Bible Study Notes - Ruth 1:1-16 Part III

Bible Study Notes  

Family as Community  - Ruth 1:1-16 Part III

Ruth 1:13-16 – The Vow of Commitment

Ruth’s reply to Naomi’s urgings surpasses her selfless love.  For the rest of human history, these two women will teach generations what community and family really are.  Immediately, we assume communities develop around people who share common interests.  Usually, we associate communities with people from similar backgrounds, education, values, economic status and aspirations.  We define families with strict biological, genealogical and genetic connections.  In disagreement, Ruth and Naomi establish familial and communal bonds that emerge from faith, commitment and willingness to share another person’s burdens and blessings.  Observing Naomi’s character and genuine faith in God motivates Ruth to offer her immortal words of commitment.  Plausibly, Ruth admires Naomi’ s steadfast faith in God despite the famine that led to her stay in Moab, the death of her husband and sons and her words “the Lord’s hand has gone out against me.”  In addition, Naomi decides to leave in response to learning of the Lord’s provision.  I imagine Ruth, considering these variables, determines she prefers to live with a woman  of such formidable faith.  Is the god whom the Moabites worship able to match the power of Naomi’s God?  Will Ruth’s extended family extend to her the same selfless love and compassion Naomi freely gives?  Will Ruth necessarily find a Moabite husband who offers her a life better than what she may enjoy in Judah?  Potentially, Naomi’s selfless love becomes the catalyst for Ruth’s faith which she formalizes in her vow of commitment.

Let’s examine exactly what Ruth pledges.  First, she appeals to Naomi to cease from urging her to leave or return to Moab.  Second, Ruth promises to go wherever Naomi goes.  This component of the vow is reminiscent of God’s directive to Abram; go to the place where I send you.  Ruth agrees to follow God’s instructions as He reveals them to Naomi.  Third, Ruth pledges to assume Naomi’s family as her very own.  That pledge is a critical commitment considering the racial, cultural and national tensions between the Israelites and Moabites.  Plus, Ruth has no assurance Naomi’s family will receive her as favorably as her mother-in-law has.  Yet, Ruth agrees to overcome all necessary human, relational and social barriers to ensure continual fidelity and growth in her relationship with Naomi.  Furthermore, Ruth swears to change her religion; she will begin serving the God of Israel instead of the deities of Moab whom she worshiped previously.  Essentially, Ruth vows to become a Jewish convert; she will begin to follow the Law of Moses with its many dictates revealing the holy character and Name of Almighty God.  Ruth seals her vow of commitment with the final plank of requesting severe divine judgment should she fail to keep her commitment.

Ruth and Naomi’s dedication to each other exemplifies the commitment that disciples of our Lord are to have toward Him and each other.  More specifically, their relationship and vow illustrate the undying covenant that a husband and a wife share in marriage.  God perfectly intends only death separates a man and woman who share Ruth’s vow of commitment.  Undergirded by God’s love in Christ, this unparalleled vow distinguishes Christian men and women in marriage and ministry within the body of Christ.  The Lord says the love we show toward each other will demonstrate uniquely to the world that we are His disciples (John 13:34-35 and John 15:9-17).

Concluding Reflections

Families are the primary communities to which we belong.  In the nuclear family unit, we receive our first lessons of life relating to faith, education, commitment, values, work, and ambition.  We learn to love God and neighbor because our parents or primary caretakers teach us the importance of genuine spirituality.  In fact, we learn to love ourselves because our mothers and fathers teach us about our uniqueness as children of God.  Additionally, as members of families, we learn how to care about others and share our resources of time, talent, treasure and temperament with them.  The lessons in the family community extend to the Church and larger society.  Interestingly, the Lord Jesus Christ redefines the family and in so doing He revises the traditional notions of the purpose and composition of a community.  Once when told that His mothers and brothers were waiting to see Him, Jesus responds, “Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”  Assembled for this individual and collective purpose, members of the Church expand upon the love, care, grace and support of a nuclear family.

