Write to us at: USA: RBC Ministries PO Box 2222 Grand Rapids, MI 49501-2222 CANADA: Radio Bible Class (Canada) Box 1622 Windsor, ON N9A 6Z7 RBC Web site: www.rbc.org Many people, making even the smallest of donations, enable RBC Ministries to reach others with the life-changing wisdom of the Bible. We are not funded or endowed by any group or denomination. HP051 HP051 Ruth & Hannah pp 9/27/04 4:06 PM Page 1 RUTH & HANNAH: Learning To Walk By Faith he women of the Bible tell us a lot about TTourselves. Although CONTENTS times have changed, human nature has not. Women as RUTH: different as Ruth and Hannah How To See God can still help us see how In The Dailiness to walk by faith. Of Life . 2 In the following pages, HANNAH: author, Bible teacher, and How To Deal With Depression . 16 professor Alice Mathews shows us that women like Ruth and Hannah are especially important because of what they tell us about our God. She also explores the timeless truth that in the wisdom and grace of God none of us lives above the power of a decision or beyond the reach of our Lord. Martin R. De Haan II Managing Editor: David Sper Cover Painting:“Ruth Gleaning” by James Tissot (1836–1902) Scripture taken from the New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan.All rights reserved. © 2004 RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, Michigan Printed in USA © RBC Ministries. All rights reserved. HP051 Ruth & Hannah pp 9/27/04 4:06 PM Page 2 RUTH: to see who ends up in How To See God his arms. If you have ever sat In The Dailiness down to read the little Of Life book of Ruth in the Old o you enjoy reading? Testament, were you It is my greatest joy tempted to sneak a peak to DDand sometimes my see how the story ends? If besetting sin. I can lose you did, you were probably myself in a good book when disappointed. The final I should be doing other verses of Ruth chapter 4— things. Most of us who enjoy the climax of the whole reading know that a good story—seem anything but story can take us out of the climactic. What we find humdrum sameness of our there is a genealogy: lives and transport us into “Perez was the father of the tension and drama of Hezron, Hezron the father someone else’s experience. of Ram, Ram the father of I have a second question: Amminadab, Amminadab Do you ever sneak a peak at the father of Nahshon, the ending before you get Nahshon the father of there? If you’re into a Salmon,” and so on. Can detective story and it’s time you imagine a duller ending to cook dinner, you may for a story? An author would think you can’t wait to find have to work hard to come out who dunnit. So you up with something more look. Or if it’s a great boring and anti-climactic romance and you can’t than that. stand the thought that the Yet, when we look at wrong girl gets the boy, you this little book of Ruth, we may glance at the last page see a very good storyteller at 2 © RBC Ministries. All rights reserved. HP051 Ruth & Hannah pp 9/27/04 4:06 PM Page 3 work. All the way through To listen to her, it is clear we watch the author that the Stage Director does dropping hints of things not know what He is doing. to come—clues that draw But that’s getting ahead of us in, that keep us aware the story. Begin with the that the plot is thickening. description of the setting Things could turn out as we read it in the script several different ways. Why in Ruth 1:1-5. would the writer want to In the days when the blow a good story with a judges ruled, there was a bad ending? famine in the land, and a To understand that those man from Bethlehem in dull verses at the end of the Judah, together with his book really are the climax— wife and two sons, went and a stunning climax at to live for a while in the that—we have to go back country of Moab. and look at the rest of the The man’s name was story. Then, suddenly, a Elimelech, his wife’s name boring genealogy comes Naomi, and the names of alive and makes sense. his two sons were Mahlon Our story is a play in and Kilion. They were four acts. The five principal Ephrathites from actors on our stage are three Bethlehem, Judah. women—Naomi, Ruth, and And they went to Moab Orpah—and two men—Boaz and lived there. Now and the nearer kinsman. The Elimelech, Naomi’s stage director is God. husband, died, and she Act One. When the was left with her two curtain goes up on the first sons. They married act, we find a bitter old Moabite women, one woman on center stage. named Orpah and the 3 © RBC Ministries. All rights reserved. HP051 Ruth & Hannah pp 9/27/04 4:06 PM Page 4 other Ruth. After they the god Chemosh, not had lived there about ten Jehovah. Elimelech and his years, both Mahlon and family left the familiar for Kilion also died, and the unfamiliar, the known Naomi was left without for the unknown. her two sons and her While in Moab, the husband. family faced first the loss of The setting is in the time the father, Elimelech. Then of the judges. This period of the sons who had both Israel’s history was one of married Moabite women barbaric oppression and also died. The play begins bloodshed. Between violent with three widows in a invasions, tribal civil wars, gloomy, hopeless setting. and unchecked lawlessness, Naomi, on center stage, the Jews had to contend has heard that once again with constant trouble. Now Bethlehem is really the a famine added to their House of Bread. The famine misery. In Bethlehem—the has passed. Food is plentiful House of Bread—there was in Judah. She and her two no bread. Elimelech chose daughters-in-law prepare to to take his family to move to Bethlehem. The neighboring Moab. dialogue in our play begins While the trip to Moab in verse 8: was not a long one—not Then Naomi said to her much more than 30 miles two daughters-in-law, east of Bethlehem— “Go back, each of you, to distance in the Bible, your mother’s home. May as H. W. Morton observed, the Lord show kindness is often measured not in to you, as you have miles but in distance from shown to your dead and God. Moabites worshiped to me. May the Lord 4 © RBC Ministries. All rights reserved. HP051 Ruth & Hannah pp 9/27/04 4:06 PM Page 5 grant that each of you Naomi tried again: will find rest in the home Return home, my of another husband.” daughters. Why would Naomi knew that Orpah you come with me? Am and Ruth faced a bleak and I going to have any more uncertain future if they sons, who could become returned to Bethlehem with your husbands? Return her. They must stay in home, my daughters; I am Moab. She kissed them— too old to have another a sign of release from any husband. Even if I obligation to her. They had thought there was still voluntarily stayed with hope for me—even if I had Naomi after their husbands a husband tonight and had died, but now they then gave birth to sons— could not forfeit their own would you wait until they happiness just to care for grew up? Would you her. Desperate, powerless remain unmarried for to do anything for them, them? No, my daughters. Naomi prayed that God It is more bitter for me would care for them and than for you, because the provide them with husbands Lord’s hand has gone out who would care for them. against me! (1:11-13). But note what Orpah What is the tone of and Ruth answered: “We Naomi’s argument to will go back with you to Orpah and Ruth? It isn’t just your people.” Whether out another effort to persuade of loyalty to their dead them not to stay with her. husbands or out of love for It is also a lament accusing their mother-in-law, Ruth God of botching up her and Orpah pushed on life. It affirms God’s direct toward Bethlehem. But involvement in her life and 5 © RBC Ministries. All rights reserved. HP051 Ruth & Hannah pp 9/27/04 4:06 PM Page 6 His accountability for her returning to Moab. situation. Basically Naomi Can we fault Orpah for told Orpah and Ruth that if going back to Moab? Not at God was “after” her, to stay all. Orpah did the expected with her was to court thing. It is Ruth who did the disaster. unexpected. We understand The second effort to the reasonableness of persuade them had its effect Orpah’s decision. We don’t on Orpah, who kissed her understand the incredible mother-in-law and started loyalty Ruth displayed. back to Moab. But Ruth Ruth demonstrated what still wasn’t persuaded. In the Hebrews called hesed. the next verses we hear her Hesed is a Hebrew unshakable decision to stay word we can translate “loyal with Naomi: love.” It is a love that goes Don’t urge me to leave well beyond the expected.