In this episode, Chris and Zach continue their study of Ruth, focusing on chapter two's themes of loyalty, divine providence, and Boaz's godly character. They explore how Ruth's dedication and hard work lead her to Boaz, who exemplifies compassion and generosity as he protects and provides for her.
Title: The Book of Ruth: Chapter 2 - Gleaning and Divine Providence
Hosts: Zach and Chris
Episode Summary:
Introduction:
Discussion on Ruth Chapter 2:
Themes Explored:
Personal Reflections:
Closing Remarks:
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Therefore, if anyone is in
Christ, he is a new creation.
All things have passed away.
Behold, all things have become new.
Welcome back to this
episode of New Self Podcast.
As always, I'm Zach.
I'm Chris.
And today we're
continuing on our study in Ruth.
We're going to be looking at chapter two,
just following up in this beautiful story
of redemption and connection and love and
family and just so
many different themes in
this book.
I just, I love it.
Last week we kind of talked about just
this woman, Naomi, who
had just a rough go with
things.
Lost her husband, lost her sons, tried to
push her daughters-in-law away.
But what we saw was this connection and
this love that one of
the daughter-in-law Ruth
had for her mother-in-law.
And so I'm sticking with you.
I'm going to follow your God.
I'm going to
everything where you go, I go.
And if not, aside from
death, God smite me for it.
That's loyalty there, man.
Right.
And as we said last week, this word has
said in the Old
Testament and the Hebrew language
is just loyalty.
Right.
Just connected.
And today on this
episode, sorry, we're picking up.
We're picking up in chapter two where
they're back in Bethlehem,
they're back in Judea, where
Naomi is from.
And we see Ruth start to kind of take
this driver seat, if
you will, of providing for
her family, which was just Naomi.
Right.
Providing for her and her mother-in-law.
And we really get to see this
redemption story unravel here.
Start to unfold.
So the overview of this is Ruth is going
to meet Boaz or meet the individual.
The person that ultimately
is going to be the Redeemer.
And so chapter two is all about the
gleaning in the fields.
And our first video on the subject, we
went through terms and
terminologies and explaining
how gleaning fields were set up by God
and the law of Moses to
actually provide for the
poor, the widows, the orphans, the
foreigners, people that
were stuck there and couldn't
get back home.
And so she meets foreigner, widow,
orphan, if you will,
because she left her family.
So she meets all the needs of a gleaning.
Right.
Right.
And God provided for her.
So gleaning in the fields was their way
of supporting Naomi and Ruth.
And Ruth goes to glean in
the fields as she meets Boaz.
And it just so happens, you know, by
divine intervention that
Boaz is a relative of a
limitele.
Yeah.
Well, let's dig into it, man.
I'm going to start.
I'm going to just start in verse one of
chapter two and we'll
just start unpacking it, man,
because it is a, it is just a really
awesome story here in
chapter two that we get to see
unfold.
It says, uh, there was a relative of
Naomi's husband, uh, a
man of great wealth of the
family of a limitelec.
His name was Boaz.
So Ruth, the Moabitis said to Naomi,
please let me go to the
field and glean heads of
grain after him and whose
site I might find favor.
And she said to her, go my daughter.
Then she left and went up 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 family
of a limitelec.
Now just this right here, you know, what
you see is this, this
divine intervention in my
opinion, I think I don't, I don't
necessarily see, uh, Naomi
saying, Hey, he's our family
member yet.
He's this, I think that's just to give us
the context of the
story from the author's
perspective because she, it says she just
so happened to come
upon the part of the field
that belonged to Boaz.
She just wanted to go glean.
She just wanted to go get grain to either
sell or to use for food
for her and her mother
and more.
And she just so happens, you know, as you
and I both know, and
we say it all the time
to each other, there's no such thing as
coincidences when
you're working with God.
God brought her to that point because he
knew who he was going to
use to redeem this, this
person.
The author though, gives us as the
readers and the readers
of that time when this was
written that kind of context there.
But again, I don't, I don't believe that,
that Ruth knew who, who Boaz was at this
time.
Right.
