knows that we can only see 10 inches in front of our own faces. We are all obsessed with and dominated by the small moon of our own reality. But God knows the principle: that that which is closest determines how we do and do not see everything else. So God looked upon our blindness and said, “Then I will simply have to get even closer.”

And that is why Jesus came.

Jesus is Immanuel, God with us, God in front of us, God in our faces eclipsing the moon of our own pain with His saving sacrifice and audacious love.

The Christian only allows pain and loss to have dominance when they allow that pain and that loss to get between them and Jesus. But Jesus came to get between you and your pain. Our sight should be dominated by the cross on which He consumed our pain in His own.

Let Jesus get between you and your bitterness. View your bitterness through the lens of Jesus instead of viewing Jesus through the lens of your bitterness and amazing things will begin to happen!

Beware the example of Naomi. There are blessing standing all around you. And the blessing is named Jesus. And He loves you very much. Lift up your eyes and look upon Him!

[1] Kirsten Nielson, Ruth. The Old Testament Library. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), p.51.

[2] Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (New York, NY: Everyman’s Library, 1995), p.223-224.

[3] Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich. (New York, NY: Bantam Dell, 1981), p.100.

[4] David Bentley Hart, The Doors of the Sea. (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing Co., 2005), p.16-22.

[5] Arthur E. Cundall and Leon Morris (2008-09-19). TOTC Judges & Ruth (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries) (Kindle Locations 3836-3841, 3860-3863, 3913-3916). Inter-Varsity Press. Kindle Edition.

[6] Quoted in Arthur E. Cundall and Leon Morris (2008-09-19). TOTC Judges & Ruth (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries) (Kindle Locations 3833-3834). Inter-Varsity Press. Kindle Edition.

[7] J. Hardee Kennedy, Ruth. The Broadman Bible Commentary. Vol. 2. Gen. Ed., Clifton J. Allen (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1970), p.470.

[8] John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), p.278.

On Sunday, November 8, of last year British just war theorist Nigel Biggar debated the provocative and always-interesting Christian pacifist Stanley Hauerwas on the relevant issues and questions concerning this fascinating topic on Justin Brierley’s “Unbelievable?” broadcast.  I thought the debate was so thought-provoking that I would post a link to the audio here (mp3 link).  Check it out.

Ruth 1:6-18

⁶ Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food. ⁷ So she set out from the place where she was with her two daughters-in-law, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah. ⁸ But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. ⁹ The Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband!” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. ¹⁰ And they said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.” ¹¹ But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters; why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? ¹² Turn back, my daughters; go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, ¹³ would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.” ¹⁴ Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. ¹⁵ And she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” ¹⁶ But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. ¹⁷ Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” ¹⁸ And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more.

A couple of years ago an Episcopal church in Washington, D.C. hoisted a large banner on the side of their sanctuary that read, “Conversation, Not Conversion.” The intent of the banner was clear enough. It was intended to communicate that this particular church was one in which visitors would not be unduly pressed (or pressed at all?) to convert to Christianity. Rather, this was a place of non-threatening conversation. This kind of language is becoming more and more commonplace among churches that, understandably, wish to distance themselves from some of the cruder and more obnoxious forms of pressure-tactic-evangelism. I am wholly sympathetic to wanting to distance oneself from such. However, one does wonder if this slogan, “Conversation, Not Conversion,” might also be a demonstration of our current societal aversion to the idea of truth or ultimate truth. My more cynical self wonders if the reason we say things like this is because ultimately we do not think that anything can be known with enough certainty that it calls for conversion.

After all, conversion happens when a person sees a particular truth claim as so compelling that they can no longer imagine holding on to their current position in the light of what they now know. Conversion entails both acceptance and abandonment.

Ruth 1:6-18 is a text that contains a scene that many consider to be a definitive depiction on conversation. I am speaking of Ruth’s refusal to abandon Naomi as Naomi leaves Moab to return home to Judah and as Naomi declares herself for Yahweh and for His people. Many Jews view Ruth’s actions and declaration in Ruth 1:16-17 as the ultimate model of conversion. Kirsten Nielsen explains:

In Jewish tradition these are the very words that are used as an example for the proselyte to follow. That Ruth is seen as the prototype of a proselyte is already clear from the Targum to Ruth 1:16, where Naomi explains to Ruth the demands of the law on the convert. In the Targum to Ruth 2:6 Ruth is described as a proselyte, while in connection with Ruth 3:11 she is said to be strong enough to bear the yoke of the Lord’s law.[1]

Katharine Doob Sankenfeld offers further insights on how early Jewish converts used Ruth as a model for conversion.

