The small
women’s Bible study that weekly meets in my home is studying Nancy Guthrie’s
book: The Son of David, Seeing Jesus in
the Historical Books. We began last
year with her first Old Testament study in Genesis, followed by one on Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. All
three of these studies together have resulted in many WOW moments of amazement
at God’s revelation of Himself and His grand plan of redemption!
I have
always been a detail person, so I just love studying the Old Testament for its
rich narrative, chock full of the kind of detail that really gets me going. It’s not uncommon for me to get stuck on a
seemingly insignificant thing and then spend lots of thought and study time to
understand why God included it.
Here’s an
example for you. Ehud is one of Israel’s
judges written about in the Old Testament book of Judges. It says this about him in chapter 3, verse 7:
When the children of
Israel cried out to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for them: Ehud the
son of Gera, the Benjamite, a left-handed man.
When I first
read that verse, my mind immediately fixated on the fact that he was a left-handed
man. I initially thought, “And. . .
.what difference does THAT make?” Ah,
but it was an important detail! Read the
rest of that story for yourself and you’ll see!
Though I
love all those curiosity piquing details, Nancy Guthrie’s books have been a wonderful
stretch! She is helping me see what I
might otherwise miss – the much bigger, cosmic picture of what God was doing in
the Old Testament to help us see Jesus – His person and His ministry – so that
He would be recognized when He came.
This week we
are studying the book of Ruth. It’s a
beautiful story that might, with just a surface reading, seem like a love story,
but it is so much more. First the story itself.
The book of Ruth
begins with the story of Naomi, an Israelite woman who, due to a famine in
Israel, moved with her husband and family to the Gentile region of Moab. There her husband died. Her two sons both married Moabite women, but
then they also died.
Naomi got
word that the famine was over in Bethlehem, so she decided to return to the
land of her people. Her two daughters in
law made to go with her, but she told them to return to their own people in the
hope that they might marry again and bear children. One of them returned home, but her daughter
in law Ruth refused to leave her. In Ruth’s
beautiful response to Naomi’s plea, recorded for us in Ruth, chapter 1, verse 16,
Ruth says:
Entreat me not to leave
you, or to turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go;
And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, and your
God, my God.
Ruth’s words
are fraught with deeper meaning than simply a love for her mother in law and a
desire to remain with her. Ruth’s words
are an expression of faith, aligning her with the people of Israel and their
God. Her words indicate a commitment, to
leave behind all that had previously defined her as a Moabite, to become a follower
of Israel’s God.
Naomi and
Ruth arrive back in Israel without fortune or family to give them security and
protection. Through a series of
circumstances, they find a close male relative, Boaz, who agrees to serve a
unique role in their lives. According to
Israelite law, when a man died without a male heir (as Ruth’s husband did), his
brother was to marry his wife. The first
son born to them would be considered the offspring of the dead brother. This was done to keep land inheritances in
the original family. If there was no son
to do so, it was up to the next closest male relative to fill the role. The role was that of kinsman redeemer.
Since both
of Naomi’s sons had died, Boaz assumed the role of kinsman redeemer. Since he was closest kin to Naomi, he was
able to buy her husband’s land (redeem it for Ruth’s dead husband and his
heirs) and marry Ruth.
One of the
questions in the study this week was to compare the parallels between Boaz and
Jesus. Boaz was incredibly kind to Ruth,
even though she was a foreigner to Israel.
He was beyond generous. Jesus
demonstrated these same characteristics of kindness and generosity in New
Testament accounts: by showing kindness in the hope of leading us to repentance,
by healing the servant of the Gentile Roman centurion.
Most
importantly however, it is in his role of kinsman redeemer that Boaz points us
to Jesus, our ultimate Kinsman Redeemer.
All
believers in Jesus today recognize Him as our Redeemer. When we were dead in our sin and unable to rescue
ourselves, He stepped in to take the penalty for sin for us. He redeemed us from death and the sinful,
empty way of life we lived before we knew Him.
His gift of salvation is open to all who would receive it, Jew and Gentile. I know Jesus as Redeemer.
However, it
was the word kinsman that kept my detail loving mind awake this week. How was Jesus our kinsman? The New Testament tells us how, beginning in Philippians
2:5:
Let this mind be in you which was
also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery
to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a
bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became
obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
Jesus is our
kinsman because though He was God, He came from heaven in human form, “in the
likeness of men”. Here He lived the life
we could NOT live, a perfect life,
without sin, fulfilling all of God’s law.
He was the only man who could stand in for us, take the penalty that was
ours at the cross, and so become our Redeemer.
We needed Him to be our Kinsman as well as our Redeemer.
In the Old
Testament book of Ruth God has revealed so much more than just a story of human
kindness and redemption. He has pointed
us toward the One who would fulfill in every way the role of OUR Kinsman
Redeemer, Jesus.
I will never
get over my love for detail. But it’s in
the BIG PICTURE view of what God has been, and is now doing, that I find myself
so in love with Jesus.
And Ruth –
the foreigner who aligned herself by faith to Israel’s God? She became the mother of Obed, who was the
father of Jesse, who was the father of David – from whose royal line would come
Jesus, the Messiah.
