Boaz and Ruth (Part B)

The women where that's not said of is Rahab, Ruth, and the Queen of Sheba.

And not that they were unattractive. Again, there was not enough for the writer evidently to point it out and so when Peter says, rather let it be the hidden person of the heart with the incorruptible beauty of a genuine and quiet spirit which is very precious in the sight of the Lord. Well it was precious in the sight of Boaz and precious in our sight too and Peter too and he sees it and it's logged. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Ruth.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Now here's Pastor Rick in Ruth chapter 1 with a continuing message called Boaz and Ruth. There are a lot of godly people in Bethlehem at this time in her history.

Yeah, it's back and forth but right now it's pretty good. When Naomi and Ruth return to, well when Naomi returns with Ruth to Bethlehem, the women, they greet her. I mean, this is Naomi and they were just so happy to see her. Then here are these godly workers. There's the kind task master who is the foreman and he lets Ruth come and glean and lets her rest in the house.

We'll get that in a moment. There's Boaz himself and then at the end of the story there are the women who bless Naomi. When Ruth has Obed, gives birth to Obed, the women say to her very lovingly, see he told you God's good and it's just a very good story. Verse 5, then Boaz said to his servant who was in charge of the, he said to his servant who was in charge of the Reapers, whose young woman is this? The equivalent is who's the new person, who's the new guy on the job, in this case the gal.

It is a routine inquiry at this point. There's an unfamiliar face. He knows who the village Reapers are and he doesn't recognize this one. Clearly she's not dressed in mole-bite garb or has any signatures that would alert him that she's not Jewish but the women, they were subjected to a male covering and that's why he says whose woman is this?

There has to be a male over her, ideally. Of course she's connected to Naomi, to the house of Elimelech and there's history there. Paul, when he writes to the Corinthians, he's got a lot of this Jewish culture in mind many times and he makes these statements to churches and Christians that we struggle with because we're removed. Endersheim, Alfred, his life and times of Jesus the Messiah and other writings, he gets into this very in detail.

If you can stand it and you have the time is a blessing but he opens a lot of these difficult passages up. Well in Corinthians we read, Paul says I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of every woman is man, the head of woman, not every woman, the head of woman is man and the head of Christ is God. So there's that chain of command and he's saying there's a covering, there's an order that we follow because the church is largely modeled after the Jewish synagogues and the synagogues of course were attached to the model of the temple and Paul is preserving what is good and he does it in these ways. Listen, we have a structure in the church but when we start moving outside that structure and we lose the definition of the role of the man, the role of the woman, when it gets upside down it just gets getting worse like Levin does and look at the society today. I saw someone walking in my neighborhood the other day, I couldn't tell if it was a boy or girl. They're about my height, it wasn't like that when I grew up and if it was you knew it was wrong, you knew someone who's that's a guy trying to look like a girl and that wasn't right but nowadays it's, I don't know maybe some of you all don't see it, you're so accustomed to it, what are you talking about? The roles are important.

I don't care what universities say, what the culture says, I thumb my nose at their bad doctrines. Anyhow, I don't believe the story is introducing a romantic attraction at this point. I think he is just asking who is she because he's a rich man and if he wants a shallow beauty he has a better chance of finding that than not rich people and that was the way it was in those days.

If you could afford to buy beauty you would do it and as far as men go there were downsides to this male-dominated environment also, we can't lose sight of that. Verse 6, so the servant who was in charge of the Reapers answered and said it is the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. Ruth had no idea they're talking about her, she's trying to pick up grain and just just working hard and here they are discussing her and she is being faithful with the little big things like grace.

She is the breadwinner for the home, she's going to take this grain back for her and Naomi. God took it from there, she was the kind one. God blessed her for her kindness, that's one of the great lessons of this book. Naomi's kind to Ruth, Ruth is kind to Naomi, Bo has this kind of Naomi and I mean everybody's happy. It is like the letter of the Philippians in the New Testament, this book of Ruth.

You know, there it is nestled between you know judges and 1 Samuel, tough books as far as how life was in the name of the Lord. Well, Bo as again being faithful to God and his word, not chasing the stranger out, taking care of the widow and the poor. He is being an honorable man, both of them are honorable and we read the young molebite woman who came back with Naomi.

