Ruth and the Grace of God

The Woes of the Pharisees, which we’ve been studying for many months now in Matthew 23, are serious, judgmental, and condemnatory. We’re finally now concluding the study of the seven Woes. But as harsh as they are, Jesus concludes the Woes with an offer of grace, using the simile of a chicken covering her chicks with her wings for refuge and safety:

 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who have been sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.” (Matthew 23:37) : 

Even with all their Woes, Jesus still extends grace to the Pharisees. But grace has to be accepted. Last week we studied the story of Simon the Pharisee and the woman who was anointing Jesus’s feet. In the parable of the two debtors, both the one who had a small debt (that would be Simon) and the one who had a large debt (that would be the woman) both had their debt canceled. Grace was extended to both. 

The double damnation that Jesus pronounced on the Pharisees turns out not to be because of their sins, but because of their failure to accept grace. One translation puts it this way: “I would,” Jesus says, “but you would not. You would not let me cover you with my wings, not take refuge with me. I would give you grace, but you would not.” 

The wings of God are a common metaphor for grace in the Scriptures. For example:

Do you not know? Have you not heard?
 The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth
 Does not become weary or tired.
 His understanding is unsearchable. He gives strength to the weary,
And to the one who lacks might He increases power. 

Though youths grow weary and tired,
 And vigorous young men stumble badly, 

Yet those who wait for the Lord
 Will gain new strength;
 They will mount up with wings like eagles,
 They will run and not get tired,
 They will walk and not become weary. (Isaiah 40:28-31) 

The power of the wings of God comes from God, not from us. It is not our power to move them. It is not our initiative. We are instructed in this passage to wait, and if we do, we will be borne up on eagle’s wings. It is not our work. It is God’s work. It is not our strength. It is God’s strength. Wings give you the power to elevate and to soar. 

The psalmist also sees the wings of God as a place of refuge: 

 He will cover you with His pinions,
 And under His wings you may take refuge;
His faithfulness is a shield and wall. (Psalm 91:4)

And Malachi says: 

 But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and frolic like calves from the stall. (Malachi 4:2)

Grace provides a lift, a power to soar above the mundane affairs of the earth. Grace provides a place of refuge, and healing. But there’s more:

 For You have been my help,
 And in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy. (Psalm 63:7)

Thus, grace is a cause for rejoicing. There is great joy in grace. It holds us close to God:

 Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings. (Psalm 17:68). 

To be the apple of the eye means to be under such close and careful observation that the watched can see themselves reflected in the eye of the watcher. Imagine how close that is. Likewise, to be in someone’s shadow is also to be in close proximity. This is the intimacy of God’s grace: Close enough to be within God’s shadow, his eyes focused exclusively on you. To be under God’s wings is to be given his grace, refuge, healing, rejoicing, power to elevate and to soar, and intimacy. These are all products of being under the wing of God. 

But to get a more complete picture of what it means to be under Gods wing, let’s turn to the story of Ruth:

In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there. 

Now Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband. 

When Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah. 

Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.” 

Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.” 

But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons— would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!” 

At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. 

“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.” 

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. 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.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. 

So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?” 

“Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.” 

So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning. (Ruth 1 [NIV]). 

That’s the backstory. Famine had taken Naomi’s family from Bethlehem to Moab and famine brought her and Ruth back from Moab to Bethlehem. Moab is modern day Jordan, east of the Dead Sea and the southern part of the Jordan River. (Coincidentally, our classmates Anonymous and Michael come from Jordan and Bethlehem, just miles from where this story unfolds.)

Naomi and Ruth are desperate and destitute women. In their culture, at that time, to be without a man was to be without protection and without provision. Their story is a picture of returning—returning to the promised land, returning to God, and (we see as it unfolds) returning to grace. The question answered in chapter 2 is what happens when they return? What will befall them? What is their fate? What will the find?

That s also the question for us: What do you find when you return to God? Chapter 2 gives us the answer: When we turn toward God, we find grace—surprising, unexpected, unlimited grace. Everything about Chapter 2 speaks to surprise. It opens with one: We expect to hear about Ruth and Naomi, but instead we’re introduced to…

… a relative on her [Naomi’s] husband’s side, a man of standing from the clan of Elimelek, whose name was Boaz. (Ruth 2:1)

We learn three things from this: First we learn that he is a relative, being from the Elimelek clan as was Naomi’s husband. Second, we learn that he’s a worthy man, prominent and rich, a man of status and high character—in short, a difference maker. And third, we learn that his name is Boaz, which means “strength” in Hebrew. 

