An Unusual Love Story

Ruth

November 17, 2002

Background:

A. How would a tabloid headline this book? How your second marriage can be better than the first… How one woman found happiness in the arms of her second husband… How romance on the job can work for you… J

B. Ray Steadman tells the story of Benjamin Franklin who as American ambassador to France attended the Infidel’s Club and disguised his reading of the book to them by changing the names… they loved it!

C. Ask yourself, why of all the events of history in those days did God select this one? We have the story of part of the linage of Jesus. Ruth was a Moabitest who by law had no rights among the Jews. More than that, this story of love is a great parallel to God’s own love story: God’s love for us. (1 Cor. 10:11) “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.”

D. Redeeming Love: a theme played out in the lives of people throughout the Bible and a continuing experience of people today.

I. Ruth and her Family

A. The meaning of the names

1. Elimelech: My God is King

2. Naomi: Pleasure

3. Mahlon: Sickly

4. Chilion: Pining away

5. Orpah: fawn

6. Ruth: beauty

7. Bethlehem: house of bread

B. Their retreat from famine

1. Moab was out of bounds for the Jews

2. My God is King married pleasure which produced sickly and pining and a retreat from faith

C. The bitter return

1. Orpah and Ruth: same circumstance, same commitment but different results

a. People making the same commitment on the same day make different levels of commitment

2. Namoi heads back into town and is warmly greeted upon which she asks to be called Mara, i.e. bitter

II. Ruth Seeks Grace

A. Ruth sought grace (2:2)

1. God had made provision for the poor in the land (Lev. 19:9, 10)

2. She was a stranger… a Moabite

3. At this low place of life her attitude is humble. You would think that a person in the low place of life would be a seeker of grace. Many just get hard.

4. Ruth was humble and a servant at heart… taking care of Naomi

5. Ruth had come to trust in God (2:12)

6. Ruth wasn’t lazy… she beat out what she had gleaned before coming home… she didn’t bring home the chaff.

B. Boaz a man of strength (meaning of his name)

C. Ruth “just happened” on to Boaz’s field

1. Zaccheus

2. Woman at the well

3. Blind man

D. Ruth’s Report

1. Naomi’s surprise (2:20)

2. Naomi’s advise – keep going to the same field

3. At the end of the harvest, Naomi sets up something that we don’t relate to well in our culture: the law of the liverite. She explains the culture procedure.

4. Nearest of Kin (Deut. 25:5,6)

III. Ruth Claims Her Right

A. Ruth takes a risk

B. Boaz does his work

1. Approaches the nearest of kin at the gate of the city and gathered 10 witnesses… court was now in session.

2. Boaz wasn’t the nearest of kin so the other guy had to have the first opportunity

3. Our nearest of kin was the law… like Ruth… the law makes a pauper of us all

4. Jesus spoke of a parable that illustrates what Boaz did in Matt. 13:44.  “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.”