Tag Archives: Ruth 1:1-22

May 5, 2014 Bible Study — Worship the Father In Spirit and In Truth

For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

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Proverbs 14:25

    Someone who truthfully recounts what they have seen will save lives, those who lie and mislead about what they have seen betray the trust which has been placed in them.

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Psalm 105:1-15

    Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim His greatness. Let us remember all of the wonderful things which God has done. God is a god of justice. He will see justice done throughout the land. He stands by the promises He has made. He has stood by His people throughout history. When nations have oppressed the descendants of Jacob, God has brought those nations down. He promised the descendants of Jacob that He would give them the land of Canaan and even though they wandered the nations of the earth for over a millennium, once more they own the land that He promised them. Our God is honest and just. He keeps His promises.

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John 4:4-42

    We must worship God in spirit and in truth. Salvation comes from the Jews, but we must recognize that God created all people to worship Him. There is no one place for worshiping God. Let us worship God where we find ourselves. It is time, and past time, to stop building barriers of exclusion to exclude certain people from those we consider eligible to worship God. The people of the village came out to hear Jesus because of what the woman at the well told them. However, once they heard His message they came to believe in Him for themselves. Let us live our lives to invite people to “Come and see”. People must hear how the Gospel message applies to their own lives.

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Judges 21:1-25

    In reaction to the crime in Gibeah, and the defense of that town by the tribe of Benjamin, the people of the rest of the tribes made war on Benjamin. When the war was over, they regretted the wholesale slaughter they had committed. They realized they had over-reacted and sought ways to restore the tribe of Benjamin. There is a warning at the end that reminds us how a society ends up with the problems both of Gibeah and of the over-reaction to it. “All the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.” We must hold each other to standards of right behavior. We must find friends who will hold us accountable to do what is right. It is not enough that we think that something is right, we must make ourselves accountable to others who can tell us when our view of what is right is merely what is in our interest.

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Ruth 1:1-22

    In this passage, Ruth makes one of the great statements of faith and commitment, “Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.” Pastors often talk about this and Ruth’s wonderful commitment to her mother-in-law. What strikes me when I read it however is the question of what did Naomi do to inspire such faith and commitment in Ruth. More importantly, do I live my life so as to inspire others to make such a commitment? If not, what do I need to do to inspire people to make such a commitment?

May 5, 2013 Bible Study — Your God Will Be My God

     I have been using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study for almost a year. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I started writing this blog because the only way I can get myself to read the Bible everyday is to pretend that I am teaching someone about what it says to me. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them. I hope that the Spirit is moving in others through these posts as the Spirit has definitely been convicting me.

Forsythias over the brook
Forsythias over the brook

Judges 21:1-25

     The people of Israel had vowed that they would not give their daughters in marriage to the men of the tribe of Benjamin because of what the men of Gibeah had done and the fact that the rest of Benjamin came to their defense. However, once they had destroyed all the Benjamites except for 600 warriors they began to regret the possible loss of one of the tribes of Israel. They sought to find wives for the remaining men of Benjamin so that the tribe might continue.
     They had also vowed that anyone from among the tribes that had refused to join the battle to punish Gibeah would be put to death. So, they took a census of those present and discovered that no one from Jabesh-gilead had attended the assembly. They sent a force to punish Jabesh-gilead and seize their unmarried women as wives for the remaining Benjamites. In this manner they found wives for 400 of the remaining 600 men of Benjamin. They told the remaining single men of Benjamin to go and capture wives from among the women of Shiloh when they went out for their dances at their annual festival to the Lord. They promised to make it right with the fathers and brothers of those so taken..
     This passage once again illustrates the dangers of hastily taken vows. That one should not make long-term commitments in haste and the heat of the moment.

