Melissa Spolar preached on September 8th on the story of Naomi, Ruth and Boaz from Ruth 1:19-22. She began with an invitation for us to think about our lowest point in life — and to sit with that feeling in preparation of thinking about Naomi.

The Israelites had turned away from God following their time in the wilderness, and were in a time of famine. Naomi & her husband and two sons had left Bethlehem due to the famine, and moves his family to Moab.
He then dies, and his sons marry Moabite women. The Moabites were one of the few people groups that Moses warned the Israelites about. Moab had been a previous enemy who had ignored their cry for help in the wilderness, and had even tried to curse them. In Deuteronomy 23:3, Moses said that no Moabite or Ammonite shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord even to the 10th generation… Joshua too had warned Israel not to inter-marry with any survivors of the land.

After both of Naomi’s sons also die, Naomi encourages her daughters-in-law to go back to their own families and remarry for their own sakes. Naomi is bereft. Grandchildren were to be her legacy, as well as to provide for her in her old age. This left her at the bottom of society. She had little use in the eyes of society. Melissa compares it to losing all of your closest loved ones, and going bankrupt at the same time. Her only hope is to return to Israel, where the famine is ending, and to enter a subsistence survival by being cared for as a widow. Ruth chooses to stay with Naomi and enter a foreign land where she will not be welcome.

Upon arrival, she asks to be called Mara — bitterness — rather than Naomi, meaning pleasantness. She has decided to allow bitterness and desperation to define her — that all hope has been lost. This is a rare biblical name change from better to worse. But she is remembered, welcomed, and called Naomi. But Ruth gleans for Naomi, and Boaz has compassion on them both. She is allowed to glean among his workers, safer than on her own. And then Boaz chooses to marry her as a relative, even though it would mean that their first-born child would be considered part of the line of Ruth’s son rather than his own.

And Ruth is credited as worth more than seven sons — this is quite a tribute for her time. And she becomes part of the line of Christ — far from forgotten by God.

But what is Jesus’ response here? It is one of healing…

Hear these thoughts and more below, as Melissa goes on to talk about what can be learned from Naomi, Ruth and Boaz.

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