Word got around quickly. Now Boaz knew the story, he did not know the face. Now the face has been put on the story and the mention of Naomi's name again switches it all up for Boaz. Ruth he knew looked out for Naomi, widow or widow. They looked out for each other and it registered deeply with this man.

Maybe he himself was a widow, he's an older man that comes out in the story too. I know I'm writing these promises, we'll get to these, we will, just you won't remember we are, nor will I. In verse 11 we'll get to that where he, this registers very deeply and it sort of snowballs with him. As he starts showing kindness to her and he's like he can't stop.

It's not that bad, I don't want to smudge it. In verse 7, and she said, now the foreman is telling Boaz what the exchange he had earlier with Ruth, and she said, please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves. So she came and has continued from morning until now, though she rested a little in the house.

The house was a hut, not, they're out in the fields, there's no house, there's these huts that they have, we have them too, we put up these little tents, little gazebo-like things. Anyway, the servant is a gentleman. He, you know, he's not evidenced anything against her, well you're a mobite or okay but stay 50 feet away from everybody, you know, he doesn't do any of that. Evidently stuff like that took place because Boaz is gonna lay down some laws.

All he has to do is say it one time to kind of tell us about his authority in that area of the world. And so here she is at the bottom of the food chain. She said, where she says, please let me glean, she was exercising her Levitic, her rights from, as recorded in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. And she continued, he says, from morning until now except for a little rest. She was hard-working but she was wise enough to pace herself and not overdo it and faint out in the field. Verse 8, then Boaz said to Ruth, you will listen my daughter, will you not?

Do not go to glean in another field nor go from here but stay close to my young women. Boaz says to Ruth, now is the first exchange. We talked about how many, how much dialogue takes place in this book.

And it is here, these two finally have contact with it, with each other. He, as much of a powerful man as he is, he initiates this. He doesn't delegate it. He will delegate but he's direct contact. This is quite honorable. She would never have approached him.

That would have been a no, don't do that. Some would be too ignorant to pick up on his kindness. She is not going to be that person. I say that because there are many people that you give them grace and they just don't get it. Or they get it, they just don't care.

They're going to be mean and nasty no matter what you do for them. Isaiah tells about this, he says, let grace be shown to the wicked and yet he will not learn righteousness. In the land of uprightness he will deal unjustly and will not behold the majesty of Yahweh. Now Isaiah was a man, he was a very knowledgeable man. You read Isaiah's writing, you find he's poetic, he gets into geography, he's traveled, he's a sharp guy.

And this of course stood out to him because you would understand he had to deal with people that he was nice to and they didn't appreciate it. Of course Jesus gives us instructions on these things. Anyway he knows, Boaz does, that there's a need in Naomi who's family to him and also the need for Ruth. So he has decided he has the means to protect and to provide and because of life, because of what life has done to these two women. And Ruth will become the center of his grace. I mean as we go on he's just lavishing this, you know, care for her.

You will listen my daughter will you not? And so here gently speaking to her as though he is considerably older. Now if he was a year or two older that would be a kind of goofy, right? Do you imagine going to somebody that's just a couple of years old and younger than you and referring to them as your child?

You'd be kind of annoyed. That's one one thing because it's not stated but he is considerably older, maybe old enough to be her dad, thus my daughter. He will also later say applaud her caring for him over the younger men but knowing the kind of woman she is even with this mobile cloud of suspicion dangling over her wherever she goes. He is doing everything he can to do the protection and to give the provisions that that is needed. Apparently motivated at this point solely by Ruth because he says later it has been fully reported to me.

In other words it wasn't a casual story. Yeah that's Ruth, she's with Naomi now. It's more than that.

Probably more than we were reading about in the book and who knows what care she showed on the trip from Moab back to Bethlehem. But that registered and he seems to fall in love with her later as I mentioned but at this point he's just determined to be there. He continues, do not go to glean in another field nor go up from here but stay close to my young women. Jesus matches this. He says don't be caught in another faith. Will you stay close to my people? That's what Acts 2 42 is.

They continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine fellowship prayer communion there. Don't be caught in another field. Stay with the apostles. Don't go drifting out. This is where you are safe. This is the best place to be. You will listen. Don't get caught with shallow people and be sucked under in the undertow. We need you to know Ruth where it is safe, where it is best for you.

We need you Christian to know where it is safe for you, where it is best for you. Naomi will tell Ruth the same thing at the end of this chapter. When Ruth tells a story she will say don't you be caught in anybody else's field.

You know again Naomi, she's a sharp cookie. Verse 9, let your eyes be on the field, Boaz still speaking, which they reap and go after them. Have I not commanded the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink from what the young men have drawn.

Don't be lured away. He knows what he's doing. It's a man of distinction. He knows. He can distinguish what's right, what's wrong, what's good for her, what's bad for her, and he doesn't mind without giving her details to say you just do what I say. There must have been something in his eyes and his tone that made her say yes. Thank you Lord. Her safety was first and her needs were next right behind them. Have I not commanded the young men not to touch you?

Hands off Ruth or else. He only had to say that once. He puts protection, a wall of protection around this vulnerable child, this young woman. Verse 10, well there's more to it. He says, listen, you get thirsty, just stop, get yourself water.

Anybody messes with you, I kill them. No, he doesn't go that far, but he's just don't, you know, I want you comfortable. He's not done.

Verse 10, so she fell on her face, that doesn't mean she collapsed and hurt herself, bowed down to the ground and said to him, why have I found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me since I am a foreigner? Now remember, he's rich. He doesn't need Ruth.

If it was romance that he was after, he'd go up on his level, go out to another town or something and find a wife. And it's important because the inner beauty of Ruth is really what changes everything with Boaz. And that's the biblical, one of the great lessons from the book. Instantly, she is overwhelmed by his overwhelming kindness.

It's not like an iron, it's overwhelming, causing overwhelming and not iron sharpening iron, a bizarre kind of way. This is just two nice people. We can just get them together. Said to him, why have I found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me since I am a foreigner? And of course, she should ask this question because he's being extraordinarily kind to her. And you know, God first endured Ruth to Naomi, Naomi to Ruth.

Now he's going to, he's slowly endearing Ruth to Boaz and without strings, all to her benefit. The beauty of her kindness was unmistakable and it moved him as a righteous man. Now back to, we'll cover this beauty one more time, we don't get to it again until we get to Esther, the woman of great pulchritude, and you know, that had he thought her attractive, he would not have asked whose woman is she and get the story like it.

I don't think the story would have unfolded. I think the Bible would have said right out, she was a beautiful woman because when the other women in the Bible are explicitly said to have been beautiful, it is part of the story. For instance, Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca, Vashti. Vashti was so beautiful, the king said, I'm going to praise you. She said, you know, my dead body, bottom line, you know, you got to love Vashti.

I'm not your little toy old king. And of course, it didn't work well for her, but it didn't go all that bad either. She still plugged in because she had children with him and she wasn't, you know, sent banished to, you know, McDonald's or something.

She was fine. Anyway, Vashti, Esther, Abigail, Bathsheba, Tamar, all of them explicitly said, a beautiful woman. The women where that's not said of is Rahab, Ruth, and the queen of Sheba. And not that they were unattractive. Again, this is, it was not enough for the writer evidently to point it out. And so when Peter says, rather let it be the hidden person of the heart with the incorruptible beauty of a genuine and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of the Lord.

Well, it was precious in the sight of Boaz and precious in our sight too, and Peter too, and he sees it and it's logged. Now about the men. They're not all handsome. I left myself open for that one, but we'll just move on.

That's why you don't have a microphone. Boaz is not said to be handsome. Some men were. Joseph was said to be handsome. David, when he was young, maybe he uglied up a little bit when he got older because it doesn't return to it. King Saul was said to be handsome, head and shoulders above everybody else, who didn't work in his favor.

