Ruth's Story

The third woman in the lineage of Christ I am studying is Ruth. Her story began with Naomi and Elimelech, who were living in Bethlehem during a time that Israel was under God's discipline. Apart of God's discipline was a severe drought, so they decided to move their family to Moab, initiating a season of grief for Naomi. She grieved the loss of a familiar home, a familiar culture, and extended family. They moved because the rains had ceased, thirsty plants wilted, cows starved, and there family was experiencing hunger they could not fill and thirst they could not quench. They went to a green fertile place in Moab, which was steeped in pagan worship. While there, Naomi's husband died and her two sons married Moabite women, killing her hopes of ever returning home. 

Within ten years in Moab Naomi had buried her husband as well as both of her sons. Her grief became unbearable and she found herself once again longing for home. In her pain, she had come to believe the hand of God had come against her personally. She told her daughters-in-law to return to their families and to their gods so they could remarry. At first, both women protested. But when she reminded them she was too old to bear sons who could become their husbands, Orpah rose to return to her family. But, Ruth stood her ground, refusing to leave Naomi, declaring allegiance to her and to her God. Maybe Ruth believed that by holding on to Naomi she could hold on to the memories of her husband or maybe she had grown to love her and didn't want her to travel the dangerous roads alone. Whatever her reason, Ruth knew she might not be accepted in Judah and that she could possibly live the rest of her life as a widow in the midst of a culture she knew would never accept her. 

The two women arrived in Judah just as the barley and wheat fields was ready to be harvested. When the women in the community recognized Naomi they greeted her fondly, but Naomi asked to be called Mara, which means literally means "bitterly dealt with." I love her honesty and know there have been times I could relate to her feelings and wish I had been that honest with those around me instead of trying to cover up the pain I was feeling.

Ruth soon went to the barley fields to glean what the reapers left. She ended up gleaning in Boaz's fields. When Boaz saw her, he asked about her. Upon hearing she was the daughter-in-law of Naomi, he instructed her not to leave his fields and to stay with the women who were working for him. He provided her with water and with food and instructed the workers to pull grain from their bundles and leave it for her to find so she would have ample grain for Naomi and herself. He treated the young foreign widow with the upmost respect and protected her as she gleaned. This was important because a woman in her position was vulnerale to being mistreated or assaulted. 

When Ruth told Naomi about the grace and the kindness Boaz showed her, Naomi realized that her God had not forgotten her. She explained to Ruth Israel's provision for widows through a kinsman redeemer. At Naomi's instruction, Ruth bathed and anointed herself with perfume and went to the threshing floor and uncovered the feet of Boaz and laid there. He awakened and she asked him to be her kinsman redeemer. Even in the darkness of the night with a woman lying at his feet, Boaz integrity was impeccable. He listened to her and treated her with godly respect. He knew there was a closer rleative with the right of redemption, and he wanted to be able to legally take Ruth as his wife. As soon as it was light enough for her to go home safely, he sent her on her way, protecting both her reputation and her purity. He asked for the right to marry her from the relative nearer than he and it was granted. I love Boaz and his heart. He was the son of Rahab (the harlot) and Salmon (the founder of Bethlehem) and they raised him in such a way that he was a compassionate, loving, man of integrity who did everything he could to be loving and to show Ruth honor and favor. 

I love this story because it is an honest account of woman who had suffered a great loss and for a season experienced deep grief. It is also an account of a woman who in spite of the grief she was experiencing was able to rise up and choose to love her bitter mother-in-law well. And it was that love that led Ruth to follow Naomi to Judah and enabled her to leave her own culture and her pagan gods and embrace a new and different culture and the great and mighty Jehovah-Jirah.

Maybe God placed Ruth in the family line of Christ to show us the importance of being tenacious followers of God. Ruth was so tenacious she didn't let Naomi's desire to isolate deter her from walking her to Judah. She didn't let Naomi's bitterness deter her from choosing to love and care for her. She didn't let Naomi's tainted view of God deter her from fully trusting Jehovah to be her God. She was so tenacious that she didn't let Naomi's sadness or her status as a foreign woman deter her from trying to provide for her. 

Maybe God put Ruth in the family line of Jesus to show us God cares for those who are suffering in the aftermath of loss. It doesn't matter whether the losses are people, possessions, the sense of security, one's health, or one's dreams--the pain of loss is very real and our God fully understands it because of the cross. We would do well to remember though our losses cause pain, they are not proof that God doesn't love us. Nor are they proof that He doesn't care about the pain we are experiencing. Just as Ruth's losses were what propelled her from a place of poverty to a place of wealth, our losses have the potential to open up new things in our lives. Ruth's loss also propelled her to be in the place she needed to be to become the great grandmother of King David and to be a part of the family line of Jesus.  