Having been introduced to Boaz, we rejoin Ruth and Naomi. The thing to notice is that Ruth hopes to find grace:

 And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.” Naomi said to her, “Go ahead, my daughter.” Ruth 2:2) 

She’s going to go out to a field—any field—hoping to field one whose owner will look on her with favor. This word “favor” in Hebrew can be translated also as “grace.” It means to bend or to stoop in kindness to an inferior. Think of grace as undeserved kindness and remember that Ruth is from Moab. She’s a heathen, and the Moabites and the Israelites have a history of bad blood. 

Ruth goes to a field to glean. Remember, she and Naomi are starving. They literally don’t know where their next meal is coming from. So Ruth must go to glean. To glean was to pick up heads and ears of grain that the harvesters had either dropped or had left standing. In Leviticus 19, Leviticus 23, and Deuteronomy 24, God instructs his people to leave the edges of fields unharvested, and tells them not to pick up whatever is dropped by the harvesters, so that the poor and foreigners passing through will have something to eat. God created such a gracious rule for his people so that his kindness is demonstrated for those who are in need. 

So here is Ruth, a foreigner hoping to find grace so that she and Naomi can eat. Ruth steps out in faith. She trust that Israel actually follows God’s gracious rules, which in the period of the Judges was not a sure thing. The Book of Judges says this was a time when every man did what was right in his own eyes. And being a Moabite didn’t help, either. 

Ruth doesn’t know what she’s going to find but she hopes to find grace. And Naomi says: “Go, my daughter.” But how does she know where to find grace? It turns out she doesn’t. But she is guided by someone who does. Which brings us to the second part of the story, Ruth’s guide to grace. Having Naomi’s blessing, Ruth heads out to a large area of farmland outside the little town of Bethlehem:

 So she went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek. (Ruth 2:3) 

Ruth’s guide to grace leads to Boaz’ field. Notice the phrase “as it turned out.” The Hebrew here literally says “her chance chanced upon.” In English, we might say, “as luck would have it.” Chance, luck. These are not words that we normally expect from Scripture, but the author uses this phrase to highlight that even the “accidental” is directed by God’s grace. Theologians call this God’s providence. Providence means that God guides and cares for everything in his creation. 

God’s providence is invisible and often mysterious. And even though Ruth isn’t aware of it, she is being guided to grace. That doesn’t mean that we always feel providence or understand providence or even like providence, but Scripture is clear: God guides and God cares. Ruth’s experience with providence includes even the loss of her husband. 

But God presently guides her to grace. He guides her to Boaz’ field, where she meets Boaz’ foreman, who graciously agrees to let her glean and she goes after it with vigor. The foreman is impressed with her work ethic. And then it just so happens that while Ruth is working in the field… 

 … Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, “The Lord be with you!” “The Lord bless you!” they answered. (Ruth 2:4)

This exchange suggests that even in the time of the Judges, there were some who were still walking with God. This is a man of faith, therefore a man of grace. It just so happens that Ruth is alone, taking a break in the shade so that Boaz would take notice of her. Ruth is a young woman of childbearing age and probably beautiful. She speaks Hebrew with the mysterious Moabite accent. Then: 

 Boaz asked the overseer of his harvesters, “Who does that young woman belong to?” (Ruth 2:5)

This might sound like a sexist question, but recall that in this culture, without a man, a woman was in deep trouble. Men protected and provided for the women in their family. Boaz is basically asking, who’s looking out for her? Who is her father? Who is her husband? Whose brother is she? It’s actually a very kind question: Who is looking out for Ruth? It turns out no one is, at least not yet. But God has guided her to a man who will. 

