00:00:00:05 - 00:00:26:39 Clint Loveall Hey, everybody. Thanks for being with us. we are starting today, in the book of Ruth in the text. We did a little bit of intro last week, and it might be worth going back at some point to, to catch up a little in terms of some of the issues, around surrounding the book, the dating, the purpose, some of that in, the Christian Bible in, in the, what we call our Old Testament. 00:00:26:43 - 00:01:03:36 Clint Loveall The positioning of Ruth is significant because it moves it to right after the judges. And if you know the book of judges, that ends with the idea that it's a tumultuous time in Israel, there's lawlessness, there's struggle. And the book of Ruth kind of, I think, uses that as a springboard and moves forward. So right away when we move into this book, we see that it's a difficult time not only for Naomi and Ruth and their people specifically, which is certainly true, but of Israel in general. 00:01:03:36 - 00:01:24:49 Clint Loveall So, let me read. There will be a lot to unpack, but let me read the first, maybe five verses here. Then we'll come back and try to to discuss some of this. In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem and Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons. 00:01:24:54 - 00:01:47:44 Clint Loveall The name of the man was eliminate Elimelech, and the name of his wife was Naomi. And the names of the sons were Mahlon and Chillon, and they were, Ephrathah writes from Bethlehem in Judah they went into the country of Moab, and remained there. But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. 00:01:47:49 - 00:02:17:49 Clint Loveall These two wives of Moabites, the name of one was awful, and the other was Ruth. When they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and chillun died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband. So, the first thing we see here is a time of struggle. So we locate the story. In the days when the judges ruled, and then the next thing we get is something of the context. 00:02:17:54 - 00:02:46:44 Clint Loveall There was a famine in the land. And because of this, this man, Elimelech decides that he will move. And they move to the country of Moab. And, Michael could easily read that in as a as a modern reader. You could read that. And if you didn't maybe know some Bible, it wouldn't say much to you. But Moab has a kind of checkered past. 00:02:46:44 - 00:03:14:06 Clint Loveall And so Moab is seen negatively through the eyes of the Israelites. And I think that's significant. So the first thing we encounter is the idea that an Israelite, even a person from Bethlehem, which is an irony because Bethlehem means house of bread, but in the house of bread there's a famine. And so they go to this, less desirable place, Moab. 00:03:14:06 - 00:03:45:23 Clint Loveall And, just a quick recap. If you went through, it's been a while ago, if you went through the Genesis study, you may remember that the origins of the Moabites are traced to Win Lot's daughters got him drunk and seduced him. And one of the offspring from one of the daughters is then named Moab. So they have a they have a kind of, dishonorable origin, and they're not seen much higher than that by the Israelites. 00:03:45:23 - 00:03:48:55 Clint Loveall And so, this is important, I think, because it helps set the stage. 00:03:49:06 - 00:04:09:28 Michael Gewecke Yeah, it's you mentioned this, but I just want to make sure we all see the the irony of this that's intended from the setup of this story, Clint, is that you have Bethlehem, which is supposed to be the House of bread. It's supposed to be literally in the name, the place of food and sustenance and care. And that place is no longer able to sustain life. 00:04:09:28 - 00:04:43:31 Michael Gewecke So in Elimelech, desire and his hope to secure a life and a future, he then takes his family to the bitter enemy of Israel, to the place that worships foreign gods, the place that's full of generational hatred and mistrust. And it's in that place that he's going to find not just really even a path for the future, because the story is going to tell us right from the start that while they're there, they're only going to have a very short time that he's going to live. 00:04:43:31 - 00:05:04:53 Michael Gewecke And we're not there yet. But there's a built in irony in this set up to this story. The idea that the place that there should be bread, there isn't. So it forces them to move on. And one thing to note here, Elimelech means God is my king, which is an interesting connection because in the Christian Bible, Ruth immediately follows judges and the end of judges. 00:05:04:53 - 00:05:30:32 Michael Gewecke You might know, is that in verse 25 here at the end of chapter 21, in those days there was no king of Israel. So there's this interesting kind of connection, the the man who does not have an earthly king, but whose God is the king, is the one who then takes his family from God's country to follow that narrative line, to go to a place where there might be a refuge from this famine. 00:05:30:32 - 00:05:51:33 Michael Gewecke And though this is not in any way a permanent famine, it's not the end of all things. It for this time and season, requires this kind of displacement, and it requires trusting God to lead them into the other country. And it's the setup for all of the things that's going to happen in this story, which very quickly becomes a dark one. 00:05:51:37 - 00:06:16:07 Clint Loveall Yeah. And so again, not not to overdo this point, but if you flip back to Deuteronomy chapter 23 and you look beginning in verse three, let me just read a little bit for, you know, Ammonite or Moabite shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord, even to the 10th generation. None of their descendants shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord, because they did not meet you with food and water on your journey out of Egypt. 