Maybe God put Ruth in Christ lineage to show us how leaning into Jesus in faith during loss can provide us the opportunity to see God work the things that are happening in our lives out for our good and His glory in ways that we can't even imagine. God saw her faith and her heart and He honored it in the sweetest and most inclusive way. What might be the hidden treasures in the darkness we are experiencing right now?  

Maybe God put her in the lineage of Christ to show us that "God shows no partiality, but in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him." (Acts 10-34-35) This means He is an inclusive God. He doesn't discriminate on our gender, on what we believed before we came to know Him, on what family we grew up in, on the sin with which we struggle, on the race we were born into, or what country we come from. Jesus' invitation is for whoever will believe on the name of Jesus. He placed Ruth in Jesus' family line to remind us that in His family there are no outsiders and there are no second class citizens.

 

Maybe He put her in the lineage of Christ to show us that we don't need to compromise our integrity to have our needs met. We can trust a God who was willing to die for us to meet our needs on a daily basis. We don't have to manipulate or lie to get what we need. He will provide.

Ruth being in the lineage of Christ reminds us Jesus understands our grief. He understands the pain parents feel standing over the grave of a child lost too soon. He understands the pain a widow feels as she watches her spouse slip into eternity. He understands the grief that comes when a marriage ends and the grief an infertile couple feels every month. He understands the grief of watching houses burn to the ground or floods washing away crops and animals. He understands the loss experienced when a family member is injured and forever changed. 

I can't help but think that there is significant meaning in this story of a Israelite man marrying a Moabite woman being set in Bethlehem, which means "The House of Bread." I can't help think that it taking place just as the barley and wheat are harvested is no coincidence. This would be taking place during the feast of weeks and in Leviticus 23 we see that God had instructed Israel to bring two wave loaves made of flour and baked with leaven to be the first fruits to the Lord. Could the two loaves of bread possibly represent the faithful disciples in both the old and new dispensations? Could they represent the two separate, but now fused races of people who comprise the church--the Jews and the Gentiles? How neat for Ruth to not only be a forerunner of the Savior, but a reminder to every gentile that they, too, have been fully fused into the family line of Jesus. 

A Heart-Mending God

I belong to a ministry that helps form supportive relationships as God is in the process of mending hurting hearts. We get to be image bearers to those hurting in ways that many people never get to be. I love it that the Scriptures are full of biographies of people whose hearts ached with deep longings, who were wounded by the lack of morals in their communities and the evils perpetrated by godless nations, and who didn’t think they were qualified to serve in the capacity to which God called them. Today I will share about some of my favorite women from Scripture whose lives were changed and whose hearts were mended by God.  

There was Sarah who lived with the shame of being a barren woman in the midst of a culture that  worshipped fertility gods. Month after month she lived with the pain of deep longing, only to have her hopes dashed again and again as her "time of the month" made its appearance. Surly she felt defective and believed she was less than the women who bore children. Surly she felt unheard by the gods of stone to which she offered sacrifices and prayers. Surly she found her arms aching and the longing of her heart growing unbearable every time she took food to a family celebrating their newborn.  

And just when her menses ceased and she thought she was finally free to grieve what would never be and move on, her husband told her God had called them out of their pagan culture and made a covenant with him that included a child. That had to seem like a cruel joke to a barren elderly woman, especially when God waited another 13 years to fulfill His promise. But, that thirteen years were not wasted years. They exposed Sarah's doubt, her tendency to do things in her own power, and her character flaws. Then God visited them again, He restated His promise and she laughed in disbelief. What woman wouldn't laugh at the idea of becoming pregnant in her nineties? But, God raised Sarah's body from its state of reproductive deadness and Sarah found herself birthing a man child she named Isaac, which means laughter. Isaac served as a reminder of how God, in His grace, turned her laughter of unbelief into laughter of pure joy.   

Then there was the prostitute Rahab, who lived in the city of Jericho, longing to know the God of the Jews. When the Jewish spies entered Jericho, she hid them and then helped them escape. As they left, she begged them to save her. They told her to hang a scarlet chord in her window and she would be saved through the battle. By faith, Rahab hung that blood-red Chord in her window and she was protected from tumbling walls and soldiers fighting. She was taken back to Israel’s camp. We now know that any woman with the title of Harlot attached to her name has some serious wounds that need mending and God provided her with a husband who loved her in spite of her past and they birthed a baby boy named Boaz who grew to be a godly, caring man.  