Plants growing by the water
Plants growing by the water

Ruth 1:1-22

     The book of Ruth starts by telling us that a man from Israel moved with his wife and two sons from Israel to Moab because of a famine in the land of Israel. The man died leaving his wife Naomi with her two sons in a foreign land. The two sons married local women, Orpah and Ruth. Then Naomi’s sons died leaving Naomi in a foreign land with her two daughters-in-law. About this time Naomi learned that God had once more blessed Israel with abundant crops, so she set out to return to her homeland. Her daughter-in-law accompanied her. However on the way, Naomi realized that if they went with her, they would be foreign women in her land and she had been a foreign woman in their land. So, Naomi told them to return to their mothers’ home, praying the Lord’s blessing on them for the kindness they had shown her and her sons. Both of her daughters-in-law resisted at first, bet eventually Orpah agreed to go home. That is the last we hear of Orpah and some have tried to draw lessons saying that Orpah’s choice was inferior to Ruth’s and shows a lack of faith in God. The passage, and no other in Scripture that I am aware of, supports this conclusion. There is no condemnation of Orpah’s choice.
     Ruth, on the other hand, insisted on continuing with Naomi making a statement of great faith, “Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.” Notice that Ruth’s commitment was not just to Naomi, it was also to the God whom Naomi worshiped and served. We often praise Ruth for her decision to accompany Naomi, and rightly so. But I think it is more instructive for us to consider Naomi. Do we live the type of lives that encourages others to leave their family, and perhaps even their country, to serve the God that we serve. Do people look at the life I live, and the way I treat them, and say, “I want to serve the God that he serves?” Do they see me and say, “I want his God to be my God?” If not, what do I have to change to make that happen? Because that is the type of person I want to be. I want people to look at me and say, “Your God will be my God.”

Brook in the Spring
Brook in the Spring

John 4:4-42

     As Jesus was on His way with His disciples from Judea to Galilee, He passed through Samaria. When He came to the town of Sychar, He was tired and sat down beside Jacob’s well close to noontime. Meanwhile His disciples went into the village to buy food, so that He was alone at the well. A Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water and Jesus asked her for a drink while she was drawing water. This surprised the woman because Jews generally would have nothing to do with Samaritans, especially a Jewish man with a Samaritan woman and she expressed this surprise to Jesus.
     Considering that He had just asked her for a drink, Jesus made an interesting reply. He tells her that if she knew the gift of God and who she was speaking with, she would have asked, and He would have given her living water. Which causes her to retort (paraphrasing), “This well is deep, how would you get any water out of it? And what makes you think you are better than the Patriarch Jacob?” Jesus told her that anyone who drank the water from Jacob’s well would thirst again and need to return for more, but anyone who drank of the water He would give them would never thirst again, that water would become a well springing up eternal life. The woman wanted that, she wanted to not have to return to the well, a place she had to come to in the middle of the day because she was unwelcome during the times when the other women came to draw water.
     Jesus sent her to get her husband. When she told Him that she had no husband, Jesus told her that she had had five husbands and now lived with a man who was not her husband. She then asked Him a question that I just noticed for the first time is phrased like many of the trap questions asked by the Pharisees (and I think it was sort of one). She prefaces her question by saying that He is obviously a prophet. Then she asks Him why the Jews, of which He is one, say that the only place of worship is Jerusalem, but the Samaritans say that it is Mount Gerizim, where their ancestors worshiped?
     Jesus answered her question by telling her that the time is coming when the place of worship will be neither on the mountain nor in Jerusalem. He further told her that the time has come when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth for that is the sort of worshipers God seeks. This leads her to tell Him that she knows the Messiah is coming. At that He tells her that He is the Messiah. At that point His disciples returned and the woman left her water jar and returned to town. She told the people that she had met a man who told her everything she ever did and suggested that He might be the Messiah. The people started to come out of the town to see Jesus.
     His disciples offered Jesus some food and He told them that He had food to eat that they did not know about. When they expressed confusion, He told them that His food was to do the will of the One who sent Him. He went on to tell them to look at the fields because the harvest was ready. It was time to harvest a crop for eternal life. Look at the world around you, God is sending the workers out to the harvest, are you willing to go?

New growth pops up near the water
New growth pops up near the water

Psalm 105:1-15

     Another great psalm that lifts my spirits.

Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness.
Let the whole world know what he has done.

He has made me glad and given a good life. I have a wonderful wife and I live in a house where it feels like I am on vacation each morning when I go out the door. I will remember this part of the psalm as well:
Search for the Lord and for his strength;
continually seek him.

Forsythia closeup
Forsythia closeup

Proverbs 14:25

     What an important proverb to remember. Am I a faithful witness to what God has done?

May 5, 2012 Bible Study

     I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. In the interest of making this more useful to others, I have decided to start doing my Bible Study blog on the next day’s reading as listed at One Year Bible Online. I am doing this blog because it is a way for me to do a more meaningful daily devotion myself. I hope that, perhaps, some others may benefit from this and I welcome their comments.

