Ruth Introduction

Welcome to the Spoken Gospel Podcast. Spoken Gospel is a nonprofit dedicated to the idea that every part of the Bible, Old Testament and New is about Jesus. And this podcast is our experiment to publicly test and not believe. Every episode hosts David Bowdoin and Seth Stewart, work through a biblical text to see how it helps us see and savor Jesus. Let's jump in. [Music] All right, well welcome everyone to the Spoken Gospel Podcasts. Seth, how are you today? I'm good. Yeah, I'm fine. That's good. I'm just fine right in the middle of the road. Fine, right? Yeah, I haven't showered yet today. So this is. That's why. If you call me post-shower, I'm great. I'm great. Yeah, it's because you're working from home this morning and I came into the office because I'm a child of. All dolled up for the day. Yeah, I got my Spoken Gospel shirt on. Oh wow, we should give those away at some point. We have them. We've taken them to some events and we've given them to some friends. But we don't have an online story yet. Oh well, one day. One day. One day. So anyway, it was a strange introduction to the book of Ruth, which we were talking about today. Yeah, I'm really small. Yeah, the small little book that tells a short story about. 85 verses? 85 verses. Is it. The length of some chapter is in the book of Luke. Yeah, that's crazy. I think it's like seven. Man, that's really interesting. And it tells a story of this foreign woman and her journey to become a full-fledged Israelite God-fearing woman. Yeah, that's one way to look at the book. I mean, the short. If you're not familiar with the story of Ruth, the story is Naomi is married to a man named Alimolek and they have two sons and they take two daughters from the land of Moab. So Moab was traditionally enemies of Israel or like kind of second-class citizens really. They were never favored people. Yeah, they were. They were descended from Lot. Yeah, whose daughters had in session with sex with him and then started the civilization. So they were always like. Never like the most reputable in the eyes of Israel. So they're kind of just conceded as outsiders. So anyway, what ends up happening is Alimolek, Naomi's husband dies. Naomi's two sons die and she's left with two daughters in law. And she encourages the daughters in law to say, "You will not find any heirs from me. I'm past child-bearing age. You guys haven't had children in ten years. You're a likelihood of finding a husband even now. In Moab is slim. It's even slimmer if you go with me back to Bethlehem, back to Israel. So don't come with me. Stay here and try to carve out the best life you can here in Moab." Right. That's one half of the two. Orpa, the first daughter-in-law decides I'm going to stay here and. Yep. Good advice, Naomi. Good advice. I'm not going to make my life harder than Ardias. I'm going to stay here. And I'm sure potentially she had family members that she could take care of her. That would have been the normal thing to do. That would have totally been the normal thing to do. That was the quote-unquote right decision. Yes, she's the right decision. The wise thing to do. Her people, like other Moabites, would have accepted her and not looked at me. Yes. Cast weird side-glance that her. But Naomi, or sorry, Ruth, decides to stay with Naomi. And she said, "If you die, I die." It was a really profound moment of faith. And she moves to Israel, to Bethlehem, the city of David, with Naomi, where she meets man named Boaz. They. I'm not sure if they fall in love first, but Boaz is incredibly generous to Ruth as she is working really, really hard to provide for her and Naomi. And Naomi, or Ruth, ends up proposing to Boaz and Boaz and in studying the proposal, "Tah, will you marry me?" No. You will marry me and you will become my Redeemer. Kids with Redeemer. It's really funny. Someone pointed that out to me and said, "It's not a question. It's a disaster." Yeah. That's a disaster. Yep. She said, "Spread your wings. I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant for you are a Redeemer period." No question. "Marry me." And he says, "Yes, I will." And there's a plot twist where this second suitor might come in, but there's some legal judges to the go on. And Ruth marries Boaz and Naomi, who is once childless and had no food, suddenly has pantries full of food and a granddaughter or grandson. And her whole house is saved. Her land, her household, her name, the lineage of her dead husband is all saved. And it ends. Not just her own lineage is saved, all of Israel's lineage. That's right. Oh, bed. Naomi's grand son, Ruth's son, ends up becoming the grandfather of King David. And you're like, "Whoa, that's in the last line of the book that you find." That's the last line of the book. Yep. It's a really beautiful story from tragedy and death to joy and birth, for famine and emptiness to plenty and fullness and how God is in the middle of all those things. Yeah. That was a good summary, Seth. Thank you. You're welcome. It was the rose colored version. The rose colored version. It was the romantic comedy version. What's the dark gritty details? It's not dark and gritty. The real life version is going to be the non-disney version. The non-disney version would probably have some, would probably have less to do with the Lord's suitors and fell in love and probably have more to do with a different kind of love that we'll talk about, which doesn't necessarily have to connote romantic love, but it's called "Hessed." We'll get to that later. So, let's kind of position this book now that we have a summary for it. Let's position this book in the Bible, in the story of the Bible, and just try to get our heads in it. So, I don't know if we want to start big and go in or-- Let's start where it ends up in your Bible. So, if you're reading through your Bible reading plan, you have just read the book of judges. The last three chapters, the book of judges, are all about these horrific actions taken against women in a nation that has no king and they do whatever they want to do. That's the through-lap of the book of judges. All throughout the book of judges. And they did what was right in their own eyes. And so, then God punished them. But then God brought a judge and that judge did some good things usually. But then they did what was right in their own eyes and so God punished them. So, it's just-- It's just-- There's no king in Israel is like the point of judges. Is that there's no king in Israel. Therefore, the whole country is in disarray. It's a time of crime, of a lack of justice, of a lack of law following. And there's no leader to help the people follow the law correctly or make people live in right relationship with God. And so, it's in this situation. Right. In that situation, in the last three chapters of judges particular, you have a woman who is raped to death and then cut up into 12 different parts and then shipped to the 12 different tribes of Israel. And that begins a civil war where Benjamin is cut off from the rest and then they go and body snatch a bunch of women to become their wives. So, you have like this just awful series of circumstances in general, but particularly directed towards women. And then in the opening of the book of Ruth, you