Ruth 1:15-18

00:00:00:30 – 00:00:29:54
Clint Loveall
Welcome back everybody. Thanks for joining us this Wednesday as we continue through the first chapter of Ruth. just a quick recap. in the last couple of days, we’ve, looked at the text through about verse 14. And at this point, Naomi, who has lost, two sons and a husband, is, urging her daughter in laws to go back to their homes where they might have a chance at a life, maybe a remarriage.

00:00:29:56 – 00:00:59:39
Clint Loveall
And to make something of this, tough situation they are all in. And one of the sister in law’s Orpah we saw yesterday, kissed her mother in law. It meaning she said goodbye. And then Ruth, it says, clings to her. And we pick up that story today, and, Michael, I think, you know, if if Ruth is known for a thing, these words that we’re about to hear might be sort of her signature identity.

00:00:59:40 – 00:01:22:28
Clint Loveall
I mean, people may know the story of Ruth, but if they know a thing that Ruth did or said, I think it’s likely to be found in these words. So, jump in, just read for a few verses, and then we’ll come back and unpack it for you. So, Ruth, so Naomi said, see, your sister in law has gone back to her people, and her gods return after your sister in law.

00:01:22:33 – 00:01:46:48
Clint Loveall
But Ruth said, do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you. Where you go, I will go where you lodge. I will lodge your people shall be my people and your God, my God, where you die, I will die. There I will be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you.

00:01:46:53 – 00:02:17:29
Clint Loveall
When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her. So again, this is is Ruth kind of signature declaration? and it it rings of loyalty, of commitment, of courage. And these two women are having this conversation. They both want different things. And and this is Ruth’s way of saying, I’m not doing it, Naomi.

00:02:17:29 – 00:02:39:52
Clint Loveall
I’m not leaving you. And there’s this beautiful speech. You know, where you go, I will go. One thing to point out, it gets cleaned up in English a little bit, but this place about your people shall be my people and your God. My God. Verse 16. there isn’t a verb in that part. It literally just says, Your God, my God, your people, my people.

00:02:39:52 – 00:03:04:22
Clint Loveall
So there’s a I don’t want to say a roughness to it, but there’s just a declaration to it of this isn’t up for negotiation where you die, I will die and I’ll be buried there. And may the Lord even do something to me, if even death parts me from you. So it is this beautiful declaration that I’m not leaving you.

00:03:04:27 – 00:03:30:03
Clint Loveall
I will change lands. I will go to different people. Whatever. Where I’m. I’m at your side. You are my people, and I’m with you. And and I think that that’s not only beautiful, Michael, which it is, but it it characterizes this book maybe more than anything we’ve seen so far. This sets the the tone and the stage for the rest of what comes in the story.

00:03:30:03 – 00:03:49:44
Michael Gewecke
I think there may be many Clint who will not know much of what came before or after this text, but this will be recognizable because it is just beautiful prose. And I think it should be noted that there are some really historic reasons what that make this particularly relevant as well. And I don’t think we should rush by them.

00:03:49:44 – 00:04:23:45
Michael Gewecke
This idea of returning to the the people that you were born with, we see this here, this idea of going back to the other gods in verse 15. There is this idea, there’s this racial religious identity, so that when you’re born into a people, that identity gives you the gods that you worship. So this the returning gives for or for this change, this transition, going back to her people is not just a going back home to live with mom and dad for a little while, to get back on your feet.

00:04:24:00 – 00:04:48:14
Michael Gewecke
That would be our modern conception for this. This is for this is a radical reversal from being in the household of God, going back to not only the House, but the ways of her former people. And when Ruth makes this statement, it is therefore not just a statement of relational faithfulness, though it is. It is also a statement of her commitment to God.

00:04:48:14 – 00:05:29:38
Michael Gewecke
And we see that explicitly, your people be my people, your God, my God. And that commitment is a, direct connection or relationship with with Ruth’s understanding of her relationship to Naomi’s God and to therefore the Lord all caps. And I think that this is where a book like Ruth is, maybe quiet. It’s not a loud book, but it has something to teach us about our relationship with God that that in this confident statement, even a little bit, as you said, Clint, a little bit of a charge, may the Lord do thus.

00:05:29:38 – 00:05:57:19
Michael Gewecke
And so to me as more as well a kind of statement, a brash statement of saying that I will make this committed, faithful charge, that I will do this thing, and there’s nothing going to be that will stand in the way of it. It’s a powerful, moving phrase in the story that thus far has not been filled with a lot of agency or strong movements or strong choices, that this is maybe the first moment.

