the gospel according to ruth

Chapter 2

Chapter one ends with Ruth and Naomi returning to Bethlehem because the famine in Israel was over. Better yet, verse 22 tells us that they are settling down right at the time of the barley harvest. However, God provided food by blessing their crops and the ground. The food was available, but it wasn’t necessarily accessible without some work. There had to be somebody to “bring home the bacon” so to speak. Someone had to go out and harvest the food, or make money to buy the food, and that wasn’t going to be the easiest thing for two widows to do. So Ruth decides to take initiative. That’s kind of what’s going on in the background here, and brings us to verses 1.

Verses 1-7

Now Naomi had a relative of her husband's, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech. And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, “The LORD be with you!” And they answered, “The LORD bless you.” Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?” And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, “She is the young Moabite woman, who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.’ So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.” (Ruth 2:1-7 ESV)

First we’ll look at verses 1-7. In this part, Ruth decides to go gather barley in the fields. She goes and comes upon a field that belongs to Boaz. He obviously isn’t there, so she asks his servants if she can work in the fields to gather sheaves for her and Naomi. The servants let her, and then tell Boaz who she is when he comes back. In verses 1-7, there are three things that happen and that we need to notice.

1) We meet Boaz

Right off, the reader is told that there is a man who was somehow related to Elimilech. So Ruth and Naomi have some sort of a connection. Immediately we should see this big red flag: things are not as bad as they seemed! Naomi doesn’t say anything about Boaz, maybe she still doesn’t even remember him! Even so, for the reader, Boaz is a ray of light on a dark situation.

Verse 1 tells us that he is worthy, or a man of wealth. Secondly, it shows us that he is a man of God! Notice how he greets his servants. Why else would we see that exchange of greetings, other than to show that even in the most mundane parts of his daily routine, Boaz is a God-honoring, God-saturated man.

2) The character of Ruth:

Next we see the character of Ruth, and three specific attributes about her.

• Ruth was caring: She took action to care for Naomi. Naomi did not command Ruth to go out and work, she didn’t even ask her. Ruth made the decision without complaint or hesitation, because of her care for Naomi.

• Ruth was humble: She took initiative without being presumptuous.
  
  Matthew Henry said: “Observe Ruth's humility. When Providence had made her poor, she cheerfully stoops to her lot. High spirits will rather starve than stoop; not so Ruth. Nay, it is her own proposal. She speaks humbly in her expectation of leave to glean.”
  
  She could’ve been too proud to go work in the fields. “High spirits will rather starve than stoop.” But Ruth wasn’t too proud; she happily went and worked.
  
  Going off to work could’ve also lead to pride. Tricia brought this up last week: so many of us, if we are doing a good deed, become puffed up and self-righteous. “Look at what I’m doing!” But Ruth had the opposite response. She was humble and grateful for the opportunity to work for food. She didn’t think anybody owed her anything; she wasn't whining about her rights.

• Ruth was industrious: She is an amazing worker. Verse 7 says, "She has continued from early morning until now without resting even for a moment." Verse 17 goes on to say that she gleaned until evening and then before she quit, she beat out what she gleaned, measured it, and took it home to Naomi. She is working from sunup to sundown, and we see nowhere any complaints from her.

3) The sweet providence of God

Notice verse 3. “She happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz.”

Spurgeon said this: “Yes, it seemed nothing but an accident, but how divinely was it overruled! Ruth had gone forth with her mother's blessing, under the care of her mother's God, to humble but honourable toil, and the providence of God was guiding her every step….God is very good to those who trust in him, and often surprises them with unlooked for blessings. Little do we know what may happen to us tomorrow, but this sweet fact may cheer us, that no good thing shall be withheld. Chance is banished from the faith of Christians, for they see the hand of God in everything. The trivial events of today or tomorrow may involve consequences of the highest importance.”

God is gracious and sovereign even when He is silent. He is directing our steps even when it doesn’t seem like it. Things that seem to be chance, or coincidence, are things God has worked together. The tiniest parts of each day that seem mundane and trivial are being directed by God’s sovereign hand.

So, don’t forget that while reading this chapter. And don’t forget it while going through your every day.

Verses 8-16

Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.” Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?” But Boaz answered her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. The LORD repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!” Then she said, “I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants.”

And at mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine.” So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her roasted grain. And she ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over. When she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men, saying, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her. And also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean, and do not rebuke her.” (Ruth 2:8-16 ESV)

So, Boaz, wow! Boaz tells her to stay in his field and go behind the women working and gather up everything left in the field. He makes sure that she has food and drink and that she will get plenty of barley and that nobody will bother her. He offers her protection and provision.

Ruth takes favor in the eyes of Boaz. But why? What has she done to deserve anything from him? And that is exactly what she asks him: “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?” Ruth is a foreigner and is looked down upon. She doesn’t expect any special treatment. Boaz didn’t have to let her work in his field, gather from his crops, or drink with his workers, and Ruth knows this. She has no sense of entitlement. She shows her complete unworthiness by falling to her face on the ground and bowing to Boaz. When confronted with grace, she is made even humbler. This is the essence of humility, to receive grace and to be even more humbled by it. Grace isn’t meant to make someone even more proud.

This is something we need to keep in mind, and a question we should all ask. God is the greatest example of grace and the most gracious creature in existence. We should all look to God and say, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me.”

So what does Boaz answer when Ruth asks “Why me?”

Boaz says that he knows of everything she has done for her mother in law, and all the sacrifices she’s made. He’s heard of the great love she has for Naomi. Don’t get the wrong idea here, though. This isn’t some sort of karma type deal. Ruth didn’t earn her wages, so to speak.

