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BY GLENN PEASE
CONTENTS
1. A THEOLOGY OF PROBLEMS Based on Ruth 1:1‑4
2. ORDINARY PEOPLE Based on Ruth 1:1‑18
3. THE IMPACT OF INFLUENCE Based on Ruth 1:14‑22
4. DESIRABLE DETERMINATION Based on Ruth 1:14‑22
5. RUTH'S ROMANCE Based on Ruth
2:1f
6. RUTH THE RISK TAKER Based on
Ruth 3:1‑13
7. THE CLEVER COUPLE Based on
Ruth 3:1‑4, 4:1‑10
8. THE COMPLEXITIES OF LIFE
Based on Ruth 3:10‑13, 4:1‑6
9. GODLY GRANDPARENTS Based on
Ruth 4:13‑17
1. A THEOLOGY OF PROBLEMS
Based on Ruth 1:1‑4
A woman
who wanted her apartment painted while she was out of town was very fussy. She
insisted that the ceiling be painted the exact shade of her ash tray. The painters after trying to mix this exact
shade unsuccessfully finally hit upon a solution to their problem. They painted the ash tray with the same
shade they used to paint the ceiling.
When the woman returned she was delighted with the perfect match they
had made.
Problems
sometimes can be solved so easily, to the liking of everyone involved, but
unfortunately, paint does not cover them all.
Dr. Paul Tournier, the famous Christian psychiatrist, says people come
to him all the time for help in solving their problems, and he discovers they
are caught in unsolvable vicious circles.
They need faith to experience God's grace, but they need God's grace to
find faith. They need forgiveness in
order to love, but they need love in order to forgive and be forgiven. Self‑confidence is needed in order to
succeed, but success is need to give them self‑confidence. The list can go on and on to the point that
it leaves problem solvers wishing they had chosen math rather than people, for
all math problems do have answers, but how do you solve the problems of people?
Sometimes
it seems like you can't win. Like the
little boy who came home from school and told his mother he was in a fine
fix. The teachers says I have to learn to
write more legibly, and if I do she will find out that I can't spell. Even kids feel the vicious circle. The reason advice columns are so popular is
because everybody is looking for solutions to their problems. Marriage, family, sex, relationships of all
kinds, the world cries out, "Help me with my problems!" And an array of experts are striving
everyday to find answers to that cry.
The most thought word in the English language, if not the most uttered,
is help!
If you
give a little thought to the professions of life, you discover they almost all
revolve around problems. If there we no
medical or physical problems, the doctors, nurses, and hospitals, with all of
the surgeons and specialists would have no reason for their existence. They
exist to solve problems. If there were
no legal problems, the lawyers and judges would be out of a job. If there were no problems with crime and
fire, policemen and firemen could all be laid off. If there were no problems with the mental and emotional stress of
life, the psychologist, psychiatrist, and counselors could all close shop. If cars, trucks, and planes, never developed
a problem, the mechanics would all be useless.
If ignorance was not a problem, teachers and universities could call it
quits. We could go on and on making it
clear that just about everything that life is about is some form of problem
solving.
The
entire Bible is a problem solving book.
It tells us that God has a major problem.
How can He save fallen man who has disobeyed His
will? The whole revelation of God is
dealing with this problem. Jesus came
to be the great problem solver. He
healed people of their physical, mental, moral, and even social problems. He then died on the cross to solve, once and
for all, the problem of sin, and make it possible for all sin to be forgiven.
He then rose from the dead to solve the greatest problem in man's mind, how can
I live forever? The Gospel is God at
His best in problem solving, but even that does not end it all. Problems are what the rest of the New
Testament is all about. The problem of
weak Christians, baby Christians, backsliding Christians, rebellious
Christians, and unsanctified
Christians.
We could
go on and on listing the problems the New Testament deals with, but the
specifics are not our focus at this point.
This survey is to help us get the over all picture of the Bible and life
so we can see the book of Ruth in its full context. Ruth is a book about real life, the real life of real men and
women. The result is, it is a book
which is problem oriented from the very first verse. It is one continuous battle to find sense in a world that so
often seems senseless. The first
problem of the book is:
1. A FEDERAL
PROBLEM. The government of Israel in
those troubled times was very poor.
