What’s Pentecost? Why do we study Exodus and Ruth this weekend? And how does the story of Ruth change God’s mind about the Moabites?
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Hi! I’m Miss Tyler and welcome to this week’s episode of Context for Kids where I teach you guys stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel. (Parents, all Scripture this week comes from the MTV, the Miss Tyler Version, which is the Christian Standard Bible modified a bit to make it easier for kids to understand the content and the context).
This weekend is a special weekend on the Bible Calendar because we’re celebrating a festival day called Shavuot, or maybe you have heard it called Pentecost! We talked about this back in Jesus and the Omer. This is the day that we celebrate God giving Moses the Ten Commandments at Mt Sinai. This is the day that the Holy Spirit came down on all of the believers in Jesus after He came out of that tomb totally alive and with a perfect body which can never die ever again! Forty days later, before He went up to be with the Father to sit beside Him, He told His 120 closest followers that they needed to wait and stay in Jerusalem for ten more days. He told them that they would receive something very special from God and that it would make them be able to go out all over the world to teach them the good news about Jesus. But what exactly would happen? John the Baptist said that Jesus would baptize people with the Holy Spirit and with fire! What on earth did that mean? John baptized people in the Jordan River, in water, but how could anyone be baptized in fire? They knew about the Holy Spirit that came upon the prophets and the people who built the Tabernacle—the Spirit allowed people to do all sorts of things and know all sorts of things. But fire? That sounded dangerous no matter how you thought about it. Sometimes in the Bible, fire meant that there was going to be trouble and bullying and sometimes even being killed. In the wilderness, their ancestors had been bitten by fiery snakes. And the whole burning bush thing was really cool but also kinda scary. Would they be on fire without burning up? No one knew but no one wanted to leave town before it happened either.
One thing was sure—they all trusted Jesus and now they knew for sure that He was from God and that He wasn’t just a human being the way they were. They had walked and eaten and slept and talked with him for years and they knew that in a lot of ways he was just a normal human being who needed to do everything that they had to do to stay alive. But Jesus was also very different—He could work miracles that were even greater than Moses or Elijah! And when He talked it was just impossible not to listen to Him. And now His mother was even talking about how Jesus didn’t have a human father and his brothers were admitting how hard it was to live with a big brother who really never did anything wrong and how they thought His claims to be the Messiah were embarrassing and ridiculous. But now they had all seen Him. There was no doubt He had been dead and that He was buried in that rock tomb. And there was no doubt that He was alive again because they had touched Him and eaten with Him and talked with Him just like they used to. Except now He didn’t need to use the door to get into a room anymore. They didn’t entirely understand everything that had happened, but they knew that Jesus was exactly who He always said He was, and a whole lot more. Jesus changed everything.
And so, when the festival of Shavuot came, they were all in town together praying. They didn’t know exactly what to expect, or even when to expect it! But just when the priests in the Temple were making their regular morning offering, the first of twenty-six offerings on that special day, there was a huge sound like a violent wind and it went to where the disciples were all praying and filled the house. And that was when they all saw the fire! Each one of them had fire resting on top of their head and they felt the Holy Spirit fill them up—but that’s not all. Each one of them could speak in languages they didn’t even know and they started talking about Jesus! The people who had followed the noise came near to them and even people from very far away could hear the disciples teaching about Jesus—men and women just like the prophet Joel had said long ago. Even Jesus’s mother and brothers! And when all of those people from Asia and Africa and Europe who had come to the festival heard the story of Jesus they were very upset about what had happened. They asked, “What do we do???” Peter told them that they had to turn away from their sins and be baptized and believe that Jesus is the Messiah. And just that day, three thousand people did just that! Now that’s a reason to celebrate, but it was only the beginning!
