Ruth And Boaz

[Ruth] fell on her face, bowed down to the ground, and said to [Boaz], “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?”

Ruth 2:10

Most of us know what it feels like to visit a foreign culture or country—even to visit a neighborhood that is ethnically different from our own. Not only the dialect, but the foods, the currency, sometimes even the alphabet, are unfamiliar. How nice it is to meet someone who invites you in and makes you feel at home.

Ruth, a Moabite woman during the period of the judges in Israel, had that experience. Recently widowed, she moved away from her home to live with her Israelite mother-in-law. Imagine Ruth’s surprise when a wealthy Israelite landowner named Boaz invited her, a foreigner, to glean barley from his fields to provide food for Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi. In fact, Boaz married Ruth and brought her into the fold of God’s people. Their marriage is a perfect example of what Christ has done for us. God invites us into His family through faith in Christ and provides for all our needs.

Have you accepted God’s invitation to draw near and be nourished?

From heaven he came and sought her to be his holy bride; with his own blood he bought her, and for her life he died.

SAMUEL JOHN STONE