Every man did what was right in his own eyes. The judges were spectacular, but no one person can make a good
government, and so people were at the mercy of circumstances, and had little
control over their lives.
2. A FAMINE
PROBLEM. Nature became a foe rather
than a friend to man, and this is more than man can handle. Famine destroys plans and dreams. It forces people to make radical decisions,
and this book starts with a man named Elimelech who was forced by the famine to
take his wife and two sons, and move away from Bethlehem to the Gentile land of
Moab. The problems begin to multiply
like fruit flies on a rotten banana.
The whole external world is messed up, and that messes up a lot of lives,
and so you have the third problem‑
3. A FINANCIAL PROBLEM. Here is one of many families who cannot make it in Israel. They have to pull up roots, and become
refugees, hoping for a better life in a foreign land. But sometimes the solution to a problem leads to other problems,
and they might even be worse than the problem they are meant to solve.
Back in the
mid 1800's millions of blackbirds deviating from their normal migratory pattern
decided to land on the farm of Dr. Fredric Dorsey, in the state of
Maryland. He tried everything to get
them to fly away, but to no avail. Guns
and firecrackers were ineffective. So
he scattered wheat soaked in arsenic over his fields. The blackbirds, eager to wash the foreign substance from their
throats, rushed to the new by stream, and millions of them dropped dead in that
stream. By the next morning the
congestion of dead birds had dammed up the stream, and Dorsey's farm was
flooded and completely under water. His
solution was worse than the problem.
4. A FAMILY
PROBLEM. This problem runs through all
the other problems, for it is the family that suffers in a world of
stress. The family is pushed and pulled
and pummeled by the negative circumstances.
Bad government hurts the family; bad crops and bad economy hurts the
family; bad environment and rootlessness hurts the family. In verse 3 the ultimate in family problems
hits us, as Elimelech dies, and leaves his wife and two boys without a husband
and father. Put this on film, and
you've got a tear‑jerker, and we haven't reached the bottom of the pit
even yet. The next two verses describe
two of the shortest biographies of history.
Mahlon and Kilion, the two boys of Naomi were married and buried, and
thats it. It says they lived ten years
with their wives, but their were no children, and they both died suddenly.
We are
five verses into this story, and already every male has been removed from the
stage by death, and we are left with three widows. The subtitle of this book could be, Murphy's Law In History, which says, if anything can go wrong, it
will. You can count on it, Naomi
believed in this law. The book of Ruth
read superficially sounds like a story of trivialities, but when you see with
your heart, and enter into the setting, and feel the emotions involved, you see
it as a story of profound tragedy, and of how faith triumphs over tragedy. It
is a book about the real world. The
world of loss and grief and stress, and one problem after another. The whole book deals with problem after
problem.
How do widows survive?
How do mother‑in‑laws, and daughter‑in‑laws
relate?
How do you deal with suffering and depression?
How do you cope with failure?
How do you find a nice man?
How do you court again and remarry?
How do you win in the battle of love?
How do you respect the rights of others when they
conflict with yours?
These
are just some of the problems with book deals with. The good news is, this problem oriented book gives us a theology
of problems. That is, it reveals to us
how we are to look at the problems of life in order to see them as God sees
them. They are real but redeemable. Even when the problems make life a hell,
there is hope. The beauty of the book
of Ruth is that it gives us a realistic and balanced perspective that can make
us relevant in the world as it really is.
It forces us to recognize and acknowledge both the pessimistic and the
positive perspective on problems. Let's
consider first‑
I. THE
PESSIMISTIC PERSPECTIVE ON PROBLEMS.
