Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Kids change so much.

My August Rose has this new agenda.

She has this idea that she can ask for something she knows I’ll give her, then try to use that to get the thing she really wants.

Her latest ploy is to run up to me with arms high and wide and exclaim, “hug!”

What are you gonna do with that?

You could be in the middle of open-heart surgery and you’re stoppin’ what you’re doing to pick up that little girl and get a hug from her.

So I pick her up, and I’ve fallen into her trap, you see.

The hug was merely a means to an end.

Now she has the vantage point to go after what she really wants… those things we keep out of her reach on the countertop and table.

It’s been a real pleasure watching my kids grow.

They are changing all the time, and I suppose that never ends.

Sometimes I look at my children who are doused with macaroni and cheese all over their shirts and apple sauce all over their faces and I just think, “I love those little cuties.”

I wonder if that’s how the Lord looks down on us.

I’m blushing a little bit thinking that the Lord sees me the way I see my child with mac and cheese and apple sauce all over them, but wow does God love us.

As I wipe their mouths and change their shirts, I can understand just the smallest portion of what it meant for God to wipe our sins clean and give us new hearts.

Today we are going to take a look at the next installment pertaining to God’s grand plan to redeem humanity.

We have seen God promise to bring about a person who would crush the head of the enemy, and whose heel would be bruised.

God promised to never destroy the earth with a flood, thus ensuring the previous promise could never be undone.

Then God promised Abraham to establish a holy people group from his descendants and through this holy people group would come the one who would bless the entire world by crushing the head of the serpent.

And then God established that in order to be forgiven of our sins, there would have to be a sacrifice who suffered the penalty of our sin on our behalf.

The sacrifice would have to die.

For people living before Christ, they had to sacrifice animals on the regular in order to be clean of their guilt.

They couldn’t even offer the sacrifice, it had to be the priest who did so on their behalf.

With the story of Ruth, we see the concept of salvation and deliverance expanded upon.

Through this story, the reader is introduced to the concept of a kinsman-redeemer.

Kinsman Redeemer is a concept that was common and necessary in the ancient culture of the Israelites.

The idea of the Hebrew word for kinsman-redeemer is this,

to redeem, act as next of kin.

Refers to carrying out the responsibility of the next of kin to protect the interests of the clan.

With reference to a family context, the concept of redemption relates to the importance of keeping property within the clan or recovering property that has been sold ).

The next of kin was responsible to redeem property that had been sold and could also take a relative’s widow into his household.

Thom Blair, “Family,” ed.

Douglas Mangum et al., Lexham Theological Wordbook, Lexham Bible Reference Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).

The idea of kinsman-redeemer speaks to the property of the deceased and also to the preservation and safety of the widow.

At this time, men were the ones who primarily conducted business.

The main businesses were farming and other tasks relating to manual labor and subsistence living.

They had to work for the food they ate.

And in the structure of things back then, the women managed the home while the men managed the labor to provide for the family.

When a man died, it left his widow in a terrible bind.

The greatest way in that day for a woman to be safe was to be married to a man who provided for her.

Without that, women could be bullied, stolen from, and generally mistreated.

They were not the property owners.

If a woman was left as a widow, and did not have a son old enough to take care of her, then it was a tumultuous situation for the family.

That’s where the idea of the kinsman-redeemer came in.

When a man left a widow, his next closest male relation could marry her, thus preserving and protecting her as well as the family property.

Oftentimes this was a brother.

The kinsman-redeemer would start with the closest possible relation and expand outward.

If the widow and the man both agreed, the next of kin would marry her, thus redeeming her and preserving the family.

The man and/or the woman could refuse.

If the man refused to marry her, then the buck would get passed to the next man in line, and if both parties agreed then he could act as her kinsman-redeemer.

This is obviously very different than how things are conducted in the present.

The culture has changed.

The idea of a kinsman redeemer is not a New Testament mandate, it was a cultural precedent intended to help the family and especially the widow.

Society and culture can change, which is why things are different now in this way.

But we never allow our culture or society to subvert the Word of God.

Please don’t hear me say that the practices of the Bible can be changed or dropped based on society and culture.

That is absolutely untrue.

Only the Word of God can reveal how we are to live and obey.

What I’m saying is that the concept of a kinsman redeemer is not a biblical mandate for Christians today.

It was established in the Old Testament as an assurance of safety and protection of the woman and the family property but is not something we practice today because there is no need for the preservation of the Israelite's holy property.

Those promises have been fulfilled now by Jesus.

And Jesus is the kinsman redeemer for us all, not just for the ladies.

Naomi and Ruth are without a Redeemer

Let’s start by reading Ruth 1:1-5

Ruth 1:1–5 (ESV)

In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.

The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion.

They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah.

They went into the country of Moab and remained there.

But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons.

These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth.

They lived there about ten years, and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.

The story of Ruth starts by detailing the tragedy that has befallen three women.

Naomi and her husband relocated to the land of Moad with their two sons.

All three men in the equation die.

Now the women are left without owning property, they are left defenseless.

Naomi is the elder in the situation, and she decides to give Orpah and Ruth a choice.

Ruth 1:8–14 (ESV)

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.

It would have been no fault on Ruth’s part for her to go back to her homeland.

Naomi released her of any obligation that existed because of their relationship.

Her sister-in-law, Orpah, left and it was not to her shame.

But Ruth stuck with Naomi out of loyalty and love.

Ruth would come to be incredibly blessed because of this decision.

Not only because of how this story unfolds but also because of the greater picture of the Bible.

God would use this woman to eventually bring about Jesus Christ.

A curious thing about Ruth is that she was one of those rotten Moabites.