From the Archives - March 28, 2006

• Naomi asks her daughters-in-law to return three times (Orpah leaves on the second). Why?

• Naomi indicates her belief in God's personal judgement (1:13) (1:20)

• Naomi's heart is revealed (1:6). It was not the elimination of an authority structure that prompted Naomi to return. Instead, she had heard there was food. She didn't return when her husband died. She didn't return when her sons died.

• Naomi was reverse-evangelizing. Three times she entreats them to return...why?

• Naomi knows God's judgement is right, just and true. Yet she is sorry that her mistakes have affected others.

Ruth's Confession:

• She did not follow Naomi because of potential gain down the road. Naomi would not have more children, she was a widow and childless.

• Ruth had also suffered under the Lord's hand of judgement

• 'Where you go, I will go'
The word "go" is the word for walk, to move, to conduct one's self, a way of life

• 'Where you lodge, I will lodge'

• 'Your people shall be my people'
The new Christian adopts/is adopted by a whole new family (people)

• 'And your God, my God'
Turning to Christ means forsaking all other gods, as long as you both shall live. It is no longer the things I worship, the things I choose, the things I want. We have a "new" Master. (death to self) (no longer our own, bought with a price)

• 'Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried'
A commitment to Christ is fatal. We are His through the point of death and beyond. This was not a "try before you buy" kind of deal!

• Ruth's confession and their journey took place about the time of year that Passover was celebrated.

• In His sacrifice, Christ made Himself a "people" who were not "His people"

"As he saith also in Hosea, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God." (Rom 9:25-26)

• The Moabites were descendants of Lot