Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Faithful Presence | The Writings | Ruth 2

Episode Date: July 19, 2024

Are you tempted by the allure of absence? Are you paying attention to the presence of the Holy Spirit? Do you long for a bigger story? In today's episode, Jeff shares how Ruth 2 calls us to be faithfully present in every situation because we have a God who is faithfully present with us. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Ruth 2

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jeff Parrott. One of the greatest temptations in the modern day is the allure of being absent. You might be close to someone with a kind of physical proximity, but not actually present with them. At the dinner table, in the car, with family or friends, around the office, you're there, but you're not really there. Not with your mind, your eyes, your ears. Not with your emotions. Yes, you're there, but you couldn't be further away from the people with you.

Now, there are many culprits for this tendency in our day of distraction. Our screens, our schedules, our egos. The list could go on. We have a presence problem. But let's increase the tension of this issue a little bit, because our distraction isn't just at the micro level of our day-to-day happenings, with our screens and our streaming habits. There's also a kind of macro-level distraction in our whole lives.

How are you using your presence as the days stack into weeks and months and years? At the end of your life, will you look back and see that you were always somewhere, but not in a way that made a difference. Always present, but at the same time, always absent. The challenge this poses is amplified when we consider the contours of the Christian life, at least the Christian life as it should be. I like the way that James Davidson Hunter defines a Christian in his book to change the world. He says this,

To be Christian is to be obliged to engage the world, pursuing God's restorative purposes over all of life, individual and corporate, public and private. This is the mandate of creation. For Hunter, being a Christian is bigger than just believing something, or saying that you believe something. To be a Christian is to engage the world. But not just for any purpose or agenda.

He says this engagement leads to pursuing God's restorative. authorative purposes over all of life. Now the label for this view of the Christian life is a two-word power-packed phrase that he uses. He calls it faithful presence. Being present in our lives with a faithfulness that points to someone beyond our lives. In the second chapter of Ruth, we see a masterful depiction of faithful presence with Ruth and Boaz. And seeing their first encounter in this chapter, we get a glimpse into the origin and the outcome of faithful presence in everyday life. As we approach God's word in our time together, let's pause and ask for His grace to move through our engagement with His Word. Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of life and breath today. And thank you

for the gift of your word. Jesus, help us abide in you during this time as we engage with your truth. Holy Spirit, we ask you to move in and through this time in Ruth, too. As we read these words, let these words read us and restore us. Help us live with a faithful presence in all we do. In Jesus' name, amen. The second chapter of Ruth begins by introducing us to Boaz, and has a lot to say about who he is and how he lives. So what do we learn about this guy? From the get-go, we find out that he's a relative of Naomi's husband, Alimelech. Now, this is an important detail as the narrative continues into chapter three. We're also told that Boaz is a worthy man. Now, being worthy here carries a sense of might and wealth,

including the fact that Boaz has a lot of influence and weight in the fabric of his community. In verse 4, we see him blessing his employees and then blessing him in return. As you read about Boaz here, you can't help but like the guy. You'd be glad to be his friend, but you'd also be glad to work for him. But his righteousness and faithful presence go under the microscope even more as he encounters Ruth. In the beginning of Chapter 2, we also meet Ruth again as she goes into the fields,

searching for food to provide for her and Naomi. Ruth ends up in the field of Boaz, hoping to glean crops after his employees went ahead of her. But Boaz ends up providing for Ruth and protecting her with an abundance that exceeds her expectations. She ends up dining at his table and is able to gather fruit from the fields alongside his employees, not after them. By the time we're halfway through this chapter, we should be astounded by the restorative engagement of Boaz. This guy is living out a faithful presence that goes above and beyond. When Ruth asks Boaz for the reason behind his favor toward her,

he gives her an illuminating answer in verses 11 through 12. We read this. All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, how you left your father and mother your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. The Lord will pay you for what you have done, and a full reward will be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge. Now, this response from Boaz is really interesting. In justifying his faithful presence toward Ruth, Boaz does two things. First, he credits her own sacrificial commitment to Naomi and gives the ultimate credit to the Lord. So when you read