And we get to see like, again, this, this
love of Ruth for her
mother and all that she's
like, okay, I'm young,
I'm able and I'm willing.
Right.
I'm going to go get, I'm going to go take
care of us, you know,
that I might find favor
though from these people, you know,
they're going to see who I am.
They're going to see my hard work.
They're going to see my dedication and
hopefully find favor to
where, you know, we can gain
something from it.
Well, that's the beautiful part of this
system that God
established and put into place is
that, you know, we, we touched on it in
the last episode and
that these gleaning fuels
that they're talking about was set up by
God for this purpose.
Yeah.
Like you said, it was a
social security system.
Right.
It was like a welfare system.
Yeah.
A welfare system, you know, but it wasn't
a welfare system as we see it today.
It was a, it was a, hey, you work.
You have, here it is for you, but it's
not going to be a handout.
You've got to, you've got to put in the
work and they only, or Ruth saw that.
She's like, okay, I'm,
I'm, I'm going to work.
Like let's go, you know, let's do this.
You had to earn that bread.
Yeah.
And literally, literally,
you had to earn the bread.
So we get to see this, this happening,
this divine intervention
by God that she just quote
unquote happens upon the field of Boaz.
And as we continue on, it says now behold
Boaz came from Bethlehem
and said to the reapers,
the Lord be with you, man, right there.
We can, we could sit and
poke a pin in that right there.
Because again, when I said in our, in our
first video of this
series where we kind of
went over the context is a lot of guys
just kind of go over
this book because more, you
know, for whatever reason, you see a lot
of devotionals and,
and women's studies based
off this book because it's two women are
the main characters
of this, of this story.
But we as men can also glean from this
book because we get to
see the character of a godly
man, right?
We get to see this, this guy Boaz who for
lack of better words is a man after God's
heart, right?
He, he, you could see, you know, he comes
to his field and says
the Lord be with you.
That's a, that's a strong greeting for
men of God or men of faith at this time.
Like the Lord be with you.
Like that's a strong, warm greeting.
But well, read the rest of it.
And they answered the Lord bless you.
Yeah.
So not only is he a strong man of faith,
he has been such an
example to those who are
under him, right?
To be strong of faith as well.
They come back and
say the Lord bless you.
To me, you know, let's just, I'd like to
say, why is this so important?
Well, what do you see here?
You see that these people, Naomi and her
family fled this area
because of famine as if you
read, if you've ever read the book of
judges, you see why the
famines would come because
of war, because of this, you know,
separation from God.
So God brought about a famine 15 or so,
10 years later, the
family was cured, if you
will, because of men like Boaz following
God again, being
connected to God, encouraging
people to follow God.
And again, that's where I see as men, we
can come into this book
of Ruth that is again,
predominantly used for women's studies
and study it too and
glean from it too and learn
from it too and find what a Godly
character looks like in a
man, especially in today's
society when you see that,
you know, he's not overbearing.
He could have walked into this field and
said, "Hey, why are you not working?
Get back to work."
No, he came and greeted them in the Lord
and they greeted him back in the Lord.
God bless you, man.
Thank you.
Thank you for recognizing us.
I want to work here
more now because, you know.
So then it goes on to say, then Boaz said
to his servants, "Who
was in charge of the
reapers?"
Or he said to his servant, you know, the
foreman, if you will, "Who
was in charge of the reapers?"
Sorry, my brain hurt.
It's not working.
Then he asked them, he said,
"Whose young woman is this?"
Talking about Ruth.
"So the servant who was in charge of the
reapers answered and
said, "It is the young
Moabite woman who came back with Naomi
from the country of Moab."
And she said, "Please let me glean and
gather after the
reapers among the sheaves."
So she came and has continued from
mourning until now, though
she rested a little in the
house.
Right.
She was telling them, but the next part
of this, Boaz actually
goes and talks to her.
Well, yeah, he's, you know, as a good
boss, as a good
landowner, he's like, "I am going
to see you."
It shows the character of Boaz.
He knew his workers.
He knew who his people were.
Right.
Who's that?
Right.