But how do you think that Jesus and His disciples celebrated this festival before the resurrection? People who had land to grow crops had to present a basket of their very best fruit at the Temple for God. Kinda like what Cain did but I don’t think He gave the best of the best. For people without land, they could still study the Torah and the stories about God giving the Ten Commandments to Moses—that was always a very exciting story because it made God their king! But there is also another Bible story that the Jews would have all read and celebrated as well. So, today I am going to tell you the story of Ruth—the great-grandmother of King David. But she wasn’t a Hebrew or anyone else who had escaped Egypt—she was a Moabite. And no one was supposed to marry a Moabite, so how did she become not only a grandmother of David, Solomon, and Hezekiah but also Jesus? It’s an amazing story about how kindness changes everything.
First, let’s look at why no one was supposed to marry anyone from the country of Moab. Moses said, “No one from the countries of Ammon or Moab can be one of God’s people; not their kids either, not even their great-(x7) grandchildren can join God’s people. That’s because they didn’t give you anything to eat or drink when you had escaped Egypt and worse, they hired that dude Balaam to curse you.” (Deut 23:3-4) You see, the Moabites and Ammonites and the children of Israel were all cousins. The Israelites came from Abram and the children of Moab and Ammon came from Lot! And we’ve been talking about Lot, a lot, lately in our Genesis lessons. God had given them special land because Lot was Abram’s nephew but they weren’t generous when the children of Israel wanted to pass through their lands on the way to the Holy Land. We know from all through the Bible how important it is to God that we feed the hungry and give a drink to people who are thirsty. But what if someone could change God’s mind about that?
Long ago, during the time of the Judges of Israel, there was a terrible famine and a family moved to the land of Moab, where there was plenty of food. Their names were Elimelech, Naomi, Mahlon, and Chilion. They stayed long enough that the two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, got married to two Moabite women named Orpah and Ruth. But within ten years, all of the men in the family had died! In a world where women couldn’t be educated or get good jobs, a house with three widows in it wasn’t a good place to be. Orpah and Ruth loved Naomi but Naomi sent them home to their families so that they could marry again and have families. Naomi told them that she was going back home to Bethlehem. It took a lot to convince Orpah to go back home but Naomi never could get Ruth to leave her. Ruth, who had been raised with foreign gods like Chemosh (who was called an abomination in the Bible and that’s really bad), said something amazing to Naomi which finally made her give up trying to send Ruth home:
“Don’t ask me to abandon you and leave you all alone, or to go back to my family instead of following after you. Wherever you go, I am going too, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die there too, and that’s where I will be buried. May the Lord punish me very harshly if anything but death separates me from you.” (Ruth 1:16-17)
Wow, that’s amazing. Ruth was telling Naomi that no matter what, she would take care of her for the rest of her life and would even watch over her grave when Naomi died. Ruth was telling Naomi that she was her daughter and that would never change. She would give up her own family, and her own country, and her own people, and the gods they worshiped, forever. Ruth was going to give up everything she had ever known just so that she could make sure that Naomi wouldn’t starve to death or freeze in the winter. She didn’t even have the money to farm her family’s land so she didn’t have anything much more than a simple house to go back to. Not only that, but it would take them at least a week to walk back to where Naomi used to live. It was only about thirty miles but it was a very difficult path to follow. A walk like that could kill Naomi if she was alone, between needing to find water and food but there were also a lot of wild animals who would attack an old woman without thinking twice about it.
Finally, they made it back to Bethlehem and everyone was surprised to see Naomi—it was a very, very small town. It was the beginning of spring when everyone was harvesting their barley—around the time of the Passover. Now, one of the things the Bible says is that anyone who grows things in Israel has to make sure that they leave food behind for the people who are poor. And so, to feed herself and Naomi, Ruth went out into the fields to do something called gleaning. Gleaning is when you pick up the grain or the fruit or the olives or nuts or grapes or whatever that the harvesters have left behind. Ruth went to the fields of a very rich man named Boaz, who was a relative of Naomi’s husband who had died in Moab. He was a very good man who was well respected, and one day he came to the fields to check on the progress of the harvesters and he saw Ruth working in the fields so he asked one of his men about her.