By this
I mean the realistic recognition that problems are very real. They can make life miserable and hard to
bear, and there are no pat answers. In
other words, there are things to really cry about. In verse 9 the three widows wept aloud, and after Naomi described
the hopelessness of her ever providing her two daughters‑in‑law
with husbands, verse 14 says, "At this they wept again." This is real sorrow, and when Naomi got back
to Bethlehem she expresses her depth of sorrow and grief in verse 20 by saying,
"Call me mara because the Almighty has made my life very
bitter." The point is, her
problems are very real, and there is no easy solution. She lost her entire family. It is true it could have been worse. Ruth
might have gone back to her people and
left her completely alone. But the fact
is, she was no longer a wife or a mother, the two most important roles of a
Jewish woman. These problems were never
solved, for she never knew again the love of man, and she never again had a
child of her own.
The
story ends with her joy as a grandmother with her grandson Obed in her lap, but
the fact is, some of the major problems of her life were never solved. In some ways her story is harder than that
of Job. He still had his wife when his
battle was over, and she bore him more children, so that all of his problems
were finally resolved. Not so for
Naomi, for she suffered loses that were never restored, and we are forced to face
up to the reality of the pessimistic perspective on problems. This simply means there are problems which
have no solution. They just have to
endured. They are pot holes in the
road. They serve no good purpose, and
they are not the means to a better end.
They are just a pain and a nuisance, but they are part of the journey of
life, and you need to put up with them if you are going to go anywhere.
The
Christian does not escape the problems of life. Every disease and accident that happens, happens to
Christians. They do not escape the
ravages of war. When the blitz hit
London, 36 of the 51 churches designed by the famous Christopher Wren were
reduced to rubble. The stress of life
hits the Christian family just as it does all other families. Jay Kesler, one of the leading authorities
on the Christian family, and president of Youth For Christ, says in his book, I
Want A Home With No Problems, "I don't believe there is a solution to
every problem." That sounds to
pessimistic, but it is not, for it is just pessimistic enough to be a Christian
perspective. It is Christian to face up
to the full truth of reality. Jesus
did, and that is why He too had the pessimistic perspective on problems.
Was
Jesus ever a pessimist? Of course He
was. He faced up to the reality of
problems that would not be solved. He
wept over Jerusalem, for He knew they would not repent and so would be
destroyed. He taught over and over
again of how His generation would be worse off in judgment that the ancient
cities of Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom. He
told of the evil spirit who left, and then later came back to find a man empty,
and He took with him 7 other evil spirits, so that the final condition of the
man was worse than at first. And so it
will be of this generation Jesus said.
Jesus was
a realistic pessimist in most all of His parables. He made it clear that much seed would never produce fruit. Weed would grow with the wheat, and be
burned at the harvest. The bad fish
would be thrown away. The goats would
not be allowed to enter the kingdom with the sheep. Yes, Jesus was a pessimist, if you mean by this, He recognized
that all problems will be solved. Jesus
accepted the reality of evil, and clearly acknowledge that many would be loyal
to evil to the end, and not take advantage of the solution to evil provided in
the cross. Jesus had a pessimistic
perspective in His theology of problems.
That is why He wept, and that is why He said there are times when you
just have to shake the dust off your feet and move on, for some people will
never accept God's solution. He wept as
the rich young ruler walked away. A
Biblical theology of problems says, sometimes it is realistic to be
pessimistic. But of course, it is never
realistic to see only the pessimistic, for we need to see also‑
II. THE POSITIVE PERSPECTIVE ON PROBLEMS.
This
sounds like a contradiction, for the word problem is a negative word for a
negative experience. If something is
not negative it is usually not called a problem. But we need to see there is a positive and happy side to
problems. Problems call for problem
solving, and problem solving is the
catalyst for all progress. Regina
Wyieman says of problems, "They keep us from settling into stagnant
pools. They swirl us into the deepest
currents of real living and make us reach out for the life‑line of
life."
No one
is ever saved until they realize they have the problem of being lost. No one ever seeks forgiveness who does not
feel the problem of their sin. Prodigals
never return if they have no problems with their sinful lifestyle. Nobody changes their behavior until they see
their present behavior as a problem.
Problem awareness is the key to all progress. The people who do most to alleviate problems are those who are
most aware of the problems. Thank God
for problem solvers in the realm of science.