get the name, Alimalec. So we're going to enter into the story about Alimalec. And what's fascinating, the name of the man was Alimalec. His name means God is king. So you've just read a story where there's no king in Israel. And then you meet a man whose name is God is king and then God is king dies. Yep. So you're like, whoa. Yep. Who? There's really no hope. There is no hope. Naomi has no husband. Her two daughters have no husbands. They haven't had children in 10 years. Will God save? Will God be a king to Israel? Will he return them? That's one way. Yeah, that's the question. The opening line of Ruth is in the days when the judge is ruled. I mean, that's so it position. You are meant to be thinking about the chaos and leaderlessness of Israel when you read Ruth. And that's why it ends with, as you said, a genealogy pointing to David because this is all about how God procured for himself a leader for Israel. Yes. So yeah, that's, that's it's Protestant evangelist, evangelical Bible context. It comes after, like, and it's historical context, right? It comes after judges during judges historically. But then if we look at where it fall, where it originally fell in the Hebrew ordering of scripture, we get something completely different. It's very interesting. - The fascinating. - In the Tanakh, which is the traditional ordering of the Hebrew Bible. - Probably the original ordering. - And probably the original. There's one of two options we have here, and they're both very interesting. But Ruth comes after the Book of Proverbs, which if you remember your Book of Proverbs and the famous Proverbs 31 woman that ends the book, you imagine reading in order and you read Proverbs, you read about the Proverbs 31 woman, how she's industrious and she's a go-getter and-- - She's called a worthy woman. - She's like-- - A worthy woman, just like Ruth is called. And then you turn the page, quote unquote, you pick up the next scroll, and you read about this worthy woman named Ruth. - And it's just, it's so cool. - It is really cool. And if you read it, there's so many parallels between Proverbs 31 and the Book of Ruth. The first one is actually direct, the first nine verses are actually towards the king, but think about verse eight and nine. This king speaks up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of those who are destitute. He speaks up and judges fairly and he defends the right of the poor needy. Naomi and Ruth are poor needy, they are destitute, and traditionally they can't speak for themselves. And Boaz in this story, defends the poor needy, provides for them extravagantly, and then literally goes to a courtroom and speaks on their behalf. A wife of noble characters, this is the wife then. She says she selects wool and flax and works with eager hands. This is what Ruth does in the fields. She gets up while it's still night and she provides food for her families. That's the same thing. - She got up in the middle of the night and proposed to Boaz. - Yes, she considers a field and buys it in Advert earnings. She plans to be near Naomi, initiates the sale of her own property at the end of the book. She, her hand does not go out at night. In her hand she holds a de-staff and a grasp of spinnel with her fingers. She's just like working hard. She opens her arms to the poor. When it snow, she goes out. Like her husband is respected at the city gate when he takes a seat among the elders of the land. - Which Boaz was at the city gate. - Yes. - Whenever all the law proceedings went down. - The ending of the story. She's clothed with strength and dignity and she can laugh at the days to come. This is all, and then you turn the page and that woman is on in your Bible. - Yeah. - Ruth is right there. - It's cool. - It's cool. And it frames an interesting way to read Ruth as, it's not wisdom literature, right? But if you read it with wisdom literature and probably was ringing in your head, it does make sense because wisdom is applying God's knowledge and will and commandments into life at the right time. - Yeah. - And that's what she does. And that's what Boaz does. And that's what Naomi does. And like there's wisdom throughout. And we're able to see how people when they obey the law of God with love for their neighbor. Good things happen. - Yes. - And it's like, oh, the book of Proverbs rings true because Proverbs all throughout says, if you do this, like if you obey God's commands, then it will go well for you. And Naomi's dead husband did not obey God's law. He left the land and didn't trust God and married a mobile, woman, all this kind of stuff. But then Naomi and Ruth come in and they start obeying and Boaz starts obeying and things start going really well. And it's like, oh, the book of Proverbs is proving true. - Proverbs works. - Yeah. - Proverbs works, wisdom works. So that's just very an interesting way to read it, for sure. - And I think too you have Ruth as not just a wise and noble woman, but as a law follower. In a marriage with another law follower Boaz. And one of the fascinating things about Ruth is that even though she's a millibite, she essentially converts to, and becomes a Yahweh fear. So this is in chapter one, verse 16. She says, where you go Naomi, I will go and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God shall be my God. And where you die, I will die. And there will I be buried. This is an incredible moment of, has said, steadfast loyalty to Naomi, which should hyperlink you back to Deuteronomy where God gives a lot of his people on Mount Sinai. And he says, you shall be my people and I shall be your God. And then the people respond by saying, we will do this and if we don't, we will die. So like all that law language is right there. So not only is it after Proverbs 31, and is she this wise woman, she's also obeying the law in a wise way. So the reason I breathe that up at all is that traditionally in this book was read during the feast of Pentecost. - Oh right, right. - So which was celebrating the giving, not only the harvest, which is very appropriate for Ruth, but also the giving of the law. - Yeah, so the giving of the law, they celebrate that fact the law comes the people of Israel and they read the book of Ruth because you have a woman who shouldn't find the law beautiful or good who's not a native to the land of Israel, sees the law as good and then upholds it herself and then acts like it's true. - Right. - So fun, like, such a fun, I think that's fun anyway. - No, it is fun. It is, it's really awesome. It provides a really different way to think about the law, especially in if you're just following kind of the linear historical narrative of the Old Testament, you don't see a lot of people just like loving the law and doing it well. You see a lot of people breaking it, you know, like judges and Joshua and even numbers, you see people breaking the law that was just given, but in Ruth you see what happens when someone loves and upholds the law and it's like beautiful. And like the good news is that she was brought into the covenant people of God and given the blessings. Like the law says, if you obey it, then you'll live in the land, you'll have plenty of crops, you'll have children that won't die and all this kind of stuff. And