Exploring the Book of Ruth: Faith, Integrity, and God's Plan

In this installment of the Daily Bible Podcast, the hosts cover the entire Book of Ruth, which includes four chapters detailing the lives of Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz during the time of the judges. The conversation touches on the themes of loyalty, faithfulness, and God's overarching plan even in dark times. The discussion highlights Ruth's conversion, the concept of Leverite marriage, and Boaz's integrity and role as a redeemer. This episode underscores the story's significance in the lineage of King David and ultimately, Jesus Christ.

00:00 Introduction and Weather Talk

00:43 Driving in the Rain

01:35 Geography and Weather in Texas

02:19 Introduction to the Book of Ruth

03:01 Ruth Chapter 1: Naomi's Loss and Return

04:19 Ruth Chapter 2: Ruth Meets Boaz

06:27 Ruth Chapter 3: Ruth's Proposal to Boaz

08:01 Ruth Chapter 4: Boaz Redeems Ruth

10:13 The Significance of Leverate Marriage

13:50 Concluding Thoughts and Prayer

14:44 Outro and Podcast Information

Find out more about Compass Bible Church.

Learn more about our Bible Reading Plan.

Questions or Comments? Email us podcast@compassntx.org

Hey everybody.

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Welcome back to another edition

of the Daily Bible Podcast

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and happy Monday to you all.

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Thanks for joining us again.

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Yep.

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We have a whole book to cover today.

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Four chapters.

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That's a lot.

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Yep.

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Yep.

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And hopefully it's not raining anymore.

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It rained a lot this weekend.

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I don't know if it did on Sunday.

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I don't ' cause we're not there yet.

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But Saturday, lots of rain.

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Friday there's a lot of rain.

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It's I like the fact that

we're in severe storm season.

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I don't like the severe storm, but

I like looking at the severe storm.

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Yeah.

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A difference stuff.

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Yeah.

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Oh yeah.

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Yeah.

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I like the pitter-patter of the rain

on my window and hearing the thunder

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in the background as I'm working.

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I just, I love that.

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Yeah.

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Maybe 'cause I never really got it

in California now that I have it here

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and so often it's really cool As long

as you don't have to drive in it.

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I am, I don't like to drive in

the rain in the dark years old.

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And especially here in Texas, man, I

was driving to men's Bible study and

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I'm like, this is just terrifying.

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My windshield wipers don't go fast enough.

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And then when they were wiping the

window, they were leaving this streaky

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residue that made it worse and not better.

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So it was like a lose loose.

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If I don't do the windshield wipers,

I get rain all over the windshield.

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If I do them, I get streaks

all over the windshield.

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I could not win.

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Okay pastor Rod needs somebody to

replace the windshield wipers on his car?

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I don't think so.

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I think I just need to clean the car.

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It's been a couple weeks.

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If you don't have, if your windshield

wipers get damaged, when's the last time

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you put new windshield wipers on the car?

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I don't know.

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I think relatively recently.

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I think here I feel the

need to do it more often.

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Yeah.

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'cause it's necessary.

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California, I don't know

if I've ever changed them.

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Yeah.

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I don't know if I've ever

used him in California.

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Maybe it were or twice.

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Just to get the bug off your windshield.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Put the windshield wiper fluid on there.

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Yeah.

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Yes.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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At least right now it's not raining.

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Looking outside, it's windy, but it's not

raining so well in East Texas, I believe.

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Tornadoes, east or West?

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West Texas.

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One side of the Texas.

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State is getting snow right now.

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It's panhandle.

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It's the panhandle, yeah.

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It's not east or west.

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It's north.

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Is it?

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We're north Texas.

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Yeah, but it's, but you

wouldn't say north Texas.

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The Panhandle's a different section.

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Panhandle's not north.

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Yeah.

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Region.

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We're geographically north Texas, but

it's They're technically north Texas.

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Yes.

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Directionally they're north Texas.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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The panhandle, they're getting

snow, which I wouldn't mind again.

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That was fun.

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Yeah.

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Take a couple days off.

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It would be record breaking

for us to get snow in April.

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In this part of the state though.

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Stranger things have happened.

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Yeah, I think, it's Saturday

right now, but overnight load

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tonight is 39, which Wow.

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That's something.

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Wow.

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Yeah.

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Let's tackle Ruth.

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We got four chapters, whole

book to, to get through here.

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This is a story in the midst of the

judges' situation that is a highlight.

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And so we just finished talking yesterday

about how the time of the judges were just

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depre, depraved and wicked and everything

else, and yet it wasn't all that way.

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God is still working out

his plan and I think that's

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important for us to note here.

