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| Ruth's Long Journey | 12.13.09 Home |
Core Thread
See the SCRIPTURES for this message.
Ruth's Long Journey
Also see Phil's article to keep on track with a related message.
It is hard for me to come up with many people who made a longer journey, or harder journey, to find God's grace. Ruth journey from Moab to Bethlehem as a young impoverished widow with a bitter mother-in-law and God placed her in the geneaology of Jesus (The Book of Ruth and Matthew 1:5-6).
Naomi and Elimelek, along with their two sons left their farmland, family, and friends during a famine and moved to the region of Moab. Elimelek died, leaving Naomi a widown. Her two boys, Mahlon and Killion marry Moabite women. About ten years after their marriage, they die. Naomi is in a foreign land, with foreign daughter-in-laws, without family and without protection or provision. She is also extremely bitter at what has happened.
She encourages her daught-in-laws to return to their families and start their lives over again — find husbands and build a home in their homeland. One, named Orpah, took her advice. The other, Ruth, was committed to be faithful to Naomi (see the image for this week). Ruth proves this faithfulness by working hard in the fields, gathering grain with the impoverished people of the land.
The story takes a turn when Ruth catches the eye of Boaz. He has heard of her good reputation and works to provide for her. Meanwhile, Naomi teaches Ruth about the ways of love in her new homeland and Ruth makes herself available to Boaz to be his wife. Boaz does all that is necessary, legal, and honorable to make Ruth his wife. God chooses Boaz and Ruth to be in the lineage of King David and also the Messiah, Jesus Christ, God's son.
God's grace is worked out in the lives of broken people through his people's faithfulness. This powerful story of faithfulness and grace reminds us that God loves the outsider, works to bring them inside His story of grace, and calls us to do the same — we are examples of this grace like Naomi and Ruth!
The video resource we will use with our children on Ruth is the following:
