Romantic novels…were you ever embarrassed to be seen reading one?
I recall a time in school when boys (and occasionally girls) would hide a book or magazine of questionable content inside a larger school textbook….
....is this why digital books and periodicals are now so popular? Is it because of the fear of being judged or the thought of being embarrassed? ......since they don't have a cover; who can tell what's inside the Kindle or other e-reader that's capturing the owner's attention on the tube ride to work?
Romance novels, particularly those released by Mills and Boon, used to be one of the types of literature that some people were embarrassed to be discovered reading a few years ago.
It was sometimes difficult to tell whether this was because they were considered too slushy for girls from northern cotton towns to use as models for future marriages, or because the heroine of a stereotypical Mills & Boon novel was often portrayed as a passive, naive girl who is submissive to the hero in every way, with the hero almost always being a dominant alpha male….but despite the fact this concept runs at odds with the modern idea of egalitarian feminism the books continue in popularity.
The book of Ruth in the bible is often thought of as a story of romance and while that seems to be the obvious theme, the book of Ruth shows us how God rewards and leads those who make wise spiritual choices and is also evidence of God’s faithfulness in bringing about His plan of redemption using surprising partners.
Ruth is a book for everyone, for those who is wonder where God is when tragedy after tragedy attacks their life and faith. It's a narrative for people who despair that living a life of integrity is meaningless in difficult times. And it's a story for the majority of us who live regular lives and struggle sometimes to see something extraordinary coming from our ordinary everyday faith.
The book is set in the time when the Judges ruled (or judged) the land.
This period is 600 years after God had promised Abraham that his seed would become a nation. God had promised blessings, stating that if the people followed Him faithfully, they would be “the head, not the tail” in the world, and be “at the top” and “never at the bottom” There was one simple requirement, the people were to obey God. However, they did not obey God. The blessings they could have had were lost and so God raised up Judges or leaders to bring the people back to God. These were the worst of times and Ruth gives us a glimpse of the hidden work of God during painful times.
It's hardly a "Once upon a time" start, but it's a Mills and Boon start…its opens with an Israelite family — Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion — now living in Moab but originally from Bethlehem, the family having left their own land because of a famine. But tragedy soon struck. Elimelech died. Naomi’s sons married Moabite women, but within 10 years the sons died, leaving Naomi and her daughters-in-law now severed from her husband's family......cut off from any protection and provision.
Moab was a heathen kingdom with foreign gods, and their move had been risky. What else could she feel but that God's judgement had followed her and added anguish to the famine? God had commanded his people to be separate from the surrounding lands; how could she not feel that this was God's judgement upon her.
A famine, a move to pagan Moab, the death of her husband, the marriage of her sons to foreign wives, and then the death of her sons—blow after blow, tragedy upon tragedy.
Now what?
A bit of good news, in verse 6 Naomi gets word that "the Lord has visited his people and given them food." So she decides to return to Judah. Her two daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, go with her but then in verses 8–13 she tries to persuade them to go back home but they both want to go back with her to Naomi’s people. However, Naomi thinks it is hopeless for Ruth and Orpah to remain committed to the family name.
Orpah decides to return but Ruth chooses to stay and in true Mills and Boon fashion Ruth makes a quite dramatic statement in verses 16-17
But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.”
How amazing is this after Naomi's grim description of their future with her? Ruth stays with her despite what seems to be a hopeless future of widowhood and childlessness and she turns her back on her own family, people and gods and commits to God.
So, Ruth and Naomi return together to Bethlehem at the start of the barley harvest. Overcome by memories of past happiness in Bethlehem she could not bear the women to call her Naomi which means pleasant, but they were to call her Mara, meaning bitter because she says the Lord has made her life bitter and brought calamity on her.
When we have decided that things are working against us, we usually exaggerate our hopelessness. We become so bitter we can't see the rays of light peeping out around the clouds. We don’t trust and rely on God as we should do; we perhaps doubt that God will come through for us.
However, has we continue to read we realise that it was God who broke the famine and opened the way home (1:6). And we will see that it was God who preserved a kinsman to continue Naomi's line (2:20). And it was God who empowered Ruth to stay with Naomi. But Naomi is so embittered by God's hard providence that at this moment she can't see his mercy at work in her life.