Absalom, of course, heavy hair, Absalom, is why it, you know, I haven't owned a brush since, I don't know, 1970-something. Anyhow, and the beloved in the Song of Solomon was said to be handsome. So that the outside appearance, you know, it's, I don't want to use the roll of the dice as though I'm condoning that, but it's really out of our control. And I think that it would have sort of been, it would have taken away from the story, if you think about it, if Ruth was beautiful, and that's why Boaz was doing what he was doing. That's not what was happening. Again, it doesn't mean she was, you know, repulsive or anything like that because, you know, you knew the young men would, you're just a regular person on the outside.

But on the inside, she was a superhero. Verse 11, and Boaz answered and said to her, it has been fully reported to me all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, and how you have left your father and your mother, and the land of your birth, and have come to a people whom you did not know before. He's going to go on. Boaz answered and said to her, it has been fully reported. I commented on that. The details were given to him.

Wouldn't you have loved to get a picture of him listening as the story is being told? Did you know Naomi's back? Yes. Did you know she brought her daughter-in-law Ruth? I did not know that. Did you know she was a Moabitess?

No. Did you know Naomi's husband died? I knew that, but did you know Ruth's husband died too?

Man, this is not good. We've got two new widows in town. And then the story continues, and Ruth is this, and Ruth is that, and Naomi and Ruth, and he's just like, wow. And so he goes on about his business. He shows up to work, and who's this? This is Ruth.

She's with Naomi. All the lights turn on. And I think it was even a little emotional. I don't mean he broke down and started crying. He just could feel like, man, that's okay.

I put a face with the action now. Verse 12. He says, and he's continuing now. He says, Yahweh, repay your work, and a full reward be given you by Yahweh, God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge. So he now starts praying for her.

He's a man of prayer. Yahweh, be with you. God bless you. Yahweh, bless you. And now he's talking to her, and he says, Yahweh, repay your work. Can you imagine going to get a job, and you're talking with the person that's hired, and he hires you, and comes back to the warehouse or wherever you are, and as he's talking to you, say, I know some things about you, and just, I just want God to bless you big.

How rare that is. Seeing her loyalty to Ruth, and that she was a believer, as we read in chapter 1 and verse 16, your God will be my God. And here, you know, she's living that way. He says, a full reward be given to you by Yahweh, that God would fully bless her for her grace, that he would be gracious to the gracious. And then he says, under whose wings you have come. Two metaphorical Old Testament pictures, one from the past of this present moment, and one in the future, which is probably born out of this moment. Earlier, in Exodus 37 verse 9, we read about, I'll just read it, the cherubim, this is over the Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat, you had the Ark, which is the chest, you had the mercy seat, which was the lid, and then you had the cherubim on top with their wings out, and there we read, the cherubim spread out their wings above and covered the mercy seat with their wings.

They faced one another, the faces of the cherubim were toward the mercy seat. So the emphasis is not on the cherubim, but it is on God's mysterious creatures, sort of being amazed at the mercy of God on behalf of sinners. It's a word picture, and this was the Ark of the Covenant, and so when this phrase, whose wings you've come under, the mercy of God, he says, for refuge.

Well, you get refuge when someone gives mercy, or else there's no, you know, refugees are looking for someone to not treat them like foreigners, but to bring them in and keep them safe from what they're running from. And so here, there's that Old Testament metaphor shown up in the days of Moses, and now here. Later, the psalmist will continue this, Psalm 91, he shall cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you shall take refuge. His truth shall be your shield and your buckler.

And so there the psalmist, that beautiful, Psalm 91, one of the greatest of them all, there the wings show up again. She will repeat these words to him, Ruth chapter 3 verse 9, and he said, who are you? So she answered, I am Ruth your maidservant, take your maidservant under your wing, for you are a close relative. And she's like Esther. Esther did everything she was told. When Mordecai, her guardian, Cousin Mordecai, or Hegai, the chief of eunuchs in the palace, when they told Esther to do something, she did it. And because she was submitted to the right people, she was unstoppable.

She went all the way to the throne as the queen. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the Book of Ruth. Cross Reference is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. There you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick, and we encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app, or just follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. That's all the time we have for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as we continue to learn more from the Book of Ruth right here on Cross Reference Radio.