“She is the young woman from Moab who came with Naomi—she’s a hard worker and except for a short break, she’s been on her feet collecting barley all day! She asked permission before she started working, even though she didn’t have to.” Boaz was impressed and walked over to her, he said, “Young lady, I want you to stay here in my fields where it is safe. I have told the men to leave you alone and so no one will bother you. Follow the women around, and when you get thirsty, you can drink from the water jars.” Ruth was surprised and thanked him and asked why he was being so kind to her since she wasn’t an Israelite. He told her that everyone in town knew what she had done in leaving her family and taking care of Naomi even though she didn’t have to. He knew how brave and loving she was and could see that she was a hard worker. He even asked God to bless her for everything she was doing to help Naomi survive.
For the rest of the day, Ruth did exactly as Boaz had had told her. She followed his female servants and the men didn’t bother her. She drank cool water from the filled jugs and was invited to eat with them at mealtimes. They gave her bread with vinegar sauce and roasted grain and she ate her fill and had some left over to take home to Naomi. Boaz secretly talked to his own workers and told them to leave a lot for Ruth to pick up and by the end of the day she had almost a whole ephah of barley! That’s enough to fit into six and a half gallon jugs. When she went home, Naomi was amazed and asked whose field she was in. Ruth told her all about Boaz and Naomi said that he was a kind man to remember her husband and sons, even though they were already dead, and herself as well. When Ruth told Naomi that Boaz had invited her to harvest with them every single day, Naomi told her it was a good thing since they knew she would be safe. She might not be safe in another field without someone protecting her. Ruth worked in Boaz’s fields all the way from the Passover to Shavuot (Pentecost), gathering barley and wheat so that she and her mother-in-law would be able to survive the winter.
Ruth was kind and hard-working, but Naomi was very clever and she realized that Boaz must really like Ruth a lot to help them like this. And so, she hatched a plan. “Ruth, you’ve taken such good care of me and so now I will take care of you. Take a bath and use some of this perfumed oil, wear your most beautiful clothes and late tonight, I want you to go to the threshing floor where Boaz has been removing the chaff from his grain. They will be celebrating tonight and drinking and eating because the harvest is over and when he is asleep, I want you to very quietly sneak in. Lie down on the floor at his feet and remove the cloak that will be covering his feet. He will wake up because his feet are cold and when he does and he sees you, I want you to listen carefully to what he tells you. As always, Ruth obeyed Naomi and did everything she asked.
Boaz woke up in the middle of the night and when he went to cover his feet back up, he was startled because there was someone else laying by his feet. That wasn’t something most people would want to do. Boaz had been working hard all day and his feet would have been pretty danged stinky. He asked, “Who are you?” Ruth answered, “it’s me, Ruth, and you are a close relative so I am asking you to be our kinsman redeemer.” Boaz was surprised! A threshing floor in the middle of the night was no place for a woman but she was asking him to be a kinsman redeemer! That was a very important thing to be asked. She has asking him to buy the land from Naomi so that she would have the money she needed to keep her alive and he could farm the land until the year of the jubilee. But more than that, she was asking him to marry her because she needed to have a son who could inherit the land. This was one of the ways that God took care of widows in those times. Boaz thought Ruth was just wonderful and he was very flattered because she was young and beautiful and could have her pick of any man she wanted but she had chosen him instead.
Boaz whispered to her, “Don’t go home, it is too dangerous this time of night. Stay here where it is safe until morning and I will do anything you tell me to do, but the land is not mine to buy for you because someone else has first dibs on it. If they want to buy it, then I can’t do anything to help you but I will try! Everyone knows what you have done and everyone in town respects you—they don’t even care that you are from Moab because of everything you have done to provide for Naomi. Ruth laid back down at his feet and I bet both of them were way too excited to sleep much at all. As soon as the sky began to turn light, Ruth got up and Boaz warned her to never tell anyone she was there. He poured a large portion of the grain he had worked on the day before into her shawl as a gift to Naomi and sent her home.
