Announcer: Thank you for listening to this message from True Woman ‘08, Revive Our Hearts’ first national woman’s conference. It’s our prayer that God blesses you with His word and His heart as you listen. John Piper: Let’s pray together.
Preserve me, Oh God, for in You I take refuge. I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from You.” As for the saints in the land, they are the noble in whom is all my delight. Those who choose another god, multiply their sorrows. Their libations of blood I will not pour out nor take their names upon my lips. The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; You hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; yes, I have a beautiful inheritance. I bless the Lord who keeps me and gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I keep the Lord always before me because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. You show me the path of life. In Your presence is fullness of joy. In Your presence is fullness of joy. In Your presence is fullness of joy. At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:1-11). I pray that Your Word would run and triumph in these days; that my mouth would be protected from error and folly, and that only what is good for upbuilding, that ministers grace to those who hear would come out. I pray that You would protect us from the devil. How I thank You that You disarmed him; that You put him to a public shame, triumphing over him in Jesus Christ when You cancelled the record of debts that stood against us with their legal demands-nailing it to the cross. What a freedom!
So come and grant us to know it, to taste it deeply. Move in power in these days, Lord. Do exceedingly and abundantly above what any woman has dreamed for her children, her friends, her husband, her parents, her neighborhood, her church. I pray that the unreached peoples of the world, the nations that will one day bow, willingly or unwillingly, before You, would be touched in power by these women and by their children and grandchildren.
Lord, don’t let us think small thoughts about what You might be pleased to do in Your sovereign goodness to mend marriages, rescue children, heal churches, and touch bodies and lift dark clouds that have settled over some of these women for eight years passed. This will be the time when the oppression goes away.
So come. Make Yourself supreme. Through Christ we pray. Amen.
My aim in this message is to clarify as best I can from the Scriptures the ultimate meaning of true womanhood. Before I launch into it, I want to thank Nancy Leigh DeMoss for trusting me with this amazing privilege. I do not take this for granted. This is most remarkable that I would be given the privilege to address the most influential people in the world. There is massive power in this room, so I do not take lightly this moment, and I ask that you would be silently praying that I wouldn’t blow it.
What I will say is intended to be a foundation for the True Woman Manifesto which will be unveiled to you, I believe, on Saturday. I have read it more than once and regard it as a faithful, clear, true, wise, indeed magnificent document. What an amazing thing it would be if hundreds of thousands of women in America signed on with their heart to the True Woman Manifesto.
I’d like to begin with a huge assumption, tell you what it is, explain it a little bit, and why it matters that you hear what this assumption is. I give it to you partly because it will help you feel emotionally some of what I would like you to become as a result of the conference-not just think about it, but feel what I’m up to and what I think all of us are up to here. Because if you understand this assumption, you’ll understand why I minister the way I minister and why this message will sound the way it sounds.
The assumption is this: Wimpy theology makes wimpy women. I don’t like wimpy women. I didn’t marry one. With Noel, I’m trying to raise Talitha, who turns 13 on Saturday, not to be one. The opposite of a wimpy woman is not a brash, pushy, loud, controlling, sassy, uppity, arrogant Amazon.
Marie Durant The opposite of a wimpy woman is 14-year-old Marie Durant when in the 17th century in France was arrested for being a Protestant, put in prison, and told, “You may get out for one phrase: I abjure.” She wrote on the wall of her cell, “I resist,” and stayed there 38 years until she was dead doing just that (Karl Olsson, Passion, [New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1963], 116-117). That’s the opposite of a wimpy woman.
Gladys and Esther Staines Another opposite of a wimpy woman is Gladys Staines. In 1999, remember the story? After serving for three decades with her husband Graham in India, to the lepers, heard one day that her husband Graham and little Phillip (10) and Timothy (6) had been set on fire, burned alive in the back of their car. She said to the newspapers, “I have only one message for the people of India. I am not bitter, neither am I angry. Let us burn hatred and spread the flame of Christ’s love.” The opposite of a wimpy woman is her daughter, well named, Esther. When asked by the reporters, “How do you feel about your father’s murder?” She said (she was 13), “I praise the Lord that He found my father worthy to die for Him.”
Krista and Vicki The opposite of a wimpy woman is Krista and Vicki who together, in my church, have had 65 surgeries for so-called birth defects from Apert Syndrome and Hypertelorism. They write, “I praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, and I know them right well (Psalm 139:14).” Krista says, “Even though my life has been difficult, I know that God loves me and created me just the way I am. He has taught me to persevere and trust Him more than anything.”
Joni Eareckson Tada The opposite of a wimpy woman is Joni Eareckson Tada, who would give her right arm to be with you. After forty-one years in the wheelchair she prays, “Oh thank You, thank You for this wheelchair. By tasting Hell in this life, I have been driven to think seriously about what faces me in the next. This paralysis is my greatest mercy.” (Christianity Today, January, 2004, 50)..
Suzie The opposite of a wimpy woman is Suzie. Four years ago her husband (59) was taken, then a month later she found she had breast cancer, and then her mom died, and then a miracle happened. She wrote to me, “Now I see that I have been crying for the wrong kind of help. I now see that my worse suffering is my sin-my sin of self-centeredness and self-pity. I know that with His grace, His lovingkindness, and His merciful help, my thoughts can be reformed and my life conformed to be more like His Son.”
Wimpy theology makes wimpy women. That’s my assumption as I begin this message. Wimpy theology does not give a woman a god big enough, strong enough, wise enough, good enough to handle the realities of life in a way that enables her to magnify Him and His Son all the time. He’s not big enough. Wimpy theology is plagued by woman-centeredness, or as we usually call it, man-centeredness. Wimpy theology doesn’t have a granite foundation of God’s sovereignty underneath. It doesn’t have the steel structure of a great God-centered purpose for all of human existence, including the worst of it.
The Ultimate Purpose for the Universe So I turn to my main point, the ultimate meaning of true womanhood, and I start by stating that solid steel structure of God’s ultimate purpose in all things. God’s ultimate purpose for the universe, and all of history, and your life, is to display the glory of Christ in its highest expression in His dying to make a rebellious people His bride. That’s the reason the universe exists: To display the glory of God’s grace in its highest expression as the Son of God dies to make a rebellious people His bride.
Everything exists so that that can happen, and everything exists to highlight that and make much of that, especially you. God’s ultimate purpose in creating the world and choosing to let it become this sin-wrecked world that it is, is so that the glory of Christ could be put on display where He bought the rebellious bride at the cost of His life.
Now that’s based on text. Let me give you a couple of them. Revelation chapter 13, verse 8, goes like this-God is talking about writing names down in a book, and those that are in the book don’t worship the beast-and He says, “Before the foundation of the world, in the Book of Life of the Lamb who was slain.”
So names are being written before the foundation of the world in a book, and the name of the book is the Book of Life of the Lamb who was slain. That is amazing. Before anything existed but God, Christ was crucified in God’s mind for sin that didn’t exist anywhere in the universe. That’s amazing. That’s not wimpy, and it doesn’t produce wimpy women. It is staggering to think that God was planning the death and slaughter-that’s the word slain-of His Son before the universe was made.
Why? Here’s the other text. This is Ephesians 1:5-6, “In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto the praise of the glory of His grace.” There isn’t anything on the other side of that design-like that’s a means to anything. It isn’t. When you arrive at the praise of the glory of the grace of God, you’re home. That’s it. There isn’t anything beyond that. That was what the universe was made to do, to be. God was planning it in such that the apex, the climax, the supreme expression of that grace would be the Son’s purchase, at the cost of His life, of His wife-you and me. Listen to Ephesians 5:25: “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church [there’s the parallel-husbands love wives / Christ loves church, His wife] and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” So putting those three texts together-Revelations 13:8, Ephesians 1:5-6, Ephesians 5:25-27-I draw the conclusion: The ultimate purpose of all things is the praise of the glory of the grace of God supremely manifest on Calvary when the Son of God laid His life down to purchase and purify His wife out of an absolutely hell-bent rebellious people. That was the apex, and that’s why God created the world, and that’s why He created you.
True Womanhood: At the Center of God’s Purpose Now the question is: What does all that mean for true womanhood? It’s not wimpy to say that God created the universe and governs all things to magnify His own grace in the slaughter of His Son for an undeserving people, that those people might become His everlastingly happy bride. It’s not wimpy. That’s steel. That’s granite. There’s a place to stand when everything around your soul gives way.
How I love the women in my church who stand when everything around their soul gives way. Oh how the grace and the glory of God shines off of their lives. I’ve been there 28 years. I’ve walked through a lot of dark valleys with them, and I’ve buried a lot of children. It doesn’t lead to wimpy womanhood, but it does lead to womanhood, that theology, that ultimate purpose of the world. It does lead to true womanhood. In fact, it leads to a mind-boggling understanding of true womanhood.
What we have seen so far in those three texts (and there are many others that could be used to supplement them), what we have seen so far is this: masculinity and femininity, manhood and womanhood, belong at the center of God’s ultimate purpose. Manhood and womanhood are not an afterthought of creation. They’re not an afterthought of the cross. They’re not peripheral to the design of what is being said when Jesus dies to magnify the grace of God. They’re right there at the center at Calvary. It’s staggering. Oh how I pray that you women would be done with small thoughts about God’s design for womanhood.
We have a curse on human nature called triviality. The big problem with television and movies are not sex and violence. It’s banality. It’s living every day as though TV mattered. It doesn’t matter at all! It’s here today and gone tomorrow. Eternity and the things that are unseen matter. I would just like to see 6,000 souls rise into the significance of what matters in the world. You can transform every simple diaper moment or any other moment into massive significance if you realize that your womanhood is here, being brought to the very center of the purposes of God in this universe, which come to a climax when Christ, the husband, bought His bride.
Genesis 1:27, “God created man in His own image. In the image of God, He created him. Male and female, He created them.” Now sometimes I think we make a mistake by thinking like this: “Well, God created us that way, then later He sends His Son to die for sinners and created a people for Himself by His own blood, and He thought, ‘Now I want to make this intelligible. I will look for some analogy that might be illuminating and work. Oh look, there’s marriage. That might work. I will apply marriage to the meaning of what My Son has achieved.’” That’s not the way it happened, and there’s a reason why we know that’s not the way it happened.
Created to Display Christ’s Glory When God designed in His own eternal mind how He would make a creature called a human in two varieties-male and female, when He thought about that, He had in His mind already the cross. That’s why He made us the way He made us. He didn’t make us this way and then later think, “Oh that would work. I’ll apply that to the cross.” That’s not the way it happened.
Here’s why we know that: Because in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 31, Paul quotes Genesis 2:24, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is reaching back before the fall, all the way to the first marriage. He is quoting Him, then he adds this spectacularly important interpretation. He says, in verse 32, “This mystery is profound”-namely Genesis 2:24-man leaving, cleaving, new flesh. “This mystery is profound, and I am saying it refers to Christ and the church.”
Thousands of years before there was any cross, God said about manhood and womanhood, “This is about the most important event in history. That’s why I made them this way. I mean for this manhood and womanhood choreography, in marriage mainly, and in singleness, we will see to be a display of the most important thing in the universe-My Son, displaying My grace in sacrificing His life as a husband for His wife.”
So here’s my main point: What is the ultimate meaning of true womanhood? It’s this: True womanhood is a distinctive calling of God to display the glory of His Son in ways that would not be displayed if there were no womanhood. Say it again. It’s a distinctive calling. True womanhood is a distinctive calling of God to display the glory of God, the glory of His Son in ways that would not be displayed if there were no womanhood.
When God described the glorious work of His Son as the sacrifice of a husband for his bride, He was telling us why He made us male and female. He made us this way so that our maleness and femaleness would display more fully the glory of His Son in relationship to His blood-bought bride. This means-this is huge now in our Egalitarian world-this means that if you try to reduce your womanhood to physical features of biological functions and then determine your role in life purely on the basis of competencies, you not only miss the point of womanhood, you diminish the glory of Christ in your own life. Your distinctive female personhood is indispensible in God’s purpose to display the fullness of His glory. It’s not incidental to your personhood. It exists because it’s God’s designed relationship to the central event of history-the death of His Son. So here’s my application question: What does that look like for marriage, and what does it look like for singles? I assume you’re either in one category or the other, though there are some painful places in-between.
A Word to the Married First, a word to you married women. Paul says in Ephesians 5:22, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.” Now, the point here is that marriage, headship, and submission and the dynamic that exists between them in marriage is meant to display the covenant-keeping love between Christ and His church. If a reporter came up to me and said, “All right, what’s the main point of marriage?” I wouldn’t have the slightest hesitation. Marriage exists to display the covenant-keeping love and grace that exists between Christ and His church. That is the meaning of marriage, ultimately, which means that husband and wife, headship and submission, are no more interchangeable than Christ and the church are interchangeable. They’re not interchangeable.
Men take their cues from Christ as the head, and women take their cues from the church, called to admire and stand in allegiance to Christ, and men have the greater burden and the greater responsibility. I do not like to talk about headship in terms of rights. I like to talk about it in terms of weight and responsibility, which thousands of men are too wimpy to pick up, and that’s one of my biggest prayers for you.
Some of you God is going to touch so profoundly in these days. You won’t want to go home, because he’s letting you down so badly. So let’s pray for each other. I would like to be speaking to 6,000 men. I would, and I would get in their face big time (a lot harder than I’m getting in your face). I would tell them, “You’re the main problem in most of these situations. Your women would rise to this if you would do it like Jesus.” Let me define headship and submission just briefly.
Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home.
I could unpack that for an hour, but I won’t at all-frustrated as I am. I’ll read it again, though. Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home. Here’s my definition for submission, and I believe I could show all of these from Ephesians 5. Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts.
I’ll say it again. Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts.
Now the point here is not to go into detail about how this gets worked out in every marriage, and every marriage looks a little different. The point is that these two, headship and submission, correspond to true manhood and true womanhood in marriage. They’re not the same, and these differences are absolutely essential, by God’s design, so that marriage will display more fully the glory of the sacrificial love of Christ for His bride and the beauty of the lavished reverence and admiration of the bride for her Husband.
I know that leaves 200-300 questions unanswered. What about unbelieving husbands? What about believing husbands who don’t do this leadership, protection, provision? What about wives who resist leadership, don’t like the idea of being led, think it’s all 50/50 always? What about wives who do receive it but never express any appreciation for it? There are hundreds of questions that we could take up now, and I apologize that I won’t. But here’s my comfort: If you could embrace this true, that as married women (and I’m turning to singles in one minute), if you as married women could embrace this magnificent truth, that your true womanhood ultimately means that your distinctive role in marriage is meant to magnify the glory of God’s grace supremely expressed in the covenant-keeping love between Christ and His church, you would have a compass with which to navigate hundreds of questions. You have a lifetime to ferret them out. It’s not a small thing to believe that true womanhood is meant to display the glory of God’s grace in the sacrifice of the Son of God in the purchase and purification of His bride who then lives her everlasting life in exquisite joy in His presence, standing in awe of Him, and reverencing Him and honoring Him. But what if you’re not married?
A Word to Singles The apostle Paul loved his singleness, really loved his singleness. He loved it because it gave him such radical freedom to get arrested month after month without having a wife at home crying her eyes out, and to be beaten with rods over and over, and be lashed so that his back became jelly five times multiplied by 39, and so he could be shipwrecked at sea. Singleness is a high calling if you take it like that. He celebrated it and called many of you to follow him in it, even though marriage is meant to display the glory of Christ.
So how can that be? Why would He lure some of you out of marriage, that is out of pursuing marriage? Why would He do that if He made marriage as this magnificent portrait of His Son’s covenant-keeping love with His bride so that husbands and wives, living out their unique manhood and womanhood, become a magnificent drama of that glory? Why would He lure anybody away from that, which He does? There’s a very clear reason why.
In this season of history since the Fall, the natural order that God established at the beginning is not absolute. “It’s not good that man should be alone. It’s not good that woman should be alone.” That’s true. It’s just not absolutely true because now sin has entered into the world, and there are other things to take into consideration besides the sheer natural order that God set up before there was sin and collapse, and thousands and millions of people to be rescued from perishing. The reason that it is not an assault on God’s glory for the apostle Paul to say, “I would that you were single like I am, if you had the gift” (see 1 Corinthians 7:7).
The reason that’s not an assault on God’s glory is that in this world there are truths about Christ and His kingdom which can be more clearly displayed by womanhood in singleness and manhood in singleness than by womanhood in marriage and manhood in marriage. I’ll give you three of them.
These are three things that your womanly singleness can say better to the world than any married woman can say by virtue of her marriage.
- A life of Christ-exalting singleness bears witness that the family of God grows by regeneration through faith not propagation through sexual intercourse. The family of God grows by regeneration not by propagation, by faith, not sexual intercourse. The main thing we’re about is growing that family. So if you never marry, and you embrace a lifetime of chastity and biological childlessness, and you receive this from the Lord’s hand as a mercy and a gift with contentment, and you gather to yourself the poor and the lonely, and you spend yourself for the gospel without self-pity; you will, in your unique single womanhood, magnify Christ in ways no married woman can.
- A life of Christ-exalting singleness bears witness that relationships in Christ are more permanent and more precious than relationships in families. If a single woman turns without bitterness and regret from the absence of her own family and gives herself to creating God’s family in the church, she will find a flowering for her womanhood in ways never dreamed of, and Christ will be uniquely honored.
- The Christ-exalting singleness of a woman bears witness to the truth that marriage is temporary and finally gives way in the end to the relationship to which it was pointing all along, Christ and the church, the way a picture is no longer needed when you’re face to face.
Marriage is a beautiful thing, and I want to bear public witness and gratitude for Noel, who will have been my wife come December 21st forty years. I want to bear public witness that she has been a gift to me that I didn’t deserve. We together have labored to raise five children and ten grandchildren and are still, with tears, laboring. As parents you never ever stop being a parent, we have now learned, never stop with tears, never stop with joy.
Nevertheless, she and I would both say, we say it with deep conviction: Marriage is not the main thing. It’s momentary. Otherwise Jesus would not have said, “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven because they do not die anymore.” My relationship with Noel has a few more years, and then she and I will experience what that was all about, ultimately, with Him.
Therefore, a single woman who lives with that final day in view, and finds Christ to be her all in all here, says something very powerfully and very clearly about her Savior. As I close, I commend to you this truth: The ultimate purpose of God in history is the display of the glory of the Son in dying for His bride. God created man male and female because there are aspects of Christ’s glory which could not be known and displayed any other way than through the dynamic relationship between femininity and masculinity or manhood and womanhood. Those complementary differences are essential to the revelation of the most important event in history. Therefore, true manhood, true womanhood-true womanhood-is a distinctive calling to display the glory of the Son in ways that would not be displayed if there were no womanhood. Married womanhood has ways to magnify Christ that single womanhood cannot. Single womanhood has ways to magnify Christ that married womanhood cannot. So whether you are married or single, do not settle for wimpy theology. It’s beneath you. God is too great. Christ is too glorious. Womanhood is too strategic. Don’t waste it. Your womanhood, your true womanhood was made for the glory of Christ. Father, I pray that You would work a great, deep, deep sense of why these women are women. I pray they wouldn’t trivialize it; they wouldn’t be small. That it would be great and that it would be supreme in their hearts, as they seek to live out their marriages and their singleness would be the glory of the grace of God expressed in the sacrifice of His Son for the purchase of His bride and her everlasting admiration and joy. I pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Announcer: This message was presented at True Woman ‘08 in Chicago. Check out all of the messages delivered there and more by visiting http://www.truewoman.com/. There you’ll find even more ways to connect, from books and resources you can order for yourself, your friends or your life group, to on-demand multi-media, to on-going conversations you can be a part of, and we’re updating it all the time.
