WordLive - Year OneSample

Prepare: As we prepare to study this passage, why not kneel down before the Lord wherever you are and bring any confessions you have to him? The God who worked in Ruth’s life still works in our world today. In the real world Boaz takes up the matter of the proposed marriage at the city gate, where business and legal matters ran their course. It is fascinating that this story of love and providence is set in a world where reason, legislation and process are honoured. The Bible does not remove us from the real world – we are to live out God’s call on our lives in public, not in some private religious sphere. Kinsman redeemer To ensure that the closer relative does not want to claim Ruth, Boaz speaks to him personally, open about his own motives. At first the man wants to take on the marriage himself but when he realises the cost to his own name and family (any children would be in the line of Elimelech and of Ruth’s first husband), he quickly withdraws. Boaz buys Elimelech’s field, making it clear that he plans to raise up sons for him through this marriage. The man who takes on a levirate marriage is known as a ‘kinsman redeemer’. This is prophetic of what Christ does for us – taking us, redeeming us and covering us with his blood. Respond: Thank God for the redemption we enjoy through Jesus. Pray for family members and friends who do not yet know the Lord – naming them before him today and asking him to work in their lives. http://www.wordlive.org/Session/Classic/2012-09-07