Naomi was very excited to see her and asked about everything. Ruth told her what had happened and Naomi jumped for joy, “You can bet that he’ll take care of this first thing this morning and that we will hear from him before the end of the day!” And that’s just what Boaz did! He got right up and went to the city gate where all of the wealthy and older men of the town hung out during the day to talk and to make decisions. Before too long, the man who had dibs on the land that belonged to Naomi’s husband came walking along and Boaz began to talk to him in front of ten men he had chosen as witnesses. He told the man about the land and asked if he would buy it from Naomi because if he didn’t want to, then Boaz sure did and he was next in line. The relative said that he definitely would—it was an honorable thing to do, and it would make him very respected. But then Boaz told him the catch—the Land couldn’t be bought back unless the person who did it was willing to take Ruth as a wife so that she could have a baby who could inherit the family land for himself when he got old enough. And the relative shook his head.
“Sorry,” he replied, “but that would mess up my own inheritance. You go ahead and redeem the land and marry Naomi’s daughter-in-law, Ruth.” Boaz was very happy, and he announced to everyone at the city gate, “You are all my witnesses that I am buying the land from Naomi and that I will be marrying Ruth so that when we have a son, he will inherit the property in the name of her dead husband.” And all the men at the city gate congratulated him and blessed him and blessed Ruth as well. They didn’t care that she was a Moabite because she did what was right even though her ancestors did what was wrong. Her ancestors wouldn’t give food or water to the children of Israel but Ruth did all of that for Naomi and then some! That’s why I call this story “Ruth and the Reverse of the Curse” when I teach it to grownups. Ruth showed that God is always willing to accept the people who are loyal to Him and do what is right. Ruth had shown everyone that she was a child of God and not a child of the abominable god Chemosh!
Boaz and Ruth were married and she had a son and they named him Obed. Naomi was so happy because it was as though she had a son again after her sons had died. The women of Bethlehem celebrated with her and told her that God was so faithful for giving her this child and that her daughter-in-law Ruth was better than any seven sons! Ruth gave Obed to Naomi, who helped to raise him as if he were her very own son. But that’s not the end of the story! When Obed grew up and got married, his wife had a son who they named Jesse. And when Jesse grew up and got married, he had Eliab, Abinadab, Shimea, Nethanel, Raddai, Ozem, Zeruiah, Abigail, and the youngest of all was King David. But that’s not the end of the story because about a thousand years after David lived, one of David’s descendants who was named Mary gave birth to Jesus, the Son of God!
Not bad huh? For someone who was born in Moab and worshipped a god so terrible that the Bible won’t even tell us why he was called an abomination, and whose ancestors weren’t kind to the Israelites even when they offered to give them money in exchange for food and water and a safe path to the Holy Land, she was the opposite of everything that everyone expected from the Moabites. Ruth was good and kind and generous and never took the easy path. She didn’t go home. She didn’t abandon Naomi. She made sure that Naomi had food and made it to Israel safely. Ruth worked hard because Naomi was old and her heart was broken because she had lost everyone she loved. Ruth is a good lesson for everyone who thinks that there are people who are all bad just because of where they come from or their religion. That’s what the children of Israel thought about the Ammonites and Moabites. If Elimelech and Naomi hadn’t been so desperate to escape the terrible famine, they wouldn’t have ended up in Moab and their sons wouldn’t have married Moabite women. And even though Orpah did go back home eventually, she obviously loved her mother-in-law too.
Ruth was a Gentile, which means that she wasn’t a Hebrew like Boaz and Naomi. But that didn’t mean that God wasn’t very interested in her. God chose her to be in the family tree of the most important person ever born in the history of the world—Jesus! God wanted to show us that He doesn’t really care about the sorts of things that people care about. Ruth was exactly the kind of person that God wanted His people to be. Ruth didn’t give up doing what was right just because things were extremely difficult. Because she was full of love, God made her life into something beautiful.
I love you. I am praying for you. I want you to think about Ruth, and how God used her to prove that absolutely anyone can choose to follow God and become one of His people.