True Woman ‘08 is a ministry of Revive Our Hearts, helping you become God’s true woman.
The Lesson of the Book of Ruth
Here's what I would suggest as the main lesson: The life of the godly is not a straight line to glory, but they do get there. The life of the godly is not an Interstate through Nebraska, but a state road through the Blue Ridge Mountains of Tennessee. There are rock slides and precipices and dark mists and bears and slippery curves and hairpin turns that make you go backwards in order to go forwards. But all along this hazardous, twisted road that doesn't let you see very far ahead there are frequent signs that say, "The best is yet to come." And at the bottom right corner written with an unmistakable hand are the words, "As I live, says the Lord!"The book of Ruth is one of those signs for you to read. It was written and it has been preached to give you some midsummer encouragement and hope that all the perplexing turns in your life lately are not dead-end streets. In all the setbacks of your life as a believer God is plotting for your joy.
Setbacks, Hope, and Strategies of Righteousness
The story of Ruth is a series of setbacks. In chapter 1 Naomi and her husband and two sons were forced to leave their homeland in Judah on account of famine. Then Naomi's husband dies. Her sons marry Moabite women and for ten years the women prove to be barren. And then her sons die leaving two widows in the house of Naomi. Even though Ruth cleaves to Naomi, chapter 1 ends with Naomi's bitter complaint: "I went away full and the Lord has brought me back empty . . . The Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me."In chapter 2 Naomi is filled with new hope because Boaz appears on the scene as a possible husband for Ruth. But he doesn’t propose to Ruth. He doesn’t make any moves. At least that’s the way it seems at first. So the chapter closes brimming with excited hope, but also with great suspense and uncertainty about how all this might work out.
In chapter 3 Naomi and Ruth make a risky move in the middle of the night. Ruth goes to Boaz on the threshing floor and says in effect, “I want you to spread your wing over me as my husband.” But right when the tragedy of Ruth’s widowhood seems to be resolved into a beautiful love story, a big Blue Ridge boulder rolls out onto the state road of Ruth’s life. There is another man who according to Hebrew custom has prior claim to marry Ruth. The impeccably honest Boaz will not proceed without giving this man his lawful opportunity. So chapter 3 ends again in the suspense of another setback.
(Chapter 4)
1And Boaz went up to the gate and sat down there; and behold, the next of kin, of whom Boaz had spoken, came by. So Boaz said, "Turn aside, friend; sit down here"; and he turned aside and sat down. 2And he took ten men of the elders of the city, and said, "Sit down here"; so they sat down. 3Then he said to the next of kin, "Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, is selling the parcel of land which belonged to our kinsman Elimelech. 4So I thought I would tell you of it, and say, Buy it in the presence of those sitting here, and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, redeem it; but if you will not, tell me, that I may know, for there is no one besides you to redeem it, and I come after you." And he said, "I will redeem it." 5Then Boaz said, "The day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you are also buying Ruth, the Moabitess, the widow of the dead, in order to restore the name of the dead to his inheritance." 6Then the next of kin said, "I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I impair my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption yourself, for I cannot redeem it."7Now this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging: to confirm a transaction, the one drew off his sandal and gave it to the other and this was the manner of attesting in Israel. 8So when the next of kin said to Boaz, “Buy it for yourself,” he drew off his sandal. 9Then Boaz said to the elders and all the people, “You are witnesses this day that I have bought from the hand of Naomi all that belonged to Elimelech and all that belonged to Chilion and to Mahlon. 10Also Ruth the Moabitess, the widow of Mahlon, I have bought to be my wife, to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance, that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brethren and from the gate of his native place; you are witnesses this day. 11Then all the people who were at the gate, and the elders, said, “We are witnesses. May the LORD make the woman, who is coming into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you prosper in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem; 12and may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the children that the LORD will give you by this young woman.”
13So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife; and he went in to her, and the LORD gave her conception, and she bore a son. 14Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without next of kin; and may his name be renowned in Israel! 15He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him.” 16Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her bosom, and became his nurse. 17And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi.” They named him Obed; he was the father of Jesse, the father of David.
18 Now these are the descendants of Perez: Perez was the father of Hezron, 19 Hezron of Ram, Ram of Amminadab, 20Amminadab of Nahshon, Nahshon of Salmon, 21 Salmon of Boaz, Boaz of Obed, 22Obed of Jesse, and Jesse of David.
More Setbacks on the Way to Glory
After the midnight rendezvous in chapter 3, Boaz goes to the city gate where the official business was done. The nearer kinsman comes by, and Boaz lays the situation before him. Naomi is giving up what little property she has, and the duty of the nearer kinsman is to buy it so that the inheritance stays in the family. To our dismay the kinsman says at the end of verse 4, "I will redeem it." We don't want him to redeem it. We want Boaz to do it. So again there seems to be a setback. And the irony of this setback is that it is being caused by righteousness. The fellow is only doing his duty. Sometimes the Blue Ridge highway is all clogged up, not with boulders or bears, but with good workmen only doing their duty. Our frustrations are not only caused by sin but also by (apparently!) ill-timed righteousness.Just when we are about to say, “O no! Stop the story! Don’t let this other fellow take Ruth!” Boaz says to the nearer kinsman, “You know, don’t you, that Naomi has a daughter-in-law. So when you do the part of the kinsman redeemer, you must also take her as your wife and raise up offspring in the name of her husband Mahlon?” Then, to our great relief, the kinsman says in verse 6 he can’t do it. Perhaps he is married already. Whatever the reason, we are cheering in the background as Boaz gets through the bottleneck on the Blue Ridge and highballs it to the wedding feast with the beautiful young Ruth on his arm.
But there is a cloud overhead. Ruth is barren. Or at least she seems to be. In 1:4 we were told that she had been married ten years to Mahlon and there were no children. So even now the suspense is not over. Can you see why I said that the lesson of the book of Ruth is that the life of the godly is not a straight line to glory? Life is one curve after another. And we never know what’s coming. But the point of the story is that the best is yet to come. No matter where you are, if you love God, the best is yet to come.
Why Is the Focus on Naomi?
The cloud over the head of Ruth and Boaz is big with mercy, and breaks with blessing on their head in verse 13. "So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife; and he went in to her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son." But notice how the focus in verses 14–17 is not on Ruth at all, nor on Boaz. The focus is on Naomi and the child. Why?We had a grubby looking fellow come in the church office a few years ago looking for help. I asked him what his name was, and he said, “Hardtimes, that’s my name, Hardtimes.” Well Naomi’s name at the beginning of this book was Hardtimes . . . Hardtimes Naomi. That’s the way the author of this book wanted us to meet her. Because the point of the book is that the life of the godly is not a straight line to glory, but they do get there. The story began with Naomi’s loss. It ends with Naomi’s gain. It began with death and ends with birth. A son—for whom? Verse 17 is the great destination of Naomi’s long and twisted road. “And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, ‘A son has been born to Naomi.’” Not to Ruth! But to Naomi! Why? To show that it was not true, what Naomi had said in 1:21, that the Lord had brought her back empty from Moab. And if we could just learn to wait and trust in God, all our complaints against God would prove untrue.
Signposts of God's Gracious Work in Bitter Setbacks
Ruth was written to help us see the signposts of the grace of God in our lives, and to help us trust his grace even when the clouds are so thick that we can't see the road let alone the signs on the side. Let's go back and remind ourselves that it was God who acted to turn each setback into a stepping stone to joy, and that it is God in all of our bitter providences who is plotting for our good.The Gift of Ruth
First, when Naomi’s whole life seemed to cave in while in Moab, it was God who gave Ruth to Naomi. We know this from two verses. In 1:16 we learn that at the root of Ruth’s commitment to Naomi is Ruth’s commitment to Naomi’s God: “Your God shall be my God.” God had won Ruth’s allegiance in Moab and so it was to God that Naomi owed the amazing love of her daughter-in-law. Also in 2:12 it says that when Ruth came to Judah with Naomi, she was coming to take refuge under the wings of God. Therefore it is owing to God that Ruth left her home and family to follow and serve Naomi. All along it was God turning Naomi’s setback into joy—even when she was oblivious to his grace.
The Preservation of Boaz
Second, Naomi gives the impression in chapter 1 that there is no hope that Ruth could marry and raise up children to continue the family line (1:12). But all the while God is preserving a wealthy and godly man named Boaz to do just that. The reason we know that this was God’s doing is that Naomi herself admits it in 2:20. She recognizes that behind the “accidental” meeting of Ruth and Boaz was the “kindness of God who has not forsaken the living or the dead.” In every loss that the godly endure God is already plotting for their gain.
The Opening of Ruth’s Womb
Third, who was it that gave to the barren womb of Ruth the child so that the neighborhood women could say, “A son has been born to Naomi”? God gave the child. Look at 4:11. The townspeople pray for Boaz and Ruth. They know that Ruth was married for ten years without a child. So they remember Rachel whose womb the Lord had opened long before. And they pray that God will make Ruth like Rachel and Leah. And so the author makes very clear in verse 13 who caused this child to be conceived. “Boaz went in to her, and the Lord gave her conception.”
