Complete Control

Ruth 4

Ruth 4:18–22 ESV

Now these are the generations of Perez: Perez fathered Hezron, Hezron fathered Ram, Ram fathered Amminadab, Amminadab fathered Nahshon, Nahshon fathered Salmon, Salmon fathered Boaz, Boaz fathered Obed, Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David.

The story of Ruth is a story of redemption. Ruth’s husband has died and instead of leaving her mother in law she stays with her and travels to a new country to help take care of her. While in this new country which is Israel she begins to get the scraps in the field to feed her and her mother in law. While gleaning the field she caught the field owners eye and he began to take care of her making sure she was safe and collected all that she needed. Eventually her mother in law, Naomi, brings to attention that Boaz, the field owner, can be the redeemer. He can take her in marriage since her husband had died. There were specific laws about this and he fit them perfect. This is called being a kinsman redeemer. Through the story Boaz does take Ruth to be his wife and redeems her. This is a beautiful story that gives us a picture of what redemption looks like, similar to the story, Christ redeems us from the power of sin.

The thing that sticks out the most to me in this though is in the final verses of the book that we read. The genealogy section of the book. Because of her redemption Ruth was able to have children with Boaz which was a part of the family line of King David. This also eventually led to Jesus. God had full control over everything so much so that generations before the birth of Jesus he was orchestrating the family path to him.

We often do not rely on the control that God has over everything. I recently read the book Providence by John Piper and he goes through the whole Bible showing how God is in control of every single thing that happens. Through this he also shows that this continues on through today. Nothing happens outside of the control of God, everything is either done or permitted by him.

Do you trust in God through the difficult situations? sometimes it can be tough for us to but realize this, if it is his will it will happen and there is nothing you can do to change it. On the inverse also, if it is not his will there is nothing that you can do to make it happen. Just like in the book of Ruth, God orchestrated the kinsman redeemer and put it in the line of Jesus for us to see a image of redemption and also an image of his complete control of every fiber of the universe.

Next week we will look at this man named David that the genealogy from Ruth finishes with.