So far, Ruth needs grace, she hopes to find grace, and she has been guided to grace. But nothing could have prepared her for the surprising experience of grace that she was about to undergo, as told In the third part of the story: 

 So Boaz said to Ruth, “My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.” (Ruth 2:8-9)

Boaz calls Ruth, a vulnerable yet attractive young woman, a foreigner, a nobody, “my daughter.” She is noticed and welcomed, given protection and provision. It’s a demonstration of such thoroughly surprising grace that it should move us all. It certainly moved Ruth because…

 At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?” (Ruth 2:10)

That’s that same word “favor” again, that can be translated “grace.”  Boaz replied: 

“I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.” (Ruth 2:11-12) 

This is not a contract. This is not a quid pro quo of God blessing her because she was kind to her mother in law. She is simply a recipient of God’s grace because she has sought shelter under his wings. Elevation and soaring, refuge, joy, healing, intimacy—these are the products of grace found under the wings of God. 

Boaz knows Ruth’s story. He knows of her devotion to Naomi. He knows that Ruth could have looked for security in Moab, where she had family and familiarity and better prospects for marriage. But instead she turned to God and his people for refuge. A refuge is a place of safety, security, protection and provision. So Boaz prays that Yahweh will be faithful to respond to Ruth’s trust in him, and already, through Boaz, God is answering that prayer. 

Ruth responds to her surprising experience of grace as follows: 

 “May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord,” she said. “You have put me at ease by speaking kindly to your servant—though I do not have the standing of one of your servants.” (Ruth 2:13)

Through Boaz, God piles on the grace. (I love how God always piles on the grace.) Ruth is even welcomed to Boaz’ dinner table that night and given a take-home box of leftovers. Meanwhile, Boaz had instructed his workers to drop grain for her and to be kind to her. So… 

 So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah. (Ruth 2:17)

An ephah is a little over a bushel. Think of a 35 or 40 pound bag of dog food for comparison. Boaz piles on the grace because that’s what God does. Ruth came to the field empty, hungry, and hoping to find grace. She leaves with a huge bag of barley and all the leftovers from dinner. 

For Ruth, it’s been a day of surprising grace. She had hoped to find a little grace, she was guided to a man of grace, she was surprise by her experience of grace. But there’s still one more surprise in store in the finale to chapter 2:

 She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough. 

 Her mother-in-law asked her, “Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you!” [You can hear Naomi’s surprise: “What in the world…?!” she says; “Where did you glean today and who’s the guy that did this?” Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. “The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz,” she said.

 “The Lord bless him!” Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. “He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.” She added, “That man is our close relative; he is one of our guardian-redeemers.”  (Ruth 2:18-20)

Naomi reveals to Ruth the surprising fact that grace came from a redeemer. 

So what do you find when you return to the land of the covenant promise, when you return to the Promised Land, when you turn back to God? It turns out that what you find is a redeemer from Bethlehem. We know that Boaz was related to Naomi; now we discover that he is her redeemer as well. 

What actually is a redeemer? Boaz is one of a number of men who have a recognized and covenant obligation to look after Elimelek’s family. We meet this kind of obligation in the laws of Leviticus 25, Numbers 35, and Deuteronomy 19. In each case, in different circumstances, a guardian-redeemer has an obligation to stand up for justice for the dead or the wronged person. Boaz was one of our guardian-redeemers. 

Ruth is surprised to learn that grace came to her and to Naomi from this redeemer. Naomi went to Moab full and came back empty, but empty isn’t a strong enough word. “Desperate and destitute” is more like it. So when Ruth comes home with a huge sack of barley and leftovers from a redeemer, Naomi is surprised, astonished, and amazed. God’s grace has brought them out of death and back to life, out of despair and into hope. 

All of the sense that she had been treated unfairly by God, all her bitterness, is washed away. And here’s the thing: The Bible says that as desperate and destitute as Ruth and Naomi are physically—that’s each of us spiritually—before God, we have nothing to offer him in return. There is no one who is righteous, there is no one who is or does good, not even what the Bible says. Like these women, our only hope is to turn to God and accept his grace. 

At this point, it seems like enough, but wait, Ruth says, there’s more:

 Then Ruth the Moabite said, “He even said to me, ‘Stay with my workers until they finish harvesting all my grain.’” (Ruth 2:21)

Boaz’ grace isn’t just a limited-time offer, not a blue light special. He offers grace that lasts through to the end of the harvest. Naomi and Ruth return to God, and what do they find? They find grace that comes through their redeemer. They find a worthy man who was a relative, a redeemer who provides and protects, a redeemer who happens to be from Bethlehem. 

