The book of Ruth - Kinsman Redeemer?

If I was to ask you what the theme of the book of Ruth was my hunch is you'd answer kinsman redeemer, or redemption.  If I asked you who is the figure that points to Jesus, again my hunch would be that you would point to Boaz.  And Boaz is the kinsman redeemer, he is the one who buys Naomi's land and marries Ruth back.  And the redemption theme is big in Ruth and huge in the overall arc of the Bible's story.  So that has always been the way I've read Ruth.

But I just wonder whether in focusing on this theme we are in danger of excluding another.  Last week in studying the book of Ruth for our weekend away I was struck again and again by the love of Ruth.  Ruth who (ch1) will not leave her mother-in-law, who leaves her family and her home and chooses to become an alien and foreigner in Israel.  Ruth who because of love chooses death and discomfort rather than the ease of home.  Ruth who is slighted by Naomi, (1v20-21) who describes herself as empty, when Ruth who is standing right beside her has given up so much to bind herself in love to Naomi.  Ruth who (2v2)is the one who gets up and provides for the family day by day throughout the months of the barley and wheat harvest, expressing her faithful love day by day in practical and costly dying to self ways.  Ruth who will marry Boaz to redeem both the family land and line.  Ruth who gives her son to Naomi, who cares for him and whose is counted as her son (4v16-17).

Throughout the book Ruth continually chooses to love at cost to herself, chooses again and again to die to self to bring life to Naomi.  It is Ruth's love that drives the book, that leads her to leave home, to listen, to endure alienation, to labour to provide life to another.  Maybe Ruth points us to Jesus as much as Boaz does.

Ruth - depending on God

We were looking at Ruth 2 on Sunday evening and as I revisited my notes and the passage yesterday I was struck by Ruth's dependence on God. At a time when many Israelites were not depending on God she takes a risk (Bethlehem in the time of the Judges was a dangerous place for a young woman to be out on her own) because she trusts that God will provide.

She goes out to glean trusting in God's provision through his word and he guides her to the field of Boaz, out of all the fields in Bethlehem, and Boaz becomes the godly conduit through which God works.

It got me thinking about our independence as opposed to Ruth's dependence, it also got me thinking about how we like Naomi in the previous chapter often ignore God's means of provision - people - because we are looking for something more miraculous. I was then thinking about Haiti this morning in preparation for Sunday - How can a God of love allow natural disasters? God shows his love in natural disasters through his people as they model his compassion and kindness as they act as conduits for God to work.