00:06:16:12 - 00:06:42:52 Clint Loveall And then it continues, and it ends with this word you shall never promote their welfare or their prosperity as long as you live and so clearly there is an anti Moabite bias and that's important in this story. some would say that it is built into the meaning of this story. We don't need to dwell there. We've probably done enough of that. 00:06:42:52 - 00:07:06:12 Clint Loveall But certainly you get the idea that the Moabites and the land of Moab are not, are not well thought of. So we have this man. We have the two sons. we have Naomi. And really, Naomi is an interesting in an interesting way. The, the focus of this. And you see this, the storyteller does this in an interesting way. 00:07:06:25 - 00:07:47:38 Clint Loveall We get told first that the man has a wife. But look at verse three. But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. And then, and then at the very end here, verse, verse five, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband. it a little bit unusual to refer to the, the, the woman as having the sort of ownership of or responsibility for a husband and sons. 00:07:47:49 - 00:08:16:30 Clint Loveall And I think that's just a clever way that the author is saying the spotlight is on Naomi here. Now, the two women that join Naomi are Moabites. The sons marry these two women, Orpah and Ruth. And that's how we first meet these characters. And they lived there about ten years. It says so about a decade. No children seem to have been out and none are mentioned. 00:08:16:35 - 00:08:41:34 Clint Loveall And then both sons die. Now it is, I think, another point in the idea, Michael, that this is really a focus on Naomi. We don't get told anything about how they die. What happens. There's no sense of punishment here. There's no sense that they're struck down. This is just it's a hard life. And, Naomi is left with these two daughter in laws in a very difficult place. 00:08:41:34 - 00:08:52:03 Clint Loveall She's away from home, she's vulnerable, and she's suffered great loss. And I think ultimately, that's all we can confidently say about what's happening in the in the prolog here. 00:08:52:08 - 00:09:21:09 Michael Gewecke Yeah, absolutely. There's some really interesting details I think, worth pointing out here. we have Mahlon and we have Killian. These are the two sons. And it's interesting, names often have meaning in the original language. And and here Madeline sounds like sickness, and Killian means destruction. So together, it means of sickness and death. And that's a really fascinating way to use language to describe these sons. 00:09:21:23 - 00:10:07:13 Michael Gewecke The idea that not only do they experience famine, which drives them from their home, from the place that God set aside for them. But then she, even in her own family, experiences this kind of destruction. And then ultimately, you know, we we recognize that she is completely bereft. She goes into this place seeking life, seeking away, and finds their dead ends over and over and over again and this is really powerful because let's just know that where we're at, we're five verses in, we're just five verses into the story, and we've already seen the setup of everything that's going to follow, because you can anticipate we we right now with what we know, Clint can 00:10:07:13 - 00:10:28:33 Michael Gewecke already intuit some of the great driving struggle of this story. Is God going to be faithful to this woman amidst all of this massive amount of loss and destruction of security? There's already a question inherent in this story. where is God? Why is there a famine? Why does that famine drive them to this place of desperate need? 00:10:28:48 - 00:10:53:16 Michael Gewecke And why is it in that place of desperate need that Naomi loses all of these things? What will God give in return? Is a question that lives underneath the text. This is five verses, Clint, and I think that Ruth, the text already sets up how how, both pressing of a situation. This is for these characters, but also the real pressing question that lives under the text. 00:10:53:16 - 00:11:15:06 Michael Gewecke And that is, where is God in the midst of this? How is it that this woman has two sons named sickness and destruction, or sickness and death? How is that the tone all the way from the start? And this book is now going to just launch into the story of how all of these relationships and trust and God under the surface, it's going to play out. 00:11:15:10 - 00:11:46:28 Clint Loveall I think that continues, Michael, in the naming and in the, sort of the opposite. So the word here Ephrathah writes for this, group from Bethlehem that means fruitful. And yet, in an irony of the text that there's nothing born to them, there's no fruitfulness, there are no children, there are no grandchildren. And and then secondly, the name Naomi means sweet. 00:11:46:33 - 00:12:12:27 Clint Loveall And there is nothing to indicate in these first five verses any kind of sweetness. She has a difficult, painful, or bitter experience, in fact, that that's going to come up later. So I'm not going to do a lot with it other than to say that that not only are there some names that suggest that things aren't going to go well, there are some names that are treated ironically in the context. 