So again and again in this book it was God who was at work in the bitter setbacks of Naomi. When she lost her husband and sons, God gave her Ruth. When she could think of no kinsman to raise up offspring for the family name, God gave her Boaz. When barren Ruth married Boaz, God gave the child. The point of the story is made in the life of Naomi. The life of the godly is not a straight line to glory, but God sees that they get there.
Is "Glory" Too Strong a Word?
Maybe you think the word glory is a little overdone. After all it's just a child. A grandmother holding a little child after a long hard life of much heartache. Ah, but that's not the end of the story.Lifting Our Eyes to the Forest and Everlasting Snows
In 1912 John Henry Jowett, then pastor of the Fifth Presbyterian Church in New York City, gave the Yale Lectures on Preaching. There is a passage in one of his lectures which describes great preaching and gives us a vision of what the author of the book of Ruth was doing when he ended his story.
Jowett described a great preacher as one who seems
to look at the horizon rather than at an enclosed field, or a local landscape. He [has] a marvelous way of connecting every subject with eternity past and with eternity to come . . . It is as though you were looking at a bit of carved wood in a Swiss village window, and you lifted your eyes and saw the forest where the wood was nourished, and, higher still, the everlasting snows! Yes, that was Binney's way, Dale's way, the way of Bushnell, and Newman, and Spurgeon—they were always willing to stop at the village window, but they always linked the streets with the heights, and sent your souls a-roaming over the eternal hills of God. (The Preacher: His Life and Work, p. 95)If this story of Ruth just ended in a little Judean village with an old grandmother hugging a new grandson, glory would be too big a word. But the author doesn't leave it there. He lifts his eyes to the forests and the mountain snows of redemptive history. In verse 17 he says very simply that this child Obed was the father of Jesse and Jesse was the father of David. All of a sudden we realize that all along something far greater has been in the offing than we could imagine. God was not only plotting for the temporal blessing of a few Jews in Bethlehem. He was preparing for the coming of the greatest king that Israel would have, David. And the name of David carries with it the hope of the Messiah, the new age, peace, righteousness, freedom from pain and crying and grief and guilt. This simple little story opens out like a stream into a great river of hope.
The Disease of Triviality
One of the great diseases of our day is triviality. The things with which most people spend most of their time are utterly trivial. And what makes this a disease is that we who were created in the image of God were meant to live for magnificent causes. None of us is really content with the trivial pursuits of the world. Our souls will not be satisfied with trifles. Why is there a whole section of the newspaper devoted to sport, and almost nothing devoted to the greatest story in the universe—the growth and spread of the church of Jesus Christ? It is madness, sheer madness, that insignificant games should occupy such a central role in our culture. It is simply one of many signs that we are enslaved to trivialities. We live in the Swiss village shop staring at the wooden figurines, and rarely lifting our eyes to the forests and the everlasting snows. We live in a perpetual and hopeless struggle to satisfy our longings on trifles. So our souls shrivel. Our lives are trivial. And our capacity for great worship dies.
The Glorious Work of God in History
The book of Ruth wants to teach us that God’s purpose for the life of his people is to connect us to something far greater than ourselves. God wants us to know that when we follow him, our lives always mean more than we think they do. For the Christian there is always a connection between the ordinary events of life and the stupendous work of God in history. Everything we do in obedience to God, no matter how small, is significant. It is part of a cosmic mosaic which God is painting to display the greatness of his power and wisdom to the world and to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places (Ephesians 3:10). The deep satisfaction of the Christian life is that it is not given over to trifles. Serving a widowed mother-in-law, gleaning in a field, falling in love, having a baby—for the Christian these things are all connected to eternity. They are part of something so much bigger than they seem.
So the word glory is not too strong. The life of the godly is not a straight line to glory, but they do get there—God sees to it. There is a hope for us beyond the cute baby and the happy grandmother. If there weren’t, we would be of all men most miserable. The story points forward to David. David points forward to Jesus. And Jesus points forward to the resurrection of our mortal bodies (Romans 8:23) when “death will be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).
The best is yet to come. That is the unshakable truth about the life of the woman and the man who follow Christ in the obedience of faith. I say it to the young who are strong and hopeful, and I say it to the old, for whom the outer nature is quickly wasting away. The best is yet to come.
A Parable of God's Covenant Love
I saw it in a parable Friday. I was visiting some of our elderly people at the Caroline Center, and got on the elevator with a woman in a wheel chair who was old, misshapen, and confused. She shook her head meaninglessly and uttered senseless sounds and let her mouth hang open. Then I noticed that a well dressed man, perhaps in his mid-sixties, was pushing her chair. I wondered who he was. Then as we all got off the elevator, I heard him say, "Watch your feet, Sweetie-pie."Sweetie-pie. As I walked to the car, I thought . . . if a marriage covenant between a man and a woman can produce that kind of fidelity and commitment and affection under those circumstances, then surely under the great and merciful terms of the new covenant in Christ, God has no difficulty calling Odette McAviney, and Harold Holmgren, and Mary Agnes Danielson, and you and me (sick as we are!), “Sweetie-pie.” And if he does, there is no truth more unshakable in all the world than this: For them and for us the best is yet to come. Amen.
Chapters 1 and 2
Chapter 1 hit us with the bitter providence of God in the life of Naomi as she left her land, and lost her husband, her sons, and one of her daughters-in-law. But there was sweet providence as well. The famine broke in Judah and Naomi could go home. Ruth committed herself to care for Naomi. And all the while a kinsman named Boaz was preserved as a husband for Ruth to raise up an heir for the family name and property. But the chapter ends with Naomi overwhelmed with her losses: "The Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me."In chapter 2 the mercy of God breaks through bright enough for even Naomi to see it. We meet Boaz, a man of wealth, a man of God, and a relative of Naomi’s husband. We see Ruth taking refuge under the wings of God in a foreign land and being led mercifully by God to the field of Boaz to glean. And we see Naomi recover from her long night of despondency as she exults in God (2:20): “The Lord’s kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!” Chapter 2 overflows with hope. Boaz is a God-saturated man in his business and personal relations (vv. 4, 10–13). Ruth is a God-dependent woman under the wings of God. Naomi is now a God-exalting woman under the sovereignty of God. All the darkness of chapter 1 is gone. God has turned her mourning into dancing. “The Almighty has dealt bitterly with me” (1:20) has given way to “His kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead” (2:20). The lesson of chapters 1 and 2 is surely at least this:
You fearful saints fresh courage take: The clouds you so much dread Are big with mercy and will break In blessings on your head.Seek refuge under the wings of God even when they seem to be all shadows, and at just the right time God will let you look out from his Eagle's nest onto some spectacular ravine.
The Strategies of the Righteous
Now for chapter 3. The phrase I want you to keep in your mind as we ponder chapter 3 is “strategic righteousness.” The question which chapter 3 answers is, What does a God-saturated man, a God-dependent young woman, and a God-exalting older woman do when they are filled with hope in the sovereign goodness of God? And the answer is that they manifest a “strategic righteousness.” By righteousness I mean a zeal for doing what is good and right—a zeal for doing what is appropriate when God is taken into account as sovereign and merciful. By strategic I mean that there is intention, purposefulness, planning. There is a passive righteousness which simply avoids evil when it presents itself. But strategic righteousness takes the initiative and dreams of how to make things right.
One of the lessons I learn from Ruth chapter 3 is that hope helps us dream. Hope helps us think up ways to do good. Hope helps us pursue our ventures with virtue and integrity. It’s hopelessness that makes people think they have to lie and steal and seize illicit pleasures for the moment. But hope, based on the confidence that a sovereign God is for us, gives us a thrilling impulse which I call strategic righteousness. We see it in Naomi in 3:1–5, in Ruthin 3:6–9, and in Boaz in 3:10–15. And the chapter closes again with Naomi full of confidence in the power and goodness of God.
Naomi's Strategy
Two things stand out in Naomi's strategy in verses 1–5. One is that she has a strategy; and the other is what that strategy is. The sheer fact that Naomi has a strategy teaches us something. People who feel like victims don't make plans. As long as Naomi was oppressed; as long as she could only say, "The Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me," she conceived no strategy for the future.One of the terrible effects of depression is the inability to move purposefully and hopefully into the future. Strategies of righteousness are the overflow of hope. When Naomi awakens in 2:20 to the kindness of God, her hope comes alive and the overflow is strategic righteousness. She is concerned about finding Ruth a place of care and security, and she makes a plan. One of the reasons we must help each other “hope in God” (Psalm 42:5) is that only hopeful churches plan and strategize. Churches that feel no hope develop a maintenance mentality and just go through the motions year in and year out. But when a church feels the sovereign kindness of God hovering overhead and moving, hope starts to thrive and righteousness ceases to be simply the avoidance of evil and becomes active and strategic.
The Oddness of It
Naomi took the initiative to find a husband for Ruth. But the strategy she comes up with is odd, to say the least. She says in verse 2 that Boaz is a kinsman. Therefore he is the likely candidate for being Ruth’s husband. That way the family name and family inheritance will stay in the family, according to Hebrew custom. So Naomi’s aim is clear: to win for Ruth a godly husband and a secure future, and preserve the family line. So she tells Ruth to make herself as clean and attractive as possible, go to the threshing floor of Boaz, and after he has lain down for the evening, sneak in, lift up his cloak, and lie down at his feet. Everybody, including Ruth, must respond by thinking, “And just where do you suppose that will lead?” To which Naomi gives the extraordinary answer in verse 4, “He will tell you what to do.”