She's not familiar to me.
She doesn't belong here necessarily.
So what is she doing?
Obviously, all the maidens later on in
here, we will see, you
know, but all the ladies
were working in the field
with him, all the younger women.
And it's referenced several times through
the next couple chapters.
But you get to see that.
And what you're saying there is that he
didn't recognize this one.
He pays attention.
He understands who was
working for him, who's there.
And he was like, "Hmm, something's off."
Yeah.
Who is this person?
As you said in our last episode, this
word of mouth happens, is happening.
When she comes to the gate and meets all
these women and all these
people, the foreman didn't
say, "Oh, you know, she's just some lady
that just showed up one day."
No.
He said she is the Moabite who came with
Naomi from the land.
So the story's out of who these two women
are that have come back to Bethlehem.
You know, the story's out.
So like, he didn't have
to go into great detail.
He just dropped the names and then Boaz
was like, "Oh, okay.
That's who that is."
Cool.
Now let's go talk to her.
Right.
Let's go see what she's going...
Let's find out some character.
Exactly.
So then that's where we pick up and see.
Mm-hmm.
Boaz, it says, "Then Boaz said to Ruth,
"You will listen, my
daughter, will you not?
Do not go to glean in another field nor
go from here, but stay
close to my young women.
Let your eyes be on the field which they
reap and go after them.
Have I not commanded the
young men not to touch you?
And when they are thirsty, or when you
are thirsty, go to the
vessels and drink from
the young, from what
the young men have drawn."
So she fell down on her face and bowed
down 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?"
Again, men, we get to see this character
of a godly man taking the
forefront of this picture,
the forefront of this story.
Boaz steps up and is like,
"Hey, don't go anywhere else.
You don't have to go anywhere else.
I've got you.
You come behind my women and let's work.
You work here.
I'm going to take care of you."
Again, as we'll read on in a minute,
because he heard of her character.
Reputation.
You know?
And character.
Well, I wonder, this has to be because
you notice though, she
is bowing to the ground.
Then she fell to her face and bowing to
the ground and said,
"Why have I found favor in
your eyes?"
You have to ask yourself, "How harshly
were they treated before?"
I got another fly.
How harshly were they treated before?
Well, yeah, because again, if you look at
the context of
gleaning and this idea, "Hey,
these are just blind dogs.
These widows, these foreigners, it was
the scraps that they were collecting.
It wasn't the true harvest.
We've got this thing that I found in your
house that your wife has a decoration.
How perfect that we get a visual aid of
what it looks like."
These reapers were going
and getting stuff like this.
They were getting this whole bushel and
they were bushelling it
together and this is what
they were taking to the threshing floor.
What Naomi and the gleaners and these
foreigners and these poor
people and these widows would
get is the things that fell off of this.
The little bitty stalks.
The rough.
When you're going through a field and
you're harvesting, stuff's
going to fall by the wayside.
Pieces might get missed, but it's not
going to be a full stock like this.
They're getting just the minimum of what
can really sustain them in their life.
Even for her, she's just like, "Why is
this dude telling me this?
I'm just here collecting the scraps, but
this dude, why have I
found favor in your eyes?"
Since I am a foreigner.
Since I am a foreigner.
Right.
Because they weren't meant to mix, dude.
What's happening here is she is looking
at herself as an outcast.
She is looking at herself and how many
times have we applied
that to ourselves and our
walk with the Lord?
We're the outcasts.
I have screwed up so much.
I'm just an alcoholic.
I'm just a pornography.
I messed my life up so
much that God can't forgive.
How many times have we done that?
And she applied that to her.
Why have you found favor in me?
Because I am just a foreigner.
I am just a nobody.
But she's found it.
He's given it to her.
Right.
And this is again the visualization and
the precursor to what we have in Christ.
He finds us, just foreigners.
Paul calls us sojourners.
He calls us foreigners in this world.
But God calls us to a different world.
And that's what's happening here.
He's like, "You're not in my eyes.
I see you."
Right.
His answer right there, next in verse 11
is like, "But Bo has
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 the people
that you did not know before.