00:05:57:19 – 00:06:01:39
Michael Gewecke
Clint, where we get a glimpse of someone saying, and this is where I stand.

00:06:01:46 – 00:06:30:38
Clint Loveall
Yeah, think this through with me, Michael. There are many other parts of the Old Testament where people make vows of one kind or another, but I can’t think of one off the top of my head that is so profound. Went from one person to another. There’s some vows that are made of as threats. Jezebel threatens Elijah, you know, woe to me if I don’t make you like one of the dead prophets by tomorrow.

00:06:30:43 – 00:06:54:56
Clint Loveall
there are some guarantees. Some vows that are taken as guarantees are vows made before the Lord. But I. I can’t think of I can’t think of any better example where one person commits themselves to another. In fact, these words are so powerful in those lines that that many who know their Bible will use these in their weddings.

00:06:55:01 – 00:07:23:10
Clint Loveall
I’ve, you know, this tends to be or is often a wedding passage, this, this declaration of connectedness. And, you know, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s it’s not exactly the setting of the text. That’s not what it’s written for, but it is such an impressive it is such an impressive commitment that, I think if it fits that context pretty well.

00:07:23:15 – 00:07:50:28
Clint Loveall
I, I think we also, you know, interestingly enough, the rest of the. Yeah, we can come back to this question near the end of the study, but of all the things that we could look at in this book and say, we see something of Ruth’s character, this might be the pinnacle. I we’re going to see Ruth navigate situations throughout the rest of the story.

00:07:50:33 – 00:08:16:22
Clint Loveall
But if you want to look at who Ruth is and her courage and and her faithfulness, I think in many ways this is the highlight that the author is showing us that just this non-negotiable. I’m in with you. Come hell or high water. I’m I’m sticking with you by your side, so help me God. In other words.

00:08:16:22 – 00:08:32:04
Clint Loveall
And, I, I think that tells us I hope we read that intentionally. I think we’re correct to do so, that this tells us something significant about who Ruth is and what Ruth is.

00:08:32:09 – 00:08:56:06
Michael Gewecke
And I think it’s important to know that in a story that thus far, there’s been a lot of movement away. There’s been a movement away from Bethlehem because there was no food. And then there’s a loss of the husband, loss of the sons. There’s been all of this loss and retraction and this movement farther from God. Now, there’s going to be this moment where Naomi says, I’m going back home.

00:08:56:06 – 00:09:22:17
Michael Gewecke
That’s my next option. That is to, for her, compulsory that that’s the thing she needs to do next. It’s response. Response response. Clint. This right here. This is a declaration of intent that this is not so much a response to a negative circumstance. This isn’t looking for food in another place. This is saying I am resolute, committed, that I will be faithful to be with you.

00:09:22:17 – 00:09:48:19
Michael Gewecke
And I think that that is it is courageous and it is a display of human faithfulness. I think it’s both of those things. And it does display Ruth’s character. It also displays something about what we might learn about our own Christian character in relation to God in the midst of our own life circumstances. The recognition that we too, might find ourselves in circumstances that are bitter.

00:09:48:24 – 00:10:06:55
Michael Gewecke
Our death and destruction, or of sickness and death, as we had the names of those two sons. I think one thing that we can learn from this is that we might look at our world as a series of circumstances, but from the lens of Scripture, there’s also a lens that we look at our lives from the lens of character.

00:10:07:06 – 00:10:32:13
Michael Gewecke
And here we learn something of Ruth’s character. We learn of what, when things get hard, Ruth sticks closer to those that she’s been called to. Even if that relationship by marriage is gone, she’s going to remain faithful to Naomi. And that is in in a very important way, not a complete or perfect way, but yet in a very important way, a reflection of God’s perfect faithfulness.

00:10:32:13 – 00:10:50:09
Michael Gewecke
It she’s giving us a small lens to see a much larger reality, and she’s doing it in a moment, which she doesn’t in the text have a lot of power or agency. She there’s no reason for her to have courage or to be faithful. She she should return home as or, but did, and there’s no judgment for doing that.

00:10:50:24 – 00:11:00:56
Michael Gewecke
But here Ruth makes this decision, and it’s an admirable, a truly beautiful expression of an exceptional character that could say words like this.

00:11:01:01 – 00:11:28:44
Clint Loveall
I think, as well, a lot of courage, because there’s no plan here. Naomi doesn’t expect good things for herself back in Judah. This is risky on Ruth’s part. perhaps she’d have a better outcome or more likelihood of a better outcome if she did go back, but that’s a risk she’s willing to take because of her love for and commitment to Naomi.