that's what happens to Ruth when she becomes an Israelite. She receives the blessings of living in the promised land with God. It's just cool, like God was true to his word. So not only does Proverbs work, the law works. Like God works, God's promises are true. - And there's even links between Ruth and the book of Psalms, which is the book after Proverbs in the traditional order. Proverbs, Ruth, Psalms. - Psalms. - And so there's this phrase, like cover me with your wings, which is used multiple times. - Multiple times. - Book of Ruth. And like there's all this like, Salmonic language that's picked up later. So kind of prepares you for something that language is you move into the Psalms and the traditional ordering. - Yes, which I think considering the order of how some of these things had to have been written, I would say that the author of Ruth is probably pulling on Salmonic language that was used to describe the protection of God to describe Boaz in the spread your wings. And so I think, I say that to say that I think this book is meant to set up categories for us for how we should be thinking about how God protects us, treats us, and ultimately how this is fulfilled in Jesus, which we'll get to later. But there's like a literary proof. There's a literary proof of like, even the original authors wanted us to think about this as a parable about God's love for us. - Yes, and that's crucial. This book, we can talk about all the different contexts, judges, proverbs, the Feast of Weeks and Pentecost, but the book is about God's action in these people's life. Like we say it often, the Bible isn't about us, it's about Jesus. - That's right. - And often like, it's not even about the main characters that you're reading about. It's about what God is doing through those main characters. And that remains true here. - Well, yeah, well, let's take a quick break and then let's talk about God's action in this book and some of the interesting things that we see there. (gentle music) Okay, so we mentioned that this book is about God's actions with his people in order to save them in order to provide for them. I think a really crucial word here that we'll talk about later is to redeem them. - Yes. - And so it's really interesting and maybe you can throw in some extra ones, but there are just all of these ways that we see God sovereignly working, kind of in the minutia and in the fine details, even behind the scenes of this story. - And what was your name before we even talk about how God works is the fact that God's rarely mentioned. - Right. - So the characters will talk and make reference to God, but there's like no dreams, there's no miracles, there's no visions, God doesn't speak to anybody. Even like the prayer that Boaz offers when Ruth comes to him and makes the marriage proposal, she quotes his own prayer back to him saying, I want you to answer your own prayer. Like she uses the same words that he uses. So it's like she's appealing to him to answer his prayer and not to God. - Right. - There's like two times where God is like specifically mentioned that the Lord brought like food to Bethlehem in the beginning. - Right. - Chapter, yeah we, the Lord has visited this people and given them food and then at the very end. - Which is on the lips of somebody, right? It's not a narrative detail. - Yeah, yeah. - It's a narrative actually ever described God doing anything. So the point is you don't have a ton of divine action. So you have to look for it elsewhere. Yes. And so we see it, you know, like, classic, we know two big things and we even named one that the text actually gives us that one God is sovereign over the womb, right? And two, that he's sovereign over rain and famine. Yes. And then there's just all these happenstance circumstances, right? Where it's like, it goes to a field that just so happens to happen to be Boaz's field. Boaz just happened to be her kinsman redeemer. Boaz just happened to be kind and willing to show, you know, law, love to this woman, you know, that he didn't have to. He just so happened to, they're just so happened to be a closer heir and that closer heir could not take on the economic burden of redeeming Ruth. Boaz just so happened to be sympathetic to Ruth's crazy request whenever she proposed to him, as you said, you know, just she just so happened to become pregnant. And that just happened after ten years of being there and and that just so happened to be a male, right? That just so happened to be the son of David or the grandfather of David. Yeah. And so it's just, it's crazy how many things had to just, oh, I guess that was a coincidence to happen. And especially considering the time of the judges, yeah, you have nothing but when God does show up, it's like in judgment. It's in a judge to judge wickedness. And so you have the story of Ruth where God is active, not to judge, but to bless to redeem, to save, to give life, even in the middle of a nation going crazy. I think it's really important to name and really beautiful. Like God is working in ways that we don't always see to accomplish our good and his purposes so that we would see him as loving and faithful to us. And I, I'm so important. It's so important. And I think, I think it's really good to name like one like you said during a time of social, political unrest where everything's going crazy. There's war, corrupt leadership, crime, all this stuff is happening swirly around. God is, is not gone or abandoned. He is working. And he's even like guarding people and having like, there's a bow as in the middle of Israel during this time. Like how could a guy like bow as exist? He even says like whenever Ruth comes to glean from his fields, don't go glean from any other fields, glean from here because you know, it's safe here. Other places you might get hurt. You know, like I was really to take him back like, let's say, oh, like she, her life is in danger. She's a dangerous thing. Especially during that time. That's right. But then the other really important thing to see on a more personal level, because I think we all have experienced, you know, in this age, like times of political unrest and social unrest. So it's good to know God's working behind the scenes. But also on a personal level, like whenever you are economically struggling, famine, right? Like whenever you just can't put food on the table or you lost your job, you know, or like your, someone close to you dies, you know, like everyone dies at the beginning of the story. Whenever you can't get pregnant or you're having struggles with fertility. Like, yeah. All of these things are things that just make us feel like God is not there or that he doesn't care or that he's incapable of doing something. Yeah. And the story of Ruth shows us that God is intimately involved and is bringing something far greater out of that than we could have ever hoped for or imagined. Yeah. I mean, who would have, who would have guessed that King David was going to come out of this story of, of treason and, and like abandonment of the promised land and Moa bites. And it's like, wait, David's at the end of the story. Yeah. I think it's crazy. Like the beginning, a limelike dies. God is King. God is King is dead. Is dead, which is, it's like I think about