Because they had no money and no men to take care of them, Ruth went into the fields to gather whatever grain she could. One landowner, Boaz, noticed Ruth and asked his workers to be kind to her and leave plenty of grain for her and her mother-in-law. He did not know at the time who Ruth was, but out of kindness, he chose to care for the new stranger in their land.
Ruth returned to Naomi and told her about the generous landowner. Naomi asked about the man and was pleased to learn that it was Boaz and Boaz was a near family member of her late husband. This meant that Boaz had the opportunity to take Naomi and Ruth into his care as well as free them from their financial debt.
Naomi is now filled with new hope because Boaz has appeared on the scene as a possible husband for Ruth. But he doesn't propose to Ruth, in fact he doesn't make any moves. At least that's the way we are led to think. So the chapter closes brimming with excited hope, but also with a great deal of suspense and uncertainty...how will this all work out?
Soon we read of Naomi instructing Ruth on how to ask for Boaz’s help in the matter. Ruth goes to Boaz on the threshing floor and says in effect, "I want you to spread your wing over me as my husband." The phrase spoke powerfully of marriage, a vivid expression for providing protection, warmth and fellowship, but right when the tragedy of Ruth's widowhood seems to be changing into a beautiful love story, we get a giant OH NO!! as Boaz tells Ruth that there is someone else, not another woman, but another man, a man who according to Hebrew custom has a prior claim to marry Ruth. Boaz is a man of honesty and integrity and will not go any further without giving this man his lawful opportunity. So again a chapter ends in the suspense of a possible setback.
In chapter four, after the midnight romancing previously described, Boaz goes to the city gate where the official business was done. The other kinsman comes by and displaying great uprightness Boaz lays the situation before him. Naomi is putting up for sale what little property she has, and the nearer kinsman receives the first offer to buy it so that the inheritance stays in the family....and just like any good Mills and Boon anti-hero the kinsman says at the end of verse 4, "I will redeem it." But we don't want him to redeem it, no, no, no, we want Boaz to do it; we want a romantic and happy end to the story but yet again there seems to be a setback……and haven't we all been there when we've suffered a setback as a result of operating with honesty and righteousness? The poor old nearer kinsman is just a fellow doing what was expected of him, just doing his duty. Sometimes our frustrations are not only caused by sin but also by what at the time seems badly timed righteousness.
But just when you think Boaz has lost his Ruth, and now we are in true Mills and Boon mode, Boaz says to the nearer kinsman, "You know, don't you, that Naomi has a daughter-in-law. So, when you do the part of the kinsman-redeemer, you must also take her as your wife and raise up offspring in the name of her husband Mahlon?"
A big sigh of relief; the kinsman says in verse 6 he can't do it. Perhaps he is married already and cannot afford to have another family to keep. Whatever the reason, we are turning the pages quickly to see Boaz take Ruth as his wife....and it gets better after what were 10 years of marriage without children Ruth gives birth to a son, Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of King David.
Suddenly we realize that all along something far greater has been running in the background, something far more glorious than we could imagine. God was not only plotting for the worldly blessing of a few Jews in Bethlehem. He was preparing for the coming of the greatest king that Israel would have, David....and with David comes the promise of Jesus
The book of Ruth teaches us that God's purpose for his people's lives is to connect them to something much bigger than themselves. God wants us to understand that when we follow him, our lives are always more meaningful than we believe they are. For the Christian, there is always a link between the ordinary events of life and God's magnificent work in history. Every act of obedience to God, no matter how insignificant, is significant.Serving a widowed mother-in-law, gleaning in a field, falling in love, having a baby—for the Christian these things are all connected to eternity. They are part of something so much bigger than they seem....we are connected to something much, much bigger than it seems.
Ruth shows us that the best is yet to come, that we must trust God and look for his signs even when we can’t see much of anything along the way..sometimes it’s like a thick black fog and we can’t even see a foot in front of us let alone the signs...but God is at work, he is always at work, working, planning, structuring something much bigger in our lives...sometimes things happen and all we need to do is trust God, not rely on our feelings and emotions but to say; okay God what’s next.
Ruth was written to help us see how God not only plans, plots, and paves our road, but how he leaves us signs of grace so that when the road darkens or curves too much for us to navigate well, we know someone greater than us is in control.
It is an encouraging book, an example of God's care and provision, and how He is always doing a multitude of things in our lives...even though we may only be aware of two or three at the time.
Be refreshed, inspired, and encouraged, God is always at work and so we always have hope.
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