NOVEMBER 13
But Ruth replied (to Naomi), “Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.”
We like to think that attitudes have changed since Bible times....but have they?
The story of Ruth's history affirms that, as today, unfairly stereotyping people was rife in Bethlehem before Christ – she experienced her share of it. The origins of this go back some 800 years before Ruth's birth. Lot, Abraham's nephew, having been delivered from the destruction of Sodom, was hiding out in a cave. His own daughters plied him with drink, got him drunk, and seduced him. From this incestuous disgrace arose the Moabite clan – and it's stereotype (Genesis 19).
800 years later, Ruth a Moabite, and Naomi her mother-in-law, following the death of their husbands, returned to Naomi's hometown of Bethlehem. Oh boy, imagine the gossip – the assumptions – the two-faced attitudes as the whispers went round? “Who's that with Naomi? A Moabite girl? Well.....we all know what they're like....you watch, she'll soon be up to no good, you mark my words!”
Read Ruth 3. At first glance it appears to show that gossip had a huge thread of truth in it, and that Ruth was re-playing her ancestral history when she went in the middle of the night to lie at Boaz's feet – Lot and his daughters over again? But no, read the full story. Ruth showed herself to be a woman of honour, and broke the stereotype of her background. Ruth's story is, in fact, a beautiful romance of love, devotion, and faithfulness.
Sadly, snap judgements are made and reputations destroyed. All because the exterior view of someone is different to what is considered 'the norm,' or doesn't conform to our ideas and lifestyles. Looking only at the exterior we dismiss the person's interior, and forget that God has a plan for each individual's life, He works His purpose out in marvellous, sometimes miraculous ways.
Ruth chose to put her past behind her and accept the God her mother-in-law worshipped as her own, and went to Bethlehem with her. Ruth was destined to become the great-grandmother of David, king of Israel, the ancestral line of Jesus. Without her life events and choices, our Saviour would not have been born.
In these times, so many choices of pathway are presented to all of us, and the diverse people we meet are just on the pathway to life, as are we. Choose carefully – one road winds up and leads to eternal life. I pray we can walk it together in love and unity
"Surely our God is Able” - our song for today by Gaither Homecoming Friends
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Housekeeping details for you
The point of this short blog will become clear if you decide to use this reading in the way we intend it. Netherfield Seventh-day Adventist Church believes in healthy churches. You can see what that means if you head to the relevant Healthy Churches page of the website. We also want other churches to be healthy. That means you can join in our campaign to create healthy churches, with healthy people serving the people in those churches.
A healthy church is one where Jesus comes first. A healthy church is one where the people work together to put Jesus first. One thing we are doing is to join people together to spread that news. I would like you to look at our prayer partners page. This will explain how we want you to use this short devotional. Very basically we want you to find a like-minded Christian friend who you will join with to : choose to pray together every day, decide together on a way to serve other people together, to help them grow as Christians - and to invite the Holy Spirit into your life every day. This blog that you will receive every day simply gives a common spiritual purpose. If you are a newcomer and want to join the blog with this object in mind click here