00:11:28:44 – 00:11:53:55
Clint Loveall
And so she makes it very clear that she’s not leaving. And then we end this, passage with a really interesting verse. when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her. Now, that’s pretty tame in English. in in the language, there’s a little bit of negative sense that almost not quite, but almost.

00:11:54:00 – 00:12:26:13
Clint Loveall
She didn’t talk to her. She she was silent to her. And that’s led to some speculation. there are there is a theory. I don’t think it’s widespread, but there are a few scholars who suggest that maybe Naomi thought she’d have a better chance on her own, and that maybe she’s upset that Ruth hasn’t listened to her. I think that’s hard to read into the text.

00:12:26:18 – 00:12:45:51
Clint Loveall
that the Hebrew wording does have a little bit of negative connotation to it, but I think that’s too much to put on that. That one phrase, that one word. I am not a Bible scholar, but I, I, I think that that’s not the, the most common. And I and I would argue, not the best reading of the text.

00:12:45:55 – 00:13:17:28
Clint Loveall
I think it’s largely the way it sounds in English. She knew she wasn’t going to listen. She this is done that that’s a dead horse. Now, there’s nothing else to say in that regard because it’s it’s clear that they continue to have a relationship. And so I don’t read this, though some do, as Naomi is angry or upset with Ruth or that she’s, you know, secretly wishes Ruth would leave because she thinks maybe there’s more chance for her on her own.

00:13:17:33 – 00:13:24:15
Clint Loveall
it’s interesting speculation, but I think ultimately it, for me at least, it doesn’t hold water.

00:13:24:19 – 00:13:59:11
Michael Gewecke
There’s a really interesting aspect to this text to that. That would be very surprising to us in other places of the Old Testament. Just the the sort of command to return to your people, return to your foreign gods, that that idea that is embedded in this world is a much softer reading than what you’re going to have in other places in the Old Testament where any mention of idolatry or an idolatrous nation is going to be met by immediate black and white, very clear instruction you must be apart from.

00:13:59:11 – 00:14:23:55
Michael Gewecke
It’s better to be dead than to be part of that. And here the author of Ruth offers us, I think, a much softer and more complex human image of that. You have women navigating all of these challenges and and it’s very clear that that God, the God of Naomi, is all caps. Lord is is Yahweh, is is the God.

00:14:24:00 – 00:14:53:58
Michael Gewecke
But yet there’s a kind of softness in awareness that that they’re making choices that bring people in and out of the family that does have impacts. And yet there’s freedom to go back to the people and the fact that Orpah is not resoundingly judged. And here Ruth clings so, freely and so intentionally to Naomi, and in that way claims Naomi’s God is her own in a permanent sense, that I think it just adds depth and meaning.

00:14:53:58 – 00:15:15:43
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, that’s complex complexity to a story like this, because it makes these characters women that we can not only, relate to living in a world where there’s lots of gods and non gods, but we can also relate to as they seek to be faithful to one another. How that from God’s lens can still be a reflection of God’s providence in their lives.

00:15:15:48 – 00:15:47:51
Clint Loveall
I think we don’t generally think of gods in terms of regional, Michael. I mean, maybe we think of, Islam in the Middle East or Hinduism or Buddhism in Asia, but but the idea here is return to your your culture. And, the translators have tried to help us because if you look at verse 15, she has returned to her people and her gods, and then you turn over, your god shall be my God.

00:15:47:51 – 00:16:11:16
Clint Loveall
And you see, that’s capitalized. That’s all the same word. So when when the translators have understood that to be pointed at the Christian God, they’ve capitalized it. and not in the other case, but it’s all the word Elohim. It’s it’s the same word in Hebrew. Now, that changes significantly when you get to the back half of verse 17 here.

00:16:11:16 – 00:16:44:04
Clint Loveall
May the Lord. And that is a very specific and unique word for Israel’s God. And so, here there is a very specific claim made about which God that Ruth will commit to because of Naomi. And I think we have to see that in the backdrop of the text, because it is the Lord, not in some generic sense, but specifically our God, the God of Israel, who is going to be, interwoven through the rest of this story.

00:16:44:09 – 00:17:04:20
Michael Gewecke
No doubt. These are beautiful words. no doubt they are an expression of some of the best that can come as humans commit themselves to one another, and I think that is an image in small measure of God’s ultimate commitment to us. And and we’re going to see faithfulness in many different ways appear throughout the rest of this story.

00:17:04:20 – 00:17:09:19
Michael Gewecke
So courageous and a beautiful expression of faithfulness. glad that you’re with us for the conversation.

00:17:09:25 – 00:17:13:51
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody. Hope you have a good day. Hope you can join us tomorrow as we continue through. Ruth.