The redeemer from Bethlehem is of course none other than Jesus himself. When you return to God, there is no condemnation. There is no judgment, there is no demand to be fulfilled. There is only grace, only shelter under the wings of God, only strength to soar above the earth, to elevate; only joy, only healing in his wings and refuge and intimacy. This is grace for everyday life. 

We learn later that Ruth becomes the great grandmother of King David. She marries Boaz in a somewhat sappy romantic ending to the story, and they have a son named Obed, who has a son named Jesse, who is the father of David. Thus, this foreign woman of impure bloodlines helps gives birth to the redeemer from Bethlehem, Jesus, the descendent of David. 

What are your thoughts today about the wings of God, about grace and the story of Ruth, about the shunting of grace—”I would,” Jesus said, “but you would not”, about the diversity and inclusion of the people of God, about being surprised by grace? What does it mean to accept grace? Have you ever personally been surprised by grace? And do you have confidence to explain to others that grace awaits anyone who turns back to God?

David: This seems like one of those stories where there really isn’t much to say. It speaks for itself. I still take issue with the notion that this is grace. Yes, Ruth and Naomi were down on their luck, and they were having a hard time. They were almost at the end of their tether (which I have always argued is the time for grace to kick in). But we can also say they were blessed, or lucky. 

The lesson that you have to turn back to God implies that you were with God in the first place. Again, to me, grace is for everybody, no matter whether they turn back or not. It’s not up to them. It is not the result of their work, their effort, in turning back. It’s coming to them anyway. 

Don: I thought it was unique that this story unfolds at the very homes of Anonymous and Michael, who probably trod the ground Ruth gleaned.

Michael: There are areas that claim to be just that, but you know how it is—nobody really knows. Bethlehem is still a small place. 

Anonymous: It’s called Karak now. 

Donald: The concept of returning to God is an interesting one. It would suggest you were there once, but left. Also interesting is that grace is a cause for rejoicing. My spirit, rejoicing. Our church is a place of rejoicing. Are Christians considered joyful? It seems to me that Christians should reflect grace, and that grace reflects rejoicing. I’m not sure that we’re living up to that expectation. 

Part of this conversation is predestination. What’s to celebrate, if it was preordained an\yway? I still like the idea of grace and rejoicing, and if I don’t provide grace to others, then I think I’m not doing as I am advised.

C-J: I think what’s happening here is the provision. It is through the provision that the gift of faith is given, it is the root that takes in new nutrients, that transforms us. This relationship of grace, this relationship of faith that we are completely dependent in a humble way upon God. 

I think people who have been through great adversity and trauma and depletion have a different understanding of grace that isn’t dependent on environment, in this place, this thing we call here and now. They don’t want to die—they have family, they have responsibilities—but they understand that they are powerless without being a victim. And there is a sense of confidence in that, that gives them a resiliency that is profound. 

And so when I look at this relationship that Naomi has with Ruth, and God leading even when you don’t notice the light of a small lit candle, they weren’t even aware that God was guiding them and a provision, by tradition, that Boaz extended, and the rules of the dance within that culture. She has no guarantee that the provision will last beyond the gleaning of the fields. She’s still at the mercy of the next day, that is an unknown. 

And so I think this idea of grace and transformation is symbiotic. You cannot have grace without being transformed. You cannot have faith without grace being in the mix. You cannot have redemption, restoration without grace by faith. That is a gift.

Carolyn: Grace is always there for us. Does our acceptance of it bear what is provided for us in grace? I know we don’t do anything in our power to earn grace. But I would like to know more about the idea of acceptance of grace. Do we just turn away from God when we turn away from grace?.

C-J: If you think about an unbeliever and grace is before him or her, they may not recognize it. So it’s not about accepting. It’s the revelation that comes by the Holy Spirit, or just exhaustion. Drink this water. How do I know it’s not poisoned? Why would you give it to me? What will it cost me? Will you give it to me and then destroy me? 

The kind of grace and acceptance that I think of when I reflect back on my relationship with God is even that acceptance wasn’t really being conscious, in terms of I knew the story, I knew what it meant through the story. But I had no real visceral understanding of the action, the empowerment, of acceptance. Because if I did, I would have done it much earlier in my life. And I would have had more time in this relationship. 