The Lord repay you for what you have
done, and a full reward
be given by the Lord, the
God of Israel, under whose wings you have
come to take refuge."
Man, what a beautiful thing.
Like that right there is just such a 1200
year preview before.
Of Jesus.
Beautiful picture of precursor of Jesus.
Right.
Like, okay, so let's
unpack this for a second.
I'm going to lead us
somewhere pretty awesome.
Let's take a pan in this and unpack it.
Yeah.
When I was doing the studying for this,
it really just talked
about the wings of the
Lord.
All the commentaries I went through, it
was just constantly
just pointing to the wings
of the Lord.
You see it all throughout the Old
Testament, this image of
coming under the wings of the
Lord, and the image of a chick going to
her hen, mother, and
they go under the wings of
the bird to find protection.
But as I was reading,
man, it clicked in my mind.
Wait, Jesus said something like this.
Jesus mentioned mothers and brothers and
land and things like that.
So if you fast forward a few thousand
years to Jesus speaking
with his disciples, you
get to see this.
1200 years.
You get to see this beautiful picture of
Jesus talking in the same manner.
Right?
So Boaz again, let's look at this again.
Boaz responded to her when she asked him,
"Why have I found favor as a foreigner in
your eyes?"
"It has been fully reported to me all
that you have done for
your mother-in-law since
the death of your husband, and how you
have left your father,
your mother, and your land
of your birth, and have come to a people
whom you did not know before.
The Lord repay your work.
A full reward be given you
by the Lord God of Israel."
Jesus now says to his disciples in
Matthew 19, 29, he says,
"And everyone who has left houses or
brothers or sisters or
fathers or mothers or wife
or children or lands for my name's sake
shall receive a
hundredfold and inherit eternal
life."
Man, how beautiful.
So that essentially is the same thing
that Boaz was saying to her.
God's going to take care of
you because you've chosen God.
You've chosen the things of God, the
people of God, people
that you did not know.
Jesus is saying the same thing.
You have chosen a way of
life that people do not know.
You are becoming a foreigner to this
world where you were a
member of this world, now
you are a foreigner to this world, a way
of living that you never knew.
And you've left so many things behind.
You've left this system that was broken
and no longer working for a better one.
And you will find your reward for that,
whether it is in houses or
in mothers or in brothers
or in...
Well, some people will be like, "Well, I
don't want more
mothers and more brothers."
Well, sadly, it doesn't matter what you
want because you're
going to get it in the body
of Christ.
You're going to have people who are going
to mentor you, who are
going to be like mothers
and fathers.
You're going to have new
brothers and sisters in Christ.
And you might not get thousands of acres
of land, but you get a heavenly reward.
You get a heavenly dwelling place of land
and building whatever it looks like.
I don't know.
I can't wait to know.
It's going to be something because it
said, "I'm preparing a
room for you and my father's
house."
It's not just talking
about in the future here.
Jesus isn't just
talking about in the future.
He's talking about here and
now you get this inheritance.
In Mark's version of this story, he adds
in that you will have persecution.
Why are you going to have that in there?
Well, because you will
come against persecution.
Well, it's right here in that time, being
that she was from Moab.
She was persecuted because, "Oh, get away
from here, you Moabite.
Get out of here.
You're not accepted.
We don't serve your kind."
That kind of stuff is no different than
the kind of stuff that
we've been going through
today.
But because of her devotion, because of
what she said in chapter
one to her mother-in-law,
where you go, I will go,
your God will be my God.
God saw that.
I heard that.
And God said, "Yep, she's mine now."
"Yep, I got plans for you, young lady.
Again, she laid aside what she knew.
She laid aside her comforts.
She laid aside her family.
How hard would that be for somebody to do
in today's day and age?
To lay aside everything
that you know to follow Christ.
She laid aside everything she knew to
follow this God that she
didn't really know, that
she wasn't fully a part of.
She had her own gods.
She had her own way of living.
And she laid aside...
Customs and everything.
And that's what God does for those people
who turn away from the
things of this world.
And turn him.
For him.