00:12:12:27 - 00:12:37:58 Clint Loveall And we said this, we said this last week and we'll mention this, I'm sure, multiple times throughout the study. But notice, we've most recently finished Jonah. And notice the difference of storytelling in the prolog of this story. In Jonah, the first thing that happens is God shows up and starts saying things, and there's this obviousness to what God is up to in this story. 00:12:37:58 - 00:13:01:04 Clint Loveall God hasn't even yet been mentioned. It it God is very much in the background, and the the struggles and questions of human life are pushed to the forefront. And that's not to say that this isn't a book about God. I don't mean that in any way. What I mean is that the way the story is told focuses on the troubles that Naomi faces. 00:13:01:13 - 00:13:21:11 Clint Loveall Without jumping to explanation, without jumping to, assigning blame or credit. And and they simply are presented as these are sometimes the things that happen in life. And and Naomi lives at this painful intersection of many of these struggles. 00:13:21:16 - 00:13:41:36 Michael Gewecke So there's a couple themes here that if you're a close reader of Scripture, particularly the Old Testament, I think you'll recognize here the the famine in this story is not just the barrenness of the land. It's not just that the land can't produce crops, but it's also a barrenness of the womb, which is a consistent, story that happens throughout the Old Testament. 00:13:41:36 - 00:14:14:33 Michael Gewecke These these two daughters in law have not bore sons. And so ultimately, that only continues the barrenness that shapes Naomi's life. This is a substantial sort of closing of that way forward, as well as the physical food aspect of this story. So there's barrenness in lots of different ways. And I think it's also worth noting here that as as we see this story being told right from the start, there is this question of where is God in the midst of the people? 00:14:14:33 - 00:14:48:19 Michael Gewecke Because this does follow from judges. And if you know the cycle of judges, God continually sends judges to the nation of Israel, then the people repent, then things go well and then the people forget and it all goes off of a cliff. And here we see that cliff experience lived out. And the way that this book has been included in our Bibles as a segue way right out of the judges, I do think is very telling, because there's a way in which we we, I think, should be instructed by that as we read this book. 00:14:48:19 - 00:15:15:07 Michael Gewecke In other words, one of the last questions of the end of judges is, you know, what will happen to the people if they have no king, and they keep forgetting the one who's their god. And when we turn here to Ruth, we see that the man who says that his only God, his only king, is his God. That man goes and dies and his entire family is left bereft and without options, and at the end of a dead end of life. 00:15:15:12 - 00:15:40:39 Michael Gewecke And then the question that will hang over the text is, so what will happen to them? Well, Naomi, what will her story be? Will God be faithful to her? And that's the amazing, precarious, difficult, messy human situation that this book starts with. It starts with a very honest appraisal of what actually is, not what we would like for the world to be, not some kind of made up pretend scenario. 00:15:40:39 - 00:16:03:16 Michael Gewecke Now, this is a real woman facing a really precarious situation, separated from home and family and a place and people that would care for her, having lost the people who would in that day even have had legal stewardship or responsibility for her. And now she has to find and make away what will happen in the midst of that story. 00:16:03:16 - 00:16:26:27 Michael Gewecke And will it be her, or will there be other forces at work in it? These, like you don't have to reach for these questions in this text if you slow down, if you read carefully, if you connect it to some of the larger themes of Scripture, this is both beautifully done. but it's also incredibly rich in the way that inspires our imagination and welcomes us into the context of this story. 00:16:26:36 - 00:16:50:22 Clint Loveall Yeah, it's it's a heavy beginning. There is a lot here, a lot of pain, a lot of suffering. And it is from those struggles that the rest of this text is born. And, I think you're exactly right, Michael. The questions that these will leave us as we move to the next part of the story is, what is the hope for these women? 00:16:50:22 - 00:17:08:35 Clint Loveall I mean, they're in a desperate situation. They've all experienced loss, pain, that they're in a precarious moment in both history and in location. And what will become of them. And and I think ultimately that's, you know, where the text is trying to take us. 00:17:08:40 - 00:17:26:31 Michael Gewecke we certainly hope that this has been an encouraging start for you and hope it's it's raised enough questions that you can see how much room this text has to take us and hope you'll be with us as part of that journey. do subscribe that helps you stick along with us through the study. Give this video a like helps others, begin their own. 00:17:26:36 - 00:17:28:30 Michael Gewecke And we look forward to seeing you all tomorrow. 00:17:28:35 - 00:17:29:15 Clint Loveall Thanks, everybody.