"and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth," - Matthew 1:5b

In those days, Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit (Judges 21:25). This is the backdrop in which Ruth, the Moabite, is introduced to the God of Israel. 

A family from Bethlehem moves to Moab to escape a famine.  While there, the sons marry Moabite women.  Within the span of about a decade, all of the men in the family die, leaving Naomi alone with her two Moabite daughters-in-law. One daughter-in-law, Ruth, convinced by Naomi’s powerful witness to the reality of God despite her unthinkable circumstances, declares to her mother-in-law, “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 returns to Bethlehem with Naomi, instead of going back to the gods of her people. 

‘As it turned out’ (Ruth 2:3), Ruth, the non-Jew, Gentile, Moabite, foreigner, ended up working in a field belonging to a man named Boaz.  Boaz, the son of Salmon by Rahab, was the family’s ‘guardian redeemer,’ through Ruth’s father-in-law’s family.  Boaz would go on to redeem this family from their difficult trials by marrying Ruth.  Their marriage would result in the birth of Obed, the father of Jesse. And Jesse was the father of King David, who God promised in 2 Samuel 7:16, “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever,” foretelling of the coming Savior, promised in Genesis 3:15, through David’s family line.     

Consider a couple of things from this text. First, consider the incredible witness of Naomi to Ruth, so much so that Ruth turns away from the gods of her own people and is brought into the lineage of King Jesus. Second, see evidence of the Lord’s desire to ‘declare his glory among the nations’ (1 Chronicles 16:24) through the pursuit of Ruth, a non-Jew, Gentile, Moabite, foreigner, into the family line of King Jesus. Recall other such instances mentioned by Jesus in Luke 4, reminding the Jews at the synagogue of the prophet Elijah serving a widow in Zarephath, instead of Israel, during a three and a half year famine OR the prophet Elisha cleansing Naaman the Syrian of leprosy, instead of the many lepers in Israel. As you celebrate King Jesus’ first coming and live in anticipation of his second, ask yourself - who will the Lord bring into his Kingdom through your witness AND how is your life declaring His glory among the nations?