Ruth: God's Redeeming Love

This Summer the Pathway class is looking into the Book of Ruth. Many of the commentaries on this book in the Old Testament actually call it The Gospel of Ruth. There is a reason for this. This book shows us a clear picture of God's redemption and deliverance in the lives of his people. First, it shows us his redemption and deliverance in the lives of Naomi and Ruth. As the story starts we see Naomi in the depths of despair having left the land that God commanded his people to live in to live in a land, alongside a people that he had forbidden them to live among. Not only had her family left, but, subsequently, her sons married women they were forbidden from marrying. To add insult to injury her husband and both her sons died, leaving her bereft and with no way to provide for herself shelter or food. Though out the course of this book we see God's deliverance in their lives.
Second, we see God's deliverance and redemption of his chosen people as he uses Ruth, a moabitess, as his tool to bring David, the delivering King of the Jews, and then later the son of David, the Son of God, who sits on the throne of heaven as the true Delivering King of his people.