Judges 21:1-25

     In the previous chapter, we are told that the Israelites had gathered and wiped out all of the tribe of Benjamin except for 600 men who had taken refuge at a highly defensible location. This was done in response to members of the tribe of Benjamin who had committed atrocities and the willingness of the rest of the tribe to defend them. Here we are told that before going into battle the gathered Israelites had entered into two oaths. The first was that they would not give their daughters in marriage to a man of Benjamin. The second was that anyone from the tribe of Israel who did not join them in punishing Benjamin would be put to death. Now that they have sated their lust for vengeance, the Israelites regret the loss of one of the tribes, so they seek a way to find wives for the remaining men of Benjamin.
     Upon taking a census of those present, they discover that the town of Jabesh-gilead had sent no one to the assembly. They decide to carry out their second oath, keeping any unmarried women as brides for the remaining men of Benjamin. In this way they find wives for 400 of the men of Benjamin. They then suggest that the remaining unmarried men kidnap women from the festival held at Shiloh, promising to make it right with the women’s fathers and brothers. I find today’s and yesterday’s passages troubling. The only thing I take away from today’s is a reaffirmation of the proverb, “Act in haste, repent at leisure.” I am sure that there will be times when I will read this passage and the Spirit will reveal other things to me, but not today.

Ruth 1:1-22

     Now we begin the story of Ruth. Elimelech and his wife Naomi leave the land of Judah in a time of economic hardship and go to live among the Moabites. They have two sons who marry local girls. In time, Elimelech and his two sons die leaving Naomi and her two daughters-in-law widows. Naomi hears that in the meantime things have improved in Judah and decides to return. Initially, her daughters-in-law accompany her. Before they get very far, Naomi thinks of the hardship her daughters-in-law will face being widows in a foreign land and tells them to return to their mother’s homes. One of the two, sees the wisdom in Naomi’s advice and, with deep regret, returns to her mother’s home. Ruth, on the other hand, is not willing to leave Naomi alone in the world and insists that she will stay with Naomi as long as they both shall live.
     I think there are some important things here. Orpah did not do wrong by following Naomi’s advice and returning to her mother’s house. However, Ruth did better by staying with her mother-in-law. Thinking about the situation, if Orpah had joined them, it would not have significantly eased Naomi’s life any further than just Ruth accompanying her and it would have added another person to feed and find shelter for. Ruth, on the other hand, willingly allowed her entire life to uprooted and moved to live among complete strangers who followed different practices from those she had grown up with. She did this out of love and concern for her mother-in-law.

John 4:4-42

     This is the passage of the Samaritan woman at the well. There are many lessons to be taken from this story, but today what strikes me is that Jesus refused to be bound my societal norms. Here we have Jesus, a Jew, making a request of a Samaritan woman, not just a Samaritan woman (as if that wasn’t bad enough), but one of questionable morals. She had been married five times and was living with a man she was not married to. I was reading this thinking that there must have been more to the conversation in order for her to believe he was the Messiah than what is recorded here, and I think there probably was. But, I think that what is recorded here is key. The woman was impressed with Jesus because he did not treat her as one who was incapable of understanding the Word of God. He spoke to her as if she was someone who could understand, if only someone would take the time to teach her, not as an inferior who needed to be carefully guided and was incapable of understanding the weighty points of theology. There was something about what He told her that she relayed to the people of the village that led them to believe. At the end, her fellow villagers tell her, “Now we believe, not just because of what you told us,” implying that they initially believed because of what she told them. This is a story about the power of treating people with dignity and respect.

Psalm 105:1-15

Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness.
Let the whole world know what he has done.
Sing to him; yes, sing his praises.
Tell everyone about his wonderful deeds.

     This psalm calls on us to give thanks to God and to tell others of what He has done. We need to praise God and let everyone know what we believe about Him and His greatness. Further in the psalm tells us to continually seek God. As I read these psalms each day as part of my daily devotion, they lift up my spirit and lead me to praise His name. It is rather interesting because I started reading a Psalm each morning at the beginning of the year (and still do as part of my morning routine, separate from this daily devotion), yet they did not have the same impact on me until I started writing these studies. Even now, when I read the Psalm as part of this daily devotion it has more impact than when I read it a few days earlier as part of my morning routine.

Proverbs 14:25

     This proverb needs little explanation. Telling the truth will save lives, while lying is a betrayal of trust. Our society no longer views honesty as a particularly valuable virtue, nor does it view dishonesty as a terrible mark against a person. Lying is considered just part of doing business. In some circles it has even become reversed, where the honest person is the one who is looked down upon.