Three Personal Objectives

• Reconsider our traditional understanding that biology, genealogy and legacy determine a family.
• Evaluate the ways in which our nuclear family constitutes our primary learning community.
• Discuss the Lord’s definition of family as recorded in Matthew 3:31-35.

Prayer

Our dear, gracious Heavenly Father, enable us to see each other as You see us.  We are all Your children.  By the power and gift of the Holy Spirit, open the eyes of our hearts and reveal to us the spiritual truth that we are related through Your blood.  Teach us to be a loving and caring community in obedience to Your Word.  We are the family and community of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Bible Study Notes - Ruth 1:1-16 Part II

Bible Study Notes  

Family as Community  - Ruth 1:1-16 Part II

Ruth 1:1-6 - Provision in the Midst of Famine

Our ever gracious Heavenly Father faithfully provides for His children.  Naomi receives word in Moab that the Lord had come to aid of His people by providing food.  The severity of the famine lifts in Israel allowing Naomi and her daughters-in-law to return home.  This journey would be bittersweet at best.  It would occur after the deaths of their three husbands who died in the land of their temporary abode.  It is amazing the capacity that death has to bring people closer to each other.  We do not know the nature of the relationship of these three women prior to their collective experience with bereavement and widowhood.  We surmise  they joined together in a previously unparalleled bond.  Whereas God supplies food in Israel, He also gives Naomi, Ruth and Oprah food for the soul in fellowship, love and community with each other.

The bond of these women represents a greater union in the family of God.  The marriage of Ruth to Naomi’s son forever joins Moab and Judah.  Matthew’s gospel contains one of the genealogies of our Lord.  Not surprisingly, it includes Ruth, a Moabite woman who traditionally would have been despised by the Israelites.  Mystically and majestically, Almighty God uses the famine to create a connection between nations of people who had previously fought each other.  By incorporating a Gentile woman into Christ’s lineage, the Lord demonstrates His unconditional love for all people.  Naomi’s, Ruth’s and Oprah’s human response to natural disaster by forging a sincere friendship foreshadows the fulfillment of God’s plan in the Church of Jesus Christ.  As a community, the Church is primarily a family which shares the fundamental bond of the blood of our Lord.

Ruth 1:7-12 – An Act of Selfless Love

In response to the favorable word about the end of the famine, Naomi begins the journey back to Judah with her daughters-in-law.  After a period of reflection, she practices one of the most touching and illustrative acts of selfless love that the Bible records.  Naomi tells Ruth and Oprah to return to their mothers and families.  Thereby, Naomi releases them from their commitment to live with her regardless of the hard circumstances and personal costs.  Further, Oprah and Ruth plead with Naomi to continue the journey to Judah.  But, this gracious, wise and senior woman details the stubborn facts for them.  Should they return with her, they would be consigning themselves to living as widows for the rest of their lives.  In fairness to these young women who had many years before them, Naomi lovingly and forcefully encourages them to go back to their native land to find whatever life offers.  Naomi’s act foreshadows the sacrificial and selfless love of God in Jesus Christ.  The community that forms between the three of them transforms into a family in which members’ love for each other enables them to consider what is best for others.  Because Naomi unconditionally surrenders her will and her care into the hands of Almighty God, she affectionately sends her caring daughter-in-laws back to their mothers.