He will reward you.
Right.
And this age to come.
Her next thing is in chapter 13.
It says, "Then she said, I have found
favor in your eyes, my Lord."
Now, you can pause right there.
And she's talking to Boaz, obviously.
But you could also say that she was
talking to the Lord, you
know, because he has blessed
her with this.
Yeah.
And she is like praying
and saying, "Thank you, Lord.
Thank you."
But 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."
Mm-hmm.
So she's...
Again, she's still looking at
her in this foreigner mindset.
Right.
"I don't belong here.
I'm not one of yours."
She's humbling herself.
And you have been kind to me.
You've spoken kindly to me.
You've comforted me.
I've been in great...
We've been in great need.
There's no telling how...
What timeframe has kind of passed here
since they've been back
in Bethlehem, what their
struggle has looked like.
I'm sure it was great.
It had to been great, but it's still
during the wheat harvest.
So we're talking within a couple months.
You know, actually, at this time, I
believe it said barley
harvest right over here.
But it was timed perfectly.
I believe the Lord had his hand in it.
Obviously, it did
because of the whole story.
But for him to...
For them to come back in perfect time for
it, to meet the harvest
and to meet him, everything
was staged.
Yeah.
Boaz doesn't just stop there.
I'm just saying, "All right, just you
stay in this field."
No, he continues on.
It says, "Now Boaz said to her, "Meal
time, come here, and
eat from the bread and dip
your piece of bread in the vinegar."
So she sat beside the reapers and he
passed parched grain to her
and she ate and was satisfied
and kept some back.
So again, the panning that right there,
he's taking care of her.
He's feeding her.
She's sitting with the reapers, the
people who are on his
staff team, the people who
are chosen and part of his servin' hood.
She's sitting with them.
This person who was just
saying, "I'm a foreigner.
I don't belong here."
He's like, "You belong.
Come here.
Eat some of my food, my food."
He gave her some of his
food, but not just that.
He gave her enough food that she then
took some back to Naomi.
All right, so we can still unpack this.
So right there, it's like
she dipped it into the wine.
Oh yeah.
So you already have your...
My version says the
wine, yours says the vinegar.
Two other versions, our translations say
red wine vinegar, our wine vinegar.
I think one that I read the
other day was like sour wine.
So that even comes to Jesus' name.
So we're already getting to the point
here where you can use the
symbolism of the communion.
You can dip the bread into the wine.
Eat this bread, drink
this wine, remember me.
The bread of my flesh and
then the blood of Jesus.
And so there's already symbolism here,
1200 years before him, again in the same
story in chapter two.
Yeah, and again, it's just such a
beautifully painted
picture of the story of Jesus
from the beginning of the
scriptures, from the fall.
Jesus was on the scene.
Whether people want to agree with that or
not, he was there and he was part of it.
And they were told about it.
Whether they recognized it at that time
or not, they knew that
there was going to be a Messiah.
They knew, they read in scriptures and
the prophecies, they
heard the prophecies.
They knew there was going to
be a Messiah at some point.
And for us, luckily for us, we get this
beautiful book where we
get to see the full story
where she's just thinking, "I'm just
eating some bread and
drinking some wine."
But we get to see the full picture of
Jesus to where we can
fully understand who he is,
who he was, what he's here
for, what he still does for us.
I think it's awesome.
But then it goes on to say, and she says,
"After she got done
eating, she kept some back.
And when she rose up again to glean, Boaz
commanded his young men
saying, "Let her glean
even among the sheaves
and do not reproach her."
Now, obviously, she
would have done walked off.
She already returned
back to the gleaning.
And he just turned to the side and said,
"All right, guys, this
is what we're going to do.
I'm sorry, go ahead."
Yeah, no, you're good.
And because it's true, she's gone.
She's out of this little area that they
were taking a break in,
whether it's under shed,
under a tree, I don't know.
But she's obviously out of earshot.
And he tells his guys, he's like, "Hey,
let her glean among the sheaves."
And that's important because it wasn't...
Acceptable.
It wasn't the scraps that she
was getting at this point now.