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Ruth is really about the development

of God's plan because Ruth is going

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to be part of the line of Christ.

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Ruth is going to be the great grandmother

of King David, and we all know that.

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The line of Christ runs through David.

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That is, he's a Davidic Messiah.

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So even during the time of the

judges, all the wickedness, all the

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gross depravity that we've talked

about there, there's a bright spot

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here, and that is the book of Ruth.

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Ruth chapter one deals with some

key themes here, the famine.

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There was a famine in Israel that drove

Naomi, who's one of the key players,

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and her husband ek to go to Moab.

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And Moab should just.

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Should sound familiar to you.

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The Moabites are certainly not

people that have been friendly to

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Israel at to this point at least.

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And while there Naomi loses

everything, she loses.

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Her husband also loses her two sons

who had, by the way, married, two

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women, one named Ora the other named.

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Ruth, where we get the book title from.

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So Naomi decides to return

to Israel at that point.

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And her daughters in law initially

say they're going both going back

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with her, but she turns to them

and says, you need to go home.

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Ruth is as faithful to Naomi and

says, no, I'm gonna stay with you

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and I'm gonna embrace your God.

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I'm gonna embrace your people.

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I'm gonna be all in with

you wherever you are.

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And then when eventually Naomi gets back

to Israel the people there are shocked,

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even just at her appearance and the

impact that it's made on her to go through

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the sorrow that she's gone through.

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And she says, don't call me Naomi, which

means lovely or pleasant or delightful.

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But she says, but call me Mara, which

means bitter, desperate, or bewildered.

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That's kinda the first chapter there

is setting up the action that's gonna

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take place in the rest of the book.

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They go.

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Moab, Naomi loses everything

but gains Ruth and then comes

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back to Israel, chapter two.

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Then we are introduced to another key

player in this book, and that is Boaz.

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Boaz turns out to be one

of the kinsmen of Naomi.

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I.

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And there was running in the background

of this something called Lever It

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marriage, which is going to come

into to play really in chapter four.

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But the kinsman was a sign of hope,

albeit small hope at this point for Naomi.

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And so Naomi tells Ruth to

go and glean in Boaz's field.

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And this hearkens back to the law.

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Remember, the law prohibited.

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And Israelite from harvesting all the

way to the edges of his field because he

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needed to leave the edges for the poor.

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And so that's what Naomi is saying.

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Hey, go and glean amongst

the fields of Boaz here.

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But Boaz goes above and beyond

and shows Ruth favor and

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provides for her in abundance.

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And even then, reveal reveals.

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Through Naomi that he is

one of their redeemers.

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And so chapter two things are looking up

a little bit now after that, that first

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stretch in chapter one of losing so much.

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Shout out to the hardworking Ruth man.

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She came and she has continued

from early morning until

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now, except for a short rest.

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I think this is one of the qualities that

draws him to her to say she's different.

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She's exceptional in that

she's a strong and hard worker.

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Not that this is everything.

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I think this is a.

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A really sweet story and

it's got some romance.

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It's got a little bit of comedy, I think.

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But that's a really cool.

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Thing that stood out to me.

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She took a little rest.

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She's hardworking.

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She's there for her mother-in-law

to support her to stay next to her

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throughout her time of suffering.

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So I love this.

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I think this is really cool.

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And I of course, love Boaz.

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He's such a sweet dude.

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I wanna be like Boaz.

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Boaz is a ray of sunshine.

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Remember, this is the time of the judges.

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So to, to have a guy like this

guy who people respect and

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admire because he's a godly dude.

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Is really a ray of sunshine in a

really dark time in Israel's history.

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So this is a really cool story,

and I especially like this

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chapter about roots character.

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Yeah.

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And don't lose the, those

little details there.

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Boaz, we're gonna find

out is a man of the law.

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He's concerned that I.

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They do things in accordance with the

law, and we even see that in how he

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cares for his field agriculturally.

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He wanted to do things in

accordance with the law.

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So he was a man of integrity, which

is, yeah, certainly commendable

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and a stark contrast to so many

of the others during this time.

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Chapter three, then we get the proposal.

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Now the proposal here is interesting.

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It comes more from Ruth

than it does from Boaz.

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Naomi tells boa or tells Ruth rather

to go to Boaz's field and to find him

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in the evening and to uncover his feet.

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Now you're gonna read some different

commentaries out there that may

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suggest that there was something

untoward going on there with that

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euphemism as they interpret it.

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And and yet I think contextually when

we look at the wholeness of the book,

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there's such a, an overall purity about

the Book of Ruth and there's such a

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level of integrity about Boaz and about

Ruth as well in the book that I don't.

