Ruth | God&Neighbor

Two Bits of Truth from Ruth

October 27, 2013 § 1 Comment

Redemption is the dominant theme in the book of Ruth. Upon a recent reading of this short Old Testament narrative though, two things came to light specifically how that redemption occurred.

First a brief background on the characters in he story. Ruth is the daughter-in-law of Naomi, an Israelite, and both are widows. Ruth was a foreigner (from Moab) who had committed to the God of Israel and vowed to stay with Naomi and care for her (1). In ancient times, a woman without a husband is in a dire situation, and this was true of Ruth and Naomi. The workers in a nearby field agreed to let Ruth follow behind and gather the grain that they missed or dropped as they harvested. The field’s owner, Boaz, showed special kindness to Ruth upon discovering her situation. Naomi realized that Boaz was a close relative, and the opportunity for redemption came in a particular kinsman-redeemer law. A kinsman-redeemer was a guardian responsible for caring for he family interests of the widow of a deceased relative. This provision allowed Ruth to seek his hand in marriage, resulting in the rescue of Ruth and her mother-in-law from their financial and social situation and enabling the continuation the family name and inheritance.

The first observation of Boaz’s redemptive plan was that the request for marriage (2) came from Ruth to Boaz, not the other way around. In God’s redemptive plan for His creation, He allows for us to approach the throne of grace and make our appeal to His Son Jesus. Christ is portrayed as the Groom coming for His bride the church, but it is our place to humbly go to Christ and ask for forgiveness. Ruth was a gentile without a husband, but the door was open for her too, and Ruth became part of the line of David that led to the birth of the Messiah a thousand years later in the very town in which they now lived.

The second observation I found interesting is that the form of redemption in Ruth is marriage and not some other arrangement. It’s hard to think of any other relationship people can enter into that can save us, here on earth, to the extent that a man marrying a woman can. Societies and cultures everywhere fundamentally rely on marriage and the resulting family to carry on humanity, to adequately care for and raise children, and provide a basis for all we know about society. The government of Nigeria, fed up with terrorism arising from its own people, recently took steps to enable mass weddings under the premise that men who marry and start families do not generally become terrorists.(3) Marriage has saving power.

Ruth is pretty foreign to modern ideas about marriage and redemption. Today, it is uncommon for the woman to propose to a man, and I’m not sure why that is still uncommon. But it is increasingly uncommon to see the historic and conjugal understanding of marriage as something that serves the public interest.(4) Marriage is not a social or religious or sexual idea, but a pre-law, pre-political unit of society that law has recognized, not created; one which produces good citizens and fundamentally brings goodness to the world.(5) Marriage and the family it blossoms redeems us from ourselves. When it comes to marriage, liberalism or expressive individualism has brought self-seeking alternatives, but marriage seeks others, the benefit of others and society as a whole. When it comes to redemption, we ultimately will never find this in ourselves.

1) Ruth 1:16