I am always in awe of God accepting me wherever I am in my life, almost like letting children be naughty without disciplining them. There’s a freedom in being naughty sometimes, watching kids being too loud at a party or making a mess. But we allow it because they’re children. And then when they get older, they go, Oh, I’m sorry, I broke that I didn’t mean to. And they understand that they did harm. 

But with God, that grace of extension is understanding where he just lets us play, even if we will get hurt. But in it there’s a grace of acceptance. I see you, I made you. You belong to me. You just don’t know it. 

There’s a beauty in that. 

When I was 12, I did not accept this relationship as I do today. Because I didn’t have that relationship. I had a story. I had a mandate from the church I was in: “You must believe and receive this the story.” But now I have a relationship. It’s very different.

Carolyn: I feel like the freedom that comes from grace is a joyful thing, because we aren’t burdened by rules and regulations, But it is also a part of us that has to accept this way of thinking and accept this interaction with the Lord. We become joyful because he has given us freedom from always having to bear every little wrong that we do. Am I right?

David: I agree that It’s all about the acceptance. But joy? Think about the parents who lost a child in one of these all too frequent shootings, for example. Do the parents ever want to accept peace? No. They fight against it. They know grace is there for them if they could just say, “Oh, well, that’s life. Let’s put little Sarah’s death aside and wake up in the morning and get back to life as usual.” That is so hard. 

But in the end, those who do accept grace receive not joy but peace. Grace has no “joyful” ending. It goes beyond joy. Joy is a human thing. Peace is very much a concept of God that we clearly don’t understand at all. We know what joy is, but if we knew what peace was, it’d be a very different world.

Michael: I don’t think under any normal circumstances any of us actually wants to accept grace. And I think if you read the Bible stories carefully people who accept grace do so under extremely desperate times. Because up until this point, we keep relying on ourselves. And when you can’t do that anymore, it becomes much, much easier to accept, which is the only thing left. 

I think Ruth was in a physically desperate place. But the good news for us is that though we think we’re always in a spiritually desperate place, the realization of that is when it becomes very easy to receive grace.

Donald: I completely agree. In regards to the word acceptance, we have the sense that we’re not destitute, but we are destitute. But what we do is we tend to work our way toward it, and then we think we deserve grace. We have first to recognize that we really have no business being provided with anything, and that we’re at a place that really we are not in control. 

But human beings, I think, want to earn it, so then they start working toward it, and they don’t even see it as grace, they think it’s something they deserve, which is quite unfortunate. It’s not a matter of acceptance—”I earned this”. It’s not starting at the bottom, it’s working your way up. So that: “this is what I deserve.”

C-J: I think it’s cultural messaging. If you want it, you work for it. But in grace, you can’t work for it so if we come into looking at the Old Testament, in terms of over and over and over again, these people, these Bedouins, had to be humbled. They had to be humbled and realize you can’t work for this—it is God that causes the rain to fall. It is God that makes the soil good. It is God. And so they had this dichotomy of either God is good or God is evil. Grace wasn’t a part of it. It was a reactive relationship. 

If I don’t plant the seed, if the rain doesn’t come, it won’t grow, if it doesn’t grow, we will die from famine, or warring with other tribes. But the relationship I have today, in God, what motivates me isn’t just that I have to have a good education to get a decent job and to check off the boxes as I mature to be qualified as a responsible adult. What motivates me is who I have become by embracing the value system in the Bible. I know I have to survive. But what motivates me is my relationship with God. 

I’m not trying to build a stairway to heaven, it’s impossible. But I tried to let the Holy Spirit be in me, to be a witness without having to say I’m a Christian. And I know that because I believe these things and I do these things, they see the love of God and right thinking, so what we think and what we do will result in who we become, and how other people will recognize us. 

We see that message continually, all the way from the Old Testament to the end of Scripture. Let God be the captain of your ship, not your culture, not your politics, not where you live, not your tribalism, not your family. It is a relationship that is profoundly intimate and cannot be taken or burned or destroyed. It can be abandoned, but even there God says we’re in covenant. You may leave me but I will never forsake you.

