Ruth – Part 1 , Ruth – Part 3 , Ruth – Part 4
In his book, The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis talks about two kinds of love one finds, gift love and need love. Gift love is a pure love that comes from the heart and is not motivated by some need. Need love, on the other hand, seeks the beloved to fill some need in the lover. Most of the love we find in most people is a mixture of both kinds of love. True gift love is a rare and beautiful thing. Gift love is the kind of love God possesses. It is also the kind of love people can have when they have experienced the love of God in their lives. It is the kind of love we see in the book of Ruth. Ruth and Naomi are both women with great need, but they do not love each other based on their needs but for the sake of the other. This kind of love is what we see again in the second episode. We also see another character enter the story who also begins to express gift love. So, this second episode is about the gift of loyal love.
The book of Ruth has four chapters or four episodes. Since the book tells a story, a historical narrative, we’re calling each chapter an episode. Each episode has three scenes. This study is the second of four and focuses on the second episode (2:1-23). If you have not read the first study about the first episode, you may want to read it first. The three scenes in episode two are (1) Divine Timing (2:1-3). (2) Divine Encounter (2:4-16). (3) Divine Kindness (2:17-23). Each of the three scenes develops the central theme of the gift of loyal love. Loyal love is the love God expresses towards his covenant people. God calls people into a covenant relationship with them, and in that relationship, the Lord makes promises and is loyal to keep his promises as an expression of his love.
The second episode begins with Ruth and Naomi making plans for Ruth to glean in the field of some farmer. The Lord had given the gleaning law in the law to Moses, which says that farmers should leave the crops around the edges of the fields for the poor and foreigners. Ruth goes to a field and begins to glean. The field belongs to a man named Boaz, who has heard her story and is very impressed with her kindness and loyal love for Naomi. This motivates him to show kindness to her by letting her glean in his field, protecting her as she gleaned, and giving her extra grain. When Ruth arrives home and tells Naomi all that happened that day, Naomi is ecstatic because she realizes that Boaz is a kinsman of her husband. Another law in Israel is the kinsman redeemer law. This law says that the nearest kinsman has the responsibility to help a person or family in a time of hardship. Naomi realizes that Boaz can redeem her land and redeem Ruth by marrying her and providing the family with a son. Ruth continues to glean in Boaz’s field until the end of the barley and wheat harvests. God is really up to something!
In the first scene (2:1-3), we see the principle that God comes to our rescue in the moment of his perfect timing. Ruth and Naomi were poor widows who had a great need. They struggled to support themselves, and their future was very much in doubt. God comes to the rescue for them in his perfect timing. But the struggle in God’s timing for the believer is waiting. God’s timing often does not come as quickly as we desire. We may pray and worry, thinking that the Lord will not come through for us. But God’s timing is never late. It’s always at the right moment. God’s timing is not only about the provision but about God strengthening our faith.
Three things can happen in God’s timing. First, God may deliver us quickly. Second, God may deliver us over time. And third, God may choose not to deliver us in this life but into the next life. God’s timing is a matter of God’s choice. This is not an academic consideration but a serious life situation that people struggle with. Waiting is not easy when the need is great. Ruth and Naomi were facing great obstacles that may not be resolved for a very long time. They could struggle from hand to mouth for years. People today face similar struggles waiting on the timing of God.
There are three things to remember as we wait on the perfect timing of God. First, we need to remember that God is supremely good. God loves and wants us to flourish. Any delay that seems to happen is for our good. God is working in our lives. He is not trying to harm us but to bless us. Second, we need to remember that God is infinitely powerful. He can do what needs to be done. We may think that there is no help for us. We are too far gone. That situation has unraveled too much. The Bible tells us that nothing is too hard for God. What is impossible for people is possible with God. Third, we need to remember that God is perfectly wise. He knows the best from the merely good. He knows the end from the beginning. He sees the big picture and knows perfectly what we truly need. Somehow Ruth “happens” to stumble into the field of Boaz.
In the second scene (2:4-16), we see the principle that loyal love arises from a relationship with the Lord. The Lord’s love is a loyal love. Those who have a relationship with the Lord express loyal love. Acts of kindness express loyal love. The Hebrew word for kindness is one of the most important words in the Old Testament. The word kindness carries the sense of loyal love and is often used in the context of a covenant relationship. The Lord’s loyal love is a love of kindness. Our loyal love must be a love of kindness.
In this second scene, Ruth meets Boaz. He has already heard of what she’s done for Naomi. He sees her loyal love in her acts of kindness and is impressed with her character. He discerns that she has found a place of refuge under the wings of the Lord (2:13). So, he shows kindness to her by protecting her and giving her more grain than she gleaned. True kindness is the capacity to see life clearly with humility and from a divine perspective. The Lord’s kindness to us inspires us towards kindness to others. As we experience a divine encounter with God’s kindness to us, we experience a divine encounter in the kindness of others.
In the third scene (2:17-23), we see the principle that the loyal love of the Lord is seen in his redeeming nature. When Ruth gets home from gleaning in the field of Boaz and tells her mother-in-law all that transpired, Naomi is beside herself with joy. She recognizes the hand of the Lord in what has happened. Naomi knows that Boaz is a kinsman redeemer. He can buy Naomi’s land and marry Ruth to redeem them out of their troubles. Boaz is a picture of the Lord as our kinsman redeemer. It is the nature of the Lord as redeemer to make whole what is broken. Ruth’s and Naomi’s lives were broken. We are broken. Boaz was their redeemer. The Lord is our redeemer.
The ultimate expression of God’s loyal love is seen in his kindness by the redemption he gives on the cross. The cross of Christ is the place of divine kindness and the place of redemption. At the cross, God makes whole what was broken. Our lives are broken because of sin. God makes us whole by pouring our sins on Jesus. He was the innocent lamb of God who bore our sins to give us forgiveness. Through him, we have a covenant relationship with God and experience his kindness and loyal love.