They devote their lives to the solving of problems that most people do
not even know exist. There are problems
in our lifestyle, and in what we eat and drink and breathe, and these problems
destroy lives by the millions. We would
never know why, and never come up with a solution without problem solvers. People who focus on problems become a
blessing to all of us, and give us hope
that new solutions will continue to be found.
This is the essence of science, the striving to prevent and solve
problems.
You
don't always solve all your problems, just as Naomi did not, but in spite of
her depression and near despair, she pressed on in her problem solving and made
a place for herself in God's plan. By
her wisdom and counsel she found a husband for her daughter‑in‑law
Ruth, and she became the grandmother of the boy who became the grandfather of
David, the King of Israel. She played
the major role in the Gentile Ruth becoming a child of God, and an ancestor of
the Messiah. She did not solve all her
problems, but by her positive persistence she aided in God's plan to solve the
problems of all the world.
The
positive perspective of problems says, I will strive to use problems in such a
way that they will benefit myself and others.
If my problem cannot be solved, I will not give up or crack up, press on
in hope that God will use my unsolvable problem to lead me in directions that
fulfill His purpose. This is the story
of Naomi. This positive perspective
does not minimize the heartaches of life, and try to pretend they are no big
deal. It recognizes they are as bad as
language is able to convey, but they never close the door to hope, for God can
and does work even in life's worse problems to produce possibilities that are
positive. It is superficial to deny the
reality of tragedy, but it is equally superficial to think that tragedy has the
last word. The story of Ruth is a story
of triumph in spite of tragedy, and it gives us the balance theology of
problems. The total pessimist and the
total optimist are both alike in that they are both unrealistic. If you want to really help and comfort
people, and motive them to press on, you must have the Biblical perspective
that takes both the pessimistic and positive seriously.
What are
the practical applications of this theology of problems? First of all, it puts the right name on
reality. It doesn't call evil
good. Evil is still evil, even if God
brings good out of it. The crucifixion
was unjust and evil even if God did use it for our salvation. If your child blows out an eye with
firecrackers, God may so lead that one eyed child to become a blessing beyond
our dreams, but losing an eye by such violence is still bad and negative. Call it by its right name, and do not cover
over the evil of life. A proper theology of problems enables us to be honest
about the negative as well as the positive.
The
Christian goal is not to cover up the evil, and figure out how it is good, but
to overcome the evil with good. That is
the message of the Bible in both Testaments.
God does not try to turn vice into virtue, but
rather, to develop virtues that eliminate the vices. Naomi did not turn grief into happiness, or depression into
delight, for it cannot be done. These
are real evils and cannot be made into good things. She went beyond them by her courage and faith, and persistence,
to develop new goals and new purpose, and God blessed her with joy. Her tragedy never became a good thing. It cannot be done, but a bad thing can be
overcome and motivate you to find new goals and dreams that are good.
To often
Christian demand that the positive cancel out the negative so that we are not
allowed to express our anger and bitterness about life's problems, as we see
them expressed in the Bible. We
suppress our problems, and fear it is not Christian to feel like Naomi, or Job,
or David, as they poor out their complaints.
We hold it in and suffer the consequences of resentment, and all sorts
of mental and emotional problems. The Bible would allow us to express our
complaints and prevent these negative consequences. Christians have a right to have problems, and to feel they really
are problems, and to say so. It is perfectly normal to have
problems. We can even go so far as to
say it is Christlike to have problems.
Problems are not sin, for Jesus had no sin, but He had plenty of
problems. He had all kinds of relational
problems with His disciples, Jewish leaders, and crowds of people. He also had personal problems. Even as a child He had the conflict between
obedience to His earthly parents, or being about His Father's business.
At the
close of His life He said, "Now is my soul troubled." Jesus had enormous stress, as He had to cope
with His disciples betraying Him and denying Him. The leaders of Israel would not listen to Him, and the crowds
would not believe in Him. He had to endure problems we cannot grasp, for He had
to take on Him the sin of the world.
