Ruth 4
Sometimes you got to take care of a little business before you can go on your honeymoon.
1. Marriage – who is the first priority?
When you are in love and you want to marry, invariably, almost without exception, there will be an enormous obstacle between you and marriage I believe God does that this for two reasons.
1. It allows the matter to be settled in the heart, of how devoted he truly is to that woman. How much is she willing to sacrifice?
2. It then reveals the depth of the commitment.
Now, Boaz, which means strong man, mighty man, had gone up to the gates. So, he leaves his harvest in the field, ten years of famine, he leaves his huge economic opportunity to run into town to marry Ruth, because she is his first priority. She looked adorable and he wanted to get married immediately. He’s in a hurry, that’s the point.
The gate is where business is transacted and social [...Full item]
Ruth 3
“It just so happens, by God’s providence, she ends up in the field of a man named Boaz,” who just happens to love God, who just happens to have a job, who just happens to be single, who happens to see her, who happens to initiate a conversation, blesses her, prays for her, feeds her, gives her a great job, gives her a very generous gift for her and her mother-in-law. He looks like the perfect husband.
1. Soap
This is like every good novel and television show and movie where these people are friends, and they should fall in love, and they never quite get there.
She goes to her job, working for him every day for six or seven weeks, and they never have a second date. He doesn’t call. He doesn’t follow up. Nothing. She’s left hanging. What got off to this great, romantic, sparks flying, “Could this be the one?” All of a sudden, nothing. Like the average guy. [...Full item]
Boaz is a worthy man – what does that mean? He’s worthy of respect. He’s worthy of trust. He’s worthy of imitation. Boaz is a good man; his name literally means “strength, mighty one, man’s man.” He doesn’t own a cardigan. He doesn’t drink decaf, he’s never heard Mariah Carey or the Spice Girls. He has never physically been in a Smart car.
Now, furthermore, when it says that he’s a worthy man, that phraseology, used elsewhere in the Old Testament, often refers to a man of war – so he could fight. It is used of men who are men of wealth. So he runs a good business. He’s good with his money. And men of wherewithal . He’s a man of war; he’s a man of wealth; and a man of wherewithal, meaning if there’s hardship, difficulty, oppression, he gets things done. He is the guy who delivers.
And he’s single.
Gleaning is the equivalent to social services, food bank, homeless shelter, soup kitchen, food [...Full item]
Ruth 1
1. The period of the Judges is roughly 1200 to roughly 1020 BC, before the birth of the Christ. It is from the death of Joshua to the coronation of Saul as the King in Israel. This is one of the darkest, wickedest, rebellious, obstinate, unfortunate periods in all of Israel’s history. Rather than living as salt, and lead a countercultural kingdom lifestyle as a witness, they sadly, repeatedly, succumbed to varying temptations, particularly sexual temptations.
2. There was a famine in the land. Moabites were the product of incest from Lot having sexual intercourse with his own daughter in Genesis 19. They gave birth to a son named Moab. From that boy came the tribe, the race, the people group, the Moabites. They were considered an incestuous, sexually perverted group of people. Furthermore, the Bible tells us elsewhere, they didn’t worship Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They worshipped some false God named Chemosh. And so God’s people weren’t to move to Moab. God’s [...Full item]
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Published on: 30 October 2011 at 10:30am.