all just the different like people in my life, political factors in my life, causes that I think about and support and want to succeed. And I see them fail. And in that moment, I'm tempted to believe God is King is dead. Like what I thought God was doing is not happening. And now what, what, what, what next? How could we possibly move now? Which, and I think Ruth does a really good job of heightening that up because it's a story sentence around three women, all of whom are widowed, two of whom are foreigners. And so normally, like back in the patriarchal narratives, or even in just the rest of the Old Testament up to this point, there's normally a relative that's known about somewhere. There's normally another father figure or a brother or somebody who step in and provide redemption. Uniquely in the book of Ruth, God is King is dead. There are no airs apparent. We have widows and foreigners leaving their homes. Where there's literally nothing in the opening chapters of Ruth that gives us a hint that God could save. Right. God could move. All the things we're used to expecting from the book of Genesis, like an unexpected air or the ingenuity of a woman or whatever it is, aren't there. Yeah, they're just not there yet. They're not there yet. It's just like this really profound moment of hopelessness. And the question the book of Ruth wants you to wrestle with is, will you trust God when it looks like he's not working? Yeah. And like that's what we see Ruth do. We see her like give herself over to Yahweh and the people of Israel and the land of Israel in the midst of extreme hopelessness, poverty, loss, mourning. It's amazing. And I think it's just cool to just see how faith is an appropriate response to hopelessness. Because they're usually butted against each other. And like you can have faith in hopeless faith. Does that make sense? It's interesting. I don't know what I can hope in, but I'm going to just maybe this is an opportunity to talk about how Jesus in the book of Mark tells everybody comes in contact with don't tell anybody that I come don't tell anybody that I'm here. Like the hiddenness of Jesus is a huge theme throughout at least Mark's version of the story. It's like are there ways that we can see like the hiddenness of God in the book of Ruth as parallels to the hiddenness of the the planned hiddenness of Jesus in the gospels? That's interesting. Because you have these deaths for people right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I see something. So like you know the the reason why Jesus you know was was was saying not yet don't tell anybody yet. Let me keep a hidden was because they just they didn't have good news to share yet. Like he they didn't have the right message to share yet because they were going to go around and be like there's this healer. You know or like the the Messiah has come and he's a miracle worker and it's like that's not who it is. And so don't go and tell you everybody yet. The other side of it is like he needed to control the chaos until his hour had come you know before he went to the cross. So it's really a die. Yeah until he was ready to die. And so it's interesting then that you have this hiddenness of God. You Jesus kind of working almost behind the scenes and all these different areas of Galilee and Jerusalem during his ministry only to culminate in a surprise twist ending of him dying on a cross but then something greater than anyone could have possibly imagined him rising from the dead and ascending as king above all kings to the right hand of the Father. Like so you have this hiddenness twist ending and surprise triumph and that's kind of the same literary structure that Ruth takes on right. There's all this hiddenness what's going to happen. I feel like something's happening. Yeah. Childlessness. Yep. And then surprise ending twist. There's boaz and then oh but it's even better than just getting married and having your house saved. It's the king like King David's line. So there might be something there. I don't know. Anyway I was thinking about that as you were talking. Yeah. It's interesting. I've never thought of it like that but yeah it's interesting. So yeah I mean the hiddenness of God you know him working his sovereignty. I mean we've kind of talked about it from like a very detailed oriented level but from a very big level it's you know God was working through the events of Israel even through all her political unrest to bring about a monarchy. You know God is moving the big chess pieces around too. You know I just think it's it's cool. There was no king in Israel. Like the book of Ruth assumes you know that history. Yep. It assumes you know who King David is. It assumes a lot of information about his readers and you get you're wondering oh how does God go from judges to David. How does that happen? This is in this is the story. And this is the story through the faithfulness of Ruth. It's the monarchy that will be that will father of a Messiah happens through the story of Ruth. Well then let's talk about that. Let's talk about this monarchy that fathers the Messiah. Let's talk about this line. Okay. That goes from Ruth to Jesus but then we got to back up even more to really get the full story of what's happening because the opening of Ruth cues us in if you are an Old Testament Bible reader. You know if you were reading this story at this time when you open this book it should feel very familiar to you some of the themes and images that are here. So you have a people leaving Israel because of a famine, which is like something that's happened before. That was Abraham, right? It happened to the people. Yeah, it happened to the Israelites, you know, Jacob and his 12 sons went from his sons from the promised land to Egypt during a famine to get food. Yep. And so this has happened again and again. Yep. You have Baroness, you know, which is the the the Messianic line is threatened by the childlessness always. Yep. Yep. Sarah Abraham's wife was Baron Rachel. Yes, Baron. Yep. Right. Yes. Yeah. Leah wasn't Rachel. Yeah, Leah wasn't Rachel was. That's what it was. Anyway. And so you have Sarah has a child when she's a hundred years old. Yeah. So there's like all these things happening that should cue you in to the fact that oh this is like I'm reading Genesis again. Yes. I'm reading Genesis again. And that might be the biggest takeaway as a reader that you can think about is that this is a new type of patriarchal narrative. Patriarchal narrative. When I say patriarchal I don't mean all the negative connotations. I mean, yeah, male oriented. Yeah, I mean the founding fathers. Like this is the founding mother of Israel. Like you had the founding fathers who left because of a famine whose family was endangered because of childlessness who moved to a new land voluntarily like Abraham. You have the protect you have like a wedding in a strange place like Rebecca was was had that wedding proposal at the well. You have a roof in the middle of a thrushing floor. Yeah, that's how a woman using her sexual initiative to overcome male in action. So you have like Sarah with the Kings. Oh or yeah, it's more like right. There's some other. There's so many parallels. So many parallels with Genesis between. Yeah. And I think