The awful struggle of Gethsemane, and the cry of despair from the cross
is beyond our comprehension. A false
unbalanced theology of problems would sweep these things under the rug, and
play the game of cover up. These things
would be blotted from the record, and Jesus would have gone to the cross with a
smile on His face singing It Will Be Worth It All. He knew that to be true, but He also had to suffer real and
tragic evil.
The point
I am trying to make clear is that it is all right to have problems. It is not out of God's will to be frustrated
and aggravated by the problems of life.
It is sub‑Christian to settle down in that dark valley, but it is
not sub‑Christian to go through it. Jesus was there, and He shared it
with us in the Word so we could feel free to be honest about our own feelings
in the same situation. The problems of
life are not illusions, but real, and we have an obligation to be honest about
them.
We don't
always know how some of our problems will work out. Naomi never knew her grandson became the grandfather of one of
Israel's greatest kings, and a part of the blood line to the Messiah. Ruth may have lived to the time of David and
seen her great grandson, but it is not likely.
The point is, these women did the best they could, and sought to do the
will of God in their life time, and left the purpose of their life to God. They were not told they were to be a part of
the blood line to the Messiah. Only the
future would reveal the blessedness of their lives, and the purpose they played
in God's plan of history. They had to
live not knowing. They had to live and
overcome problems by faith that God would make the battle worth while, and God
blessed that faith.
It was a
pain to press on. It would have been so
easy for Naomi to give up, and just settle down in Moab, and die
forgotten. It would have been so easy
for Ruth to give the battle, and go back to Moab, and forsake her mother‑in‑law
and the God of Israel. It would have
been so easy for Boaz to say, it is too complicated a mess, I will just let my
relative take Ruth as his responsibility.
They all faced problems, and by faith they pressed on in spite of their
troubles to triumph. Problems are
opportunities to express your faith,
and your loyalty to God.
History
began with a problem. Problems are more
universal than sin, for Jesus had no sin but He had problems. Even before sin, Adam and Eve had a
problem. Their problem was, should I
obey God or not? Should I listen to the
tempter and eat, or reject this as bad advice?
Because they failed, we tend to think of problems as all negative, but not
so. Jesus faced the same problem in His
temptation, and that problem became His opportunity
to reveal His perfect loyalty and obedience to the
Father. Ruth and Naomi both had an
opportunity to fail, and say, my problems are too great, I quit. But they both chose to go beyond their
enormous problems to seek for God's best in a far from the best of all possible
worlds. Because of their loyalty they
are a part of God's Word to the whole world.
Among the many blessings their lives give to us is
the blessing of a balanced theology of problems.
2.
ORDINARY PEOPLE Based on Ruth
1:1‑18
What
woman do you know who has had a thousand men propose to her from fisherman to
millionaires; from the penniless on the bowry to the prince of a royal European
family? And who was still getting regular proposals after she was 70 years
old? There was such a woman, and her
name was Evangeline Booth. She was the
first woman to be the general of the Salvation Army. She was a very unique and extraordinary woman. At the age of 63 she swan across Lake George in 4 hours. At age 70 she broke a wild horse that the
owner was afraid to ride. There is much
literature on this woman, for she was not one in a million, but one in a
billion.
When
gold was discovered in Alaska before the turn of the century, masses of men
rushed to the Yukon. She knew the
Salvation Army would be needed there, and so with a few trained nurses she was
on her way. All the talk when she
arrived was about "Soopy Smith" the killer of the Klondike. Soopy and his gang would ambush minors
coming back from the gold fields, shoot them down, and take their gold. The U. S. government sent a posse after him,
but he shot them all and escaped. It
was not a nice place for a lady. Five
men were killed the day Evangeline arrived.
That
night she held a meeting on the banks of the Yukon River. She preached to 25 thousand men, and got
them all singing songs they had heard their mothers sing, such as,
Jesus, Lover Of My Soul, and Nearer My God To
Thee. They sang until one in the
morning. When it was over, and they sat
around the camp fire to keep warm, five men with guns approached her. One said, "I'm Soopy Smith, and I've
come to tell you how much I enjoyed your singing." Evangeline talked with Soopy in the white
light of the midnight sun for 3 hours.
