What a journey we have traveled to get here! Loss, love, intrigue, loyalty and suspense have brought us to this point of the story. This story, like many in the Old Testament, such as Hosea, tells us the story of Israel. She often runs from God, looking for other gods, looking for answers and the like, looking for protection, and she finds herself in a worse situation than when she started. She returns to God, and God blesses her, and not too long after that, she tends to run back to evil again. It is a vicious cycle. But in this story, we see the lovely man, Boaz. He is the Kinsman Redeemer who comes to rescue Naomi and Ruth, and to restore what was lost when Naomi ran to Moab with her husband.

Ruth is the Gentile, us, who is grafted into the family of God. In her case, right into the family of Jesus. She chooses to follow the God of Israel and comes to live in Bethlehem. There she serves Naomi and honors her. She lives in a selfless and servant way, and all in Bethlehem, including Boaz, take notice of her. The whole concept of the Kinsman Redeemer is a part of the Mosaic Law that was designed to preserve the inheritances of the tribes and the families in the tribes. Under this law, a plot of land or field could be redeemed by a close family member marrying the widow of an Israelite and having kids, preserving his name. In Naomi’s case, it would appear that she is too old to have kids, and so the man marries Ruth and has a son with her.

When we ended last week, Boaz promised Ruth that he would attend to the matter of redeeming her and Naomi as soon as possible. In the first verses of Ruth 4, we see the formation of an ‘ek-klesia,’ which is translated in the New Testament as an assembly and what we call a church. Boaz called out an assembly of men, ten to be exact, who gathered together to do city business. This was a local assembly with a purpose. The New Testament church is that: a called-out assembly of baptized believers that assemble together to do God’s work in a specific location. We can see this in the epistles; they are addressed to a church in a certain location. The church at Ephesus, the church at Corinth, the church at Rome, and on and on. There is no such thing as a Universal church; it is foreign to the scriptures.

Boaz, the Kinsman Redeemer, Jesus, ends up contracting to redeem Naomi. He basically buys them and redeems them and their lands. This is a reminder, as we celebrate the Passover celebration of Easter, that our salvation is a legal transaction. God is a perfect God; you and I are sinful persons. Our sin separates us from God, and Jesus pays the price for our redemption. He buys us back (see 1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body.”

In Romans 5:1, we are declared ‘justified’ before God. We now have the ability in Jesus to be right before God. In Romans 8:1, we see that there is ‘no condemnation for us’; we are no longer condemned as sinful, fallen men and women. We are redeemed and saved by Jesus. This is a legal transaction that God did, and it cannot be negated ever. Once Boaz redeemed Ruth, no one could come back and claim either her or her land. The transaction was done publicly and witnessed by many, just like the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. In reference to Israel, God’s protection over her has been very public. Israel is surrounded and outnumbered by her enemies on every side, and were it not for God’s promises and His protection, surely she would have been consumed by now. (See Psalm 124:1-2.)

“If the LORD had not been on our side—let Israel now declare— if the LORD had not been on our side when men attacked us, when their anger flared against us, then they would have swallowed us alive.”

And so, Boaz marries Ruth; she gets pregnant and has a son, Obed. That son gives birth to Jesse, and he has David. We all know that Jesus is the son of David and that one day, as the oldest living man of Judah, He will reign over the whole world from Jerusalem. We begin the story with Israelites running for food and looking to Gentile cities for help. We end with Israel restored; hope and joy is real as they celebrate the redemption that comes in the Kinsman Redeemer.

There are so many beautiful stories in the Book of Ruth. Lessons for the Jews, lessons for the Gentiles. In the midst, we get an Old Testament example of a local church, and we see the person of Jesus played out in Boaz. Once again, like we were looking at a few weeks ago, Jesus is the central story of the Bible; He is everywhere, and He is the main character there rescuing us from death and hell.

