09WK5 -RUTH – MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICES IN THE MIDST OF CRISIS

RUTH – MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICES IN THE MIDST OF CRISIS

KEY VERSE: But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God Ruth 1:

SCRIPTURE LESSON: RUTH 1:1-18.
1. In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live fro while in the country of Moab.
2. The man’s name was Elimelech, his wife’s name Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Killion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.
3. Now Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with here two sons.
4. They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years,
5. Both Marlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.
6. When she heard in Moab that the LORD had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi and her daughters-in-Law prepared to return home from there.
7. With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.
8. Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-Law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the LORD show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me.
9. May the LORD grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.” Then she kissed them and they wept aloud
10. and said to her, “ We will go back with you to your people.”
11. But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. WHY WOULD YOU COME WITH ME? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands?
12. Return home, my daughter, I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me – even if I had a husband tonight and them gave birth to sons.
13. Would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them” No, my daughters. It is more bitter from me than for you, because the LORD’s hand has gone out against me!”
14. At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth clung to her.
15. ‘Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods go back with her.”
16. But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.
17. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.”
18. When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

INTRODUCTION
The Book of Ruth is a Hebrew short story set within the days of the Judges, a period characterized by religious and moral degeneration and general foreign oppression Ruth was a young widow from Moab whose Jewish husband had been Marlon, son of Naomi and Elimelech of Bethlehem.

The Moabites were neighbors of the Israelites but between the two nations existed hostility and suspicion. Even though Moab was the son of Lot, Abraham’s nephew, by her older daughter (Ge. 19:36,37) and therefore a relation of Israel, it had tried to bewitch, seduce and oppress them from the time of Balak and Balaam (Numbers 22 – 25). Israel, on its part, did not spare them in the conquest of the land of Canaan.

With husband, Elimelech and two sons, Marlon and Kilion, dead, Naomi, who had migrated to Moab with her family during a famine in Israel, was place in a crisis of need. Decisions that would change her life and the lives of her young widowed daughters-in-law had to be taken. The process involved in taking these decisions is the subject of this week’s study.

EXPOSITION
1. In the social life of the Ancient Near East, men were the major breadwinners and statues givers to women. A woman whose husband was dead had hardly any social position and was often the focus of oppression. The death of all the men in the lives of Naomi and her two daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah. Consequently left them with no status and also no bread – winner. For Naomi, all this happened to her in a land whose people were not normally on friendly terms with her people, Israel.
2. It was natural, therefore, to long for home. Longing crystallized to a decision to return to Israel when news trickled in that Israel was having a harvest boom. Naomi had settled in her mid her lowered social status of widowhood. Her daughters-in-law however, were young and capable of re-marrying and settling down to normal family life. To her this offered more hope to the young women than when they returned with her to Israel.

In Israel, the faint possibility of the application of the levirate law existed. This was an arrangement in which the brother or close relation of a man who died without children would marry the widow. Offspring from this union would bear the dead man’s name and thus continue his family lie. (Dt. 25:5-6). At the same time, the institution offered protection and status to the widow.


Naomi appears to have reached menopause (Ru 1: 12); but even if she had not, she reasoned that bringing forth sons who would grow to marry Ruth and Orpah was in impossibility since they would have to wait for too long. It would be better if they re-married in their own land.

The issue before Ruth and Orpah was: should they go back with Naomi to Israel and remain widows with hardly any social status or return to their homes, with the possibility of re-marriage?

3. Orpah considered that of the two choices, the most reasonable was the path that led to her home and possible re-marriage. Ruth, on the other hand, saw deeper than normal human reason. Her emphatic response of commitment to Naomi showed a number of things. For her, life in Israel, with the people of God, and faith in and service to her God promised a more fulfilling life than going back to Moab with its promise of the material blessings of re-marriage. But this was a very challenging decision for her to take. Ruth ran the risk of remaining a childless widow all her life with a social status, which was next to nothing, all in a land, which was traditional an enemy to her own people. Her fellow sister-in-law, Orpah had opted for the easier but reasonable path. Why not just follow after her and be secure!



4. Ruth chose to commit the rest of her life to following Naomi, living with and sharing her lot and serving her and her God. In fact she had already made a religious commitment for she swears her commitment to Naomi in the name of the LORD, thus acknowledging him as her God. She had taken a step of faith and had decided to follow God and his people.

5. Does Ruth’s action teach any decision-making principle to us today? Three may be readily identified. One should ask, when considering what action to take:

 Is God’s honor respected; does it please him?
 Is it an act of faith; does it indicate trust in God of Israel? (cf .Ro. 14:23).
 Is it relatively selfish, does it benefit me alone to the detriment of others?

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1a. Identify the critical issues that Ruth and Orpah were faced with.
b. What were the risks involved in each case?
2a Orpah did not go to Bethlehem with Naomi. Did she take a ‘wrong decision”?
b. Give examples to show how Orpah’s action may be repeated today.
3a Consider Ruth’s decision to return to Bethlehem with Naomi. What values guided her in her choice?
4a. Can you find any other decision-making principles in this week’s passage aside the ones outlined in the EXPOSITION?
b. Give examples to show how these values may be used to take a decision today, may be used to take decisions today.

BIBLE LESSON APPLICATION
This week, in your time of devotion, review two of the most recent decisions you have made, especially if they were made during a time of crisis. Do you find that the principles of decision-making identified during this week’s study were used? Take decisions that will help you use such principles always, and share with your group or friend.

DAILY BIBLE READINGS
Monday Kings 3:1 – 14 First seek the counsel of the lord
Tuesday Deuteronomy 25:5-10 Levirate marriage in Israel
Wednesday Joshua 24:14-27 Choose this day whom you will serve
Thursday Hebrews 11:24-28 Moses Chooses Israel’s God
Friday I Corinthians 10:24-33 Decision-making
Saturday Proverbs 16:24-33 Counsel on decision-making