Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ruth 1-4.

There are many different lessons we can learn from the Book of Ruth: Ruth’s faith, Naomi as a role model, Boaz as a man of integrity.  Today I want to look at the love story: Boaz and Ruth.  First, the hand of God in bringing them together.  Ruth did not pick Boaz’ field to glean in because he was a potential husband.  She chose it more or less at random.  At most there were reflections of his personality in the way his workers treated her, but the way the story tells it she was not thinking about that.  However, Boaz was smitten by Ruth from the moment he saw her.  OK, “smitten” is too strong of a word, but he clearly found her attractive.  If he didn’t, he would not have asked after her when he saw her in his field.  He had also been impressed by what he had heard about the way she treated Naomi.  However, Boaz also didn’t think that Ruth would be interested in him.  So, he waited for her to seek him out.  Well, again, OK he didn’t exactly wait; he made clear his interest for those with eyes to see (which Ruth was not one of, but Naomi was).  And let us not forget the hand of God in all of this.  There were men who would have taken advantage of the fact that Ruth was a foreigner, an attractive foreigner.  But, because she had chosen one of Boaz’ fields when she started gleaning, Boaz made known that he would protect her.  Then when sufficient time had passed for Naomi to be sure that she was not reading into Boaz’ actions what she wanted to see, she counseled Ruth on how to make her interest known to Boaz.  So, a love story where both parties acted according to God’s leading.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.