Around the same time Naomi was a Jew living in a foreign land with her husband and her two sons. in that place her sons took married foreign women and soon after her husband died. Then both sons died, leaving three grieving widows. Naomi’s grief was compounded by the death of her sons and it turned bitter. She longed to go home, and because Ruth loved she saw past the bitterness and she chose to walk Naomi home. There Ruth found mercy as she gleaned in the fields of Boaz and at her mother-in-law’s suggestion, she went to the threshing floor and laid at Boaz's feet. He treated her with both loving kindness and respect and became a kinsman redeemer to Ruth, taking her, a foreigner, as his wife and they birthed a son named Obed who became the father of Jesse who became the father of David who was in the lineage of Christ. And God continued mending the heart of a young widow and the grandma-shaped hearts of both Rahab and Naomi.    

These three women are in the family line of Jesus by God's design. It was not an accident. That family line is a long line full of broken, sinful, and needy people. I love how God put the prostitute, Rahab, in the line because she trusted Him enough to hang a cord in her window--an act that makes no sense apart from God. I love how the Gentile, Ruth, even in her own pain chose to love a bitter mother-in-law all the way home, trusting the God who holds life and death in His hands for something bigger.

Then there was the woman who met Jesus at a well. She came midday to avoid biting words, judgmental stares, and clicking tongues that came with the scandalous life she was living. He knew she had been publicly declared an unfit wife five times. He knew she was brokenhearted and craved to be loved with a love strong enough to stay. Jesus led her through a spiritual discussion that prepared her heart to receive Him. He gave purpose to her suffering by helping her see that it was Him she really craved. He gave her life purpose by using her--a scandalous woman--to bring salvation to the very community that despised her. Her passion and her willingness to share Him with those judging hearts tells us just how completely God was mending her heart.

Then there was the woman caught in adultery that was thrust at Jesus feet by an angry mob, claiming they caught her in the act of adultery. Just as the man had used her, these men were using her to trap Jesus. But Jesus called them out, telling them that the man who was without sin could cast the first stone at her. Their unrighteousness was glaring in the face of His holiness. Thud after thud could be heard as stones fell to the ground. She was left alone, sitting fearfully at the Savior’s feet as He quietly drew in the sand. After the last man left, he looked up and told her to go and sin no more. She knew that she had looked into the face of Grace and that the only One who had a right to condemn her had chosen to begin mending her shame-riddled heart instead.

I bet women's hearts were mended when Jesus taught men that a woman who could only give two mites performed a more acceptable act of worship, than those who gave out of the abundance of their wealth. I know He mended the heart of a woman who had been bleeding for twelve long years, who by law had to live isolated from her family and community. Her heart began mending when Jesus called her out for touching the hem of His garment in an unclean state. This gentle confrontation forced her to publicly own the  physical healing she had received, so that she could be fully restored socially and spiritually. Then there was woman who was bold enough to enter a banquet and pour costly ointment on the Savior's feet under the glaring, judgmental stares of those attending. Christ began mending her heart the moment He silenced her critics.      

Oh, The Lion of Judah! He has a tender heart towards hurting women and He moves on our behalf. I don't know about you, but I can trust a God who removed a woman from a pagan culture that deepened her shame to resurrect her dying body so she could give life to a child. I can trust a God who placed broken, hurting women in the lineage of Christ to tell the world they matter. I can trust a God who went out of his way to fill the heart of one very thirsty woman. I can trust a God who healed a woman of the issue that was slowly draining the life out of her. I can trust a God who defended a woman caught in adultery and a woman boldly worshiping with her own tears and oil.  

I can trust a God who left the glories of heaven and rubbed shoulders with sinful, broken people who were just like me. I can trust a Savior who wrestled with God’s will so long and hard He sweat blood and still set His face toward the cross. I can trust a Lamb who bore God's wrath for my sin and gave me His goodness in its place. I can trust a God who not only saved me, but also sealed me with His Spirit and gifted me with spiritual gifts, declaring me to be a valuable part of the body of Christ. I can trust my Abba who calls me His beloved daughters. I can trust a King and who has promised to come again. And I can trust Him to use this wait, however long it be, to expose my brokenness, my tendency to fill my thirst with things that cannot satisfy, and expose and replace lies I believe keep me from fully trusting Him and from living out my true identity. I can trust a God who is mending my heart into a beautiful masterpiece that beats in such a way His love flows freely through it. My God--He is a heart-mending God.   

Daughters of the King

When I used to read the Bible as a teenager, I was often confused by the actions of men towards women in the Bible. There was Sarah whose husband said she was his sister, putting her at risk of being raped or taken as another man's wife. There was Tamar, who was raped by her half-brother Amnon, who desperately needed her father, King David, to comfort, protect, and defend her honor as she struggled with the deep shame that follows rape and incest. But he, with his loud silence, betrayed her as well. Then there were many women in Israel who had entered covenant marriages, hoping to be companions to the young men they married. But, instead they were betrayed by their faithless husbands. 

