09/10/2008
Ruth 1:16 - 17 (HCSB) 16But Ruth replied:
Do not persuade me to leave you
or go back and not follow you.
For wherever you go, I will go,
and wherever you live, I will live;
your people will be my people,
and your God will be my God.
17 Where you die, I will die,
and there I will be buried.
May the LORD do this to me,
and even more,
if anything but death separates you and me.
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The book of Ruth is often held up as a model of faithful love. Ruth was the daughter of Naomi. Naomi’s husband took his family to Moab. There he died. After that, his two sons died, leaving Naomi and her two daughters-in-law as widows. Naomi was a Jewess and the daughters-in-law were both Moabites.
As Jewish custom would have it, the widowed women would be given to a brother of their husband, but there were no more sons to Naomi. She resolved to return to Bethlehem her home town and urged the daughters-in-law to return to their father’s houses. One of them returned but Ruth resolved with the promise above, to stay with Naomi.
On the surface, this doesn’t sound like a big deal, however, Ruth, a widowed Moabite, would be shunned among the Jews. She had no children herself with her Jewish husband to bind her to the Jews, so her life among the Jews would not be easy. Further, women were not the primary wage-earners and thus would be forced to rely on forms of charity for their sustenance. Life would be much less complicated for a Moabite woman to stay among her own house and people. Her promise to Naomi would potentially mean a difficult future for her. But she gave her promise of devotion to Naomi.
But God was at work in this. He had a plan for Ruth, and her story is forever commemorated.
Do you have the kind of love that promises to be committed no matter what the outcome? It may be easy to say, but in the end, will others look at your life and find you to have been faithful?
Jeff Justus
Cleff Publishing
www.cleffpublishing.com
©2008 Cleff Publishing, all rights reserved.
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