He admitted he use to attend the Salvation Army with his grandmother and
sing these songs.
Evangeline finally asked him to kneel with her, and the most notorious
bandit that ever terrorized the North got down on his knees and prayed and
wept, and vowed to stop killing, and give himself up. This kind of thing does not happen to just ordinary women. This
is rare and unique, and way beyond the ordinary. Her life and gifts are the kind that keep Hollywood going, and
which sell books and magazines, for her life is filled with thoughts and
actions which are spectacular and amazing.
There
are only two books in the Bible named after women. One of them is Esther, and she was in this category of
extraordinary. She was a dazzling beauty,
and she played a role in history that was public and spectacular, and she saved
the lives of thousands of people.
Hers too was a movie type life. But the other book of the Bible named after
a woman is Ruth, and what a radical difference. Ruth was as ordinary as they come. Apart from a few words of beautiful commitment to follow Naomi,
and a part from being a hard worker in the fields, she never did anything, or
said anything spectacular. She is not
described as being beautiful or brilliant.
There is no great event of which she was a part. There is no great influence she had on her
day that is recorded. She had no
outstanding gift that ministered to people.
Ruth was
just one of the vast majority of the human race of ordinary people. She lived in the time of the judges, but she
was not Deborah leading the people of Israel to victory over her enemies. Boaz, the leading man in this story, was
also no Gideon or Samson, doing wonders as a military genius or man of
strength. Everybody in this book is
ordinary. Obed, the baby who gives the book a happy ending, does not grow up to
do anything of significance that we
know of. There are no great battles, no
miracles, and no profound theological statements in this book. Not one person in this book would have ever
escaped form under the blanket of obscurity that covers over most of human
history had this book not been written.
Yet these ordinary people are the people we see in the genealogy of the Messiah. The judges, who were very gifted people, who
made the headlines of their day, are not the people in the blood line to the
Messiah. What is God trying to tell us
by this? I think He is simply revealing‑
I. THE
IMPORTANCE OF THE ORDINARY.
We have a
tendency to think that history revolves around great events, and that to
understand history we need to know the decisive battles of history. I think this way myself, and love to study
the great battles and learn about the famous leaders in these events. We cannot dismiss them as insignificant, but
we can recognize that they represent only a small part of history. It is the part that easiest to report and
make interesting. The vast majority of
history, however, is being made by ordinary people as they struggle with
problems, and either give up, or press on in faith.
Who
cares about a couple of down and out widows in an obscure country trying to
figure out how to survive, and find love and purpose in their lives. This is not material for the historians. They are looking at the generals and heroes,
and the people who are making the decisive decisions of the day. This is what history is to men, but the book
of Ruth tells us what history is to God.
It is also the story of ordinary people, and He does care about this
stuff that would not even make the back page of the newspaper. Maurice Samuel, the great Jewish author of
our century, said of this book of Ruth, "It reminds us that life went on‑‑the
weaving of the creative side of life which lies in these daily domestic
episodes, and not in the battles and in the ambitions of generals and
princes. In the book of Ruth we have
this reminder of the continuity of normal, good, loving people, even in the
midst of very dreadful and destructive circumstances and events."
When
Samson is out bashing in the skulls of a thousand Philistines, we think that is
where the action is, and that is what God considers to be the important event
of the day,
but in reality, the real decisive event may be a
weeping widow resolving to start life anew. The evidence indicated that Naomi's
decision and Ruth's commitment to follow her played a far greater role in God's
plan than any of the great battles that were raging all around them in the days
of the judges. It would seem that the
very purpose for the book of Ruth is to teach us the importance of the
ordinary.
How sad
it would be to think that only famous people matter to God. God gave the unique gifts to the judges of
Israel, and so obviously these special people mattered, and they were a part of
God's plan. But Ruth tells us, God does
not forget the masses and focus only on the few to whom He gives spectacular
gifts. The book of Ruth is about an
ordinary family doing the common place things of life. They were seeking to survive and get some
stability. They wanted to be loved and
raise a family, and be a part of a community.