She was getting the good stuff.
She was getting the full...
She was getting the good stuff.
And then it gets even better.
Boaz gets even more providing comfort and
protection and stuff for her.
He says, "Also, let the grain from the
bundles fall purposely for her."
He says, "Hey, you got this bundle?
Drop it for her.
Give her bundles.
Yeah.
Give her extra."
Right.
Like, how amazing.
Like, this dude's like,
"Hey, he is full of God.
He is understanding of God's law.
He's understanding of what God wants
people to do in
providing for widows and orphans
and the left behind.
She is a widow.
And he is taking the law seriously.
He's showing sympathy as well.
He's sympathetic to the fact that she is
a widow and that she
is a foreigner and she's
stuck with her mother-in-law.
Yeah.
And that is the only means of food,
sustenance, and income.
Yeah.
And again, it just shows this guy's
generosity to this person,
to this foreigner, because
of the things that she's done.
It also shows God's
providence for this woman.
He said to her, basically in a prayer, "I
pray that the Lord
provide your work and a
full reward be given to you
by the Lord God of Israel."
When he was saying this to her, he didn't
realize at that time
he was going to be the
way that she gets that reward.
He was going to be the way
that she gets that comfort.
He was going to be the
answer to his prayer for her.
He didn't realize that.
And you get to see it unfolding here.
You get to see that he is
being that generous person.
He is being that provision for her, that
return, that reward for
her work and what she did
with Naomi.
Right.
It's awesome.
And again, for us men, we get to look at
this guy's character and
say, "That's a man after
God.
I could be like that.
I just got to be generous with my things.
I got to be generous to
those who are not like me.
I got to be generous with my time, with
my resources, with
the grain of my field."
Whatever that grain looks like.
Whether it's money or food or whatever.
Attitude.
Attitude.
Attitude. That's where my attitude.
Yeah.
Like this dude could have easily said,
"Woman, get out of my field."
Yeah.
Absolutely.
"Get out of here.
Like we're harvesting here.
We ain't
got time for you."
Go back to the country you came from.
Yeah.
But he believed in what God told him to
do and that's to take
care of widows and that's
to take care of people
that are usually cast aside.
And it just goes, again, it just shows
his generosity and
his compassion for her.
So it goes on to say, "So she gleaned in
the field until
evening and beat out what she
had gleaned."
And it was about an ephah of barley.
It was about, I remember when I looked it
up, it was about, I
can't remember what amount
it looked like, but it equated to about a
half a month's wages.
So he basically paid her half a month of
work in one day
because of the amount that
she was able to glean from him dropping,
which she probably didn't
perceive it as him purposely
dropping it because, again, she was
probably out of earshot at
this point when he was telling
his servants to leave
stuff behind for her.
So she was just like, "Man, that's great.
I'm getting a lot."
Yeah.
But she's still working for it.
But I want people to realize that she is
still working for this.
It's like the Lord's going to do stuff
for you in your lives,
but you have to work towards
it as well.
You have to make the effort.
You have to take the steps towards that.
There's always an act of
obedience that comes into play.
It says, "Then she took it up and went
into the city, and her
mother-in-law saw what she
had gleaned.
So she brought out and gave to her what
she had kept back after
she had been satisfied.
And her mother-in-law said to her, "Where
have you gleaned today?
And where did you work?
Blessed be the one
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 work today is Boaz."
And Naomi immediately went, "Aha."
Yeah.
Yeah.
She said, "Then Naomi said to her
daughter-in-law, "Blessed be he of the
Lord, who has not forsaken
his kindness to the living and the dead."
And Naomi said to her, "Go ahead."
You're seeing this living or the dead.
So they're paying honor
to their late husbands.
Yeah.
Right?
And we mentioned that in the...
Boaz is paying honor to
his lost family members.
Family members, right.
Because he knows who she is.
Right.
She's heard the reports.
He's heard the stories.
So he knows, well, what he's doing.
Now at first he didn't know her until
they said, "That is her."
And then now he's like, "Ah, same thing.
What Naomi's doing now?
Ah."
Yeah.
