Ruth

https://odb.org/2025/04/15/i-will-stay

Ruth 1:16–17 (NIV):
16 But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”

During ancient times, women were largely not given much prominence. They usually support men in most narratives. The bible is no exception as it was written in the literary style of the then existing period of time. Thus, as much as we know Sarah/Sarai was the wife of Abraham/Abram, those chapters in Genesis were more about Abraham than Sarah. It was the same with Isaac’s Rebecca and Jacob’s Rachel and Leah. The wives were supporting characters to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Another example was Joseph. Although the Egyptian Pharoah made him second in command and gave him a wife, Asenath, an Egyptian aristocrat, who bore him two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim (who later formed two of the 12 tribes of Israel), little is known of her.

But Ruth was different. A whole book in the Bible is about her, with only Queen Esther being the other exception. What made Ruth special was that she was a Moabite who chose to follow her mother-in-law, Naomi, back to Israel and adopt Jewish culture and Yahweh as hers. Her famous and often quoted words are, “Your people will be my people, and your God my God.” It illustrates God’s love and compassion and inclusiveness, way before Jesus commissioned Paul to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles. Ruth later married Boaz as the story goes, and she became the great grandmother of David, the most illustrious King Israel ever produced. When Jesus was born, He proudly traced his ancestry to the House of David, and Jesus is thus also a human descendant of Ruth!

The parallel we have with Ruth is that we are also grafted into the family of God as adopted sons and daughters through the blood of Christ shed on Calvary, which we will remember and honour this coming Good Friday. We were not the chosen ones but became the chosen ones through Christ. In a way, we are like Ruth. The God of Israel has become our God, and His people, Israelites, are now our people. We are now a part of the universal and spiritual family of God. Like Ruth, who was a foreigner, we were Gentiles (not Jewish).

God could have chosen to remain God of only the Jews. Instead, He so loved the world that He sent Jesus to the world so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have life everlasting. The irony is that the Jews rejected His Messiah and Son and His message of hope and reconciliation. We as believers and disciples of Christ are the new spiritual Israel.

This week, as we celebrate Good Friday and Easter Sunday, honour, remember and celebrate Christ’s death and resurrection! The day of His return is not far away. There will be turmoil and chaos. Cling on to Him steadfastly, and we will be saved! Amen!