Ruth 1:4

A HEBREW IDYLL

‘The name of the other Ruth.’

Ruth 1:4

The Book of Ruth is a love-story told in four Chapter s. It gives us a glimpse of everyday life in Bethlehem; in home and in harvest-field, in its general gossip and its law-suits, more than three thousand years ago.

I. Glancing back over the lines of this sweet and pure pastoral idyll, we feel that rarely did human story more impressively demonstrate the unspeakable worth of lowly folk, the fine and favourable issues of seemingly suppressed lives, the hidden wealth of true and unobtrusive souls, for nations and for the race. Notoriety counts for nothing in the sum of things. The world’s future lay more in quiet Bethlehem, with Naomi and Ruth, than it did at the headquarters of Judge Eli. Let us not despise ourselves. God does not, and our future is with Him. Every name is historic in His estimate.

II. But we are not near enough to the heart of this story to hear its beat and feel its warmth, until we see that it is a true and tender, pure and heroic woman’s love that gives such grace to these Hebrew homes and confers such peerless worth on these lowly lives.—The spell of the Book of Ruth is Ruth herself, and the chief charm of Ruth is her unselfish and devoted love.

III. Life and love lead to God.—For life is God’s gift, and love is of God’s nature. ‘We love, because He first loved us.’ This is true of the love in the home as much as of the love of the Church. All pure and unselfish love comes from God and leads to God.

Thus the story of Ruth is a fragment in a missionary report. It tells of the conversion of a Gentile and illustrates the wisest way of winning souls. God saves the world by love, and we cannot succeed by departing from His method and ignoring His Spirit. Naomi is a typical home missionary, and Ruth is the pattern and prophecy of the success that crowns wise and loving labour.

Illustrations

(1) ‘Before God sets His nation aside, He will try them under human kings for several hundred years; and in the Books of Samuel we have the opening of the record of these kings. Before our knowledge of the period of the Judges is complete, the story of the Book of Ruth remains to be told. It is in sweet contrast to the two closing stories of the Book we have just finished, but that it belongs to this period is clear from the first verse. This is the only instance in the Bible in which a whole Book is devoted to the history of a woman. But Ruth was an ancestress of Christ—the Mary of the Old Testament. The chief interest of the Book to us, outside of its own beauty, is the genealogical table at the end. Probably the events here recorded occurred near the close of the period of the Judges.’

(2) ‘Ruth, when we first see her, was a Gentile, worshipping idols in a far country. At the close of her history we see her in God’s chosen land, worshipping Him, and sustaining the part of the bride of Boaz. Her history just shows how any lost and wandering soul far from God can, if willing to make the decision which Ruth made, be brought nigh, be numbered among God’s children, and become a part of the Bride of Christ. Notice the genealogical table (Ruth 4:18), and remember that Moab, one of Ruth’s ancestors, was the son of Lot, Abraham’s nephew (see Genesis 19:36). It matters not what our ancestors have been, or done; that does not hinder from coming to Christ.’

(3) ‘The Book of Ruth is the romance of the Bible. The tale has movement, and tragic incident, and happy consummation. Its pastoral simplicity delights us. We are tired of heated discussions and high politics, of jarring controversy and commercial panics. We pine for the country air, for the fragrant meadows and the yellow corn, and the simple discourse of simple men. We can forget the haste and hurry of the world, and even ourselves, in the hopes and fears and fortunes of country life. The lessons we learn are easy and pointed; they are practical rather than deep, and yet they are of living force; and as we read, the sense of greater things is with us, for we know that the story plays a part—subordinate, no doubt, but real—in the great drama of the world. Ruth, for all that her own life’s story is complete, is one who takes a place in the great moving procession of characters which preceded the Christ.’