And it's going to be set
up through Naomi later on.
Yeah.
And then so it goes on to say, "And Naomi
said to her, "This man
is a relation of ours.
One of our close relatives, Ruth the
Moabite said, he also
said to me, "You shall stay
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 men and that people do not
meet you in any other field."
So she stayed close by the young women of
Boaz to glean until
the end of barley harvest
and wheat harvest, and she
dwelt with her mother-in-law.
So I want to read from
here through the ESV.
And it says, "And Ruth the Moabite said,
besides he said to me,
"You shall keep close to my
young men until they have
finished all my harvest."
And then Naomi said to Ruth, her
daughter-in-law, "It is good, my
daughter, that you go out
with his young women, at least in any
other field you be assaulted."
And that was what Boaz was saying, "Look,
stay here, work here,
do this, and no harm
will come to you."
How many times would the Lord, as he
said, "Do this, do that,
do this, and no harm will
come to you?"
And how many times do we do
our own thing and harm comes?
Look at the situation of the times in
Ruth right now where
they even left because of
famine and drought, and they get to where
they're going, and
everybody dies, the husbands
die, and they finally hear about it.
But if people of the time actually
followed the Lord, God said
he would make it abundant.
God said that he would make
it the land of milk and honey.
God said he would bless it.
It would be the
richest kingdom in the world.
It would be everything if you follow.
It was that if and then statement that we
talked about several videos ago.
If you follow me, then I will do this.
And so you're seeing
that again right here.
This is unless you do not lead this field
or you'll be assaulted somewhere else.
So if you don't do what I'm saying,
there's going to be danger for you.
And we see that all throughout the Bible.
Do as I ask, do as I say,
and there'll be blessings.
Don't do as I say, and it's not going to
be good for your health,
your life, your family,
your everything.
Yeah.
And it's just, you know, again, it's just
a provision through
this man Boaz from God
for her, for the things that she's done,
you know, because
again, even being in Boaz's
field, she could still, she still runs
into the possibility of
being assaulted, being
attacked, being beaten, raped, whatever
it might look like from
because she's a foreigner,
so they don't take kindly to them.
But he said, you know, he told her, stay
close to my young
men, they'll protect you.
Right.
So he's offering up like supreme
protection for this
woman to be in his field.
To bring her into his family.
You know, and I think
it's a beautiful picture.
And that's what God does for us.
Right.
He brings us into his family.
And we're foreigners and he
brings us into your family.
Hey guys, I hope y'all
really enjoyed chapter two.
We're gonna, in the next episode, we're
going to move on to chapter three.
I'm really digging this whole roof thing.
I think that it has a lot of stuff that
applies to us for today.
And it shows an overarching theme about
what God has done to redeem us.
You know, eventually, you know, man stole
from the tree in Genesis.
And then ultimately God put the fruit of
Jesus back onto the
tree whenever Jesus came.
And I think it's just, this is a
beautiful story of
redemption and a beautiful story
about how God is going to
redeem us in the long run.
And this chapter, you know, today, or
this episode that we
covered is, you know, we get
to see a lot of different aspects of what
faith looks like, what trust in God looks
like, you know, what a person of God
looks like and kind of
behaviors that they have
from kindness to generosity, you know,
including people that are
outside of us, breaking down
barriers, community support.
Like we get to see all these different
themes of this from just
one chapter of this that
just helps us to better understand how we
can walk it in our faith.
And what you see is this man before Paul
ever mentioned what the
fruits of the spirit are.
This man's operating in
the fruits of the spirit.
He's being generous.
He's being compassionate.
He's being patient.
He's being, he's being all these things,
but ultimately what he's being is love.
He's being what God teaches
his people to be to everybody.
Right.
So, you know, if you've got any questions
or if, again, like we
said in the last episode,
if you've seen or read anything that we
may not have covered
or something that you've
taken away from this
chapter, we'd love to hear from you.
Drop a comment below and just leave us
your questions or your
answers or the things that
God's dropped on your heart from this.
Until next time, we hope to see you next
episode and God bless you.
Absolutely.