What Was Naomi’s Motive?
One thing is clear here and one thing is not. It’s clear that this is Naomi’s way of trying to get Boaz to marry Ruth. It is not clear why she should go about it like this. Why not a conversation with Boaz instead of this highly suggestive and risky midnight maneuver? Was Naomi indifferent to the possibility that Boaz might drive Ruth away in moral indignation, or that he might give in to the temptation to have sexual relations with her? Did Naomi want that to happen? Or was Naomi so sure of Boaz and Ruth that she knew they would treat each other with perfect purity—that Boaz would be deeply moved by this outright offer of Ruth in marriage and would avoid sexual relations until all was duly solemnized by the city elders?
The author doesn’t come right out and tell us why Naomi chose this sexually tempting strategy to win Boaz for Ruth. There will be a clue later, but for now the writer seems to want us to feel suspense and ambiguity. Just where did Ruth lie down? The Hebrew is just as ambiguous as the English. What would Boaz tell her to do? Whatever Naomi’s motive was, the situation is one that could lead us into a passionate and illicit scene of sexual intercourse or into a stunning scene of purity, integrity, and self-control.
Ruth's Strategy
Next we see Ruth’s strategic righteousness in verses 6–9. In verse 5 she had said that she would follow all of Naomi’s instructions. But Ruth does more. Naomi had said that Boaz would tell Ruth what to do. But before that happens, Ruth tells Boaz why she has come. She is lying at his feet under his cloak. He awakes and says, “Who are you?” She answers with words unprompted by Naomi, “I am Ruth, your maidservant; spread your skirt over your maidservant, for you are next of kin.”
Ruth is not merely Naomi’s pawn. She has gone willingly and now she takes the initiative to make clear to Boaz why she is there. “You are next of kin.” Or literally, “You are the redeemer: the one who can redeem our inheritance and our family name from being lost. I want you to fill that role for me. I want to be your wife.” She doesn’t say it outright. In fact, she is less direct and more enticing. She says, “Spread your skirt over me.” Now whether Boaz takes this to be an offer of outright sexual relations or something more subtle and profound will depend on his estimate of Ruth’s character. Fornication was wrong in the Old Testament (Leviticus 19:29; Deuteronomy 21:13–21) just as in the New Testament (Matthew 15:19).
“Spread Your Skirt over Me”
There are two things, besides Ruth’s character, which suggest something subtle and profound is in fact going on here. One is this: the only other place I could find in the Old Testament where the phrase “spreading the skirt” occurs in relation to lovers is found inEzekiel 16:8. God is talking and he is describing Israel as a young maiden that he took for his wife. “When I passed by you again and looked upon you, behold, you were at the age for love; and I spread my skirt over you, and covered your nakedness; yea, I plighted my troth to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord, and you became mine.” If this is any indication of what Ruth wanted from Boaz the request went far beyond sexual relations. She was saying in effect, “I would like to be the one to whom you pledge your faithfulness and with whom you make a marriage covenant.”
“Under the Wings of God”
But I think there is more to it than that; and this is the second indication of subtlety and depth here. When Ruth said, “spread your skirt over me,” the word for skirt is the Hebrew word for wing (also in Ezekiel 16:8). This word is used only one other place in Ruth—namely, in the key verse from last week, 2:12, where Boaz says to Ruth, “The Lord recompense you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under those wings you have come to take refuge.” But what we saw last week was that Boaz was God’s agent to reward Ruth. He gave her free access to his field, and protection from the young men and water from the well. Ruth had said to Boaz, “Why have I found favor in your eyes?” And Boaz answered, “Because you have come to take refuge under the wings of God.”
A Subtle and Pure Romance
So here’s what I think is going on in chapter 3. Ruth has told Naomi about these words of Boaz. And the more they ponder them the more they become convinced that they are laden with subtle loving intentions. What Boaz really means is, “Because you take refuge under the wings of God, you are the kind of woman I want to cover with my wings.” It is not easy for an older man to express love to a younger woman. Boaz did it with deeds of kindness and subtle words of admiration. He said he admired her for coming under God’s wings. Heacted as though she were under his and he waited. And in the course of time Naomi and Ruth hit upon a response just as subtle, just as profound. Ruth will come to him in his sleep, in the grain field where he has taken her under his care, and she will say yes. But she will say it with an action just as subtle and profound as the action and words of Boaz. She puts herself under his wing, so to speak, and when he wakes everything hangs on one sentence and whether Ruth has interpreted Boaz correctly.
Imagine how fast her pulse was racing when Boaz awoke. Then the all important words: “I am Ruth . . . spread your wing over your maidservant.” There had to have been an immense silence for a moment while Boaz let himself believe that this magnificent woman had really understood—had so profoundly and sensitively understood. A middle-aged man in love with a young widow whom he discretely calls “my daughter,” uncertain whether her heart might be going after the younger men, communicating the best he can that he wants to be God’s wings for her. And a young widow gradually reading between the lines and finally ready to risk an interpretation by coming in the middle of the night to take refuge under the wing of his garment. That’s powerful stuff!! Anybody who thinks that a loose woman and a finagling mother-in-law are at work her are on another planet. All is subtle. All is righteous. All is strategic.
Boaz's Strategy
Now comes the strategic righteousness of Boaz in verses 10–15. To hear what he says in the right way, you have to remember it is midnight, they are under the stars, and he is looking down into the face of the woman he loves covered with his own cloak.May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter; you have made this last kindness greater than the first, in that you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, do not fear, for I will do for you all that you ask; for all my fellow townsmen know that you are a woman of worth.And then comes a word of magnificent righteousness and self-control. He says, "According to custom, Ruth, there is another who has prior claim to you and I won't be able to proceed until all things are duly settled with him." The stars are beautiful overhead, it is midnight, he loves her, she loves him, they are alone, she is under his cloak . . . and he stops it for the sake of righteousness, and does not touch her. What a man! What a woman!
Listen, the mood of American life today is, if it feels good, do it, and to hell with your guilt-producing, puritanical principles of chastity and faithfulness. But I say to you, if the stars are shining in their beauty and your blood is thudding like a hammer and you are safe in the privacy of your place, stop . . . for the sake of righteousness. Let the morning dawn on your purity. Don’t be like the world. Be like Boaz. Be like Ruth. Profoundly in love. Subtle and perceptive in communication. Powerful in self-control. Committed to righteousness.
The Sweet Providence of God Breaking Through
Sweet providence as well as bitter comes to Naomi in chapter 1. God lifts the famine and opens a way home for Naomi. He gives her an amazingly devoted and loving daughter-in-law to accompany her. And he preserves a kinsman of Naomi's husband who will some day marry Ruth and preserve Naomi's line. But Naomi sees none of this. At the end of the chapter, she says to the townspeople of Bethlehem, "I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has afflicted me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?" (v. 21). So Ruth and bitter Naomi settle in Bethlehem. In chapter 2 the mercy of God becomes so obvious that even Naomi will recognize it.1Now Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's, a man of wealth, of the family of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. 2And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, "Let me go to the field, and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor." And she said to her, "Go, my daughter." 3So she set forth and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech. 4And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem; and he said to the reapers, "The LORD be with you!" And they answered, "The LORD bless you." 5Then Boaz said to his servant who was in charge of the reapers, "Whose maiden is this?" 6And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, "It is the Moabite maiden, who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. 7She said, 'Pray, let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.' So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, without resting even for a moment."8Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my maidens. 9Let your eyes be upon the field which they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to molest you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.” 10Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, when I am a foreigner?” 11But Boaz answered her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. 12The LORD recompense you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!” 13Then she said, “You are most gracious to me, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your maidservant, though I am not one of your maidservants.”
14And at mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here, and eat some bread, and dip your morsel in the wine.” So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her parched grain; and she ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over.15When she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men, saying, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her. 16And also pull out some from the bundles for her, and leave it for her to glean, and do not rebuke her.”
17So she gleaned in the field until evening; then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. 18And she took it up and went into the city; she showed her mother-in-law what she had gleaned, and she also brought out and gave her what food she had left over after being satisfied. 19And her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean today? And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you.” So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked, and said, “The man’s name with whom I worked today is Boaz.” 20And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “Blessed be he by the LORD, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!” Naomi also said to her, “The man is a relative of ours, one of our nearest kin.” 21And Ruth the Moabitess said, “Besides, he said to me, ‘You shall keep close by my servants, till they have finished all my harvest.’” 22And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, “It is well, my daughter, that you go out with his maidens, lest in another field you be molested.” 23So she kept close to the maidens of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley and wheat harvests; and she lived with her mother-in-law.
Boaz: A God-Saturated Man
In verses 1–7 we meet Boaz, we see the character of Ruth, and we sense a very merciful providence behind this scene. Boaz, we learn, is a relative of Elimelech, Naomi's long-deceased husband. Immediately we realize that things are not nearly as bleak as Naomi suggested back in 1:11–13 where she gave the impression that there was no one for Ruth and Orpah to marry to carry on the line of their husbands. For the person reading this story the first time, Boaz is like a bright crack in the cloud of bitterness hanging over Naomi. It's going to get bigger and bigger.For example, verse 1 says that he is a man of wealth. But more important than that, verse 4 shows that he is a man of God. Why else would the story-teller pause to record the way Boaz greeted his servants? “And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem; and he said to the reapers, ‘The Lord be with you,’ and they answered, ‘The Lord bless you.’” If you want to know a man’s relation to God, you need to find out how far God has saturated to the details of his everyday life. Evidently Boaz was such a God-saturated man that his farming business and his relationship to his employees was shot through with God. He greeted them with God. And we will see in a minute than these were more than pious platitudes.
