What about our choices?
April 7, 2008
We all have choices that we have to make in life. Most of them are not going to influence a lot in the daily scheme of things. Does it really matter what color socks I wear? Or what color car I buy? But some of them do make a difference in life.
Meet Boaz. In the book of Ruth he is the 2nd closest relative to the person the book is named after. Ruth is from Moab. A sworn enemy of the people of Israel. Yet we find an Israelite family moving there, father, wife and two sons. The sons take wives while inMoab , but they and their father die. Mom, whose name is Naomi, starts to return home, bitter and defeated. One daughter in law leaves, but Ruth returns home with Naomi, swearing allegiance to the God of Israel. In all of this, and the care of Naomi afterwards, she has shown herself to be a virtuous woman, one that would be good for any husband.
Boaz sees this in Ruth. As the custom of the day is, since he has no children, the closest relative is supposed to marry her and the first male child she has will be as if they were from the first husband. Boaz see a good thing and that does not bother him. But he does not have the right to take her as wife as long as there is someone closer.
Boaz goes to town, finds the closer relative and says that Naomi has a piece of land for sale. As we are relatives we have the right to buy it first, you are closer, do you want it. Seeing it as a good acquisition to his current land holdings he thinks it is a good deal saying yes, I will take it.
Oh, by the way, before you can buy the land, you have to marry Ruth, Naomi's daughter in law from Moab. Do you still want the land?
Ruth 4:6 KJVR
(6) And the kinsman said, I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I mar mine own inheritance: redeem thou my right to thyself; for I cannot redeem it.
Wow, he takes the love of a good woman and throws it away because he does not want to share what he has to give his kids with another woman. Choices do have consequences. He may not have gotten the land, but he also is never named in the Bible. Ruth however goes on to be an important person in the Bible. Not just because this book tells her story.
Ruth 4:18-22 KJVR
(18) Now these are the generations of Pharez: Pharez begot Hezron,
(19) And Hezron begot Ram, and Ram begot Amminadab,
(20) And Amminadab begot Nahshon, and Nahshon begot Salmon,
(21) And Salmon begot Boaz, and Boaz begot Obed,
(22) And Obed begot Jesse, and Jesse begot David.
You see, Ruth married Boaz, they had a child named Obed. He had a child named Jesse, and Jesse had a child who became King David. Eventually you can follow that bloodline down to Mary, and then Jesus. If it were not for a woman despised for her nationality and rejected because a man did not want to share what he owned, we would not have David, or Jesus on the earth.
When you reject something, what do you really reject? There is a cost involved in all decisions.
Read through the Bible in one year in Historical order
Today
Ruth 1:1-4:22
Tomorrow
1 Samuel 1:1-3:21
http://tinyurl.com/24beby for a daily reading tool