what we need to remember then about Genesis. Why is this important is Genesis is tracing the promised seed of Eve. Like that is what Genesis is all about. There are 10 genealogies in Genesis and each of them are showing us where the promised seed of Eve is heading because if you remember back in Genesis three after the fall and after the curse that God puts on humanity and on the man and the woman he also makes a promise to Eve that one of her descendants will end up rising up and will crush the head of the serpent. Yeah. And will like make everything wrong right again. And so Israel is waiting for this. And so Genesis traces that seed you know all the way from Adam through Seth through Noah through Abraham Isaac Jacob the 12 tribes of Israel. And then we go into chaos in judges. Yeah. And we're like where's the promise like where's this line like you know if you were pulling a thread through the Bible trying to keep that that line of promise tight it seems that that line is sagging in like judges in Joshua. And you're like I want to pull it tight again. And Ruth comes along and yanks the other side of that cord and makes it tight again. Right. Exactly right. And does that pulling on Genesis throughout Genesis to the Messianic line continuing. Famine, famine, childlessness, foreigners like all like a male inaction, black pride, all that's happened before. Yes. In the history of Israel, in the patriarchal narratives, in the stories of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. And then you have the same thing happening again here in the book of Ruth. Exactly right. The mess, the Messiah will come through the faithfulness of Ruth in Boaz. And surprisingly the central character of this new patriarchal narrative is a woman. It is a woman. It's a woman. And like yes. Which would just be like it's not insignificant. It's not insignificant at all. And I think it's really hard for us, you know, even with, even with gender inequality and things like that that still, you know, exist today. I think it's still really hard for us to understand how strange and like out of character it would be to have a nation founding literary genre be started and then put squarely on the shoulders of a woman back in this day and age. Yes. It's astounding. There's a lot of feminist and more liberal scholars who want to, will want to call the Bible a patriarchal construction. The Bible is just a book about men, written for men to advance male interests. Yeah. It's antagonistic towards women. Yes. And the book of Ruth would respond to that by saying no. Absolutely not. You have a, you had, we don't know who authored the book of Ruth. It could have been a woman, but we don't know that. But what we do have in the book of Ruth is female main characters, which is not normal for a lot of our books, the Bible. You have all the plot drivers, the initiative is taken by women within the story. And it's the faithfulness and the ingenuity of a woman that ends up securing the messianic line without Ruth going to Boaz and telling him that he will marry her. We don't have a King David and we don't have a Jesus. Which is exactly what happened back in the story of Judah and Tamar. That's exact. Judah, the man was, you know, male in action and wasn't going to do anything to continue his promised line. And so Tamar did something insane, which we've talked about on the podcast before, you know, to trick him into sleeping with her to continue the line. It was female action that in order that brought us King David and brought us King Jesus. Yes. Like it's crazy. And it serves as a rebuke to, a rebuke and a restoration of what Adam failed to do in the garden. Yeah. So the serpent temps Eve to eat the snake and Adam does nothing to eat the snake. Take up my body. Adam sits there saying nothing. Yeah. While the woman while Eve like eats the fruit. So like, when you have Tamar and you have Ruth responding to male in action with initiative, you have an undoing of the fall and a return back to Eden. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. This is a new and better Eve who is obeying and acting rightly where her predecessor fell. Yes. In order to bring about the promised seed that was, you know, promised to Eve. Like this Ruth is a new Eve. She's a new and better Eve. Which is why it, which is cool, because at the end of the book, what do we get? We get harvest and plenty and children live. Yeah. It's like, is it Eden? A little bit of Eden coming? Yeah. And then I'll think about this. So you normally jump to Jesus as at the end, but the proper talus, the proper end of the woman's role within scripture is the church. Eve leads us to the bride of Christ, the church. And today the church as the bride of Christ, the descendant of Eve brings new life. It should be in the communities that there is a church brings new life to the communities brings a restoration of what was lost. The poor are cared for. The sick are healed. And the Messiah's rule and reign continues because of the actions of the female church because of the actions. And the church is always portrayed, or most often portrayed as a female, as a bride, as a woman, as the talus, the end of what Eve was supposed to do in the garden, a bringer of life in a world of chaos. And there's two really big things you said there that I want to pick up after our next break, but you said that you called Jesus the High King, which I want to talk about is really important. And then you're talking about this community of people that are creating good and almost creating Eden around them because of the way that they're living. And I want to go back and talk about that and you know, how the law leads to loving our neighbors and everything like that after this break. So all right, we'll go there. Okay. So you said we wanted to come back after this break and talk about how Jesus is the High King. The Bruce leads us to the church who's the queen of the kingdom of God, who is the king and why is kingship important to the book of the truth. Yeah. Well, I mean, so first off, the link between Ruth and Jesus is direct. And it is so direct. It's so direct and obvious. So not only do we know that Jesus is the son of David, all throughout the Gospels, he's even called son of David, son of David, you know, but Matthew's genealogy walks us through that gene, you know, that line. And what's interesting about it is we don't only hear about how Ruth is in Jesus' line, right? We also hear about two other women that are in Jesus' line. We hear about Ray Hab. which is who is Boaz is mom so so Boaz is mom is the prostitute Rayhab Who sheltered the the the spies when they came into Jericho? Yes, like wait That is crazy that blue by my what I read it the other day I was like so Boaz is so which is crazy to when we're talking about like how Boaz was like this righteous man in the middle of all this Unrighteousness and his mom was a prostitute That is like a former prostitute like it's just like this is what the grace of God can do people it can change family It's the spiritual lineage of faithful women that is like that. It's like Anyway, yeah, that's amazing. So that's cool. So like God used a Moabite and Ruth used a prostitute and Rayhab and then Tamar Which we've talked about