Ruth - An Introduciton

The book of Ruth is very short, only 4 chapters and only 85 verses total. We’re going to do an introduction because honestly, I didn’t want to listen to 2 more hours of lectures about chapter 1 today, I was tired and wanted to listen to music, so this will be short. There are a couple of interesting tidbits that TB discussed about the book of Ruth that I thought were noteworthy. First, Ruth is only one of two books in the Old Testament about gentiles, the other being Job. I didn’t know that Job was a gentile so that will be interesting to discuss when we get there. Secondly, Ruth is only one of two books about women in the entire Bible, the other being Esther. TB made some interesting comparisons between the two. Ruth was a gentile who lived among the Jews, Esther was a Jew who lived among the gentiles. Ruth eventually married a Jew, whereas Esther married a gentile. This was interesting, “God’s name is mentioned a number of times in the book of the gentile Ruth, but it is not mentioned even once in the book of the Jewish Esther. However in both cases the women are characterized as having great faith and so are greatly blessed by the God of Israel, and both play pivotal roles in Israel’s salvation history.”

Additionally, the comparison between the book of Ruth, which probably occurred around the time of Gideon, and the book of Judges is stark, TB describes, “Even though they occur at the same time, under the same circumstances, Ruth’s story is a pleasant tale of goodness, and friendship, and brotherly love, and hope and of a greater purity of worship of the God of Israel. The Book of Judges on the other hand tells of evil, rebellion, darkness, unfaithfulness, brother turning against brother, and apostasy from the God of Israel.”

Even though the story of Ruth happened around the time of Gideon, it wasn’t recorded until several hundred years later, when David was king at the earliest. This timing is a good way to explain many of the 6 factors that are agreed on as to why the book of Ruth was recorded in the first place. TB says the 6 factors are:

1. To provide a genealogical link between the tribe of Judah and David, so as to continue the Messianic line, since there is no genealogy given of David in the book of 1st Samuel.

2. To show that there was faith and obedience even in that terrible time of apostasy (the time of the Judges), and so God still maintained a remnant to work through. This is interesting though because this tribe of Judah that Ruth goes and lives in had suffered a great loss fighting at the battle with the tribe of Benjamin, maybe they were humbled by that enough that they didn’t indulge in that apostasy that the other tribes did.

3. To illustrate the concept of the Kinsman Redeemer in action. This comes in to play when talking about the atonement and the Savior’s sacrifice for us.

4. To show that God’s grace was not limited to Hebrews but also could be extended to gentiles thus fulfilling the promise to Abraham of his family blessing the whole world.

5. To establish the superiority of the House of David as a permanent successor of the House of Saul, & there by defend the claims of David to the throne of Israel over the claims of Saul’s son. Very likely this was foremost in the writer’s mind, even if he couldn’t foresee the connection to the future Messiah.

6. The book of Ruth was to show that the Kinsman Redeemer (Boaz) was a type of Messiah.

Just as a side note, once I had a patient that I talked to extensively about religion and God and stuff and about the types of experiences we had throughout life and he asked to pray with me before he left. I said yes of course because I’ll take all the prayers I could get, and one of the things that he prayed for me for was that God would send me my Boaz, and I never forgot that. I pray for my Boaz often, hasn’t worked yet, but at some point I trust that it will, even if it’s in the next life.