Rabbinic writers interpreted her speech as a declaration of conversion and deduced from her words requirements to be accepted by all converts. A “catechism of proselytism” was developed in which each of her phrases was related to aspects of Jewish life…[2]

It is actually an interesting question to ask just how much Ruth really knew about Yahweh and the Jews. In other words, was she really a convert per se? I think we must answer this question in the affirmative. To be sure, Ruth undoubtedly had much growing to do in terms of her understanding of God and His people. Even so, her ultimate declaration of allegiance to Yahweh God and to the people of God and to her mother-in-law in particular can only accurately be spoken of in terms of a radical life change, a stunning course correction, or a conversion.

Whatever you choose to call it, Old Testament scholar Daniel Block is surely correct when he writes that, “The first words we hear from Ruth’s lips alone are among the most memorable in all of Scripture. Few utterances in the Bible match her speech for sheer poetic beauty, and the extraordinary courage and spirituality it expresses.”[3]

Let us then consider Ruth’s behavior and her words in terms of what they communicate about the nature of true conversion.

Ruth wanted a relationship with God and not merely a vague religion.

We begin with Naomi’s attempt to placate her daughters-in-law with a divine blessing.

⁸ But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. ⁹ The Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband!” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept.

What we have here is a widowed lady trying to say goodbye to her Moabite daughter-in-law. In doing so, she offers them kindness in the form of a divine blessing. I am not suggesting that Naomi did not sincerely mean the blessing she invoked. She did indeed wish for God to show kindness to these dear girls. However, I would like to propose that Ruth the Moabite understood Naomi’s blessing more than Naomi did. I will go further. I would like to propose that Naomi’s blessing was sincere but deficient. She intended it as a duel function blessing: to bless and to dismiss. Ruth, however, showed that she understood the nature of Yahweh more than her mother-in-law who invoked the divine name.

To get at this, we need to understand what was meant by the phrase, “May the Lord deal kindly with you.” In saying this, Naomi was invoking the idea of hesed, the lovingkindess of God. This is a profound and theologically rich word, and many argue that it comprises in itself the very theme of the entire book of Ruth. Katharine Doob Sakenfeld has helpfully defined the term.

The blessing incorporates the first of a series of uses of the Hebrew term hesed, variously translated as kindness, lovingkindness, faithfulness, or loyalty…In the Hebrew Bible hesed refers to an action by one person on behalf of another under circumstances that meet three main criteria. First, the action is essential to the survival or basic well-being of the recipient…Furthermore, the needed action is one that only the person doing the act of hesed is in a position to provide…Finally, an act of hesed takes place or is requested within the context of an existing, established, and positive relationship between the persons involved.[4]

So we can see that Naomi is using a term that is pregnant with meaning and significance. However, she is regrettably using it in an attempt to say goodbye to Ruth and Orpah and to leave them in a foreign land committed to pagan gods.

Ruth, who is ironically a much better theologian than Naomi, reveals that she is not content with a spiritual blessing that was not even being consistently applied by Naomi.

¹⁶ But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.

Naomi seeks to placate the girls by invoking the divine name over them as she leaves them. Ruth, however, refuses to content herself with a mere blessing, with overtures of spirituality. It is as if Ruth is saying, “No, you cannot leave me with a blessing in the name of Yahweh. I do not want vague spiritually. I want Yahweh Himself! I want to know Him and His people. I will not be so easily dismissed by such inconsistent religiosity. How can Yahweh show me hesed if I remain among pagan gods.”

It is as if we tried to dismiss somebody with a “God bless you!” and they said, “Wait. If He’s going to bless me I need to know Him!”

True conversion means wanting more of God and wanting a relationship with God. It means not only wanting the hesed, the lovingkindness of God, but wanting to know Him personally so that you can see and experience and embrace His lovingkindness.

Ruth came to God despite practical and theological obstacles to her doing so.

Ruth wanted more than a spiritual blessing. And the intensity of her desire to know God is further demonstrated in her refusal to let the obstacles that Naomi and their circumstances present her to derail her.