already on this is also in Jesus's genealogy Yeah, and she was also probably a foreigner or was a foreigner We it's never named but because Judah married off his other sons to can and I women Uh-huh, it's assumed that potentially Tamar was also okay Yeah, we don't know but yeah, and she pretended to be a prostitute in order to continue the line so it's like all this strange ingenuity by these females who have Put their faith in God these these women these women who have put their faith in God Is just astounding and so anyway this all leads us to Jesus And the reason why Matthew starts his gospel with a genealogy the reason why Luke includes a long genealogy in his gospel is because he's pulling on all of this All these promises and all of this Sovereignty of God throughout the story Who will be the promised snake crusher like where's that line? Ending to and the reason Matthew and Luke have those genealogies is to show you the straight line from either Adam or from Abraham Abraham that The Messianic line ends here the snake crusher ends in Jesus. That's right. Yeah, and so I think the I think when we think about Jesus as The fulfillment of this this lineage There's a lot of things that you I want to talk about but when we think about Ruth in particular I think we need to think about Jesus as the king who brings ordered chaos Yeah, like this is the time of the judges when everyone was doing from yeah when everyone was doing right and right in their own eyes When everything was messed up when you know like crime and chaos ruled the land and Jesus comes and brings peace and love and order and law and redemption to the land and That's what he does Jesus does as king both for us personally Right, right, and he does that personally for us by being our kinsman redeemer. Yep, you know You define that for us so no one can you know there's a lot of ambiguity around this practice both Whenever a kinsman redeemer is talked about in the Old Testament law and when it's practice here There's a lot of scholars who don't even think those are the same things that what's described in the law and what actually occurs here Two different practices regardless of that basically what is happening here is There and you can read about this in the law that whenever someone who has a land-owning Israelite dies in order for their land to stay in their family and in order for the their name to continue on Which are two very important things to God in the Old Testament that the land would not be Divided up differently than the way he divided it so that there would be justice and equity among his people and then also that the names of his people would Continue because he knows them by name has made promises to them by name and is promised to keep them so like name and land is really important to God When when a land-owning Israelite dies What there's something that's supposed to happen in order to keep that land in the family and keep that name alive so one of their kin so it could be a younger brother Normally, it's not younger brother. Normally. It's the next in line. It's the younger brother is normally what how this happened the younger brother would marry the widow and Procreate with her if she hasn't had any male descendants yet and so that's that's what is originally supposed to happen with a Kinsman redeem well, okay, then maybe we Because that's the the Lev-Rite marriage laws not the Redeemer laws right right? Yeah, they're being blended together. That's why people don't think that that's what this is talking about So that's the old that's the law code that we have right? So then we but what happens is and what we've even said on this podcast before is that the law is not completely exhaustive right? Right, right? So there are other ways to live out the essence and the heart of the Lev-Rite Redeemer and technically then too That means that Naomi is not normally would not normally be a candidate to come under the Kinsman Redeemer laws because once she's a female landowner and There's never in the law there isn't a specific place where it says a widow can own the Husbands land it doesn't say that she can't but doesn't say that she can either and the fact that it's the daughter-in-law not a blood Blood relative of Naomi that is being redeemed by the last also means she's like almost two steps removed from the normal laws of the Kinsman Redeemer Redemption thing happening right and also yeah and what to double down what you're saying and it also seems like there is money involved That there's probably a lean or something a debt on the land Naomi has That whenever she dies or whenever a certain term expires that land would go out of her keeping so when Boaz redeems Ruth and Mary's Ruth he also redeems which means buys he buys Naomi's land yeah, and so it comes at great expense to him He actually purchases Naomi's land but leaves it in her name. Yeah, he pays for the deed Yes, and the fact that there is another person who's close more closely related to Naomi than Boaz right and he refuses should tell us that in order to become this Redeemer It required great personal cost. Yes, like there's great like financial Emotional like you have to like you have to marry somebody share your inheritance with that person's that person's children Like it comes at great personal cost to be this Redeemer That's right to tie the bow all the way back to King Jesus. Uh-huh in order for Jesus to be King who also redeems his people the book of Ruth should be pushing us along this narrative of in order for the King Who loves the law and to redeem his people? Actually reign and institute that kingdom it will come at great sacrifice to himself It will mean sharing his inheritance with people that don't deserve it It will mean taking his the riches of God's grace and giving it to foreigners widows the poor and the destitute it should mean and should recognize us in order for that to happen That means he suffers some loss and Boaz he lost Financial gain potential. Oh, yeah big time. Yeah, when the other when the other potential Kinsman Redeemer was first approached with this economic opportunity to take over You know and redeem Naomi's land He's like, yeah, sure I could do that Yeah, and then he learns that it also comes with Ruth He's like, oh well then that would ruin me financially. Yeah, is what he says right? And it's like oh this must have been an expensive transaction. Yes, and so yes great personal cost So for Jesus it must have come at great personal cost. I just wanted to double down that Yes, and so and I think so Jesus is the new and better Boaz yes, and he is the rightful He is the son of Boaz like you know like Boaz has a son who becomes King David and like Jesus continues in that faithful family lineage Of like you have you have a history of families going all the way back to Rayhab and Boaz's case of People at great cost to themselves great risk to themselves trying to save the people of God That's what Rayhab did. That's what Boaz does and that's what David did That's what Jesus does exemplary in the fact that he dies first people and then Ephesians tells us the riches of his We are heirs to his inheritance Like it's like we like he should not have to divide his inheritance in half He has no right he has