Such a story is a part of God's Word, because God reveals in it his
perspective on the importance of the ordinary.
Why is this so important? Because the self‑esteem of the
majority of God's family depends on seeing this truth. One of the most interesting books I have
read is by Gigi,
the oldest daughter of Billy and Ruth Graham. Being the daughter of a very famous person,
she always felt she could never measure up to what God expected her to be. She envied the godly women who seemed to be
up there so far above her, and she went through a lot of depression, and even
despair, because she was so ordinary.
She writes, "Some people just seem to have an easy time living the
Christian life. Not me! And, after leaving his calling card of
discouragement on the doorstep of my heart, Satan also convinced me that sense
I was not "perfect" I certainly had no right to minister to
others. So I pulled a shell of low self‑esteem
about myself, cringing each time I was asked to share my faith. I felt like
such a spiritual failure that it would have been hypocritical to share
something I didn't believe I possessed.
I remained in this state of spiritual insecurity for several years,
always striving, yet continuing to fail."
Then one
day, as a shower of spectacular meteors filled the sky, and the president of
the United States called on her‑‑no, nothing like that at all. But rather, one day her two youngest
children came running into her kitchen with their eyes bright with excitement.
They had their hands hidden behind their back, and they were giggling with
delight as they produced a large bunch of flowers they had gathered. She expressed her surprise and joy, and gave
them each a hug, and ran to find a vase.
As she tried to arrange a bouquet, they flowers kept tumbling out, and
she then noticed the stems were all too short.
The children had picked only the blossoms. She laughed at their simplicity, and suddenly realize how blessed
she was with their gift of love, even though it was so ordinary. It dawned on her then that God must love us
as we love our children. We don't have
to be perfect to be loved. We don't
have to do the amazing and spectacular for His approval. It changed her life to realize God can be
pleased with His ordinary children doing ordinary things to express their love
and faith. Gigi learned the importance
of the ordinary, and has used her ordinariness for the glory of God.
God does
not need a lot of superstars to achieve His purpose in history. If He did, He would have given superpower to
more than one person at a time, but God said, by His actions, one Gideon, one Deborah,
one Samson at a time is enough. But he
needs a vast army of ordinary people who will recognize the importance of the
ordinary. Joseph Parker, in his famous
People's Bible wrote, "The book of Ruth shows that the Bible is the Book
of the people, a family Book, a record
of human life in all its moods, circumstances, passions, and volition's. Many can follow Ruth who cannot understand
Ezekiel..... If we were to ask
what right has a story like Ruth's to be in the
Bible, we might properly reply, by the right of human nature, by the right of
kinship to the universal human heart.....
We are surprised by the little things that are in the Bible. Wondering why they should come to fill up so
much space in a book which we think ought to have been filled with nothing but
stupendous events. This is not the way
of God in the ordering and direction of human life. All things are little to God, and all things are equally great to
Him. It is our ignorance that calls
this little, and that great, this trivial, and that important. If not a sparrow falls to the ground without
our Father, we may be sure that He regards all such little stories as that of
Ruth and Esther as a great consequence to the completion of the whole tale of
human history."
We have
not learned one of the most important lessons of life until we have learned the
importance of the ordinary. Second we
want to look at‑
II. THE
IMPACT OF THE ORDINARY.
The
ordinary might be important to God, but does it have any impact on history? Yes it does. Charles Fuller called Ruth the Cinderella of the Scriptures. Cinderella was an ordinary person who
received special blessings, and arrived at a position far above what would be
expected. Ruth was a Moabite‑a
Gentile. She was not a part of the
chosen people. She was widow and so
poor she had to glean in the fields for survival. Like Cinderella, she started below ordinary, but by the
providence of God she met her prince,
and she married, and was exalted to a place of honor in the history of God's
people. The impact of this ordinary
woman on history is hard to determine, but what we do know tells us a lot.
