Friday, June 4, 2010
God Is At Work - The Story of Ruth Part I - The Worst of Times, Part 5 of 32
IDEA: The book of Ruth has both differences and similarities to us today.
PURPOSE: To help listeners clear the decks as we study Ruth.
What is a historical novel?
Are historical novels worth reading?
Is a historical novel different from a story written in ancient history?
Oedipus Rex, written by Sophocles (496-406 BC), or the plays by Euripides (480-406 BC) are still read and performed today. Why?
What makes them attractive? (They deal with emotions we feel.)
What makes them difficult? (They deal with times and places different from our own.)
I. Ruth is a short story that comes to us from more than 3,000 years ago—before the great Greek plays.
What makes the story of Ruth attractive?
What makes the story of Ruth difficult? It deals with some customs in the past that may be unfamiliar to us.
When do you think the story of Ruth was written?
The writer of the story of Ruth, like the author of an historical novel, realized there were some customs his reader would not understand (Ruth 4:7).
II. The story of Ruth deals with people like ourselves who lived at a different place and time.
There are some customs we might not easily understand:
Gleaning:
A widow or alien had very few ways for making a living in Israel, but one was through the custom of gleaning.
The Law of Moses instructed landowners to leave what the harvesters missed so that the poor, the alien, the widow, and the fatherless could glean for their needs (Leviticus 19:9; 23:22; Deuteronomy 24:19-22). This was God's way of providing for the poor in Israel.
Levirate marriage (from a Latin word meaning "brother-in-law"). This seems to be the general background for the main tension in the story.
The problem: we are dealing with a land-based economy. Land was valuable and sacred in Israel. The land was given to the people by God. Retaining property was crucial to people's identity. If a piece of property had to be sold, it was incumbent on the closest male relative to purchase it to keep it in the family.
Keeping the family name alive was important. A man's brother was responsible to help the widow and, if necessary, marry her and father a child by her to keep the family name intact. It appears that this expanded in Ruth's time to the closest relative able and willing to do this.
The nearest relative is called a "kinsman-redeemer."
Why a "kinsman"?
Why a "redeemer"?