over these verses carefully, Boaz doesn't say anything about his actions in the narrative. He talks about his faithful presence by exclusively talking about God's faithful presence. So yes, Boaz is making decisions and taking action here. Yet from his point of view, it's the Lord who is repaying her. It's the Lord who's rewarding her. It's the Lord giving her refuge. This chapter is full of engaging restoration on the part of both Boaz and Ruth, but the ultimate restorative work is gods. We see this emphasized even more in Naomi's words to Ruth in verse 20, after she learns about Boaz's abundant provision. Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, may he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead. Naomi also said to her, the man is a close relative of ours, one of our Redeemers. Let's look at this

verse more closely and notice three things. First, the word kindness here is technically a wonderful, powerful, powerful, key word throughout the Hebrew Bible. If you've been listening to a minute Bible talks, you know I love this word, Hesed, God's steadfast love. This isn't just a nice favor or a kindness when you hold the door open for a stranger. This is a kind of never-ending, relentless, steadfast love. This is about God's commitment to his purposes and to his people. The power of this word tips us off to another key feature of this verse. Because in the English and Hebrew versions of this verse, there's an intentional ambiguity on whose steadfast love,

whose kindness is being shown here. Is it Boaz is when he cares for Ruth? Or is it God's steadfast love as he cares for Boaz and for Ruth, for Naomi, for all of his people, for his entire creation? And the good news here is that we don't necessarily have to pick in this question of whose steadfast love the Bible's talking about. Because it's both. Boaz was engaged and restorative.

He was showing steadfast love. But he was only able to do that because God was, engaged and restorative in his life and surrounding his life. Let's wrap up with two final observations about Ruth too in the concept of faithful presence. First, faithful presence comes at a cost. For Ruth, that cost has involved the risk of leaving her home in Moab, the cost of bravely providing for both Naomi and herself. For Boaz, the cost has included his resources, his time, and even perhaps his reputation with some other people in his community as he breaks bread with a woman from Moab. The point is this, faithful presence always involves risk. I really like how James Davidson-Hunter considers

this in the same book to change the world. He writes this, The quality of commitment implied in faithful presence invariably imposes costs. To enact a vision of human flourishing, based on the qualities of life that Jesus modeled, will invariably challenge the given structures of the social order. In this light, there is no true leadership without putting at risk one's time, wealth, reputation, and position. Okay, so first big picture thing, our faithful presence comes at a cost. We have to put things that matter to us at risk. But here's the second observation from Ruth too. faithful presence is something that we pursue, and yet it's also something that pursues us.

This is evident over the entire book of Ruth, but it takes on a special meaning here in a subtle way. Verse 3 says that Ruth happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz. There's a lot that scholars say here, but the point is this. This verse right here is the Bible's way of saying that she didn't come into this field on accident. She's being led here for a reason. She happened to come to this part of the field to meet Boaz, to be provided for, to continue a story that's bigger than her life in both space and time. And if you know how the story the Bible continues, the story of Ruth and Boaz, the stories of their children, eventually lead us to the true story of Jesus. From Ruth's perspective, it may have seemed like she was just walking into another field, but from another perspective, from a bigger perspective, she was being led into that field, being led into a bigger story where God's steadfast love pursues his people and restores his world.

So going back to where we started, where do you need to recognize the tendency in your life to be absent? How can you counter that trend with the slow, ongoing cultivation of faithful presence wherever you are? What sacrifices might you need to make in order to have a restorative engagement like we see in Ruth, Boas, and ultimately in King Jesus? How does his sacrifice for you on the cross empower you to be engaged in a way that reflects his steadfast love? Whatever may be ahead of you today, wherever you are, be there, be present. Pursue a faithful presence, knowing that there is a faithful presence pursuing you in all you do. Amen.