Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How Do I View God? | The Writings | Ruth 1

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

Have your experiences shaped your view of God? In your heart, is he a supportive or distant Father? Is He truly working for your good? In today's episode, Patrick shares how Naomi's story in Ruth 1 invites us to question how our experiences have shaped our heart's theology. 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 1

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 Patrick Miller. My friend has a son named Charlie. He's six years old. And she told me that after he finished his yearly checkup with the pediatrician, the doctor asked both him and his mom if they had any other questions. And of course, the mom said, oh, no, no, I don't have any. But Charlie looked like he was thinking really hard.

After a few moments, he looked up and he asked the doctor, what's Jesus look like? The pediatrician was taken aback and the embarrassed mom excused Charlie and they quickly left the room. After they did, she asked him, why did you say that? Charlie explained, well, you said that Jesus is in my heart and since doctors have x-rays, they can see inside you. So I just wondered what Jesus looks like. What shaped your view of God? None of us come preloaded with ideas.

Experiences shape our view of God. And for Charlie, it was obviously his experience of his mom and what she told him was true about God. inside your heart. But what about you? What experiences have shaped how you see God? Or if we're going to be honest, misshaped your view of God. Because we live on this side of the fall. Many of us have experienced tragedy, loss, sickness, trauma, and abuse. We've been sinned against and we've sinned against others. And all those experiences shaped how we see God. I think of a young man I met with who felt like God never wanted to be around him. He thought God was irritated with him, bothered by his presence, ashamed of him. And no matter how hard this young man worked, he felt like God would want to exclude him.

But as we kept meeting, he began to share more about his life, and he shared a memory with me that's burned into his consciousness. Again, he was about five or six, and the memory standing at the top of a staircase leading down to a basement. And the light's on down there, and he knows the lights on because that's where his dad's home office is. And he's standing there, silhouetted by the light, because his dad is down there and he wants nothing more than to go down there and be with his dad. He'd be quiet. He'd do just what his dad wanted him to do. But he knows in the depths of his little heart. He's not invited. He's not just unallowed. He's unwanted. He's unworthy. Experience shapes how we see God. His experience with his dad shaped how he saw his heavenly father.

His dad didn't want him and so surely God didn't either. This takes us to the story of a woman named Naomi. We meet her in the book of Ruth, and even though the book is called Ruth, it begins and ends with Naomi. It's really her story. It begins with the tragedy, and we'll see how it ends in a few days. But what I want you to see today is how Naomi's experience shapes her theology, how she thinks about God.

To understand the depth of the tragedy Naomi experience, we need to understand a little bit about Naomi's world before we even read the passage. So Naomi, she lived about 1,000 years before Jesus in Bethlehem. And in her world, the primary family unit was called the Father's House, or in Hebrew the Betaf. And this included about 20 to 30 relatives all living under the authority of the oldest male, the patriarch. And in that world, men and men alone held property rights and could enact legal procedures. It's meant that women were dependent on their nearest male relatives for everything, whether that was a father, a husband, or a son, they needed a man to provide for them legally. And without a male relative, these women had no bait-off, no father's house to live in.

So if you ever found yourself as a widow, without a father, a husband, or a son, you basically found yourself destitute. No family, no legal protection, no property, no shelter, no food. So let's pick up the story in Ruth one. In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem and Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab. He and his wife and his two sons. So let's pause here for just a second. Moab was a country to the east of Judah, where Bethlehem was located, and that meant that they basically moved to Moab and became foreign refugees there. Let's keep going. Verse two. The name of the man was Alimalec, and the name of his wife, Naomi. And the names of his two sons were Malon and Killian. They were Ephraithites from Bethlehem and Judah.

They went into the country of Moab and remained there. But Alimalec, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives. The name of one was Orpa, and the name of the other was Ruth. They lived there about ten years. And then both Malon and Killian died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband. So you can imagine how destitute and lost and traumatized Naomi was by this experience. And naturally she plans to leave Moab because she's not even a native there.

She wants to go back to Bethlehem where she might have some small chance of surviving. And so she tells her daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, not to come with her. But they argue with her and they say, we want to come with you. And so finally, Naomi, to try to keep them away, tells them about her theology, her view of God. And she says that because of this truth, which I'll share with you in just a second, because of this truth about God, she says, trust me, you don't want to go with me. So let's read Naomi's theology. This is chapter 1, verse 13. No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake, catch this, that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me. Naomi has experienced tragedy, and that tragedy has shaped how she sees God. She says, quote, the hand of the Lord has gone out against me. So here's my theology, Naomi might say. God is against me. God isn't for me. And I know this because of my experience.

If he was for me, my husband and my two sons wouldn't have died. He wouldn't have left me destitute. He wouldn't have left me alone. My experience is proof of my theology. Well, in the end, Ruth doesn't buy Naomi's theology, but Orpah does, and she leaves. Ruth, however, sticks with Naomi, and they head back to Bethlehem. But here's what I want you to see. Naomi's experience is shaping her view of God.

Or, let's be honest, it is misshaping her view of God. Naomi isn't alone, is she? We're all just like her. experiences shape our theology, but more often than not, our experiences mishape our theology. What about you? What experiences have shaped your view of God. Do you want to know what I like about Naomi, though? What I like about this whole story is that she's honest, she's authentic. Naomi isn't a faker. She isn't a phony. You see, we all have theology we know we're supposed to believe. Theology from books and study things like God is good, God is loving, God is sovereign, God's got

a plan. That's the theology we know to say when we're asked a question at church or in small group, and that's head theology. It's thinking theology, but there is a second kind of theology. There is heart theology. This is our practical theology, the theology we actually live our lives out of. Heart theology is incredibly important theology, because that's what we really believe about God deep down. And that's the theology that's shaped most by our experiences. You see, that's what I like about Naomi. She doesn't throw up any smokescreens. She may know the right answer. She probably has a great head theology, but when she's asked, she's real. She shares her deep down heart theology. God is against me. And I think her story is an invitation to bring your true heart theology

into community and before God, to enter into his presence and ask him to slowly change your view of him until it's not in alignment with your experiences. It's in alignment with his truth. And he'll change it through his word, but he'll also change it through your experiences. He'll train you to see your experiences differently so that you can find the truth. This is precisely what happens to Naomi through the godlike divine love of Ruth and Boas. What if the same thing can happen in your life? Be honest with God about your heart theology and seek after God to transform it.