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I don't think it, it fits the

context to try to introduce something

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here of uncovering his feet,

meaning something euphemistically,

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untoward from Ruth towards him.

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I think it was literally she uncovered his

feet and then laid down and slept there.

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And this was really asking him, this

wasn't a proposal in the strictest

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sense of marriage, but it was asking

him to be the redeemer that he was to.

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Cover her.

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And that's what she says,

cover me with your wings.

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This idea of covering over her

was symbolic of him saying, I

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will take you into my protection.

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I will be your provider.

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I will be your redeemer.

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And so Ruth in her faithfulness, and

he even commends her faithfulness

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in this chapter and says, you could

have gone after the younger men,

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but instead you came after old me.

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Which always makes me laugh.

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'cause Buzz was self-aware.

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I guess he, he knew that there were

better looking dudes out there.

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But Ruth is going about this

saying, Hey, you're my redeemer.

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Please be the redeemer for me here.

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And and Boaz at least agrees to in

chapter three, but he says, Hey,

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there, there's a problem here.

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We need to deal with the law before

we can move forward with the full

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culmination of this chapter four.

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Then this is where we get into

the concept of levert marriage.

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And so what Levert marriage involved

is that if a man died without any

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offspring, and that's what happened here.

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So Ruth's husband dies and she

had not born any offspring to.

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Propagate his line.

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Then the kinsman, the next in line

as far as the kinsman redeemers

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were concerned would marry the man's

widow and then produce offspring.

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And the first in line or the

firstborn would continue the name

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of the husband who had passed away.

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And so there were other things

too, as far as redeeming land

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and everything else like that.

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So boas is, there's somebody who's

actually more of a qualified redeemer

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than I am next in line before me.

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And Boas seeks the man out.

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And again, here's the integrity of Boaz.

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He didn't have to go through any of

this, especially during this time

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of Israel's history, but seeks the

man out and says, Hey, will you

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acquire the property that is Naomi's?

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'cause she's selling it.

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And the man says, sure,

I'm the next in line.

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I'll take the property.

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And he says, oh, by the way, you

gotta also take Ruth and give her.

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Lineage by Ruth.

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And the man says, I can't do that.

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I've gotta think about my own children.

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And so Boaz says, okay, then let me

buy the, or let me obtain the right of

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being the kinsman redeemer from you.

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And that's what takes

place in chapter four.

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They do this at the gate, they

do this according to the law,

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even the exchange of the sandal.

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All of these things taking place there.

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Check in the boxes so that

this was done righteously.

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And then Boaz takes in Ruth.

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To be his wife and they have children

and one of their children ends up being

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the father that would ultimately produce

Jesse, who would be the father of David.

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So Ruth and Boaz, the great

grandparents of King David.

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Yeah.

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That's good and all, but everybody

wants to know about the sandals.

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Yeah, that's good.

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What gives, why sandals?

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It's part of the, it's part of the law.

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It's what they were instructed to do.

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I don't recall Deuteronomy talking

about San, I, maybe I missed it.

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Does Deuteronomy say that

you have to exchange sandals?

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I think there's something in the

law there that it does, and I think

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it has to do with the ground that

I'm treading upon is now yours.

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I think it has something to do

with the walking upon the land

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that ends up being transferred

from the one to the other party.

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Okay.

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I see the section that says that they

pull off a sandal and spit in his

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face for the guy who doesn't do this.

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And maybe that's connected

and it is just, it developed.

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Who knows?

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Who knows?

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I just find that one curious.

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I like to figure out what's

going on behind the symbolism.

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I think you're right.

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There's something maybe to that, but

just to remind you guys this Leverate

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marriage ideas does come from scripture.

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It's, it is Deuteronomy 25.

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I.

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And I'm looking at verses five through,

let's just call this 10 right here.

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And the term for lever, it comes from the

Latin word vere which is brother-in-law.

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So it's a brother-in-law, marriage.

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It's the way that people were protected

at this stage in, in, in history.

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Really cool story.

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I love this one.

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I was in, I was just joking

about, let's move on from that.

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But this is really cool because what we

know, at least from the ending of this

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book is that this story was written down,

preserved at least in the time of David.

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If not later, because what we have here

at the very end of it is that he's the

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father of Jesse, the father of David.

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So we know that the story was written

down, at least around his time.

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And again, who knows who exactly.

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We don't exactly know who wrote

down the book of Ruth, but we have

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it and we're thanking God for it.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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It's this is similar to the lever at

marriage shows up in the New Testament.