In my confusion, I began to pray that God would show me how He views women because I wasn't sure I wanted to follow after Him, if he didn't view women any better than the men whose stories filled the pages of His Word. Then I came across Malachi 2:14-15,"But you say, ‘Why does he not?’ Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So, guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth." I began to see that God cares about women and the treatment they receive and over time, I saw other things from His Word that revealed how He loved, rescued, healed, and redeemed women broken by both life's circumstances and the hurtful and abusive actions of others. 

One of the things I saw from God’s Word was His inclusions of women in Christ’s genealogy. Right, smack, in the middle of it there are three women closely related. One was Rahab, who was a prostitute from Jericho. She saved the lives of Israel's spies by hiding them and then helping them escape. She had heard of their God and asked to be spared. So, they told her to hang a scarlet cord in her window when the battle began and she would be spared. She, by faith in the one true living God, hung that scarlet cord in her window and was saved. An Israelite named Salmon took her as his bride and they gave birth to a baby boy named Boaz. 

There was Naomi, who had moved to a foreign land, whose sons married Gentile women. Naomi's husband died and then her sons, leaving them all to grieve. Naomi became bitter and longed to return home and Ruth, her daughter-in-law, loved her and refused to stay behind. They traveled to Naomi's home town--the town where Boaz lived and he became a kinsmen redeemer, taking Ruth as his bride and they bore Obed, who became the father of Jesse, who became the father of King David, who was in the lineage of Jesus. I'm sure there was great joy in the grandma shaped hearts of Rahab and Naomi the day Obed was born. 

Those women are in the family line of Jesus by God's design. It is a long line of broken, sinful, weak and needy people. I love how God put Rahab who, as a prostitute, asked to be saved and trusted God enough to hang a simple cord in her window--an act that made no sense apart from God. I love how the Gentile, Ruth, even in her pain chose to love a bitter mother-in-law all the way home, trusting the God who holds life and death in His hands for something bigger. 

I found it comforting that God called a young woman to bear His son, Jesus, when Jesus could have entered the world in an infinite number of ways. I found it comforting that He tenderly cared for the mom pregnant with Hope by giving her many validations that the Child she carried and birthed was the Promised One--through Elizabeth's baby leaping in the womb, through the Shepherds seeking to worship the Babe, through Simeon and Anna proclaiming Him in the temple, and the Magi who came from afar to worship the King He gave her big grace for her Mama's heart to hold onto as she watched her Son, her Savior die on the cross.

I also found it comforting that Christ crushed social barriers that had made women second class worshipers. He even went out of His way to meet a Samaritan woman publicly rejected by men five times, offering her Living Water. She accepted Him and got to bring the community that judged her so harshly to sit at His feet.

He taught men that the woman who could only give two mites had performed a mighty and acceptable act of worship that meant more than the all giving that wasn't sacrificial.

He healed a woman who had been bleeding for twelve long years, fully reconciling her to Himself and restoring her to her community.

He stood up for a woman thrust at His feet by an angry mob of men who claimed they caught her in the act of adultery. In the face of His righteousness the men one by one dropped their stones and He, the only one who had a right to judge, graciously dealt with her sin.

He stayed in the home of Mary and Martha, allowing Mary to sit at his feet, learning with all His disciples. He also revealed Himself to these sisters as the God who has power over life and death by calling their brother from the grave helping them understand He was laying down His life.

He silenced the men who criticized the woman whose pure worship was displayed by her anointment of his feet with expensive oil and her own tears, allowing her to dry His feet with her hair. And, after the resurrection, He chose a woman to be the first to see His face.   

The Scriptures show us that women have been victimized for long time, but they also show us that God has a tender heart towards us and does not view us as second-class citizens. I believe the public outcry going on right now is exposing the depth of the sin of gender contempt, harassment, and abuse in this world and it is proof that the Lion of Judah is moving on our behalf. We need to remember abusers' actions do not reflect the heart of our God, they reflect only the hearts of the abusers. 

We can trust a God who places broken, hurting women in the lineage of Christ. We can trust a God who uses a woman to give birth to His Son. We can trust a God who let women sit at His feet, and listen to his teaching. We can trust a God who revealed Himself as the God over life and death to a woman. We can trust a God who defended a woman caught in adultery and a woman worshiping with her tears and her oil. And, we can trust a God who reveals Himself in resurrected form to women first. We can trust a Savior that left the glories of heaven and bore God's wrath for our sin when He died in our place on the cross. We can trust a God who sealed us with His Spirit and gifted us with spiritual gifts, declaring that we are as valuable to the body as our Christian brothers. We are not second-class citizens. We are the beloved daughters of the King of kings.