Ruth: A Woman of Character
Besides meeting Boaz in verses 1–7, we see the character of Ruth which is going to be very crucial in what this chapter intends to teach.1. Ruth’s Initiative to Care for Naomi
First, we see Ruth’s initiative to care for her mother-in-law. Notice in verse 2, Naomi does not command Ruth to get out and work. Ruth says, “Let me go to the field, and glean along the ears of grain.” Ruth has committed herself to Naomi with amazing devotion and she takes the initiative to work and provide for her.
2. Ruth’s Humility
Second, we see Ruth’s humility. She knows how to take initiative without being presumptuous. In verse 7 the servants report to Boaz how she had approached them that morning. She had said, “Pray, let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.” She does not demand a handout. She does not presume the right even to glean. All she wants to do is gather up the leftovers after the reapers are done and she asks permission even to do that. She is like another foreign woman who came to Jesus and said, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs,” to which Jesus responded by extolling her faith. Ruth knows how to take initiative, but she is not pushy or presumptuous but meek and humble.
3. Ruth’s Industry
Third, we see her industry. She is an amazing worker. Verse 7 continues, “She has continued from early morning until now without resting even for a moment.” Verse 17 goes on to say that she gleaned until evening and then before she quit, she beat out what she gleaned, measured it, and took it home to Naomi. There is no doubt that the writer wants us to admire and copy Ruth. She takes initiative to care for her destitute mother-in-law. She is humble and meek and does not put herself forward presumptuously. And she works hard from sunup to sundown. Initiative. Lowliness. Industry. Worthy traits. Keep your eyes open for them again.
God's Merciful Providence
But before we leave verses 1–7, did you sense a merciful providence behind all this? Notice verse 3: “So she set forth and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and she happened to come to a part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech.” She “happened to come”? You don’t have to write your theology in every line. Sometimes it’s good to leave something ambiguous to give your reader a chance to fill in the blank if he has caught on. The answer can be given later. It will be. In fact, Naomi, with her grand theology of God’s sovereignty, is the one who will give the answer. The answer is God—the merciful providence of God guiding Ruth as she gleans. Ruth happened to come to Boaz’s field because God is gracious and sovereign even when he is silent. As the proverb (16:9) says, “A man’s mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.”
Why Has Ruth Found Favor?
Now in verses 8 and 9 Boaz approaches Ruth and shows her great kindness, even though she is a foreigner. He provides food by telling her to work in his field and stay close behind his maidens. He provides protection by telling the young men not to molest her (v. 9). And he provides for her thirst by telling her to drink from what the men have drawn. So all of Boaz's wealth and godliness begin to turn for Ruth's welfare.Now we come to the most important interchange in the chapter—verses 10–13. Ruth raises a question which turns out to be very profound. It’s one that we all need to ask God. Hardly anything in our life is more important than the answer we get.
Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, "Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, when I am a foreigner?"Ruth knows that she is a Moabitess. From a natural viewpoint she has two strikes against her. She does not resent this, but accepts it. As a non-Israelite she does not expect any special treatment. Her response to Boaz's kindness is astonishment.
She is very different from most people today. We expect kindness and are astonished and resentful if we don’t get our rights. But Ruth expresses her sense of unworthiness by falling on her face and bowing to the ground. Proud people don’t say thanks. Humble people are made even more humble by being treated graciously. Grace is not intended to lift us out of lowliness. It’s intended to make us happy in God.
Not on the Basis of Merit
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Ruth asks why Boaz has treated her so graciously. Verses 11 and 12 are crucial:
Boaz answered her, "All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. The Lord recompense you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge."Notice: When Ruth asks why she is being shown grace, Boaz does not answer: Grace has no conditions. He answers her question, Why? by saying, "Because you have loved Naomi so much that you were willing to leave father and mother to serve her in a strange land."
Does this mean that the writer wants us to think of Ruth’s love for Naomi as a work that merits Boaz’s favor and the favor of God? Does he want us to think of grace as a kindness we earn? I don’t think so. If Ruth has earned the favor of Boaz, then we must think of her as a kind of employee rendering service to Boaz, her employer, which is so valuable that he is indebted to repay her. That’s not the image the writer wants to create in our minds. Verse 12 gives another image that makes the employer-employee image impossible.
Because She Sought Refuge Under God's Wings
Boaz says in verse 12 that God is really the one who is rewarding Ruth for her love to Naomi. Boaz is only the instrument of God (as we will learn from Naomi in just a moment). But now notice the words, "The Lord recompense you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge." This verse does not encourage us to picture Ruth as an employee of God providing needed labor which he then as employer rewards with a good wage. The picture is of God as a great winged Eagle and Ruth as a threatened little eaglet coming to find safety under the Eagle's wings. The implication of verse 12 is that God will reward Ruth becauseshe has sought refuge under his wings.This is a common teaching in the Old Testament. For example, Psalm 57:1 says, “Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in thee my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of thy wings I will take refuge.” Notice the word “for.” Be merciful to me, for in thee my soul takes refuge. Why should God show mercy to Ruth? Because she has sought refuge under his wings. She has counted his protection better than all others. She has set her heart on God for hope and joy. And when a person does that, God’s honor is at stake and he will be merciful. If you plead God’s value as the source of your hope instead of pleading your value as the source of God’s hope, then his unwavering commitment to his own value engages all his heart for your protection and joy.
Seeking Refuge in God and Loving Others
But we must ask how Ruth’s love for Naomi and her leaving her own family relate to her seeking refuge under the wings of God. The most likely suggestion is that Ruth was able to leave the refuge of her father and mother in Moab because she had found a refuge under the wings of God which was far superior. And evidently she saw a need in Naomi’s life and sensed God calling her to meet that need. The Eagle moved toward Naomi, and in order to keep enjoying the refuge of God’s wings, Ruth moves, too, and commits herself to care for Naomi with the care she is receiving from her Eagle.
So the relation between taking refuge under God’s wings on the one hand and leaving home to care for Naomi on the other hand is that being under God’s wings enabled Ruth to forsake human refuge and give herself in love to Naomi. Or another way to say it is that leaving home and loving Naomi are the result and evidence of taking refuge in God.
The Message of the Gospel
So now back to Ruth's question in verse 10, "Why have I found favor?" The answer is that she has taken refuge under the wings of God and that this has given her the freedom and desire to leave home and love Naomi. She has not earned mercy from God or Boaz. She is not their employee. They are not paying her wages for her work. On the contrary, she has honored them by admitting her need for their work and simply taking refuge in their generosity.This is the message of the gospel in the Old Testament and the New Testament. God will have mercy on anyone (Palestinian or Israelite or American) who humbles himself like Ruth and takes refuge under the wings of God. Jesus said,
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken and desolate.All the Pharisees had to do was to take refuge under the wings of Jesus. Stop justifying themselves. Stop relying on themselves. Stop glorifying themselves. But they would not. Ruth was not their model. No falling on their face before Jesus. No bowing down. No astonishment at grace. Don't be like the Pharisees. Be like Ruth.
God is not an employer looking for employees. He is an Eagle looking for people who will take refuge under his wings. He is looking for people who will leave father and mother and homeland or anything else that may hold us back from a life of love under the wings of Jesus.
Naomi's Theology of God's Sovereignty
Let me end by getting back to Naomi briefly. Boaz gives Ruth all she can eat for lunch (v. 14, cf. “more grace,” James 4:6). She works till sundown. She returns to Naomi and gives her the leftovers from lunch and all the grain (vv. 17–19). She tells her what happened with Boaz, and in verse 20 Naomi’s theology of God’s sovereignty serves her well. She says, “Blessed be he [Boaz] by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead.” I think the kindness she refers to is the Lord’s kindness. (Cf. Genesis 24:27.) Boaz had just begun to show kindness to the dead. It was God who seemed to have forsaken it.
The Lord’s kindness has not forsaken the living (Naomi and Ruth) or the dead (Elimelech and Chilion). It was the Lord who stopped the famine. It was the Lord who bound Ruth to Naomi in love. It was the Lord who preserved Boaz for Ruth. Ruth did not just happen to come to Boaz’s field. The light of God’s love has finally broken through bright enough for Naomi to see. The Lord is kind. He is good to all who take refuge under his wings. So let us fall on our faces, bow before the Lord, confess our unworthiness, take refuge under the wings of God, and be astonished at his grace.
The Work of God in the Darkest of Times
According to 1:1, the story took place during the time of the judges. This was a 400-year period after Israel entered the promised land under Joshua and before there were any kings in Israel (roughly 1500 BC to 1100 BC). The book of Judges comes just before Ruth in our English Bibles and you can see from its very last verse what sort of period it was. Judges 21:25 says, "In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes." It was a very dark time in Israel. The people would sin, God would send enemies against them, the people would cry for help, and God would mercifully raise up a judge to deliver them. Again and again the people rebelled, and from all outward appearances God's purposes for righteousness and glory in Israel were failing. And what the book of Ruth does for us is give us a glimpse of the hidden work of God during the worst of times.Look at the last verse of Ruth (4:22). The child born to Ruth and Boaz during the period of the judges is Obed. Obed becomes the father of Jesse and Jesse becomes the father of David who led Israel to her greatest heights of glory. One of the main messages of this little book is that God is at work in the worst of times. Even through the sins of his people he can and he does plot for their glory. It was true at the national level. And we will see that it is true at the personal, family level, too. God is at work in the worst of times. When you think he is farthest from you, or has even turned against you, the truth is that he is laying foundation stones of greater happiness in your life.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense But trust him for his grace. Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.I think that's the message of Ruth. Let's see how this unknown author, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, teaches it to us.
