Made For More

Naomi and Ruth

Ruth 1:6–18 ESV

Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food. So she set out from the place where she was with her two daughters-in-law, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah. But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband!” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. And they said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.” But 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. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.” Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. And she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to 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 anything but death parts me from you.” And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more.

First and foremost is commitment to the living God, who reveals himself in the Bible. ‘Your God’ will be ‘my God’. Ruth had been brought up to believe in Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, but now she had chosen to follow the God of Israel. She sealed this with the words: ‘The Lord do so to me and more also’ (1:17 AV), using the covenant name of God, Jehovah, and thus confessing her new relationship to him. She had a personal relationship with God. She called him ‘my God’ (1:16) not with the casual blasphemy of so much modern conversation, but reverently out of a renewed heart. The first part of true conversion is just this—to know God out of a changed heart. In New Testament terms we know God only through his Son as the explicitly revealed object of our faith. Ruth believed in the Saviour ‘afar off’, like all the Old Testament saints. We are called to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ because he has come and finished his atoning work for the salvation of sinners. And the truly converted person can look any man in the eye and say, ‘I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him’ (2 Timothy 1:12).

A second facet of Ruth’s commitment is commitment to the Lord’s people. ‘Your people will be my people.’ This necessarily flows from a real commitment to the Lord. Immediately after his conversion on the Damascus road, the apostle Paul spent several days with the very people he had been intending to persecute. The effect of Pentecost was to create a church—a united band of called-out ones (ecclesia)—all members one of another. The ‘unchurched’ Christian is denying in practice what is in principle at the centre of the Christian life. To be an ‘independent’ Christian is to say you have no need of brethren in the Lord. To join yourself to others in Christ, in contrast, is the admission of need—it is the humility to recognize that you cannot ‘go it alone’. You cannot help loving the people that God loves; these are your brothers and your sisters and your mother in the risen Christ (Mark 3:31–34).

It follows, thirdly, that true conversion involves a readiness to share the joys and sorrows of God’s people. ‘Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay.’ Ruth had a mother (1:8) and probably many other loved ones, but she left them all for what was, humanly speaking, a bleak and unpromising future. For many a young Christian this has been the first great test of faith. The rich young ruler counted that cost and clung to his riches; Moses faced it and ‘chose to be ill-treated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward’ (Hebrews 11:25, 26).

A fourth element in true conversion is active perseverance in the faith. Ruth declared, ‘Where you die I will die.’ In other words, ‘My commitment to the Lord, to his people and to their lot in life will lead me to spend my whole life with them.’ Death is not seen as the end of that commitment, of course, since it is through death itself that the Christian comes face to face with the Lord. Subsequent events prove Ruth’s mettle, but how sad it is to see the falling away of so many who once had a lively interest, it seemed, in the Christian life. It is deeply impressed upon my soul that one of the first influences in my life for the gospel of Christ became an atheist within a month of introducing me to the ministry through which I was later to become a Christian! ‘Make your calling and election sure’ (2 Peter 1:10). Hold fast the profession of your faith, never wavering ‘for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose’ (Phil. 2:13).

Philippian 2:12-17