⁸ But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. ⁹ The Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband!” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. ¹⁰ And they said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.” ¹¹ But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters; why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? ¹² Turn back, my daughters; go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, ¹³ would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.” ¹⁴ Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

Honestly, Naomi’s efforts to deter Ruth from following her to Judah put Naomi in the “worst evangelist ever category”! When Ruth and Orpah initially refuse Naomi’s efforts to leave them behind, Ruth responds with an emotional screed concerning her own misfortune. Her arguments seem to escalate. First she points out that she is not pregnant. In verse 11, when Naomi asks, “Have I yet sons in my womb?” she uses the Hebrew word mehim, which means basically “my guts,” instead of the Hebrew words beten or rehem which refer to the womb.[5] This demonstrates the increasingly emotional and raw nature of Naomi’s reaction to her daughter-in-laws’ initial refusal to leave her.

Her allusion to yet-unborn sons who might theoretically marry the girls is likely a reference to the idea of levirate marriage. We find this teaching in Deuteronomy 25.

⁵ “If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. ⁶ And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. ⁷ And if the man does not wish to take his brother’s wife, then his brother’s wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to perpetuate his brother’s name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.’ ⁸ Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him, and if he persists, saying, ‘I do not wish to take her,’ ⁹ then his brother’s wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face. And she shall answer and say, ‘So shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.’ ¹⁰ And the name of his house shall be called in Israel, ‘The house of him who had his sandal pulled off.’

Scholars debate whether or not this was what she had in mind, but it seems that her argument is at least somewhat connected to the idea.

She moves from complaining about having no more children to pointing out that she was too old to have a husband to complaining about God Himself. She bemoans that the hand of God has gone out against her. In saying this, she is revealing the nature of her spiritual disposition at this time. She is angry. This is understandable, given her loss, but she has clearly cast her lot with bitterness instead of trust. “Sharing the inadequate religious ideas of her people,” J. Hardee Kennedy writes of Naomi’s grief, “she associated life’s adverse experiences with the punitive acts (hand) of God.”[6]

Thus Naomi throws up roadblocks before Ruth. And there were other obstacles. For instance, if Ruth returned with Naomi then the tables would be turned: Ruth would find herself a widow in a foreign land. Furthermore, if the Jews rejected Ruth as a foreigner then she would truly be a woman without a country: unwelcomed in Judah but already having repudiated her own homeland.

Even so, despite all the protests, Ruth clings to Naomi! She determines to trust in Yahweh God and embrace the people of God. She could not have known how it would all work out, but none of that mattered. She was overwhelmed by a vision of God and His people and she would not be deterred.

There are 1,000 reasons not to trust Jesus! Coming to Jesus might cost you your family, your job, your friends, or your very life! The person who is unwilling to trust with all their heart, soul, and mind will always and ever be mindful of these obstacles. However, the true convert will, like Ruth, be so determined to have a relationship with God and be in his family that he will be unable to stay away.

Ruth was willing to say the name of the true God and stop saying the names of the false ones.

The purity and intensity of Ruth’s commitment can also be seen in her saying the name of the one true God. Listen closely:

¹⁵ And she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” ¹⁶ But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. ¹⁷ Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.”

In verse 15, when Naomi points out that Orpah had “gone back to her people and to her gods” she uses there the general name for God, Elohim, though here it can be translated in the plural, gods, as well. “Your sister went back to her gods.” But it is telling that when Ruth says “your God [will be] my God” she uses the Hebrew divine name, Yahweh, instead of the name that foreigners would normally use for God, Elohim.[7]

This is most significant. Again we see Ruth’s repudiation of vague spirituality and her insistence on a particular God: Yahweh, the only true God. This is profoundly significant. “Since one appeals to one’s own deity to enforce an oath,” Robert Hubbard writes, “she clearly implies that Yahweh, not Chemosh, is now her God, the guardian of her future. Hence, while the OT has no fully developed idea of conversion, vv.16-17 suggests a commitment tantamount to such a change.”[8]

Indeed it does! To convert to Christ means to be willing to take His name, to say His name, to insist on no other name.

I am a great admirer of Methodist theologian Tom Oden. I have been since I first heard him lecture at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, when I was a student there. That being said, I am frustrated at Oden’s oft-repeated story concerning the Jewish scholar Will Herberg and his desire to convert to Christianity. Here is what Oden writes:

[Will] Herberg had weighty conversations with Reinhold Niebuhr on theology and seemed on the verge of converting to Christianity. Niebuhr urged him to rediscover his Jewish roots by studying Judaica at the Jewish Theological Seminary, which was just across the street from Union Theological Seminary. An irony worth noting: Herberg became a Jew by listening to a Christian; I became a Christian by listening to a Jew.[9]

This is supposed to be a kind of charming story. I do not find it to be charming at all. When a person wants to convert to Christ you do not dissuade them! If a person wants to know Jesus, the only way to the Father, you celebrate that!

