I regard the Book of Ruth as one of the most theologically rich books in the Old Testament. It has been interpreted throughout history in many different ways. As we study the Book of Ruth together, chapter by chapter, we're going to talk about how to interpret and apply the book to our lives as individuals and as church. The Book of Ruth presents a picture of how God works in our lives. That is to say, Most often, God works indirectly rather than directly in our lives.
We witness God acting directly on behalf of his people only twice in the story. First, God comes to the aid of his people experiencing a famine by providing food. And only later, God enables Ruth to conceive.
More often in the book of Ruth, we witness God working behind the scenes Answering prayers and rewarding faithfulness, bringing life where there is death, hope where there is despair, fullness where there is famine, and inclusion where there is exclusion. The story enacts a theology of divine and human cooperation as those who pray for God's blessing participate in answering their own prayers as well as the prayers of others. Boaz prays that the Lord will reward Ruth in chapter 2 verse 12. And then Boaz offers Ruth food, protection, and the sort of security marriage brought to ancient widows. This theology reminds us that God works through people to bring healing to our very broken and needy world.
The great hymn writer Francis Ridley Havergill expressed this idea of divine human cooperation when she wrote in her hymn, Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love. Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for thee. We also witness God working through providentially arranged circumstances.
We see God's providence embedded in such aha moments as Ruth finding herself gleaning in Boaz's fields. Or Boaz's perfectly timed arrival as a... at his fields in chapter 2 verse 4 and in Joe Schmoe's appearance at the town gate in chapter 4. All these examples of God's providence in Ruth call us to be more mindful of how God is working in our own lives.
Over the course of my career I've become increasingly aware of the importance of dancing with well-known and forgotten interpreters of scripture from the past. They can teach us ways of interpreting scripture that most of us are not aware of. Many of them look behind the literal sense of the text to find hidden spiritual teachings about Christ and about how to live in this world and to prepare for the next.
They look for types and figures in the story of Ruth that allow them to connect the characters in this story and the good news story of Jesus. who is David's greater son. Accordingly, Boaz, Ruth's redeemer and husband, is understood as a type of Christ. Ruth the Moabite was seen as a type of the Gentile church, delivered out of hardships and blessed with fruitfulness. And Naomi and Ruth together were thought to foreshadow the unity of Jew and Gentile in the church.