Since
the story is almost totally female oriented, in that it deals with the problems
of Naomi and Ruth, and everyone else revolves around their problems, it has a
great impact on our view of women in God's plan. Back in 1848 the language of the people who lived in the Sahara
Desert was reduced to writing by women missionaries. The first book of the Bible they translated into this language
was the book of Ruth. Who would ever
dream that the first part of the Bible some people ever read was Ruth. They did this because they wanted to make a
special contact with the women, for that was the most likely way to get the
Gospel to them. Women are a key in many
cultures, and so many women are being trained as evangelists.
The book
of Ruth is a prejudice shattering revelation.
These ordinary women knock the idea to kingdom come that you have to be
great to be used of God, or that you have to be male to be used of God, or that
you have to be Jewish to be used of God.
The impact of one ordinary female Gentile demolishes many of the
prejudices that have hinder the cause of God.
Ruth was no women's libber, and she was no fighter for Gentile
rights. She was a very submissive
person with no history of protest, but her story does more to exalt the rights
and equality of the sexes and races than any war of which I am aware. Just by being what she was, and ordinary
Gentile female, she has had an impact on all of history, and it will not cease
to influence history until history is no more.
This has
a theological impact because this is God's Word, and if God gives this much of
His Word to working through the ordinary, then we learn from this that God is
not limited to the supernatural. We
miss this when we say, God was really there and working, and we mean by this,
there was clear manifestation of the power and presence of God. There were miracles and wonders, and so God
was there. The book of Ruth has a more
widespread message than that. It says
there was nothing but the ordinary and the commonplace, yet God was there
working out His will in history for the salvation of the human race. Nothing spectacular happened, and no great
words were said, and nobody was raised up on the wings of ecstasy, but God was
there, and His will was being done by ordinary people doing ordinary things to
solve ordinary problems.
The
question is, which is most important, to know that God is in the wondrous and
the marvelous, or to know God is in the commonplace and the ordinary? I think the last, because He said, low I am
with you always, and if we only realize it when life is on a mountain top, then
we miss the presence of God in most of life, which is ordinary and
commonplace. I need to know God is with
me, not just when I worship and praise, but when I am doing the routine duties
of life, and wrestling for solutions to the everyday problems of life. The book of Ruth is so valuable just because
it is so ordinary, and helps us recognize the impact of the ordinary. It is about one ordinary woman, not an
amazon, not a queen, not a superstar of any kind, but just an ordinary Gentile
woman whom God used to be a link to the Messiah.
God's
love is always wider than our conception of it, and so God has to be doing
things constantly in history to remind us of the universality of His love. This story is first of all a story of the
love of a Jewish woman and a Gentile woman.
It is their love and unity that becomes the foundation that led to the
romance of Boaz and Ruth, and which then lead to the marriage of Jew and
Gentile. This book illustrates what
God's will is for history, and that is that Jews and Gentiles become one as the
people of God. The book does not say it
in the profound theological writing of the apostle Paul, but by the providence
of God in ordinary people's lives.
Ruth
does not argue for anything. It just
describes the events in the life of one family, and yet it has a deep
theological impact on all who will think about what it means for God to include
this story in His Word. One book of the
Old Testament named after a Gentile woman, and she is an obscure nobody of Moab. Why?
Because God loves obscure nobodies of Moab, and everywhere else in the
world, and in every age, and He wants to make them a part of the family of God. The impact of this ordinary Gentile woman
becomes more and more impressive as we see what her presence in Israel
meant. David was her great
grandson. When David was trying to
escape the wrath of King Saul, and was on the run, he felt an obligation to
protect his parents. Where could he go
to find a refuge for them? I Sam. 22:3‑4
tells us: From there David went to
Mizpah in Moab and said to the king of Moab, would you let my father and mother
stay with you until I learn what God will do for me? So he left them with the king of Moab."
David
had a friendly relationship with the Moabites because he was part Moabite
himself through his great grandmother Ruth.
David had a great love for, and many relationships to, the Gentiles all
around Israel. Many of his best soldiers
and advisers were Gentiles. Even some
of his personal body guards were Gentiles.
When Absolom,
David's son, stirred up a rebellion, and David had to flee, it was his Gentile friends that were loyal to him when the men of Israel turned on him.