no need to like spread his inheritance with other people yet he chooses to because He is a good king and a good son of Boaz So good. I just think to like about Ruth's financial position and And how she got this blessing right so she was so poor That she had to go and just roam about people's fields and look for pieces of wheat that You know as they as the as the workers of the field went through and they you know picked it and tried to and we're putting it in barrels It fell out. Yeah, you know like and and she was pick up spare pieces of grain from the ground right and this was a practice called Gleening and this was something that the poorest of the poor did yes, right? Well, yeah, Jesus does it in the gospels He goes back to the only hospitals. He's got heads of grain and the Pharisees get mad at him for it Because he did it all because he did in the satire. Yeah, yeah, but uh, you know, so like that's that's her economic standpoint She is the the poorest of the poor, a widow who has to go and beg for food, basically. And Boa has notices her, brings her in, and instead of her begging for food, he actually says, "Hey, just come eat with us." And like, eat your fill. It's such that she ate as much as she could and there was still some leftover. And then he sends her home with like more than, like a month's worth of wheat, you know, a beef of wheat or whatever it is. And like, let's her even use his threshing floor to prepare it so that whenever she takes it home, it's actually usable. Like, it's just like insane kindness to this woman. And then what does Ruth have to do to get the blessing of salvation and redemption that Boa's could offer her? She lays at his feet. Like, I just love, like, that's the gospel. Like, how do we move from debt and poverty and loss and hopelessness and barrenness to all the blessings and redemption God has for us? We come and lay at his feet and say, "Put your wings around me, God." Yeah. Like, come and wrap me up. I need you to buy me back. Like, and that's what's required of us. Yeah. It's just, that wasn't a work. Yeah. It was like, it was a weakness. Yeah. It was just coming and putting yourself at the feet of the master and saying, like, put your arms, put your wings around me. That's the gospel. That is the gospel. So let's do the other side of that too. So Boa's shows us positively what Jesus is like. If Ruth shows us not passively, but faithfully, what it looks like to receive salvation from God, how is Ruth herself a type of Christ in the way that she initiates salvation for her and for her own people? So like, one, you have, she chooses to leave her homelands to come to be and make a people that is not her people, her people. Yeah. Jesus leaves home to represent a people that is not his people. Whenever Ruth goes to the field, she works exceedingly hard and is almost like brash in the way that she does it. She goes up to the workers in the fields and doesn't just ask to do the work that's normally required for cleaning, which is picking off off the ground. She has to pick among the sheves. So this is above and beyond what the law would have required. And the workers in the fields say, yes. And so she, as soon as I'll try to say, she works hard. She's bold. She then goes at one point later. She is not only the recipient of like all this heasted kindness, love by Boa's. But when she goes to Boa's and proposes marriage to her, Boa says, this is a great kindness that she did by initiating this marriage proposal. And so I want to stop. And probably a kindness to Naomi because Ruth is Naomi's savior. So we need to understand here that the story begins and ends with Naomi, her mother-in-law, right? And she is the one who says no longer call me Naomi, you know, happier, joyful, I can't call me exactly what. Yeah, call me Mora bitter. And then at the end, she's worshiping and she's happy and she and it's that I have a son is what she says, right? So Ruth is a surrogate for Naomi. She's the one who provides Naomi who stands in reference to Israel as the founding following mother of Israel. Yes. But also think about this. We said, oh, it's kind of strange that Boa's isn't really, you know, a brother or something to be the Redeemer. Well, it's because Ruth is the Kinsman Redeemer. Like Ruth is the one is the is the Levwright marriage one. Like Ruth is the one who is the the closest relative to the bereft who needs her land saved Naomi. And so she goes out and ingenuitively and self-sacrificially, which Boa's name is a kindness, ends up procuring for herself a husband in order to provide a son to be an heir to Naomi's land so that her name and land can go on. And so Ruth redeems Naomi. Fascinating. Yeah. It's through the actions of Ruth who is a type of Christ who leaves her home, who works hard, who sacrifices her own self-interest, who secures for herself a marriage, which I'm trying to find. Like how does Jesus secure for us marriage? But like we're told Ephesians 5, Jesus like the church is his bride. Is it here is marriage so that the lost Naomi, the childless Naomi, the hungry Naomi would be filled would be filled up. That's right. We and we are Naomi, you know, I think we we're also like we're Ruth, but we're also, you know, we are also Naomi. Yeah. We are hopeless. We have no future. We have no inheritance. And we have got the King is that we have no way to provide for ourselves. We have no way to get ourselves out of the hole that we've dug for ourselves with all of our sin. And the debts that just had she had probably had a lean in a debt against her land. We have a lean in a debt against our lives. You know, and and and Ruth goes and fulfills all the law requires in order to purchase Naomi's debt back. And that's what Jesus does. Exactly right. He is the Ruth who goes and does all the law requires and Boaz to go do all the law requires to purchase our debt back to be our redeeming. That's what the word redeem means. It means to buy back. Yeah. And so like Jesus buys us back by paying our debt of death on the cross. That's just a beautiful thing. It really is. It really is. I yeah, I want to keep I'm excited to spend another four weeks or however long we end up spending in in. Yeah. So I think one of the last things I want to I want to name here is is King Jesus is not just King over Israel. Right. He is not just King of one people. Yeah. This is really important because a lot of people believe that the purpose of Ruth, the reason why it was written was to show that David's Moabite ancestry does not disqualify him for the throne because it was God's work behind the scenes that got him there and it all happened according to the law. And so Ruth is there to show that that people outside of the family of God outside the promised people of God can be brought in to the promised people of God. Right. And we see that not only with like we've said with Ruth who was a Moabite, but with you know with Jericho Rahab and Canaanite Tamar like God has always been bringing Gentiles and enemies into his camp. Yeah. And his kingdom is secured by people like those. His kingdom. His kingdom is secured. It's like like people like yeah. And think about like even what Jesus says like I came to the Jew first to the Jew first and then to the Greek. Paul