Day 1

Dear friend,

In this study, we seek to do as God does in exalting His Name and His Word above all things (Psalm 138:2). We are fully persuaded that God uses His Word to save men and women from their sin, to set them apart from a lifestyle that dishonors Him, and to finally bring them to Himself in glory. Because of the way God uses His Word like this, we sense an imperative to get God’s Word out to people so that we might watch Him use it in their lives in the manner mentioned above. We love to see God grant repentance to one who has lived long in sin; we love to see Him begin to satisfy the heart of one who has hungered and thirsted with unfulfilled longings, and is now seeing that Christ alone satisfies the heart of man.

So with this in mind, we begin our study in the Book of Ruth. Ruth was written in the time when judges ruled the land of Israel; this was a time of spiritual and social turmoil, as the Israelites were not being led spiritually by prophets of God, but rather they were being led socially by judges. Oh how important spiritual leadership is to a man or woman, to a family, to a home, to a church, and to a country or nation. Apart from spiritual leadership, people do what is right in their own eyes (Judges 21:25), which is usually wrong in God’s eyes, and they come under the wrath or the disciplining hand of God.

The book of Ruth teaches some very amazing truths, indeed they are life-changing truths. Ruth teaches us that sin leads to death (chapter 1:1-5), that repentance leads to acceptance with God and satisfaction in the human heart (1:17-22), that God accepts outcasts and places them in the line of Christ (entire book), that God is in control of "happenstances" and "coincidences" (2:3), that redemption from sin includes protection by, covering with, and more importantly, marriage to Christ (chapter 3), that union with Christ produces fruitfulness in the life (chapter 4), and many other truths which we will pull from the text.

The book of Ruth is an illustration of the riches of God’s grace, and it is a foreshadow of how God would reconcile Gentiles to Himself through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is an illustration of Ephesians 2:12-13:

¹² remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. ¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Eph. 2:12-13

Question 1. By what means did God make possible the reconciliation of the Gentiles to Himself?

Ephesians 2:12-13 could have been written to Ruth, the outcast Moabitess, the Gentile. As we study the book of Ruth, let us keep in mind that in this book we see a foreshadowing of the marvelous grace of God in Jesus Christ that pardons and accepts sinners, that receives them into the family of God, that lavishes them with grace, and that enables their union with Jesus Christ.

The book of Ruth is also an illustration of the truth recorded in 2 Samuel 14:14:

We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God will not take away life, and he devises means so that the banished one will not remain an outcast. 2 Samuel 14:14

The Moabites were banished from the community of Israel for their ill treatment of God’s people:

"No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the Lord forever, Deut. 23:3

Question 2. What hope of acceptance did Ruth have, according to this verse?

But God "devised means" whereby the banished one (Ruth) would not remain an outcast, but would be accepted into the family of God, and most amazingly, be included in the line of Christ. God is still the same. In the cross of Jesus Christ, God devised a way whereby those banished in sin, those outcast because of their failures and shame, would not remain estranged from God, but rather would be brought near in Christ, included in His family, and would receive the riches of His grace.

Finally, the Book of Ruth highlights the work of the "Kinsman Redeemer", and thereby points forward to the Person and work of Jesus Christ. Boaz, in his name and position, in his love and grace, and in his role as "kinsman redeemer", beautifully foreshadows the work of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. So we might truly say that the book of Ruth, like every other book in the Bible, has Jesus Christ as its central teaching. We will see the glory of Jesus Christ in the Word of God as we study this book of Ruth. We are, in reality, studying a Person in this precious book, the Person of Jesus Christ.

Oh we are in for a most amazing study. My prayer for both writer and reader is the same as Paul’s to the Ephesians:

¹⁸ having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, ¹⁹ and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might Eph. 1:18-19

This prayer Paul prayed for the Ephesians teaches us that our hearts, not just our minds, must be enlightened by the Holy Spirit in order for us to know and experience salvation. Salvation, in Ephesians 1:18-19 is described as including three aspects: the hope of God, the riches of God, and the power of God. These things are not knowable, nor can they be experienced by mere human thought process, by deductive reasoning, or by careful study. The enjoyment of our salvation comes only as a gift, through the illumination of the Spirit of God to our hearts, as we pray, carefully study, reason and think. Therefore, we must pray, we must seek the Lord for heart-understanding, we must ask for illumination, as we proceed in the Book of Ruth.

Question 3. Will you do that right now, in preparation for the upcoming studies in this most amazing book of the Bible?