Bible Study Notes - Ruth 1:1-16

Bible Study Notes  

Family as Community  - Ruth 1:1-16

The Power of Commitment

As a Pastor officiating at the exchange of vows as a man and a woman enter into the covenant of holy matrimony, I always encourage couples to include the “Vow of Commitment” found in today’s  background scripture.  Contrary to the direct benefits that she stood to gain by returning to her family in the midst of a famine, Ruth makes an everlasting commitment with her mother-in-law, Naomi, a widow who recently lost both of her sons.  In biblical times, the death of a woman’s husband and sons meant destitution for the rest of her life; such a woman would be dependent upon relatives, friends and the extended community for subsistence.  Receiving the news in Moab that the famine in Israel has decreased in its intensity and the Lord graciously and continuously provides food for His people, Naomi decides to return home.  Initially, her daughter-in-laws, Oprah and Ruth, depart with her enroute to Judah.  Naomi thanks them for their kindness to her deceased sons and to her.  But, she greatly desires they stay in Moab and find new husbands; in this way they will enjoy fulfilling lives that their husbands’ untimely deaths temporarily stole from them.  After much prodding, Oprah accepts Naomi’s directive to remain in Moab.  In opposite reaction, Ruth absolutely refuses to heed Naomi’s pleas.  From a different nationality, religion, culture, creed, language, and ethnicity, Ruth pledges never to leave Naomi.  Ruth adopts Naomi’s people as family, worship their God and abide with her until death separates them.

On what basis does Ruth make this astonishing “Vow of Commitment” to a mother-in-law with whom she no longer shares any legal, moral, ethical, or spiritual obligation?  It is often said, “Blood is thicker than  water.”  That saying elevates familial relationships over all others whether business, school, friends, or church.  However, the compelling story of today’s text counteracts this age-old wisdom about the values and hierarchy of relationships.  Ruth and Naomi’s shared principles teach us there are relationships in which people do not share genealogy, legacy or genetics but possess love for each other that supersedes traditional notions of family bonds.  A person’s understanding God’s unconditional love enables him or her to make a lifelong commitment to another person notwithstanding communal expectations and traditional family structures.  More specifically, in the Church, the shared brotherhood and sisterhood of the blood of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, often exceeds any significance of biology and lineage.  Actually, you can become closer to your Christian family than your natural one; this fact  demonstrates the power of commitment to Christ and its ability to extend to other relationships.

Biblical Background

Easily, we dwell primarily upon the favorable ending of this story.  Our haste overshadows the tremendous loss and dire circumstances in which Ruth and Naomi live.  Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, and their two sons, Mahlon and Kilion, originally traveled and temporarily settled in Moab to escape the brutal famine in Judah.  The Old Testament records approximately twelve different occurrences of famine.  Because the land, in any given year produced just enough food to feed the population of the Ancient Near East, a famine inevitably meant the threat of starvation for weak, widowed, and otherwise powerless people.  Suffice it to state any mention of a famine was not an illustrative  literary technique; countless lives of children and women hung in the balance.  Again, Naomi, in a greater set of dire circumstances, becomes husbandless and sonless in a foreign land.  Her daughter-in-laws and their natural families were under no obligations to care for Naomi.  Practically speaking, she had to fend for herself.  Hearing the famine in Judah is lessening, Naomi prepares to return to her native land.  Remarkably, Oprah and Ruth leave with her.  In a most gracious act, Naomi looks beyond her personal situation and encourages her daughters-in-laws to pursue a life in Moab that will yield marriage, love, family, and fulfillment.  She selflessly releases them from any obligation they felt toward her and the memory of her dead sons, their former husbands.  Essentially, three widows are left to journey forward in life with meager resources in the midst of a famine.  Notwithstanding those desperate conditions, they forge a bond that surpasses law, religion and social custom.

It is significant to consider the reasons for which Oprah actually accepts Naomi’s blessing and returns to her family and home.  As a young widow at the time, marriage to a gainfully employed husband would be her most obvious means of provision and survival.  Plus, there was the factor of children and continuing a lineage.  Women without children were considered barren and thus cursed by God.  A young man wanting a family would not knowingly choose such a woman for a wife.  Most undoubtedly, his parents and extended family would discourage him from such a choice.  Moreover, in a setting of arranged marriages, the groom’s mother would have disagreed forcefully.  However, a maiden who was a widow had a chance to marry again and start a family.  In going with Naomi, Oprah conceivably would have surrendered her opportunity and desire to be married and have a family.  As a consequence, Naomi understands Oprah’s decision and does not judge her because of it.