There are two different things going on here:

• Repayment from God for her faith
  
  Boaz says “The LORD repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!” Boaz isn’t even the one repaying her for this kindness, God is. Boaz is simply acting as an instrument of God.
  
  This is not, however, a picture of Ruth as an employee of God, working for a paycheck. She’s not working in order to be repaid by God. The picture is of God as a great winged Eagle and Ruth as a threatened little eaglet coming to find safety under the Eagle's wings. The implication of verse 12 is that God will reward Ruth because she has sought refuge under his wings.

• The unmerited grace of Boaz, and God
  
  Lets talk about grace for a minute. Most of the time grace is described as a blessing that is unearned. For example, in afterschool, if all the kids were just going about their day and they weren’t being bad, but they definitely weren’t being good either. They just went through the day doing what they were supposed to do. And at the end of the day we say, hey! Lets give them a special treat. Not that they’ve earned it, because they haven’t done anything special, but let’s do it anyways. That’s how grace is usually explained.
  
  But the grace of God is even more than that. Now lets say that all those kids in afterschool were just awful all day. Lets say they didn’t listen to anything I told them to do and broke all the rules that they knew they should follow. They just completely rebelled against us and did everything they could to hurt us and act out against us. And say, at the end of the day, we still said. Hey. Let’s give them something special.
  
  Grace isn’t only giving blessing to someone who hasn’t earned it. It’s giving them blessing in place of the punishment they have earned.
  
  You might be wondering how Ruth has earned punishment, but she had. First of all, on the top layer of the story, she is undeserving because of who she is. She is a foreigner. Why should an Israelite (Boaz) have grace on her? Secondly, in the second layer of the story, she is a sinner, like we all are. Like everyone else, she was a sinner who could do nothing good and be kind to nobody without God’s help. Why should God have grace on her?
  
  The point was that she did nothing to deserve grace from Boaz or from God. She had nothing and no hope, and she went to God for help. She ran to the refuge of His wings, and therefore God had grace on her. She was a little eagle who was hopeless and helpless, and she ran to big Papa eagle to hide under his wing. He is repaying her simply for running to Him.

Jesus!

We must go back now to another major point. Remember that this story is a metaphor of sorts. Boaz represents Jesus here, and Ruth represents us. Ruth runs for safety to God, placing her trust in Him alone. Because she trusted only in Him, God will protect her and provide for her. He does so through Boaz. If Ruth represents us and Boaz represents Jesus, how does this play out for us?

God has already given us grace upon grace. We have the responsibility to do one thing, and one thing only: respond in faith. When we turn to God and say “Help me, I have nothing and nobody but You, only You can take care of me,” He will hear us and will cover us with His wing. He will send us help. For us, He sent Jesus. Just as Boaz was God’s instrument, repaying Ruth on behalf of God, so Jesus did for everyone in all time. Boaz was great, but he wasn’t the greatest. His grace and kindness upon Ruth doesn’t compare to the grace and kindness God had on us through Jesus Christ. We are only skimming the surface right now of Boaz’s kindness, and we will see how he redeems and restores Ruth and her family. However, Boaz couldn’t fully restore Ruth. She was still in need of restoration from God, like we all are. This is something only Jesus can do. Jesus is the true redeemer and restorer, and Ruth placed her faith in the True Redeemer that God would send one day. And like Ruth, when God has this amazing grace on us, we can’t help but respond in faith and kindness and obedience.

Verses 17-23

So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. And she took it up and went into the city. Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also brought out and gave her what food she had left over after being satisfied. And her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean today? And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you.” So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, “The man's name with whom I worked today is Boaz.” And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by the LORD, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!” Naomi also said to her, “The man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers.” And Ruth the Moabite said, “Besides, he said to me, ‘You shall keep close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest.’” And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, lest in another field you be assaulted.” So she kept close to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley and wheat harvests. And she lived with her mother-in-law. (Ruth 2:17-23 ESV)

So Ruth goes back to her home with Naomi, bringing all the grain she had gathered that day, and also the good she had left from Boaz. She gets it all out and gives it to Naomi, and Naomi asks what happened and where this all came from. So Ruth explains everything to Naomi.

There are two quick things here:

• A kinsman! We talked last week about the custom of kinsmen, but we can explain what it is again really quick because it’s super important. In that culture, if a man died, his brother or one of his near relatives would take the role of his kinsmen. Which means that he had three rights:
  
  (1) of redeeming the inheritance of the person; 
(2) of marrying the widow;
(3) of avenging the death.
  
  We thought there was no hope and no kinsman for Ruth to marry. Naomi seemed to have forgotten. But here, she’s finally realizing. I can just hear her saying, “Oh, Boaz! Ruth, that guy, he’s our relative! We have a redeemer!”
  
  This is just another ray of light and glimmer of hope. We saw it before, and now we see Naomi realizing it! We know that God is clearly in control, and things are only going to get better.

• The sovereign kindness of God
  
  Sovereign: free, total control, supreme, dominant, etc. Even with complete power/control, He uses it for good/kindness.

After all that, Naomi says:

“May he be blessed by the LORD, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!”

Naomi doesn’t give the credit for the day to Boaz, she goes straight back to God. She talks about the LORD’s kindness. The Lord's kindness has not forsaken the living (Naomi and Ruth) or the dead (Elimelech and Chilion). It was the Lord who stopped the famine. It was the Lord who bound Ruth to Naomi in love. It was the Lord who preserved Boaz for Ruth. Ruth did not just happen to come to Boaz's field. The light of God's love has finally broken through bright enough for Naomi to see.

That’s the major thing to take from this.

The Lord is kind. He is good to all who take refuge under his wings. So let us fall on our faces, bow before the Lord, confess our unworthiness, take refuge under the wings of God, and be astonished at his grace.