Ruth wanted to know God and God alone and she would give ear to no discouragements. On the contrary, she dared to speak His name: Yahweh.

Ruth made a commitment that was decisive and for life.

And then there is the extent of her commitment. In short, it was decisive and it was for life. We can first see this in the closing verb of verse 14.

¹⁴ Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

“Ruth clung to her.” Tellingly, the word translated “clung” is the Hebrew dbq which is the same word used in Genesis 2:24, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast [cling] to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” In other words, this is the verb the Lord God used when He instituted marriage upon the earth. This is not to say that this was a marriage. Of course it was not. It is simply to say that this was an intense clinging that reveals a fierce determination on Ruth’s part not to be separated from Naomi, her people, or her God.

Then we see Ruth’s beautiful proclamation.

¹⁶ But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. ¹⁷ Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” ¹⁸ And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more.

“Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried.” This is for life! She is not setting her feet on a path with any intention of ever looking back! In fact, she invokes a curse upon herself if she does so: “May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” That is an interesting way of putting it, especially as Ruth does not name the punishment for her actions. Many Old Testament scholars suggest that such an oath was oftentimes accompanied by a hand motion communicating doom, such as a thumb slid across the throat. Likely Ruth did something very much like that when saying these words. In other words, if anything other than death separated her from Naomi, her people, and her God, this is what God would do to her.

Leon Morris has commented on the question of how much Ruth knew in this conversion of hers.

Her trust may not have been well informed, but it was real. Simeon remarks, “Her views of religion might not be clear: but it is evident that a principle of vital godliness was rooted in her heart, and powerfully operative in her life. In fact, she acted in perfect conformity with that injunction that was afterwards given by our Lord, ‘Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple’.”[10]

Yes, she does obey the words of Jesus about forsaking all. She determines that this will be her new life, her new mode of existence, her new identity. Ambrose of Milan would later argue that Ruth is therefore an example for all converts to Christianity to emulate as well.

Ruth entered the church and was made an Israelite, and [she] deserved to be counted among God’s greatest servants; chosen on account of the kinship of her soul, not her body. We should emulate her because just as she deserved this prerogative because of her behavior, [we] may be counted among the favored elect in the church of the Lord. Continuing in our Father’s house, we might, through her example, say to him who, like Paul or any other bishop, [who] calls us to worship God, your people are my people, and your God my God.[11]

Oh Church, consider what a true conversion looks like. It looks like Ruth turning her back on her old gods and her old life and taking hold in an act of radical commitment of the God of Israel, the God who is above all other gods. When you consider your standing with Jesus, can you say that you have done this? Have you? Have you taken hold of Christ? Have you decided that the obstacles no longer matter and that you simply must be counted among God’s people? Have you bid farewell to your old life, your old views, your old sins, your old habits?

I pray it is so! Come to Jesus. Say His name. Take His hand.

He is faithful to save.

[1] Kirsten Nielson, Ruth. The Old Testament Library. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), p.49.

[2] Katharine Doob Sankenfeld, Ruth. Interpretation. (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1999), p.32.

[3] Daniel I. Block, Judges, Ruth. The New American Commentary. Vol. 6. Gen. Ed., E. Ray Clendenen. (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 1999), p.640.

[4] Katharine Doob Sankenfeld, p.24.

[5] Robert L. Hubbard, Jr., The Book of Ruth. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1988), p.109.

[6] J. Hardee Kennedy, Ruth. The Broadman Bible Commentary. Vol. 2. Gen. Ed., Clifton J. Allen (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1970), p.469.

[7] J. Hardee Kennedy, p.469.

[8] Robert L. Hubbard, Jr., p.120.

[9] Oden, Thomas C. (2014-11-06). A Change of Heart: A Personal and Theological Memoir (p. 134). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.

[10] Arthur E. Cundall and Leon Morris (2008-09-19). TOTC Judges & Ruth (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries) (Kindle Locations 3798-3801). Inter-Varsity Press. Kindle Edition.

[11] John R. Franke, ed., Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1-2 Samuel. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Old Testament IV. Gen. ed., Thomas C. Oden (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), p.184.