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When the Sadducees try to trap Jesus

and they say, Hey, you believe in this

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resurrection thing, if a woman dies and

she marries this other guy, and or if

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a man dies and his spouse marries this

other guy and then he dies, and so forth

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and so on, who's, whose wife is she?

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Yeah.

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That's referring back to the leverate.

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The levered law.

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And then Jesus says, you know that in

heaven, they're, they neither married,

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nor are they given a marriage, by the way,

speaking of that, did you happen to listen

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to the briefing this week with Moeller?

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He got a question on that from a mom

who wrote in, because her son was

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worried that when he gets to heaven,

he's not gonna remember his mom.

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Oh, he won't recognize her.

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Yeah I remember something about that.

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I don't exactly know what he said.

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It was interesting Moeller said.

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He said, yeah, we've got that

verse that talks about they neither

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marry nor are given in marriage.

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He said, because there's no

more propagation in heaven.

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And then he said but he followed that up.

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He said, but if you're telling me

then I'm not gonna have a unique

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relationship with my wife in heaven.

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He said, I think you're crazy.

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He said, I think I'm gonna, I'm gonna

have that special relationship with her.

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And then he also said, and yes, we're

gonna be able to recognize other

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people, including kids recognizing

Yes, that makes sense to me.

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But the, yeah the curious question

about what kind of relationship we

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have in heaven with our spouses or

previous spouses perhaps, and even

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though the Sadducees were trying to trap

Jesus, it does pose a good question.

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Yeah.

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What is the relationship between a

woman and her husband's or a man and

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his wives, assuming that they're not

plural, but that it's, they died and

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so they married different people.

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That does, that does raise

a couple curious questions.

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We don't have answers to that.

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Let's just be clear.

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We don't have any answers that tell

us for sure what that's gonna be like.

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But I suppose that's part of the fun of

waiting for and anticipating the future

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of heaven, the Mormons and the Muslims.

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They've got answers.

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They do, but they don't have good answers.

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They're also say that as well.

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Yeah.

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One thing that's cool about the book of

Ruth, going back to our text here, is that

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it would've been scandalous, and I think

it still is, that you have a Moabite.

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Who's part of the royal

lineage of the Messiah?

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Here.

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It is just their king.

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Yeah.

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It was King David.

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But now you have a Moabite

who's also, of course, she's

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the great grandmother of Jesus.

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Yeah.

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That is so cool.

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Yeah, because she's an outsider.

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She's not part of the promised

people of God, and yet she finds

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herself in those genealogies

because of this story right here.

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What a cool tie in.

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By the way, David is not gonna

treat his ancestors very well.

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The mo bites.

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And I guess that does

raise a question, the.

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The the inclusion of these people, the

Ammonites, the Moabites, or any of the

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other of the, its were not unconditional.

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It was required.

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And remember we covered this text recently

that no Moabite or Amite would be allowed

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in the assembly of the Lord, right?

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That would include Ruth, right?

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Unless the, there was evidence

to show that they converted.

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To followers of Yahweh.

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So that's not a blanket statement

for them to be excluded.

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If they're converted.

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If they're not converted well then I think

it still remains well, and that's why

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that opening statement that she makes to

Naomi when she says, your God will be my

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God, your people will my people important.

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Yeah.

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That's her.

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That's the conversion of

Ruth basically at that point.

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So, let's pray and then we'll be done

with the, this episode and a whole nother

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book in just one episode right there.

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Wow.

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God, thanks for the story of Ruth, and

just a reminder that you are at work,

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even in the midst of the dark times,

and we see the highlight, we see the

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high point here with this story and

we see the great examples of boas, the

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examples of Ruth here in this text.

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And we are reminded that

there is there's good.

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In being men and women of integrity,

even as the world seems to be rebelling

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and falling apart around us, that

you are still working through people

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who avail themselves to you through

being upstanding and being men

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and women who are trustworthy and

pure and honest and hard workers.

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And so we thank you for this story.

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We thank you how you used this

story to, to bring about the the

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birth eventually of King David.

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Who would be the one that would be the.

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Ancestor of Jesus, the

ultimate Davidic king.

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And so we are so thankful for stories

like this, and it's so amazing that

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we get to see how you were working

on all these things out by looking

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back at them in the scripture.

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So we thank you for this

in Christ's name, amen.

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Amen.

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Keep your Bibles tuned in again tomorrow

for another edition of the Daily Bible

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Podcast, and we start a new book.

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Yep.

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Bye.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to another

edition of the Daily Bible Podcast.

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This is a ministry of Compass

Bible Church in north Texas.

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You can find out more information

about ourChurch@compassntx.org.

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We would love for you to leave a

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