God gives us some pretty great “for example”s in the Bible. We read laws about leaving gleanings for foreigners, care for widows, provisos for women left without men to care for them, but sometimes we can make excuses for disobedience: “Yeah, what does that really look like?”

Ruth not only gives us a clear picture of how God beautifully designed a social system, it’s shows how He ties this example into the line of David, and ultimately, Christ.

The genealogy of Christ is a beautiful thing to study. It carries the blue prints of a family marked by grace and unconventional righteousness. Things rarely went “to plan”. Tamar wasn’t supposed to have to seduce her father in law by disguising herself as a prostitute, but she did, and Judah called her more righteous than he. Rehab was supposed to die with everyone else in Jericho, but she was protected and brought in to the family of Israel, in return for her protection of the spies. Boaz wasn’t supposed to marry a Moabitess, but in doing so he fulfilled much more than the letter of the law. Bathsheba wasn’t supposed to lose her husband to a lusty, murderous king, but God would bring beauty out of those ashes as well.

Our Best Case Scenarios rarely come to fruition. We don’t all get married at a perfect age, to a perfect spouse, with a perfect job, having the perfect number of kids, in the perfect time, living to a perfect ripe old age. Jesus came into the chaos of our broken, impatient, infertile, afflicted lives and brings about a Righteousness which comes by grace through faith, not by life working out as planned.

His grace is sufficient for our weakness. We come to Him unqualified, like a widowed foreigner, last in line for any sort of inheritance, and He invites us to His seat at the table. 

Nothing like a weird story, where a young gal uncovers a buzzed guy’s feet, to introduce us to God’s family! Thank Him for His inclusion of us, today, and think of ways you can include others in the blessings God has given you.

-Bethany