Ruth: Bible Study | Panel Discussion

[Music] good afternoon and happy sabbath welcome to our afternoon program for those who manage to come back and join us thank you so much as we begin i'd like us to have a word of prayer let's humble ourselves as we have heard of prayer we're praying dear lord thank you so much for today thank you for being with us after this moment and as we begin our afternoon program i pray that you may guide us through that it may be a blessing to us and that we may learn a lot from you in jesus name i pray and believe amen we will start with song number eight we gather together we gather together as we begin our afternoon program song number eight we gather together [Music] to make known [Music] sing praises to his men and he forgets lord [Music] [Music] maintaining his kingdom divine soul from the beginning the fault we were winning thou lord was [Music] triumphant [Music] let thy congregation escape tribulation by name we have our praise oh lord make us free we will turn to nimbo zakristo song number one four four niwaka buana one four four niwa kobwana one five nine in the new hymnal [Music] [Music] m [Music] [Applause] teeny [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] okay [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign amen we will move to hymn number eight three in our estimate want to worship the king as we continue with our sabbath program o worship the king kim number 83 [Music] oh was she blocking is the ancient of games particularly splendor and guarded with praise [Music] of his grace [Music] and dark is his [Music] it breathes in the air it joins in the light it streams from the hills [Music] [Music] [Music] and amen we will continue with nimbo zakristo song number 55 to our panda mapema hanging in the shoes [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] know [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh we will continue to sda hymno song number 74 like a river glorious [Music] is god's perfect peace over all victories in its bright increase [Music] both and yet [Music] [Music] perfect peace [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] touch the spirit there [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] given to his children as an act of love we may trust him all for us to do him holy find him holy truth [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] perfectly [Music] we will continue we'll stop there thank you happy sabbath [Music] and happy day and welcome to today's afternoon program now we're so happy to have you here those who are here with us physically and those online this sabbath is especially a very very special one because today we are having the teens class leading today now before we go on and pray i would like to introduce each and every one of these teens with us and we'll tell you what we'll be studying today but actually let's let's pray before we start and we'll go ahead to introduce our teens let's pray a kind loving father we thank you so much for this day that you've given us uh the sabbath day where we can take time apart from our our work our schools and the the troubles of the week to spend time dedicated to you are dedicated to learning about you through your word and i thank you that you've even given your spirit to the old and even to the young as we seek to know your will through your word and through this specific story of ruth today we ask you spirit will guide us in our discussion enlighten us give us wisdom and lead us into a broader understanding and a broader devotion and love for you as a result this is our praying jesus name amen so as you may have heard in the prayer today we'll be studying the book of ruth the book of ruth and this is a book that we as teens have actually been studying on a week-to-week basis so i encourage you to get your bibles out as i go ahead to introduce our panelists here today so they'll tell you their names and they'll also tell you a bit about teen's class so we'll start on my right with my the lady next to me superior hello everyone my name is sabirah akundi and as the sun shines in the clouds move teens class is determined to further the kingdom of the lord we are a community of teenagers from ages 14 to 18 years old and in order to cultivate each and every one of us as stewards of christ we highly encourage upstanders people who are not consumed with societal disregard and are eager to stand up for christ with our motto being be the change you want to seem an attribute everyone should require happy service to our viewers uh my name is nelson in teens class we study the cornerstone lesson this is a study guide for all of all the teens that provides questions to help us study and go deeper into the lesson like this morning we are studying the we are studying about pride ambition and pride and ambition uh the in the lesson there was a section called connecting to life that provides an activity for every day that allows us to study deeper into the lesson happy sabbath church and audience my name is stephanie i'm also a member of the teeth class what actually inspired us to start bible study were the quizzes that we occasionally had with every other different class from this church yearly so through these quizzes our teachers also started a vespas which occurs from 7 p.m to 8 p.m at night there we learn more about the bible we learn about god and we are able to also develop our spiritual side and to also learn more about ourselves and develop our relationship with god thank you stephanie um happy sabbath and happy day to everyone my name is and apart from the sabbath classes that we've had from my colleagues teens class has various other activities organized by our teachers these include nature sabbats where we we as teens go out and interact with god's nature and we are able to connect with him through his creation we also have reach-outs where we evangelize and share jesus with others we furthermore have home sabbaths where we visit with one of our teens or our teachers and and fellowship with the family as we join together in god's in god's family last but not least we have retreats where we go out as teens and teachers and we share our experiences and testimonies and we are able to learn from each other at teens class we are the change we are we want to see aren't we teacher david amen indeed we are we are and so if you are a teen listening in today or you're a parent who has a teen or you know of a teen we'd love to welcome you to our class today uh we only could represent the class with four of our panelists today but we have all our teens um involved in supporting as well in this bible study and it's something we do on a week to week basis and so we do invite you to be a part of nairobi central teens class now we want to dive right into today's study so we'll be studying the book of ruth today so again i hope your bibles are with you i will be taking comments questions on the online panel so please feel free to share some of your comments and questions as we go along and we'll dive right in to introduce the book the the book of ruth is a small book in the bible in the old testament it's a book with four chapters and i'd like stephanie to briefly introduce us to this book because some of you or even me myself you might have known this book we might know of a lady called ruth but we might not have studied it in a while and so we'd like each and every one of us to have a bit of context going into this book what are we expecting to read as we study ruth thank you david so the book of ruth is about ruth as the title states she's a morabite woman and her story occurs in a time where god decides to redeem his people so ruth's story is very important in this in the bible because we learn about loyalty we learn about having faith in the lord through tough times and one question that we should all keep in mind as we dive deep into this book is why ruth a moabite woman not an israelite has her own book interesting a whole non-israelite woman having her own book in the bible that seems kind of random because i read the old testament i read about the nation of israel i read about god working through his people and all of a sudden now there's a whole book dedicated to a woman who's not even an israelite this seems a bit random sabiro don't you agree yes so we see that the book of ruth proves its cruciality by means of creating this configuration of the true meaning of love joy and as stephanie said loyalty we also see the infrequency of the presence of the lord or essentially god speaking and this enunciates the behind the seeds of god at work highly applicable to our lives now the book directly reflects a lucid image of the various calamities and moments of this hurting which god may allow and utilize such circumstances in our lives to ultimately benefit us also the context and the background of ruth is very important from the preceding book of the judges presenting an interesting case of a book of turmoil and death now the book of ruth brings the season of hope and a hinted arrival of christ and it's interesting how you've mentioned the preceding book the book of judges in the book of judges we see themes of chaos and warfare and death as subira has mentioned but as stephanie had said the book of ruth predominantly focuses on on ruth as a character and therefore we see that it deviates from these themes of chaos um and focuses on truth um therefore we see that god is restoring his people back and and redeeming them back to himself um since as we had seen in the book of judges the last verse of judges actually indicates that um everyone had neglected god's ways and and they did what was right in their own eyes and therefore the book of ruth restores restores his god's people back to himself wow okay so this is now making a bit more sense so we we hear that it's a book about a history of a woman who was a non-israelite but i like what superior said that ultimately the bible any book in the bible is a story about god and it's a story about how god is working through his people to reveal himself and so i hope you're excited to learn more about how god reveals himself not only to his people then but how he can reveal himself to us today through the story of this woman called ruth so why don't we just dive right into chapter one i hope you're in chapter one now we won't be able to read all the verses all the chapters but i want you to follow along as we go and i'm gonna ask nelson to briefly just introduce us to the first five verses of this chapter who is in the story what is going on so in the in the book of ruth the first five verses tell us about the family of malek we learn about his he has two wives and and he has one wife and two sons these they then moved from bethlehem to moab because of a great farming that's happening in the land of bethlehem so they stay in moab for about 10 years his two sons end up murdering um their wives there while they're there then after some time we get to learn that elimelech and the two sons died leaving naomi and her two daughter-in-laws alone okay that's that's pretty sad i mean we've just read the first five verses and the three characters have already died all the men have died what a pretty sad beginning to a story i wouldn't expect a story to begin with such a sad beginning especially for a book that seems to be about hope so we find that we're now left with naomi ruth and orpah so naomi and her two daughters-in-law and we see as you'd mentioned there was a famine and now naomi's returning back to bethlehem because the famine is over of course she's now a widow it's probably safer for her there and we hear that her daughters are following her her daughters-in-law are following her to bethlehem but she actually tells them not to follow her and to go back to their homes now why would she be doing that if they want to follow her i mean well naomi didn't have any more sense to give to ruth and oprah since her sons had died and she didn't have any more kids so she wanted them to go back to their land to moab to go get married and start a new life and have kids since from the story there's no indication that they had kids and also from the book of romans chapter 7 the bible states that a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive but if the husband is dead she's riddled and she's also allowed by this law to go ahead and have a new husband and start a new life definitely and we see some situational irony and because men were essentially the pillars of society and without male figures in that particular context women were crippled so as stephanie said expectedly women were subsumed with the liberty of remarrying or going back to their parental homes now however despite such factors of society ruth had developed this deep connection towards her mother-in-law naomi and i also believe she was conscious stricken of the immense loss in which naomi went through but this also brings the question of why exactly she was giving us so much taking so many risks and there are many probabilities in which she due to her selflessness she lost and these risks um we see that ruth is ready to to leave moab um where she has her family her kinsmen and she's ready to to go with naomi and embrace naomi as as sort of her new family um she's left her family in in moab and she's left them more by gods and now she's she's developed this trust in naomi and naomi's god and she's ready to embrace um this this new chapter of her life and um as is in today's life um there are many risks when we when we take um a new path and naomi faced the risk of of um being annihilate being alienated in in a foreign land in bethlehem it was a time when um israelites and moabites were were not friendly towards each other they were hostile towards each other and so if naomi was to to take this path she would face that risk of going to a new foreign land and being as a complete stranger then again we see that she sacrifices her own future she takes the path of the unknown she doesn't know what's going to happen and as we had heard earlier from stephanie naomi had had told um ruth and oppa to go to the uh to to stay in moab and and find husbands for themselves but naomi wants to go to to bethlehem where she doesn't know if she she'll find a husband so she takes this part of the unknown and she she's sacrificing her future but we saw that earlier she was married to malone who was who was an aphrodite a bethlehemite and maybe she had seen such diligence in this family that she was so attached to them she didn't want to to deviate from from what they believed in and maybe this risk of of going to bethlehem would pay off yeah no el can i really like that point you brought out that there were many risks ruth had in terms of going with her mother-in-law to a land which she did not know in fact we read in chapter 1 verse 16 that ruth says wherever you go i will go wherever you lodge i will lodge your people shall be my people and your god my god and so just like you said of course there was a bond that seems that she had with ruth but it was a greater attachment that she had not only to the the hebrew israelite people but also to the god of the hebrews and so regardless of what results lay before her it seems that that principle what she knew of god what she knew of naomi was worth it but i mean i'm still very impressed by the relationship that naomi and ruth had and i'm sure there's some life lessons we can learn from this what are your thoughts stephanie and you know what i thank you for focusing on the relationship of naomi and ruth from this relationship we could get that loyalty is something that we should all apply in our lives today we get that family doesn't have to mean you have to be related to each other by blood and i find that this is really very well depicted in the relationship of naomi and ruth amen amen you don't have to be related by blood to be family interesting interesting and you did say that there was separate she could have gone home she had the choice right but she chose to stick with naomi so we fast forward to the end of chapter one and we realized that naomi has allowed ruth to stay with her and they go back to their home in bethlehem now it has been a whole 10 years since naomi was in bethlehem so you can imagine how excited her friends maybe their cousins they're so excited to see naomi after 10 whole years but when you read when we when she reaches she doesn't seem as excited in fact instead of calling herself naomi the bible tells us that she wants to be called by another name nelson what is this name what what's going on here well in the at the end of chapter one ruth exercises that you want you want it to be called mara meaning bitter so naomi means pleasant uh could be depicting a situation in the moment but her husband and her two sons are dead she might have found it a bit ironic for what we called pleasantness if her life was so bad let's see yeah mara meaning bitter it could show that um [Music] it could show it shows that uh the way that she thought about her life that she thought god had pushed her to their side right yeah right uh in the in the same book we find that uh her two sons are named marlon and chilean okay these names mean uh sickness and wasting respectively this show this shows that since that in that time they used to name people by the circumstances that they were in this could suggest that male 1 and children were not particularly healthy or they were born with maybe some complications yeah in the instinct in the in the bible we also see jacob who jacob meaning deceived we will also know that he received his his father into into giving him the blessing but later on his name is changed into israel meaning over karma this this also shows that we don't have to live to live up to the circumstantial names that were given interesting so what happens is that naomi is essentially afflicted by the dejection of the lord in her life and as you said she requests to be called mara meaning bitter and because the lord has treated her bitterly but in this naomi is essentially blinded by her grief and her sorrow and viewing god in a negative aspect from this stems the character traits of humanity as we are young and old naomi's you know changing our opinion about god at our own convenience but hebrews chapter 13 verse 8 says christ is the same yesterday today and forever but speaking directly to the viewers and to the teens on the panel today nelson if you lost a dear family member of yours would you also be this way uh well i mean i'll try not to be that way because uh as i've read it's not the best thing because god really does something the benefit for the benefit of us so even if it's bad now later on definitely it'll be better i also agree with nelson but you under have to understand from the beginning of the story this is human nature we also act like this these days when something wrong happens or something does not go away and we also hear from the beginning of the story as nelson said that god they left bethlehem because of a farmer and the farmer initially means that there's nothing there for them to live on and also god also brought the far mind in naomi's life meaning that she didn't have sons anymore they had died so i understand the way naomi is acting and and it's interesting that this this topic of names has come up um maybe we can share our names and maybe what what they mean like personally for me personally for me my name is um alkana elkanah means purchased by god yeah my name is subira and it means patience my name is david and it means beloved my name is nelson and it means champion and mine is stephanie which means crown wow wow great names great names of our panelists here what's what does your name mean and in this way i don't think we tend to really pay attention to our names as much as the bible characters did right but what are some names you think we do pay attention to that might cause us to define ourselves by our circumstances um i think uh for sure there's names that that people would would hear and and form some sort of prejudice towards for example uh there's an example in school um i don't know why but people just say that frederick is is a math teacher's name and and it's it's it's sort of relatable because um there's two teachers in our school called called fred and it's it's sort of a prejudice that is formed um from from somebody's names um but most people tend to to have most people that tend to have um bible names um are expected to to live up to to um the characteristics of those in the bible definitely but also to add something like as nelson said we had malin and chilen and they had names meaning sicknesses or wasted essentially but i definitely think that yes parents it's very important to name your children well but also you could have a bad name or a name not necessarily meaning a good thing and still being able to live up to the name of christ so by society society brands us in many different ways and we might hear names that discourage us from like from school from work and different walks of life but i just think that each and every one of us should strive to live up to the name of christ amen amen may you not be named or branded by a limiting circumstance but may we all be called to live up to the names that christ gives us and he calls each of us his child his son and his daughter amen and so i want to touch on something stephanie mentioned is that naomi had come home with nothing she had left and she'd come home pretty much without her family probably without much wealth she had come home a widow but we do realize that she'd come home with someone right she didn't come home alone she came home with ruth and the that person that she came home with even though she came home with nothing is actually probably going to turn out to be her biggest blessing so she is distraught she is sad but she has come home with a lady called ruth and chapter one actually ends in a very hopeful manner i'd like akana maybe to to read to us the the last verse of chapter one i believe that's verse 22 22 and then just tell us what what do you think in this verse gives us a bit of hope of what's to come um ruth chapter 1 verse 22 and the bible says so naomi returned and ruth the morbitess her daughter-in-law with her which returned out of the country of moab and they came to bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest um if we look at the last part of of the verse in the beginning of of barley harvest that's um an interesting phrase that um many might just ignore in the bible um in the book of leviticus uh we're told that leviticus chapter 19 god instructs the owners of farms do not clean do not do not glean from from the corners of your fields um this you should leave for for the strangers of the land and for the poor and when naomi and ruth come come back to to bethlehem um there's as we had said earlier naomi uh ruth rather would be would be uh despised by by the israelites now that she was not she was not a part of their community and therefore we see that god had instructed um the owners of the of the farmlands not to not to glean from from these um from their farms so that um such poor and and widows as we see here um that can be left for them therefore harvest was a time um when when we would when it was an appreciation of god's blessing towards us and and his blessing towards others as well and he he he as he we had seen his instruction um he had told them not not to take um take away from from their fields these the corners of their fields and and when ruth comes back um we expect that she will find these these gleanings and that she will gather them and therefore for for the widows that are coming back um we see that they they can have that hope that at least they can have something to to to hold on to that that little food that they get and and alluding to today's life um the the relationship between us in church and those those less fortunate um it's god has put them so in inextricably close that you can't separate it therefore we we should fill um ellen g white in testimonies uh for the church she said that if we have true religion of the bible we can do no less than show gratitude by having a deep interest and unselfish love for those less fortunate than ourselves therefore um we see that god has instructed us in in our lives today not to neglect those those less fortunate than ourselves yes so the israelites as a community like you said value the widows and the poor people in general and harvest was a time where the poor were permitted to you know pick from the vegetation and harvest was essentially a blessing and a blessing for ruth and naomi now ruth going to a foreign land um solely dependent on her mother-in-law naomi is blessed by the nourishment from the lord and yet again we have stumbled upon the signs of god's interplay with these characters in the book wow okay so the harvest i think that's a good point that we shouldn't ignore the details of of scripture right even the details can tell us a lot about what's to come the very fact that they went home mourning they went home sad uh they went home bereaved they went home with great loss but they went home during the time of the harvest and as you guys have said god has a special blessing even for the vulnerable even for those who have gone through difficult times during the time of the harvest especially during this time and so we want to learn what is about to take place in the next chapter so in chapter 2 if you'll turn with us to chapter 2 chapter two begins with ruth going out to the field to work because now they they're with their widows they have to make a living and she goes out to a field to work now if you if you read i i encourage you to read chapter two during your own time if you just continue to read throughout the chapter you will find that the chapter continues to emphasize ruth as being a foreigner almost to almost signify to us that ruth is in a foreign land ruth is in a foreign land ruth you are in a foreign land yes you made a decision to go be with naomi you made a decision to follow after the god of naomi but you are a foreigner in this land now what that what might that tell us about how she might be treated and you know what david thank you for pointing out on the foreign part of ruth in the new land bethlehem and you know from this story we could also like start a new thing and think about us being new in school we also treated like foreigners we feel like people are always looking at us and thinking and judging us in our in their minds and i feel like ruth felt like that because she was new in bethlehem and i also would have expected her to be discriminated to be talked about yeah yeah so that's an interesting factor of psychological understanding of ruth possibly facing discrimination and due to her ethnicity and her background you know being a foreigner in bethlehem which indeed also amplifies the risks in which ruth was taking we see a lot of dramatical irony in this and we're given some secretive information revealing to us the audience that the current the characters are unaware of which ruth isn't aware of that this land is of boaz now boaz is the kingsman redeemer now culturally speaking i would like us to turn to the book of deuteronomy chapter 25 verse 5 the closest relative with a designated duty to rescue the widow of elimelech's dead son so if two brothers live together and one of them dies without a son the wife of the dead man must not marry a stranger outside the family her husband's brother must take her as his wife and have sexual relationships with her he must do the duty of her husband's brother for her now this also shows us that god has ordained certain things to happen and has associated these characters of nairobi naomi ruth and boaz in means of improving their situations now this is very much applicable to our lives with the implication of god allowing certain events to occur certain people to meet catering to his plan for our lives wow so what you're saying essentially is that ruth is just going out to a field to work but she has no idea we know but she doesn't know that this land is of a field is of a man called boaz and boaz of course is going to play a critical role in this story yet she doesn't know but we see god already is playing a role in her life she was faithful she just went out to the field to work but boaz being there would really turn the tide of things so now let's find out a bit more about who boaz is so we we hear of this man called boaz could you just introduce him to us as yes yes sure um it's it's interesting how how the bible um turns um from one chapter to another from chapter one chapter two is introduced and naomi had a kinsman this king kinsman is is pointing to someone we don't know yet and naomi had a kinsmen of her husbands a mighty man of wealth still we don't know who this is but we're getting this description of him um a mighty man of wealth of the family of elimelech and his name was boaz so chapter two introduces a new character um that's boaz and uh if we read through the chapter we find that um boaz is is a man is he's he's a he's a man of authority um he as we've seen he holds a lot of wealth but then again with this wealth um comes comes humility which which um in fact uh um nelson pointed to uh at the start that in the morning we were learning about um pride and humility and bo is a man of such power um condescends himself to such a humble person um so boss we learned that he he is the son of of rehab rehab during the the conquest of of jericho um he she she hid the israelite spies and and therefore boss boss we see that boss is is is a sort of a help uh to tonight to ruth as we'll see later on in the chapter interesting interesting so um if i had you correctly and maybe nelson you can clarify so boaz seems to be treating ruth in a kind way so we know boaz is a it seems boz is an upstanding man he's wealthy but he seems to be very considerate of all those who work in his field ruth being one of them a stranger and yet akana pointed to something that something about boaz's history kind of signals at why you actually treat truth in an even more special way yeah so boaz is the son of rehab uh rehab in the bible we learn from the book of judges is a woman that helps the israelites when they wanted to conquer jericho he she hid the two israelite spies helping them conquer jericho so so from this of course was being the son of rehab he must have heard of this story and because of that he might have not be you met her he might have been more comfortable with having a foreigner in in mist i would like to make a connection um so we trying to make sure that this book also represents some sort of importance to the overall theme of the bible we can make a connection to jesus from boaz's character where he is indeed the boss but he also equalizes humanity in having consideration and care towards people in means of not to belittle others and jesus said he came to serve and not to serve acting as being a very sub subversive king also the linkage to the dutiful character of rahab embellishes the virtues of boaz and the benevolence especially towards foreigners and we see in proverbs chapter 22 verse 6 it says train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it in allah in analyzation of rahab being in the genealogy of christ it provides it provides the intuition of the importance of the book of ruth and i think um as you've said that we we established that bose is is a leader and and we can establish some leadership skills that we may apply in our in our lives i mean some of our parents might be um ceos or managers and and ask ourselves might be perfect in school and we see that bose is is very respectful towards towards his his employees he treats them tenderly and and very respectfully then again we see that he's a man that that is leaning and trusting in god and that's a very key a very key um attribute in a leader um in in verse verse 11 uh he answers and was answered and said unto her it had fully been shewed to me all that thou hast done unto thy mother-in-law since the death of thine husband and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother and the land of thy nativity and art come unto a people which thou knewest not death not here then the lord recompensed thy work and and the full reward be given to thee of lord god of israel so we see that um boaz is blessing ruth with the name of the lord and as we had established this was a time when people did um what was right in their own eyes people had neglected the ways of god but we see that buzz here is still true to to to what god says by blessing ruth using his name so thank you for that thank you for that so we can see that boaz is a man of character yes he's a man who not only is he a man of character but he's a man whose own mother is a foreigner right so he must have probably have a soft spot uh to understand that you know the fact that my mom was treated kindly means that now i'm i'm born i'm here so i should also probably treat uh this other foreigner kindly but we can tell that it's not just his kindness but it's also something about ruth her character and her work ethic you want to speak to that and stephanie and we've heard from the verse that alcana has just read that boaz is complementing how ruth is working and from this we could get that ruth was a woman with genuine intentions she was a foreigner who worked almost the same or even as hard as the people in boaz's farm which shows that she was very hard working and she worked without complaining interesting so would you say they are attracted to each other how would you what would you say because some people might say boss was fond of ruth could there be any indication that boss was fond of ruth well it's it's it's an interesting chapter this because we see that um boaz is is quite immediately um he's quite immediately keen to to know who this ruth is and uh if we read from chapter four when he comes um he asks his servants uh he asks his is his workers who is this woman and they answered to him uh how she came and how she she had introduced herself as a foreigner and how um they had let her glean um and and gather from from the farm and then boz um takes uh he he he tells ruth uh the first thing that she tells us is do not glean in another field be amongst my women glean from my field and we see that boss is accommodating towards ruth at first sight then again um in in uh we moved down and he he commands his his his young men not to treat her roughly uh then again um he tells ruth that he can she can drink from the jazz that the men have failed and we see some sort of privileges that that truth is is slowly gaining then we come to to verse 14 and buzz said unto her at meal time come thou hither and eat of the bread and dip thy muscle in the vine in the vinegar um he he eats uh we see that truth uh eats to her feel uh to the extent that there's even leftovers and therefore we see that uh buzz is sort of uh privileging this this this foreign woman and we can see that he he's becoming gradually becoming fond of her wow so yeah i so it sounds like he's treating her with special treatment yeah uh and i'd like to just point out a comment from lydia mughir she has said boaz was selfless yeah i think that would you agree with that yeah and as much as he liked ruth he knew there was someone who was entitled to redeemer so i think uh she's kind of pointing ahead to what we'll get to eventually right so we can always see that there's a special treatment that boaz has towards ruth and he she takes some harvest home and it comes to the end of uh of chapter two and before that i just want to say that did you notice that a lot of what was spoken about a lot of what was spoken about ruth was about their character right and you know usually when you're attracted in relationships we often focus on the outside appearance right but we see here boaz is commending roots character and the person that she is so i think this is a good lesson for relationships right yeah okay great so um so we see now ruth goes home she goes home uh towards the end of chapter two and she tells naomi of uh what she's taking place that you know she met this man her name is bo his name is boaz and she gave him harvest and nelson why don't you read the words that naomi says in chapter 2 verses 20. okay the lord bless him now he said to her daughter-in-law he has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead she added that man is our close relative he is one of our guardian redeemers interesting thank you so here we see that naomi naomi has changed her mood clearly the last time we heard of naomi she was devastated she didn't even want to be called naomi because of how she felt she had been treated by the lord but now she's what is she saying about god that god is what is how kind is god blessed be the lord for his kindness this seems like quite the contrast severe i mean this is quite a contrast so it is human nature as stephanie said to express sadness and grief as a result of you know suffering especially those who share an intimate connection with us now naomi's beginning circumstances in arriving at bethlehem caused her depression and remembrance of her lifeless family distinctively now naomi recognized that boaz is being like the kingsman redeemer and is ultimately going to save their family as we saw earlier being a potential husband to ruth and this made naomi optimistic full of joy and hope and she altered her view of god and began to catch sight of god's benevolent spirit now god never changed he was still the same but my but naomi was subsumed in her current situation oblivious of her hopeful future now jeremiah 29 verse 11 says for i know the plans that i have for you plans declares the lord plans for welfare and not for evil to give you hope and a future therefore this grants the readers hope and encouragement regardless of our episodes of grief and despair i would also like to point out that at the beginning we learned that god brought two far minds in naomi's life the farming of the famine that happened where they didn't have food to eat in the land of bethlehem and the famine in which she lost her husband and her two sons and further on we learned that god blessed naomi with the presence of ruth the presence of the harvest and now boaz a kingsman who is going to be a blessing in their lives and i think that's that's clearly testimony to what um god god is to us um he clearly states um in the bibles in joshua chapter 1 verse 9 the bible says have have not i commanded thee be strong and of good courage be not afraid neither be thou dismayed for the lord thy god is with thee withersoever thou goest therefore the lord promises us us that whatever um adversity we may be facing whatever problems we may encounter he has told us that he is with us wherever we go amen amen and i hope you guys are listening i hope the audience is listening to this amazing lesson that we have already learning that now naomi one chapter later is praising god despite the situation that they've been through in that now we realize that god had never left them he'd never left them he was always there and he was working for their good in spite of the losses and the adversity that they had gone through and so we want to encourage you whatever you might be going through now whatever season of loss you might be going through uh it has been a very difficult season for many with the pandemic and everything we want to encourage you through this story that god is still with you god still has a plan for your life to bring about a hope and a future amen right now nelson um we do realize though that god actually used a human being to bless naomi who was that human being ruth right and it's because of the promise that ruth had made the commitments that she had made so could you just remind us what part of ruth's promise had she kept towards naomi yeah um ruth's promises root's promise is found in chapter 1 verse 16 of ruth so far by the end of chapter two we've seen that she's mingled with the people that people of bethlehem in when she went to glean in the farm uh she's also stayed with naomi in the land of bethlehem all this time and she even wants to know more about now is god in during this period amen amen and so yeah i mean this is just a very encouraging a very encouraging chapter we've learned about naomi and and ruth ruth going into the field now we hear about uh boaz who is a great leader and uh we're gonna take a break uh just now uh before we dive into chapters 3 and chapters 4. and we want you to come with questions come with any comments that you have we'll be trying to read more of what what the audience also has to say but let's just say it's going to be it's going to get quite interesting while we were studying this chapter there was lots of debate lots of questions in the last two chapters and so we encourage you to stick with us after the break and before we before we close for five minutes i'm just going to ask subira to just say a prayer for us as we close for the small break hey let's pray dear father god thank you so much for this day thank you for blessing us and protecting us for everyone who is watching us right now and the physical audience with us here thank you lord for this book of ruth for teaching us new stories and giving us a season of hope in these trying times lord i thank you for the gift of life health and strength i just pray as we go for a break and we dive into the next chapters of the book i pray that we may take away life lessons and apply to our lives in jesus name i pray and believe amen amen amen we'll see you after the break through god be the glory [Music] to god be the glory [Music] to god [Music] for the things he has done [Music] how can i say thanks for the things you have done for me [Music] yet you gave to prove your love for me [Music] could not express my grand teachers [Music] all that i am and ever hope to be [Music] be the glory to god be the glory to god be the glory [Music] for the things he has done with his blood he has saved be the glory for the things he has done to god be the glory great things he had done so loved ye the world that he gave us his son who yielded his life and atonement sin and open the life gates that all may go in praise the lord praise the lord let the earth hear his voice praise the lord praise the lord let the people rejoice o come to the father through jesus and give him the glory great things he has done with his blood he has saved me with his heart he has raised me to god be the glory for the things he has done to god be the glory [Music] to god be the glory for the things for the things for the things here [Music] happy sabbath welcome back from the break and thank you for joining us if you're joining us now for the first time we are studying the book of ruth today and with me my name is teacher david from teens class and with me i have my fellow panelists subira akana nelson and stephanie and we are now in chapter three of the book of ruth continuing the story where we left off and i'm gonna ask alkana to open us with a quick prayer to ask for god to continue to guide us as we study the word gain wisdom and then we'll start by reading the first few verses of chapter three so akana would you open us let's pray dear god we come before you once again we thank you for this opportunity that you've given us to fellowship together and to read your word and to learn from it we pray lord that as we uh we continue with the study of the book of ruth that you may be with us and that you may guide us in jesus name i pray amen amen amen so nelson please take us through the first four verses of chapter three because now the story begins to get a bit interesting when naomi comes to ruth with a specific request yeah i'll start one day ruth's mother-in-law naomi said to her my daughter i must find a home for you where you where you will be well probably provided for now boas with these women you you have worked he's a relative of yours of ours tonight he will be winning bali on the threshing floor wash put on perfume and get dressed in your best clothes then go down to the threshing floor but don't let him know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking when he lies down notice the place where he's lying then go and uncover his feet and lie down he'll tell you what to do okay that was a bunch of interesting instructions so stephanie could you just clarify to us what exactly is naomi asking ruth to do so naomi is asking ruth to get familiar with the man boaz she wants ruth to now have a husband for herself since boaz from the beginning of chapter two we learned that boaz is the kingsman redeemer a relative whom ruth could marry to keep the name of her husband alive in the family so technically naomi knew what she was doing sending ruth to the farm of boss for her to work there she wanted ruth to develop a relationship with boys for them to get to know each other and to get to to have them have a relationship which could lead to marriage in the future oh okay and i think you brought up a good point that even though we we've just moved on from chapter two to chapter three there's actually a span of a few months that takes place between uh this request taking place so ruth has had time to work in the fields she's really gotten maybe to to know the people around her maybe no bars as well and so basically you're saying that ruth is asking naomi's asking ruth to go and propose to to boaz i hope you're getting this okay and actually interestingly enough a popular name given to this chapter is the proposal all right now we don't want to miss this we don't want to miss this because we know in today's age who usually does the proposal the man right but in this specific case we see that ruth is being asked to go and propose for boaz's hand in marriage okay now this sounds quite counter-cultural all right so before we talk about that i want us to also look at are there any other parts of this chapter or this story where we find things that are quite strange to our culture because i think that's something important to understand about the scripture is that there are a lot of things that might not be very uh accepted in today's culture but what are those things what do you guys think elkanah um first of all for me i find it interesting that ruth and boaz are real relatives um naomi uh is we had established from chapter two that boz is is a kinsmen of elimelech and therefore they're they're relatives and there's this we see it throughout the the most of the old testament we see that um abraham and sarah we we see um jacob and and leia and rachel and now we're seeing boaz is marrying ruth who is a relative and and that would be really strange if if you were to see that in today's in today's world um then again we we see that um there's this succession of spouses ruth ruth had been married to to elimelech sorry to to marlon and now she she's she's being um sort of passed on and now it's a kinsmen kinsmen redeemer who is boss in this in this uh context and boaz is is is like us is like an issue a successor of of of marlon now uh in in roots uh in roots uh context and then again um we had seen that boaz was was a leader we had established his his attributes but what we hadn't said was that he was actually uh quite quite aged he was a man of age he was about twice the age of of ruth he was about 80 years and ruth was about 40 years and and you look at um ruth is going to propose to to a man uh of of that age and as much as uh we might see it uh we might see glimpses of this in today's in today's uh world it um it's not really something that that you'd see on an everyday basis but that's that someone as old as as bo as it is here uh is is walking on the streets uh declaring this is my wife and then she's 35 40 years but as i've said um it's something that you we might see in today's culture and and these this might be based on on some motives that's that deviate from what god had instituted marriage to be at first maybe there's the motive of um this this woman has seen that the man is is wealthy and she can she can predict that um he might not stay in on earth as long and and she can she can be the issue she can be the the inheritor of this of this property uh but um most marriages that we see that are of that that uh difference in in age um you wouldn't say that they're based on what god instituted marriage to be at the garden of eden interesting wow so that's a that's a good point the difference in age the fact that it was a relative uh very different from our culture but let's let's go back to this idea of uh ruth proposing siberia i'm curious to hear your thoughts do you think it's okay for i mean do you think it's okay for a woman to propose just like ruth had done okay so i think historical context is key and internalizing and interpreting certain messages in the bible and in society's modern culture the gestures used to enact the proposal considering a huge event to be performed by a male figure now my opinion perceived produces the argument of male commitment in a proposal and therefore the male figure proves some sort of submission in willing to commit to this marriage my thought is it is still okay for women to propose in fact it doesn't matter but due to the lack of commitment mostly from the male side then they are required to propose interesting interesting so you're saying it's it you think it might be okay for women to propose but in today's culture it seems like men proposing is a sign of their commitment to this lifelong decision right we actually had a comment here i'm curious to hear the rest of your thoughts as well we actually had a comment here from lydia moghire that said men are hunters they prefer to be chasers and not to be chaste so that's interesting what you said is roots approach ideal is roots approach ideal um i think i can go first in in if it were in our context today the motive behind this this proposal um maybe um say we've used ruth in this context ruth has seen that um uh let's put ruth in our world today he's seen that um this man is taking too long maybe uh to propose and and he might be unsure maybe and and she feels like if this doesn't happen then i might as well move on so she takes it upon herself ruth takes it upon herself and and proposes to as subira has said to to gauge the level of commitment that he is ready to to to put himself into and i think um there's a certain uh difference that we see in in the way um maybe this proposal would happen as compared to today ruth is so straightforward and and direct the way naomi had instructed her go and lie at his feet and if you look at today's uh context of a proposal um someone would most proposals would happen probably in in an extravagant place um people even talk of the eiffel tower in paris at the top and you're proposing there with with this expensive ring um or a fancy restaurant and you know the the the straightforward and and simple uh way in which ruth uh proposes to to boast is is an interesting uh factor to consider here you should also look at the behind the scenes of naomi trying to sort of push this you know this marriage because she is very excited as we witness she's very happy that now boaz is a relative and we need to get ruth to marry boaz so she did really push for it i think in terms of it being ideal definitely god as we could see that he has you know connected these characters in many ways in which naomi could not do so so god could have done something else he would have performed a different way of pro like you know proposing but that's how it is that's how it happens so you've brought a good point here that naomi was quite involved in that action right now miss one who said go and do this so we see that a parent is very involved in this romantic or marital decision making yes so in a way we could say it was sort of an arranged marriage so that's something that might not be so okay in this day and age what do you guys think about arranged marriages do you think it's okay similar to how naomi was involved in that decision i definitely have no problem with arranged marriages when it comes to if the two candidates who are being married together are for it and their opinion opinions are acknowledged but if it's when the two candidates are totally not for it i find arranged marriages should not be allowed i think this technique of manufacturing you know relationships sounds like a rightful decision with a side of you know this modernized culture of going through the process of falling in love and developing this strong affection and you know bottom line both situations require work now young people believe that you must be smitten you know swept off your feet and you know well following love may be infatuation with it comes kisses love and this whole hugs and stuff and all manner of things that allow but i believe that marriage is not about falling in love but rather growing in love and as we see in first corinthians chapter 13 you can say you know thomas tom is love by tom is kind michael is not proud david is not boastful you know those certain things that could define love rather than just someone waking up and constantly giving you gifts and kissing you and hugging you so i think the definition of love has sort of been coined by young people in this society and i do agree ranged marriages are good wow well i'm encouraged to to hear the wisdom coming from our young teens uh regarding some of these issues maybe some of us may think the young people have changed their culture has changed but i'm encouraged to hear some of these thoughts that are quite thoughtful looking at the biblical model of course there are different cultural aspects but i think you guys have brought out some very good principles when it comes to the issues of relationships and love and while we may still be young right now i think uh it's good to know that you're thinking about these things in a way that uh considers uh what love is according to the scripture it considers the fact that parents usually are sometimes involved in these decisions and it should be encouraged and so i'm encouraged i don't know about you maybe we should be thanking the parents for your example as well so this is this is interesting so now we find that boaz has been given a proposal okay now as a man he's not saying oh no now it's my turn to propose he's he's he's actually a response to it in a positive way nelson how does boaz respond to ruth's request that she makes and what about it seems to be not as straightforward as it seems because one could just simply say yes let's get married but it seems it's not that straightforward well in the in chapter three when after ruth proposes boaz accept almost instantly but you can't exactly marry ruth because there's um there's someone who's closer and right the closer user closer relative to ali malek and is the rightful kingsman redeemer so he can't just go and marry ruth because this guy is still here so he has to go and ask him first interesting so he has to go and ask the other relative who's closer if they can marry right so it also shows some sort of a respect for the cultural norms right that yes they they might be interested in each other but they they can't just you know they're not just going to elope and run away and get married right it seems that he's being respectful for the cultural and societal um norms that must be followed in order for this to happen right and so we we come to to to this point where um boaz is saying yes in terms of being a kinsmen redeemer to my ruth and maybe something we didn't highlight is that ruth actually had the right if you go read i think in leviticus it said the woman had the right to ask her relative who was the kinsman to marry her for the sake of inheritance so but it seems ruth is doing it in a more humble way um but beyond the kinsmen redeemer that we see here in the scripture we learn of another kinsman redeemer in the bible who is this kinsmen redeemer so as i made an illusion earlier i connected the character of boaz to jesus and now in the days of the garden of eden we were wedded to god but sin penetrated that beautiful connection between god and humankind in god's attempt of killing the entire world by means of renewal it was not adequate enough to reconnect this intermission between us and the lord now we see in john 3 16 in god's substantial love for the universe he sacrificed his beloved son jesus christ now boaz was referred to as a kingsman redeemer with a sacrificial duty to redeem the widow and one might see that christ is our kingsman redeemer restoring that connection to us widows lost to be redeemed by his blood amen amen jesus is our kinsmen redeemer amen he's the one who redeemed us when we had lost our inheritance not because of what he did but because of what we had done yes and out of his love for us we know john 3 16 for god sent his own for god loved the world so much that he sent his only son that whoever believes in him might not perish but have everlasting life and that just tells us how jesus himself came to propose to us right to be married to his church and wants to redeem us amen actually teacher david we see that boas saw something in ruth as we had established earlier and if we go back to verse 11 of chapter 3 it says and now my daughter fear not i will do to thee all that thou requirest for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman so it says that all the city already knows um that the truth is is virtuous and if we were to bring that to the context of christ we we had established that uh christ christ is a groom and the church is is a bride and and if if we establish these virtues that christ tells us um the bible tells us in ecclesiastes chapter 12 um that we should fear god and keep his commandments for this is man's all and that is the virtue that we should we should be portraying that we should fear him and keep his commandments and and it's something that my mother has always said to my cousins who are getting married to my sister to myself that you cannot marry someone who does not share your your virtues someone who who does not um portray what you believe in and therefore we we as christians should portray um what christ intends for us to to portray amen amen amen and i want to read some comments uh i want to read some comments from the online audience here so um one we have a comment here that says i see boaz was a righteous man ruth spent a night sharing a blanket with bars that's would you agree did she did they well he was he was sleeping at his feet right okay boaz did not take advantage of her by going any further but rather protected her reputation amen amen and uh another question here and maybe we'll answer this in the next uh in the next chapter from dunka and it says did boaz have a family before meeting ruth and did their marriage align to this tradition so did boaz have a family before meeting ruth what do you guys think just just to to go back on the first question to reiterate on it uh in verse eight we see that and it came to pass at midnight that the man was afraid and turned himself and behold our woman lay at his feet and and we we it begs the question why was he afraid what made him afraid uh in the middle of the night in his sleep and in the old testament um we we learned that uh that the devils usually were considered to to be bold on their hair and and maybe he felt uh something touching his legs and and he awoke and he's he's uh he's afraid but i guess he touched ruth's head and and felt that she had hair and and it was a woman so so to to go back on on the first question uh it's interesting how how he would he would just wake up randomly but then he as we have established is a man of of of good good character and indeed he does not take advantage of her and in fact he he tells her that um he is not the rightful um kinsman redeemer at first and therefore they must go to the rightful uh man at first before before it comes to him and it shows um his his his moral integrity um something that that as i uh had said he's a leader something that many leaders of key virtue that many leaders should have which is justness amen amen yeah now we see that indeed they were they were both people of high um moral integrity and uh despite this circumstance um we see them yeah acting in accordance with with what god would have wanted so we want to we want to find out what happens next in chapter four and boaz in chapter four if we read chapter four i'll ask stephanie to read chapter four verses one two two four and it says now boys went up to the gates and sat down there and behold the close relative of whom boaz had spoken came by so boaz said come aside friend sit down here so he came aside and sat down and he took ten men of the elders of the city and said sit down here so they sat down then he said to the close relative naomi who has come back from the country of moab sold the piece of land which belonged to our brother elimelech and i thought to inform you saying buy it back in the presence of the inhabitants and the elders of my people if you will redeem it redeem it but you will not redeem it then me that i may know for there is no one but you to do to redeem it and i am next after you and he said i will redeem it okay so boaz has approached uh there's a there's a practice they do where they go to the outside of the gate when they're meeting as elders it's an important decision that needs to be made and boaz approaches this relative that he's spoken about in the previous chapter that he can't just marry ruth because he's a closer relative who actually has the right to be the kinsman yeah but now he's almost now explaining that now he needs to make that decision it seems the relative might not be might not have been aware i might not have been interested and it sounds like he says yes at first based on what he read in verse four but then he actually goes back and changes his mind the relative instead of accepting to be the redeemer he changes his mind now nelson why do you think he changes his mind so after the kings and redeemer accept he quickly changes his mind because he possibly could not have the funds to acquire the land from naomi but another reason why he he may be declined was that uh naomi and ruth coming into his homestead he may have not been able to to to keep them take care of them both of them another reason why he could have also declined is because um once he passes on the distribution of his wealth might be a bit damaged maybe a bit awkward and to also add to nelson we learned from the book of deuteronomy that israelites and moabites did not get along israelites hated the presence of moabites in their land or anywhere close to them so maybe this king's man's redeemer because he decided to not redeem it not marry ruth could have been because he also didn't like that ruth was a moabite and and to david it's interesting how um this context uh is sort of set up like like a courtroom you know and it's we see that there's there's uh ten men of the elders who who in this case might act as as as a witnesses and a jury at the same time then again we see um how boss explains to to this kinsman that um the the terms of of of this this in quotes contract that that is is is uh legally binding let's say and and it's it's interesting how um one one one clause or this this phrase that he says um that he should he should sell sell a person of his land changes this this kinsman's mind and and he's all of a sudden backing out and and that's that's uh goes to show uh certain uh cleverness in in boz that he knew that he wanted to to marry um ruth and and he he felt like if he said this he would change his mind yeah no it sounds like this relative has his reasons but he's just not keen in fact in verse six it says and the close relative said i cannot redeem it for myself lest i ruin my own inheritance for some so for whatever reason and i love the reasons you guys have highlighted for whatever reason marrying and accepting to marry ruth he feels will bring him harm will bring him destruction will inconvenience him in some way right but on the other hand what do you think boaz thinks do you think boss thinks the same not at all right boss thinks this is the best like this will bless me so much so it's interesting the contrast that it's the same individual that we're talking about but the different circumstances this relative does not want to go ahead and so as a result we find a specific practice done where there's a sandal is removed and it's given from the relative to boaz to signify that now boaz could marry ruth and boaz and ruth are now successfully allowed to marry so we're getting to i guess the the climax of the story is not to get married uh but still this is a non-israelite marrying an israelite sabira what significance does this kind of story of uh intercultural marriage especially in this culture and with the hebrew people and the non-israelites what significance does this marriage have for the bible yes thank you teacher david so primarily the societal ranking and the distinction between jews and gentiles and you know different cultures is strongly conveyed in the bible and although culture may oppose this marriage because of them maybe being unequally yoked with different beliefs and different ethnicities however god is an all-inclusive god and despite societal rankings and ethnicities god is for all which indicates the overall theme of the bible and we see that in boz's character while the true kingsman redeemer doesn't have that wow and it's interesting that you say that that god is for all because we have a comment here from a lady called mary botta she says is our christianity so lovely to the gentiles that they can take our god as their own our people as their people if god is for all then do other people see that this christ this jesus that we confess to love is he for them as well easy for them as well and so i love that you pointed that out and it's a question for us to all think about as we read this story of of ruth a more biters marrying another israelite but they still worship the same the same god the same god now stephanie uh the end of this chapter at the end of this chapter it ends with a genealogy now genealogies we know the book of numbers for example uh it's it's not something we usually find to be quite interesting to read we tend to skip over maybe when you're looking a name for your kids you look at the genealogy then i'll have to confess that's what i do but genealogies actually have significance in scripture and so i'd like to ask you what significance does a genealogy being part of the book of ruth have for this story so the question that i asked you all to have in mind while we dive deep into this book was why ruth had her own book in the bible and this is especially because of this genealogy that comes at the end of this book and this genealogy is the genealogy of david which is also the genealogy of jesus and this is there for us to understand why and how jesus's ancestral path was formed and to see how diverse it was ruth was a moabite woman was not an israelite was not from bethlehem so this is to show that god does not discriminate and to show how jesus's ancestral path is very diverse and it is also rare for women to be put in ancestral in genealogies since we only know of four women who are put in genealogies for example rahab tamar and ruth and also mary of magdal wow wow i think you mentioned something interesting there that in the genealogy of christ yeah i think that's in matthew chapter one for women feature so we said ruth of course features who else rahab as nelson mentioned for us tamar tamar okay do you guys remember the fourth one there's a hint right solomon's wife uh it actually says uriah's wife bathsheba and the common thing across all these four women who feature in jesus's genealogy is that they're all non-israelites they're all foreigners i find that interesting don't you uh that that the bible would go ahead to be intentional to include these foreign women who had chosen the faith of of the israelites and chosen to yeah to worship god and god decided that jesus the son of god the sinless one would come through this particular lineage and i found that to be quite interesting and and quite a blessing that yes this book is about a foreign about women and you know during the time of jesus we find that the pharisees were so hateful and so spiteful towards foreigners yet the very fact that jesus was there was teaching them and the very fact that this book is that was supposed to teach them that the messiah himself has a lineage of foreigners how should we treat those who are not like us if this is the case so we find that as well as the end of this chapter there are number of blessings that are pronounced upon ruth upon well upon naomi actually but a blessing that is given to naomi is that she has gained a daughter ruth who is better than seven sons better than seven sons what does this mean this blessing that is pronounced upon naomi as a result of this marriage that now ruth her daughter is better than seven sons are canon yes um it's it's uh it's an interesting phrase there that the bible has used and and if we uh look through the bible a lot we'll see the number seven appearing uh quite a quite a lot um but uh let's first start off with with uh the the sons part um children are a blessing from god we learn that from the bible and if we uh read from um psalms 127 verse 3 it says lo children are an heritage of the lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward and the heritage here means they belong to god um children they yeah they belong to god and if we if we look at um samuel as well we see that the bible says the baron hath born seven sons and so it's it's interesting that we see this this connotation and it alludes to an ideal family seven sons uh it alludes to an ideal family we see that males in in bible times were given a sort of prestige a higher a higher prestige as compared to to the females and and therefore sons is used um to to show roots um importance to to naomi and now to boast as well then we come to to the number seven which which is a symbol of holiness um we see the bibles uh use uh seven gold lampstands um the holy spirit is is called the seven spirits of god um uh the lamb in revelation has seven horns and and seven seven eyes which which shows its its perfection and and its holy being and therefore we see that truth is is a special gift that god has given to naomi and now to boys indeed we see the number seven is very important in the bible and i love the fact that you said the baron has borne seven sons and at the beginning of this whole book of ruth we see that there's a loss of sons you know um and husbands and the lord essentially repaid ruth with a son obed which is identi who is identified in the genealogy of christ in abundance which rectifies god's plan described throughout the book wow seven sons to receive such a compliment again she was she was not a blood relative yes but she was claimed to be even better than seven sons the number of perfection what a blessing ruth was to to naomi and uh now i want to hear from you guys what what is your takeaway from from this book and i'd love to hear from the online audience as well please share your comments as we listen to the various takeaways what is your takeaway personal takeaway from the story of ruth of boaz of naomi from this story what is uh your takeaway nelson i'd like to say that this book um really highlights that god can use unlikely people for divine purposes just the same way he used ruth to redeem his heart to turn back towards god he can also use us things uh in a way to bring the word of god to other people out there amen amen amen stephanie i would take the the lesson of loyalty the loyalty that ruth showed towards naomi because this day's loyalty is something that is not there between families between friends between even people who are strangers and it also shows that we do not necessarily have to be relatives for us to be to acknowledge ourselves as family amen thank you for that uh thank you um i think my take home would be um that to evangelize uh we need to show an example we need to portray that character of jesus christ ruth saw this this character in in marlon and chilean and definitely in naomi and assumably in in early malek and and she was drawn to that because of the the example that they set so we as adventists as well we should set an example uh for others to follow and therefore uh bring them uh to christ through this example so the the best form of testimony would be by example amen amen thank you for that and siberia yes my take away from this fundamental book is the power of love the love of god the love of others and the love of family and i believe that love is the key to unlocking this miniature heaven and earth we see examples in these interconnected characters of naomi ruth and boaz demonstrating their love for each other the love of god and yes god's love manifested in their circumstances and love is redefined by loyalty and integrity by not only but them but god in naomi's quick alteration of emotions towards god god still remained faithful revealing his remembrance of each and every one of us amen amen and i love how you finished with it's a book again about god and god's love and so i want to read some comments here uh takeaways so we had mary again share that i always say to achane with our attitudes towards sinners or the so-called non-believers god doesn't look at people the way we do we don't even know if the person repented last night this is interesting this is interesting take away from this story you know we we really look at the story of of ruth and though we'd label her as a foreigner though we'd label her as a stranger which she sees on the outside she may look different but we see she ascribes to the faith of god right we see the story of her life we see the story of boaz's life a man whose mother was a foreigner and i think it really caused us to be patient and to try to discern and see people as god sees we have another comment here from lilian that says boaz and ruth's love story is about god's amazing love for all humankind specifically his desire for his people who are hurting and hungry amen amen amen i think i think that's my takeaway as well that it's it's really you know god is not mentioned a lot in this story as subia actually mentioned that at the beginning and uh i'd say that despite god's name not being mentioned specifically and there's another book in the bible that god's name is not really mentioned do you guys know which book that is it's another woman book of esther the book of esther correct the book of esther god's not mentioned you don't really see his name mentioned or him doing certain things but yet he's very much there he's very much there his presence is manifested in in the throughout the book amen amen yes his presence is manifested throughout the book and so i hope that each of us as we've taken all these lessons from today's panel we'll all just remember that god is continuously present in your life and he calls us to be made aware of that presence of his presence in our life and how he wants to bless us how he wants to minister to us and how he wants to use us as a used ruth to be a blessing to naomi and so i think the question we would all leave with you today is how will you be a ruth to a naomi in your life it might not be your mother-in-law it might be a friend a sibling a stranger a colleague how will you allow god to use you to be a ruth in someone else's life and so with that we would like to thank you so much for being a part of this study with us today uh we encourage you to be part of teen's class this is we actually studied this book a few weeks back in our vespas we're currently studying first samuel and so we love to study the bible all these comments that have been shared are things that they studied themselves the panelists went on and really started deep praying for god to give them wisdom and we'd like to invite you to do the same in your own classes but also join us if you're a teen as well and so to close i'll ask stephanie to close us for this afternoon and happy sabbath to you all stephanie are you closest in prayer let's put our of prayer oh dear lord we thank you for this day we thank you for allowing us to be able to present this book this fundamental book in the bible about the woman named ruth who has taught us about loyalty taught us not to discriminate and taught us to always keep our faith in terms of tamworth we thank you for allowing us to be able to deliver this to the audience and we pray that this has taught them something and taught them to also be better human beings in their lives we pray that as they may go home and as we may go home that you may learn to always be like christ and to all have to all have christ-like characters it's the same i pray amen amen god bless you god bless you [Music] [Music] is your name how wonderful grace is [Applause] [Music] precious [Music] great is your name oh lord christ is your name wonderful is your name [Music] how wonderful lord how wonderful [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] your precious [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] wonderful [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

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Length: 121min 20sec (7280 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 25 2021