Walking Therein

Ruth - A Book About Family

There was a question on a yahoo group I am a part of, and as I answered it, I realized how important some of these aspects of the Book of Ruth are...

I had just read over a synopsis of the Book of Ruth that morning. It is one of my favorite books in the Bible. Oh, to be as gentle, as loving and as kind as Ruth...

Ruth, being a Moabitess, was not raised to follow the customs of the Israelites. Yet, when she married into a family of Israelites, she embraced them as her family. We often do not realize - or forget - that she married into a different family than her own and embraced their God, their ideals, their way of life. She never looked back. She was faithful.

She valued God and served Him in the land of her ancestors who did not. She embraced Him and His Word and loved the family - the mother-in-law - that God had given her, even when her husband died. She valued her family and their customs and culture when she was released from her marital 'obligation' and told by her mother-in-law that she should find someone else to marry. She could have chosen to follow her sister-in-law and removed herself from the presence of her bitter mother-in-law, but rather, she chose to love her as a friend and daughter, as family.

She again proved that she valued God's placement of her into this family by traveling to a land she did not know. She then heeded Naomi's advice to glean in Boaz's fields, a man she did not know, because he was a part of her family. She respected him and Naomi in all she did, honoring God. God rewarded her, as did Boaz, for her faithfulness and love for her God and her family.

Perhaps the biggest explanation and description in the Book of Ruth of valuing family is the fact that this is a mirroring of Jesus being our Kinsman-Redeemer. Boaz did not have the familial right to just marry Ruth. In the line of family, she "belonged to" another relative. Boaz had to go to this man and purchase - or ransom - her from this other male relative in line ahead of him.
This is what Jesus did for us. He paid for those of us who are not in His family and ransomed us from the true "owner" of our lives. He sacrificed so that we could be grafted into His family.

Blessings!

-Jacque