Adding Grief to Famine
Verses 1–5 describe the misery of Naomi. First (1:1), there is a famine in Judah where Naomi and her husband Elimelech and her sons Mahlon and Chilion live. Naomi knows good and well who causes famines. God does. Leviticus 26:3–4 says,
If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase.When the rains are withheld, it is the hard hand of God.
Then, there is the decision to sojourn in Moab—a pagan land with foreign gods (1:15;Judges 10:6). This was playing with fire. God had called his people to be separate from the surrounding lands. So when Naomi’s husband dies (1:13), what could she feel but that the judgment of God had followed her and added grief to famine?
Then (in 1:4), her two sons take Moabite wives, one named Orpah, the other named Ruth. And again the hand of God falls. Verse 5 sums up Naomi’s tragedy after ten years of childless marriages: “Both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was bereft of her two sons and her husband.” A famine, a move to pagan Moab, the death of her husband, the marriage of her sons to foreign wives, and the death of her sons—blow after blow, tragedy upon tragedy. Now what?
Naomi's Attempts to Turn Back Ruth and Orpah
In verse 6 Naomi gets word that "the Lord has visited his people and given them food." So she decides to return to Judah. Her two daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, go with her part way it seems, but then in verses 8–13 she tries to persuade them to go back home. I think there are three reasons why the writer devotes so much space to Naomi's effort to turn Ruth and Orpah back.Naomi’s Misery
First, the scene emphasizes Naomi’s misery. For example, verse 11: “Naomi said, ‘Turn back my daughters, why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband.’” In other words, Naomi has nothing to offer them. Her condition is worse than theirs. If they try to be faithful to her and to the name of their husbands, they will find nothing but pain. So she concludes at the end of verse 13, “No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone forth against me.” Don’t come with me because God is against me. Your life may be as bitter as mine.
An Israelite Custom
The second reason for verses 8–13 is to prepare us for a custom in Israel which is going to turn everything around for Naomi in the following chapters. The custom was that when an Israelite husband died, his brother or near relative was to marry the widow and continue the brother’s name (Deuteronomy 25:5–10). Naomi is referring to this custom (in verse 11) when she says she has no sons to marry Ruth and Orpah. She thinks it is hopeless for Ruth and Orpah to remain committed to the family name. She doesn’t remember, evidently, that there is another relative named Boaz who might perform the duty of a brother.
There’s a lesson here. When we have decided that God is against us, we usually exaggerate our hopelessness. We become so bitter we can’t see the rays of light peeping out around the clouds. It was God who broke the famine and opened the way home (1:6). It was God who preserved a kinsman to continue Naomi’s line (2:20). And it was God who constrains Ruth to stay with Naomi. But Naomi is so embittered by God’s hard providence that she can’t see his mercy at work in her life.
Ruth’s Faithfulness
The third reason for verses 8–13 is to make Ruth’s faithfulness to Naomi appear amazing. Verse 14 says that Orpah kissed Naomi goodbye but Ruth clung to her. Not even another entreaty in verse 15 can get Ruth to leave. This is all the more amazing after Naomi’s grim description of their future with her. Ruth stays with her in spite of an apparently hopeless future of widowhood and childlessness. Naomi painted the future black and Ruth took her hand and walked into it with her.
The amazing words of Ruth are found in 1:16–17,
Entreat me not to leave you or return from following you; for where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall be my people and your God my God; where you die I will die and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if even death parts me from you.God's Ideal Woman
The more you ponder these words the more amazing they become. Ruth’s commitment to her destitute mother-in-law is simply astonishing. First, it means leaving her own family and land. Second, it means, as far as she knows, a life of widowhood and childlessness, because Naomi has no man to give, and if she married a non-relative, her commitment to Naomi’s family would be lost. Third, it means going to an unknown land with a new people and new customs and new language. Fourth, it was a commitment even more radical than marriage: “Where you die I will die and there be buried” (v. 17). In other words, she will never return home, not even if Naomi dies.
But the most amazing commitment of all is this: “Your God will be my God” (v. 16). Naomi has just said in verse 13, “The hand of the Lord has gone forth against me.” Naomi’s experience of God was bitterness. But in spite of this, Ruth forsakes her religious heritage and makes the God of Israel her God. Perhaps she had made that commitment years before, when her husband told her of the great love of God for Israel and his power at the Red Sea and his glorious purpose of peace and righteousness. Somehow or other Ruth had come to trust in Naomi’s God in spite of Naomi’s bitter experiences.
Here we have a picture of God’s ideal woman. Faith in God that sees beyond present bitter setbacks. Freedom from the securities and comforts of the world. Courage to venture into the unknown and the strange. Radical commitment in the relationships appointed by God. O, that Bethlehem might breed that kind of woman!
Naomi's Theology: Right and Wrong
So Ruth and Naomi return together to Bethlehem of Judah (verse 19). But she responds in verse 20,
Do not call me Naomi (i.e., pleasant or sweet), call me Mara (i.e., bitter), for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has afflicted me (i.e., testified against me) and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?What do you make of Naomi's theology? I would take Naomi's theology any day over the sentimental views of God which dominate evangelical magazines and books today. Naomi is unshaken and sure about three things: God exists. God is sovereign. God has afflicted her. The problem with Naomi is that she has forgotten the story of Joseph who also went into a foreign country. He was sold as a slave. He was framed by an adulteress and put in prison. He had every reason to say, with Naomi, "The Almighty has dealt bitterly with me." But he kept his faith and God turned it all for his personal good and for Israel's national good. The key lesson in Genesis 50:20 is this: "As for you, you meant it for evil against me [Joseph says to his brothers]; but God meant it for good." Naomi is right to believe in a sovereign, almighty God who governs the affairs of nations and families and gives each day its part of pain and pleasure. But she needs to open her eyes to the signs of his merciful purposes.
It was God who took away the famine and opened a way home. Notice the delicate touch of hope at the end of verse 22. “And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.” If Naomi could only see what this is going to mean. Not only that, Naomi needs to open her eyes to Ruth. What a gift! What a blessing! Yet as she and Ruth stand before the people of Bethlehem, Naomi says in verse 21, “The Lord has brought me back empty.” Not so, Naomi! You are so weary with the night of adversity that you can’t see the dawn of rejoicing. What would she say if she could see that in Ruth she would gain a man-child, and that this man-child would be the grandfather of the greatest king of Israel, and that this king of Israel would foreshadow the King of kings, Jesus Christ, the Lord of the universe? I think she would say,
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust him for his grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.
Four Summary Lessons
Let me conclude with four summary lessons.1. God’s Sovereign Rule
God the almighty reigns in all the affairs of men. He rules the nations (Daniel 2:21) and he rules families. His providence extends from the U.S. Congress to your kitchen. Let’s be like the women of faith in the Old Testament. Whatever else they doubted, they never doubted that God was involved in every part of their lives and that none could stay his hand (Daniel 4:35). He gives rain and he takes rain. He gives life and he takes life. In him we live and move and have our being. Nothing—from a toothpick to the Taj Mahal—is rightly understood except in relation to God. He is the all-encompassing, all-pervading reality. Naomi was right and we should join her in this conviction. God the Almighty reigns in all the affairs of men.
2. God’s Mysterious Providence
God’s providence is sometimes very hard. God had dealt bitterly with Naomi—at least in the short run it could only feel like bitterness. Perhaps someone will say: it was all owing to the sin of going to Moab and marrying foreign wives. Maybe so. But not necessarily. Psalm 34:19 says, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” Neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament promises that believers will escape affliction in this life. But suppose Naomi’s calamity was owing to her disobedience. That makes the story doubly encouraging because it shows that God is willing and able even to turn his judgments into joys. If Ruth was brought into the family by sin, it is doubly astonishing that she is made the grandmother of David and ancestor of Jesus Christ. Don’t ever think that the sin of your past means there is no hope for your future.
3. God’s Good Purposes
That leads to the third lesson. Not only does God reign in all the affairs of men, and not only is his providence sometimes hard, but in all his works his purposes are for the good and happiness of his people. Who would have imagined that in the worst of all times—the period of the judges—God was quietly moving in the tragedies of a single family to prepare the way for the greatest king of Israel? But not only that, he was working to fill Naomi and Ruth and Boaz and their friends with great joy. If anything this summer has fallen in on you to make your future look hopeless, learn from Ruth that God is right now at work for you to give you a future and a hope. Trust him; wait patiently. The ominous clouds are big with mercy and will break with blessing on your head.
4. Freedom Like Ruth’s
Finally, we learn that if you trust the sovereign goodness and mercy of God to pursue you all the days of your life, then you are free like Ruth. If God calls, you can leave family, you can leave your job, you can leave Minnesota, and you can make radical commitments and undertake new ventures. Or you can find the freedom and courage and strength to keep a commitment you already made. When you believe in the sovereignty of God and that he loves to work mightily for those who trust him, it gives a freedom and joy that can’t be shaken by hard times. The book of Ruth gives us a glimpse into the hidden work of God during the worst of times. And so like all the other Scriptures, as Paul says (Romans 15:4,13), Ruth was written that we might abound in hope.