Is He the central character in your life? Often, even as saved people, we can forget the plot and get off track. It is all about Jesus, His life, His power, His love, His death, His burial and his resurrection, and we find all the hope we need in His promises.

seangooding@yahoo.ca

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario

Last week, we looked at the life of Ruth. The example that she set and the way that she worked to serve her mother-in-law was a wonderful example to us of love. Her character was noticed by many, and she also caught the eye of Boaz, the Kinsman Redeemer. The lovely story in Ruth is about Jesus, and of course, we end the book with the birth of Obed, the father of Jesse, who would father David, the king on whose throne Jesus would sit.

As we pick up the story, the harvest is over, and the time for milling is at hand. The men, Boaz included, are working at night. You may recall that the book of Judges is all about how enemies like the Midianites would come in and steal the crops from the Jews. Well, one way to defend against that was to work at night. Naomi knows this, and she set a time for Ruth to go to Boaz. Naomi knew the law of Moses in Leviticus 25:48. Naomi knew about the laws of redemption put in place by God to protect both heritage and possessions.

The law of the Kinsman Redeemer was set up in the wilderness in Leviticus 25:3-28. It is said that if a man marries and dies before he has children, then his brother would marry his wife and bear children and preserve his brother’s heritage. Naomi knew this; she knew that Boaz was a relative and, as such, should have the power to redeem her, Ruth, and the land they sold to move when Elimelech and his family made a hasty run to Moab in chapter 1.

One of the wonderful traits of Ruth is that she listens and obeys (chapter 3:5). Ruth did all that her mother-in-law told her to do. She listened, and she obeyed. This is one of the most important traits to have in a child of God; we need to listen and to obey. All too often, we argue with God and think that we know more than He does. Ruth goes to the threshing floor at night, and she ‘uncovers’ his feet and lies down. This is not a sexual act and not any kind of improper actions; Ruth was showing her submission to Boaz, and as she had obeyed Naomi, she would be submissive to him.

This is a hard topic to talk about in our feminist churches. The Bible is very clear that the husband is the head of the wife, and that the wife is to be in submission to her husband. In Ephesians 5:22-27, we see this:

“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”

This does not make the husband into an ogre or a bully, but God established a very clear chain of responsibility in the home: God first, the Husband, the Wife, and the Children. This has not changed. God has not changed. We did. We thought that we knew more and better than God; we figured that we could teach God a thing or two. We are wrong.

Why was this role important? Why this order? Because the family, the home structure, is a picture of the Lord’s relationship to His church. Ruth was a submissive wife, and she came in and ‘uncovered’ Boaz’s feet and lay down as a picture of her humility. Sometime during the night before one could be identified, Boaz wakes up to find this woman at his feet. She identifies herself, and he promises to do the office of Kinsman Redeemer for her and Naomi.

Things were getting to the important phase here; it had taken about 10 years from the time Elimelech left until Naomi returned, and it had taken a few months from the beginning of the harvest of the wheat and the barley until this event at the threshing floor. Boaz promised that he would take care of the matter as soon as possible, the next day to be exact, and he sent Ruth home to wait.

Ruth 3:18, “Then Naomi said, ‘Wait, my daughter, until you find out what happens. For the man will not rest until the matter is settled today.’” Waiting is a spiritual discipline that too many of us do not have. Most of us quote Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.” Some Bibles translate this as ‘stop striving,’ others as ‘drop your hands.’ The idea is that we simply let go and let God be God.

We live in such an immediate world that the idea of waiting on anyone or anything is almost painful to us. We want God to deliver like Amazon, and He does not. There are things in our lives that only God can do, and He will do them when He is ready. Ruth simply had to go home and wait. Only Boaz could act and do from this point on.

Those of us watching Israel, watching the Middle East, and waiting on God know that there is nothing we can do to speed up God. God will call us when He is ready; God will send the angel to get us when He is ready, and God will bring the end when He is ready, and there is nothing we can do but wait. But man, waiting is hard work!

I have been the red moon, red sky guy; I have counted the years from 1948 and got to 70 in 2018, and we are still here. I have counted 70 years from 1967 when they got back Jerusalem, and nothing happened; we are still here. All we can do is wait; one day the trumpet will sound, we will fly, the focus of history will be Israel, and the time for Jesus to return will be on. But like Ruth, we need to wait for our Kinsman Redeemer to do His things, and like Boaz, He will.

seangooding@yahoo.ca

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario