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Planning, Action, and Providence Ruth 3 August 16Th, 2020 Big Idea: Human Planning and Action Is Compatible with God’S Sovereign Providence

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Planning, Action, and Providence Ruth 3 August 16Th, 2020 Big Idea: Human Planning and Action Is Compatible with God’S Sovereign Providence Planning, Action, and Providence Ruth 3 August 16th, 2020 Big idea: Human planning and action is compatible with God’s sovereign providence. Intro If God is sovereign over His world so that all His plans happen just as He desires, do our plans and actions really matter? Ephesians 1:11 who works all things after the counsel of His will, If God really controls everything, why bother making plans about the future and taking initiative? If our choices are real and meaningful, how does God exercise any kind of control in His world? How do we make plans, take action, and still trust in God’s providence? Are those things compatible? Does trusting God require passivity? Does action and initiative imply a lack of trust in God? Ruth 3 is not a theological unpacking of all those questions. But it is a clear account of people making plans, taking action, and God working providentially through their actions. In that way it is helpful in understanding the way that our meaningful choices can work hand in hand with God’s sovereign providence over His world. Summary of Ruth 1-2 Ch 1 starts bad. A family of a husband, wife named Naomi, and two sons leave Israel for Moab because of famine. The husband dies. The sons marry. The sons die. Naomi decides to return home to Israel. One daughter in law returns to her people and her gods. But one, Ruth, decides to follow Naomi because she follows Naomi’s God. They return just as the harvest begins. Ch 2 introduces another character, Boaz. He’s honorable, godly, kind, and wealthy. He shows kindness to Ruth as she gathers extra grain from the fields. We learn that he is also a distant relative of Naomi and Ruth. What will happen next? What will happen between Ruth and Boaz? 1. The plan of Naomi (3:1-5) a. Based on the end of chapter 2, this is likely almost two months later. b. Notice that the plan initiates with Naomi not Ruth. i. Change from ch 2 in which Ruth initiates and heads to the fields with Naomi’s approval. c. The goal was security not romance. i. When Naomi attempted to dismiss Orpah and Ruth in ch 1, she prayed that they would find this rest with a husband back in Moab. ii. Ruth 1:8-9 And Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go, return each of you to her mother's house. May the LORD deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me. 9 "May the LORD grant that you may find rest, each in the house of her husband." Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. iii. Now she is attempting to play a role in finding this for Ruth. It’s a picture of the Lord working through the active plans and decision making of people. 1. However strange we might find her strategy to be, her initiative within God’s boundaries is good. 2. What a contrast to the brief scenes we see in chapter 1 in which her family took initiative in ways that are outside God’s boundaries. a. Leaving Israel for Moab was questionable at best. b. Marrying gentiles was clearly forbidden. i. And yet even that was used by God. 3. Here she is taking action but it is within the scope of God’s revealed will. a. Marriage is good and arranged by God for many benefits. b. Marrying within the community of people following the Lord, of which Ruth is now a part. c. Appealing to the principle of the kinsmen-redeemer in the spirit of the levirate marriage. d. Why does she come up with this plan that seems strange to us? i. Keep in mind we are removed from this event by 3,200 years and major cultural differences. 1. Many things are unchanging – human nature, the desire for marriage, human planning and God’s providence. 2. Many things are different. ii. Threshing floor 1. Place where they take the grain after the harvest to beat it (thresh it) to knock the grain loose and toss it in the air (winnow) to allow the evening breeze to blow away the chaff. The grain could then be collected from the hard floor. 2. It was a community place, used by all the families in the city. 3. 4. Likely large, hard surface of stone or packed soil, with space in the middle to thresh the grain and room on the side to pile your grain before it is bagged for storage or sale. 5. Boaz would be there all night, probably to keep it safe from thieves. 6. Others would be their also so it was important that she notice where Boaz laid down. If this plan seems loaded with potential embarrassment, imagine if she uncovered the wrong feet! iii. Boaz would be in a good mood with a full stomach and the delight of the harvest. iv. Ruth was to look and smell her very best. 1. These phrases of bathing, anointing with oil (like perfume), putting on your best clothes are associated with marriage. v. But why is she to uncover his feet and lie down? 1. That’s the part that probably strikes you as odd. There are a couple possible explanations. 2. Practical – she is trying to find a way to talk to him privately, alone. Uncovering his feet exposed him to the chilly night air, making it likely that he would wake up in the middle of the night and notice her there. She could then have the desired conversation. 3. Cultural – it may communicate something culturally that they would both understand as a proposal of marriage. a. Related to her request that he “spread [his] covering over” her (v. 9) b. You might say, that’s a strange way to propose marriage! But is it much stranger than the way we do it or is it just that we understand our cultural process but don’t understand theirs. i. A man gets a ring with a rock stuck to it – does he find the rock himself? No, he buys it. ii. He finds a way to be alone with her. iii. He bends down on one knee and presents to her this ring with a rock on it. iv. She agrees and puts the ring with the rock on one particular finger – the fourth finger down on her left hand. If it isn’t on that finger it doesn’t mean the same thing. 4. Jewish and Christian scholars have struggled with how to interpret and translate this passage for centuries. Are there implied hints of something sexually improper? Is this wise what Ruth is counseled to do? vi. The next move is up to Boaz. 1. This is a risky proposition. What will Boaz do next? Will he take advantage of her vulnerable situation? We don’t think so, based on what we already know about Boaz. Will he understand her request? Will he be bothered by her initiative? e. Ruth agrees – all that you say I will do. i. Now, how will this unfold? There are human plans in the works. Would they coincide with God’s plans? Would they be like Abraham and Sarai who came up with a plan to produce an heir by involving Sarai’s maid, Hagar? In that case God gave a clear “no,” that was not his plan. ii. It reminds me of another woman in the Old Testament who made plans and then had to trust the Lord with how they would turn out – Esther. 2. The proposal of Ruth (3:6-9) a. She went down to the threshing floor, likely “down” because it was a lower location than the city of Bethlehem. b. She followed the plan exactly up until a point. i. She waited, she watched, she came secretly, she uncovered his feet, she lay down. c. In the middle of the night he awoke and was startled. i. This upright, honorable Israelite suddenly found himself face to face with an unknown woman in a secluded corner of the threshing floor. ii. It was obviously dark enough and he was sufficiently confused that he didn’t recognize her and had to ask. d. Here’s where Ruth departed from the script. i. Rather than wait for Boaz to take the next move, she took the initiative. ii. Spread your covering of protection iii. Ezekiel. 16:8 "Then I passed by you and saw you, and behold, you were at the time for love; so I spread My skirt over you and covered your nakedness. I also swore to you and entered into a covenant with you so that you became Mine," declares the Lord GOD. iv. Asked Boaz to answer his own prayer, as he had prayed in ch 2. 1. Ruth 2:12 "May the LORD reward your work, and your wages be full from the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to seek refuge." v. She appealed to his position as a close relative – the kinsmen-redeemer vi. Bought back family land that was sold 1. Leviticus 25:25 'If a fellow countryman of yours becomes so poor he has to sell part of his property, then his nearest kinsman is to come and buy back what his relative has sold. vii. Marry the childless widow of a deceased brother 1. Deuteronomy 25:5-6 "When brothers live together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a strange man.
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