says that. Yep. But yeah, Paul says that. What also happens at the end of Jesus' ministry. The Jews reject Jesus. And it's actually Gentile believers who begin the. The early churches made it primarily of Gentile believers. They're the ones that I mean we have obviously Paul you have the 12 apostles you have the church. But I think about Paul reflecting on this. Right. Paul tells us this is happening in Romans. Right. Paul says that yeah, so many Jews have disbelieved. Therefore, is this even true? Like is this even the fulfillment of all the promises of the Old Testament? If all the Jews don't believe and he says yes because not all Israel's true Israel. Instead, the Gentiles have now been grafted into this tree. Yeah. And they have now received the promises of God. Yeah, they are. It's really interesting that just as a Moabite woman was brought in to continue the promises of God. So Gentiles outside the people of God had been brought in to continue the promises of God in the world. Yeah. It's really interesting. Yeah. And that does validate the Jewish place within the salvation history. No. But like Paul says, it's supposed to bring humility. Yeah. And rejoicing. Humility in the fact that like God can raise up anybody who wants and rejoicing that the salvation that is possible that God purchases that for his people is for all people in all places at all times. Yeah. That's right. And I think even a way to say another way to say like Ruth isn't I think she's in some senses she ceases to become a Moabite and she becomes an Israelite here. Like the reason why it led this story, Legitimates King David is because it proves that Ruth was a true Israelite. She followed the Torah. She committed herself to the law. She acted worthily like the Proverbs 31 woman. She secures for herself redemption for the people of God. Like she is a true Israelite. Yes. Just like yeah. And I want to also like double down like Jesus was a foreigner. Yes, he was a son of Israel, a son of David. But he was also God. Like there is nothing more foreign to humanity than God. So the fact that Ruth is a foreigner images God in his divinity while he's living on the earth as a soldier or a stranger stranger. Yeah. I mean, and what's also interesting is if King Limwell this sounds like a left hook, I think, but Proverbs 31 was written by King Lim- Lim- Limwell. Yeah. I don't think was an Israelite. Oh, that's right. He wasn't. He was. So the province 31 woman was written by a foreigner. That's amazing. So anyway, I think, I mean, we would really be, we'd be missing a huge opportunity if we missed just a note here to say that Ruth should also provide encouragement for, and correction to those on both sides of racial inequality that like those who have been outcasted and hurt by racial inequality should see like honor in the person of Ruth who like God loves and works through and exalts. God loves to exalt those who have been oppressed and marginalized and he does that in Ruth and it should correct those who are holding on to some kind of ethnocentricity to say like God is using and will use everyone and around the throne of heaven will be every tribe and every nation, every skin color, every language. And like Ruth is a beautiful picture of how if we don't acknowledge that God will use other races to our shame. Like we will be displaced in a sort of like, I just think it comes as correction to any kind of racial superiority or anything like that that people want to be. And we just think about just like what's happening in Christianity today for a long time, at least that we're Americans, like for a long time America has been the center for Christian activity. Like we've been setting out the most missionaries, like the higher population of Christians are here, have been the states for a long time. But now more Christians are in Africa, Asia and South America than there are anywhere else in the entire world. More and more we get missionaries from Nigeria flying to America to preach the gospel to our pagan nation. Like our American centreness of Christianity is ending and it's being given to those that we have, at least America has traditionally marginalized. Exactly. They are the Ruth's coming to save us. So I think it's good. I just wanted to make sure we named that. Well man, this is cool. I love this book. I've really come to love this book. And I just think it's amazing the care that God takes to put into not only operating in the world to bring about his purposes. But that like we get little glimpses of those stories. Isn't it going to be amazing when they're in like, I just could picture this heaven library where there's every story of God's sovereignty written beautifully like this, that I can go pick up and be like, whoa, God did what during that? That's crazy. It's kind of like you were saying how like we get these patrilineal genealogies throughout the Bible. Which just means like, yeah, the line of the fathers. The line of the fathers. And Ruth reminds us that there are these women alongside all of these fathers. And they show us that like there are these stories of faithfulness and God's sovereignty and ingenuity that we just don't even know about. And I just wish I could know that in the genealogy at the end of Ruth and Ruth 1821 the phrase is bow as fathered. Oh, that's the petrile of the old genealogy. That's the entire story of Ruth in three words. Yeah, and like I love the fact that you're right. Like there's just all this history and texture and color because of the book of Ruth. And they're there are warehouses of stories like that. Yeah, it's so cool. And I just I think ultimately that it comes down to, you know, what what Peter said about Jesus in the book of Acts in chapter two when he said that Jesus was given up according to the definite plan and four knowledge of God. That the death of Jesus on the cross and everything that meant and everything that bought and everything that that fulfilled, you know, it was because God was just working and all the color and texture and detail of history in order to pull off the grandest love story ever told, which was him dying for us on the cross. And all we have to do to receive that redemption is fall down at his feet in need as poor people begging for redemption. And he says, Oh, what a great kindness. This is that you're here. Like, that's so cool. What is my favorite from this? For as in my study was from a woman named Amy bird, she said, Ruth is not a cannon within the cannon for women, Spible studies. Like Ruth is not a cannon within the cannon for women, Spible studies. It is the story of a God who saves both men and women, Jew and Gentile for the fame of his own glory. That's good. That's good. That's really good. All right. Well, thank you all for listening. This has been our introduction to the book of Ruth. We hope it's been helpful. We're thankful for you and we will see you next time. Thank you for listening to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Spoken Gospel is a nonprofit that gives all its resources like this podcast away for free because of supporters like you. To help Spoken Gospel in our mission to speak the gospel out of every corner of scripture and view all our free resources, visit SpokenGospel.com.