Thus says the Lord: “Keep justice, and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed. 2 Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil.” 3 Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.” 4 For thus says the Lord: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, 5 I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. 6 “And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant— 7 these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”I will start and end with my main point and, in the middle, cover a wide terrain of Scripture to support it. My main point is that God promises those of you who remain single in Christ blessings that are better than the blessings of marriage and children, and he calls you to display, by the Christ-exalting devotion of your singleness, the truths about Christ and his kingdom that shine more clearly through singleness than through marriage and childrearing. The truths, namely,
- That the family of God grows not by propagation through sexual intercourse, but by regeneration through faith in Christ;1
- That relationships in Christ are more permanent, and more precious, than relationships in families (and, of course, it is wonderful when relationships in families are also relationships in Christ; but we know that is often not the case);
- That marriage is temporary, and finally gives way to the relationship to which it was pointing all along: Christ and the church—the way a picture is no longer needed when you see face to face;
- That faithfulness to Christ defines the value of life; all other relationships get their final significance from this. No family relationship is ultimate; relationship to Christ is.
Better Blessings Than Sons and Daughters
Now let’s step back and look at the Scriptures. And here let me give credit to Barry Danylak for his research on this issue and his very helpful paper, “A Biblical-Theological Perspective on Singleness." Let’s start in the middle of the Bible at Isaiah 56:4-5,Thus says the Lord: “To the eunuchs [those who cannot procreate but turn their lives into a unique service instead of marriage] who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument2 and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.”God promises to bless obedient eunuchs with blessings that are better than sons and daughters. In other words, God promises those of you who remain single in Christ blessings that are better than the blessings of marriage and children.
The Bigger Picture in Redemptive History
But to see this more clearly we need to get the bigger picture. In the created order that God put in place before sin was in the world, and in the covenantal order that God put in place with the Jewish people from Abraham to the coming of Christ, “God is primarily building his covenant people through the mechanism of procreation.”3 God was focusing his covenant-keeping faithfulness mainly on an ethnic people. Therefore, being married and having offspring was of paramount importance for one’s name and one’s inheritance and for the preservation of God’s covenant people.Creation
So in Genesis 1:28, the first thing God says to Adam and Eve is, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” And in the account of Genesis 2:18, when woman was not yet created, God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”Abraham and Isaac
And when Abraham was chosen as the father of God’s people, God took him out and showed him the stars and said, “So shall your offspring be” (Genesis 15:5). And when Abraham could not have a son because of Sarah’s barrenness, Abraham said, “Oh that Ishmael might live before you!” But God answered, “No, . . . Sarah your wife shall bear you a son.” In other words, the physical offspring mattered. And it would come in God’s way.God reaffirms the same to Isaac in Genesis 26:3: “I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father.” Again physical “offspring” are crucial for the covenant.
David and Saul
These offspring are crucial not only for the preservation of the covenant but also because a person’s name would end without children. So Saul asks David to swear that he will not cut off his offspring for the sake of his name. First Samuel 24:21: “Swear to me therefore by the Lord that you will not cut off my offspring after me, and that you will not destroy my name out of my father’s house.”Levirate Marriage and Ruth
Remember the whole elaborate system of Levirate marriage—that is, the marriage of a man to his deceased brother’s wife so that the name of the deceased brother would not be lost. The rule was that the first son born would bear the dead brother’s name. Deuteronomy 25:6: “The first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.” That’s an amazing provision for the perpetuation of the name through physical seed.The most famous instance of this is when Boaz agreed to marry Ruth to preserve the name of Elimelech her father-in-law and Mahlon her husband. Boaz said, “Ruth the Moabite, the widow of Mahlon, I have bought to be my wife, to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance, that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brothers and from the gate of his native place. You are witnesses this day” (Ruth 4:10).
Jephthah’s Daughter
So you can see how crucial marriage and offspring and the preservation of a name and an inheritance were in Israel. No wonder that Jephthah’s daughter asked for two months not to bewail her impending death but that she was never married. Judges 11:37-38a: “She said to her father, ‘Let this thing be done for me: leave me alone two months, that I may go up and down on the mountains and weep for my virginity, I and my companions.’ So he said, ‘Go.’”Isaiah’s Prophecy: “He Shall See His Offspring”
All of this is the background that makes Isaiah 56:5 shine like the sun to eunuchs and others without marriage and children: “Thus says the Lord: ‘To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.” So without marriage and without children. these covenant-keeping eunuchs get a name and a memorial better than sons and daughters.Where did this amazing promise come from? What’s the basis of it and what is it pointing toward? Turn back to Isaiah 53. This is the great prophecy of the sufferings of Christ who “was wounded for our transgressions [and] . . . crushed for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5). In this chapter, we sometimes overlook these words in verse 10: “It was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt
, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.”
He shall see his offspring. Here is a great prophecy: When the Messiah dies as an “offering for guilt” and rises again to “prolong his days,” he will by that great saving act produce many children: He will “see his offspring.” In other words, the new people of God formed by the Messiah will not be formed by physical procreation but by the atoning death of Christ.
Which is why the next chapter (Isaiah 54) begins, “‘Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married,’ says the Lord” (Isaiah 54:1). And this is also why our text (Isaiah 56:5) says that unmarried covenant-keeping people will have “a monument and a name better than sons and daughters . . . [and] an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.” In the true people of God formed by Jesus Christ, monuments, names, offspring, and inheritances do not arise through marriage and procreation.
Jesus, Paul, and Peter
So when we come now to the New Testament, Jesus makes clear that his people—the true people of God—will be produced not by physical procreation but by spiritual regeneration. So he says to Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).And Paul says in Galatians 3 to the Jews and Gentiles alike, “Know then that it is thoseof faith who are the sons of Abraham. . . . In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God,through faith” (Galatians 3:7, 26). In other words, it is not physical descent from Abraham that makes you part of the covenant people of God but faith in Christ.
And Peter says that our inheritance comes not through marriage and offspring but through the work of Christ and the new birth: “According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:3-4).
So Jesus and Paul and Peter all say: Children are born into God’s family and receive their inheritance not by marriage and procreation but by faith and regeneration. Which means that single people in Christ have zero disadvantage in bearing children for God, and may in some ways have a great advantage. The apostle Paul was single in Christ, and he said of his converts, “Though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (1 Corinthians 4:15). Paul was a great father, and never married. And let him speak for single women in Christ in 1 Thessalonians 2:7: “We were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.” So it will be said of many single women in Christ: She was a great mother and never married.
©2013 Desiring God Foundation. Used by Permission.
By John Piper. ©2013 Desiring God Foundation. Website: desiringGod.org
As I write this, my wife Noël is in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she went to speak to a women’s conference. Among her topics was a biography of Lilias Trotter. Trotter went as a missionary to Algeria in 1888 and founded the Algiers Mission Band. One of the most remarkable things about her is that she was an accomplished painter before she left for Africa, one of the best artists in the nineteenth century according to John Ruskin. She gave up this career in exchange for dangerous journeys into Muslim regions where she won converts among Arabs, the French, Jews, and Black Africans.
When we want a word for humility or hope or holiness, we can only borrow from the classical, dimly to be guessed at by ordinary readers. We write for a people yet unborn spiritually; the words will be understood when the realities for which they stand come to need expression. We have to make a spiritual language against the time it will be wanted. (I. Lilias Trotter, by Blanche A.F. Pigott, [London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott Ltd, n.d.], pp. 129-30)Think for a moment about how words relate to realities. The word “headache” exists because the experience exists. A person who has never had a headache can only guess what the word refers to. He can try to make an analogy: Maybe it’s like nausea in the head. Or take the word “chivalry.” If a man has no such noble inclinations—no matter how many definitions we use—he will not really know what we’re talking about.It is not the question of just giving a Gospel in words that the people can understand, but to give them the germ of a spiritual language in which the things that the Holy Ghost teaches can be expressed. The dearth of this seems in the inverse ratio to the richness of the tongue for all secular purposes. . . . The words for spiritual realities have to be grafted on to the colloquial, waiting for the sap of the new life to weld them in and flow through them. (ibid., p. 137)
Or let’s ask, “Why does the word obsequious exist?” It exists because over time discerning people saw a kind of attitude and behavior that needed a word to describe it. If you have not seen and sensed this kind of behavior, then hearing synonyms like fawning, toadying, orsycophantic will not waken this discernment.
What Lilias Trotter said was that words referring to spiritual realities must be used even when the audience—the culture, the century—may have no experience with which to fill the words. “The words will be understood when the realities for which they stand come to need expression. We have to make a spiritual language [which serves] the time it will be wanted.”
Imagine trying to communicate the reality of “holiness” and “reverence” to a gang of hardened criminals who hold only scorn for religion, and have no religious background. Imagine saying to them that the word of God is “sweet,” or that the “meek” will inherit the earth, or that faith apprehends the “light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” These are absolutely precious and crucial realities. They cannot be easily contained or conveyed in language which has been created and defined without these spiritual experiences.
In other words, Lilias Trotter was warning us against thinking that all crucial realities can be communicated in the language and categories people bring to the gospel. To be sure, the effort must be made to help people see new reality by using the words they already know as pointers. As she says, “The words for spiritual realities have to be grafted on to the colloquial.” But what will make understanding happen is the awakening of the new spiritual life, filling the grafted words with reality. Then, as she says, “The sap of the new life [will] weld them in and flow through them.”
So, as she concludes, we can’t simply assume that secular language can carry the spiritual reality we want to communicate. Rather, we must “give them the germ of a spiritual language in which the things that the Holy Ghost teaches can be expressed.” There are concepts and words and categories that may have to be introduced (grafted on to something familiar) so that precious realities can be understood. “The words will be understood when the realities for which they stand come to need expression.” Where the “richness of the tongue for all secular purposes” is greater, she says, there will be poverty of the tongue for spiritual purposes.
Therefore, let us apply ourselves to know the reality behind all biblical language. And let us labor to build as many bridges to our world as we can for this meaning to cross. But let us not be afraid to use the spiritual language of the Bible where it is foreign. When all our efforts at communicating are done, God must create the reality and fill the words.