Reinhard: I agree. When we have a relationship with God, of course, we must obey God. When the Israelites were away from God, when they rebelled, God punished them. And when they came back to God, God blessed them with the gift of his grace. Maybe that was cause for joy, or peace. But remember, Jesus said that the peace he gave us is the peace of God. 

When we have a relationship with God, when we are close to God, no matter how bad things are in our lives we’re going to find the grace of God. One of the outstanding statements of Ruth was when she said “your God is my God.” It showed her character, that she believed, that she depended on God, that she knew about the God of Israel. 

The story does not say why she lost her husband and young sons. Maybe taking them away from Canaan was punishment from God, and if they had had enough faith in God they would not have had to move. But there are always two sides to a story. Ruth became part of the lineage of Jesus—she was the great grandmother of David. God used not only the Israelites, the chosen people—he also involved others in the process of salvation and Ruth shows that when non-chosen people come to God and accept him as their savior they too are saved. 

Christians appreciate grace more than non-believers. They can experience it, feel it. Unbelievers don’t know about it. They think if they work hard they can get what they need. But grace is not only about this life but also life hereafter. We are strengthened by our belief and we receive God’s grace every day and we appreciate that. This is the continual relationship with God that we have to uphold.

Anonymous: There’s a lot to say about grace. I can’t count how often I’ve experienced it. It’s amazing, and even that is not a strong enough word. Be that as it may, it is clear to me now that Ruth chose to go to the God of Israel. Before that, I would assume that God gave her grace throughout her life, but she might not have been aware of it. 

When she made a decision to go to him she found grace, or rather, she recognized the grace that was already there, and it was easier for her to recognize that the God of Israel was doing something. Maybe she saw it in material blessings that he provided—he provided food, he protected her, he provided a husband. I don’t know how spiritually she understood that, but looking back and trying to see grace everywhere throughout the Bible, we interpret it as grace. 

I could be mistaken but I think we have to consciously choose to follow God, to want his way. If we don’t get to that point, we might be unaware receivers of grace. Should we initiate the movement towards God? 

Donald: If grace is always there, it’s not a matter of a change in external circumstances. The change is in me, and recognize and accept it. And in reality, grace is always provided. We have that assurance. It seems very important to understand that nothing changes except me.

Anonymous: That’s true. I understand that very well. It’s there. As Michael said, when you know about grace, you see it everywhere. But before you come to this realization, before you know anything about grace, after you receive grace, of course, in hindsight you can reflect on your past life and see very clearly how grace was with you all the time. But before that point, before you’re aware of grace and seeing it everywhere, you can’t. 

Acceptance of grace is another, much deeper, subject to me.

David: I think you are reflecting what Paul discovered. In Philippians 4 he talks about “the peace which passeth all understanding”—the peace of God is not something we can understand. It is the result of grace. But Paul says that whatever happens, be faithful through thick and thin, come what may. 

It doesn’t matter whether what comes is manna from heaven or starvation. In either case you must accept that Jesus is your Savior, says Paul. He says he knows what it is to be abased and how to abound. “Everywhere, in all things, I’m instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.” 

So the stories of people getting what I would call a blessing, like Ruth, are not stories of grace. People would say: ”Ruth was blessed.” Someone in a modern equivalent of her position would say: “I was blessed!” not “I received grace!” 

I’m sorry to keep throwing spanners into the gears of our discussion on grace, but to me, we are still struggling with the definition of grace.

Don: We’ll have many more opportunities to pursue it. But next week, we’re going to move on to Matthew 24, where Jesus and the disciples engage in a conversation about the end of the earth. There’s a lot of speculation now that we’re in the End Times. The pandemic, the social and political upheaval that we find ourselves in, the violence we’re a part of,… all speak to some people as signs of the End Time.

A Pew poll found that 54% of Americans believe that Jesus will come before 2050. We’re going to talk about the end of the earth, about the signs of the time, signs of the end. I’m sure that because, as Michael says: Once you see grace, grace is everywhere, we’ll have more opportunities to revisit the topic. 

Carolyn: We never spoke about falling from grace. Many people are tormented by this because they feel like they don’t live up to God’s expectation, What does it mean to fall from grace?

Don: Galatians 4 Paul says that falling from grace is when we seek to substitute our own work for God’s work. It’s quite an unusual take.

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