Friday, November 26, 2010

God Is At Work - The Story of Ruth Part IV - The Providence of God, Part 23 of 23

TEXT: The story of Ruth

IDEA: God's providence is always at work, but it is often hidden.

PURPOSE: To help listeners appreciate that we communicate about God even when we may not realize that we are doing that.

Can you imagine how the writer of the story of Ruth came to write it?

Do you think it was for the sheer pleasure of telling a story well?

Do you think it was with an eye to getting fame and royalties?

I. Ruth is a story that reveals the providence of God at work in people's lives.

When nothing much seemed to be going on in Bethlehem, a great deal was going on.

In a time when the nation was in gross disobedience, God was at work through godly people who simply showed God's loving kindness to one another.

II. One particular aspect of God's providence is emphasized. It is God's hiddenness (Ronald Hals, The Theology of Ruth).

The writer uses deliberate subtlety in writing to help us enter into this understanding of God. There is much in this story that remains unsaid.

The story avoids any direct revelation of God. The people in this story hear no voices from heaven. No miracle relieves their need for food. Naomi or Ruth don't visit any shrine, engage in any public worship, or receive assurance from a prophet, priest or judge that God is at work.

The author doesn't break into the story to tell us what God was doing or the significance of the events recorded until the very end.

Unlike much of the Old Testament, the writer pictures God's hand as hidden in ordinary life. Two observations:

If even the accidental actions of Ruth and the dangerous "matchmaking" of Naomi are used by the Lord, then surely His control of history is total.

There is not the faintest hint that this total control of God in any way limits the freedom of activity of those involved.

They do as they wish and their motives reflect the full range of gray that has always characterized reality.