Those of you who yesterday rose early with single-minded determination to read my blog before midday may have noticed my accidental attempt at defaming Naomi and suggesting she had a class A drug problem. By mistake I may have insinuated that God provided her with unlikely heroin not heroine! The worst part was that it was pointed out to me via my Mum! It wasn't a problem that my Mum pointed it out more that she was the only person to have pointed it out. Picture a small child performing his first recorder recital, looking out at an empty auditorium with just his Mum watching swaying along to London's Burning! Or a teenage boy performing his first gig with his band and looking out at the pub dance floor and the only person there is his Mum sipping a cup of Horlicks she's smuggled in, in her flask That's how I felt.
Hopefully my last few blogs have made it clear that I can see myself a little in Naomi, there's a fallibility about her that I can relate with. Now having spent the last few weeks with Ruth I have to admit she astounds me. She is absolutely amazing but also a little confusing/weird. Why did she stay with Naomi ? Why did she commit herself and swear allegiance to Naomi's God who to be fair Naomi didn't speak of highly. Why did Ruth think Naomi and her God were worth committing to even though it meant the end of her life as she knew it. When she swore she'd stay with Naomi she effectively signed away any lingering opportunity of hope left and went to a foreign land where she was hated,I mean really hated.
Why someone would selflessly lay down their life for another I don't understand! But at that moment, when Ruth says “May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” she swears her allegiance to God and makes a promise to Naomi.
Now fast forward to Matthew 5: 33-37 and Ruth's descendant is speaking about promises. Jesus seems to me to be saying “you don't have to swear before God like you used to because every Yes and No should be like a promise. I'm living inside you so effectively you are swearing before God.” Wow imagine if I kept promises like Ruth did! Imagine if I realised every time I agreed to something it was as if I swore before God. If I prayed for people every time I said I would.
That's what integrity is isn't it? Amongst other things Ruth was a woman of integrity. She kept her promise and maybe I need to keep my promises. Maybe I need to start making some. Maybe when I say “yes or “no” people should know that I'm the sort of man to whom that is a promise.
Another recipe tomorrow and five hundred pounds to the first person to leave a comment!! Oops what was I saying about speaking promises. Oh well my Mum will understand if I don't pay her.
Good work dan. I agree that they were a special bunch. I think that if you met them today they'd be the sort of people you'd remember, as Simon cowell would they'd have 'it'.
ReplyDeleteWould have commented on your last post but the question was too hard! Who do you think did write it?
In my limited knowledge... It was written quite a while after the story happened as it mentions David, which means he was important, probably king by this point. A lot of people think it may have been the prophet, Samuel, but as he died before David became king this is doubtful. The original writing style points to the fact it may have been a woman, and that it may originally have been part of the book of Judges.
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Hi Dan, read your blog for the first time and really enjoyed it, i'm really excited about reading more now. I also made a promise to my small groupies that i would leave a comment to say i'd worked out how to use this computer blogging stuff. However, don't know what this comment is: select profile means, so have gone for live journal.I now wait for my fellow small groupies to read your blog in going deeper with Ruth and look forward to reading their comments too! I love this accountability stuff!
ReplyDeleteGod Bless
Sharon
ps it came up that my url contains illegal characters i haven't a clue what they are lol.so changed comment as google account. That wanted me to open up an account and i didn't know how to do that so changed again to anonymous
Thanks Sharon, Due to the illegal characters contained in your url. Hands at work has been shut down and is now under investigation for smuggling counterfeit characters. Of course I'm joking I have know idea what that means either. Thank you for you comments I too am really enjoying this deeper series and genuinely have had really deep, spiritual conversations via e-mail with people I normally would just chat too. I love getting in depth with a book as well. I would have been one of those people who in the past would have thought "deeper!! I don't need to be told to go deeper I do already" well actually I do need to be prompted to go deeper and love that I can do it with others.
ReplyDeleteTake care and give my love to your small group
Dan
Sam Walker, thank you for your help, your a scholar and a friend. As the book of Ruth is widely acknowledged as being unclaimed how difficult do you think it'd be for me to make out it was my ancestor that wrote it? I often thought that when I was younger, bored in church I'd look through the hymn book and see songs written by anonymous and think "I wonder how I could claim I wrote it" Oh well. Looking forward to your blogs and thanks for commenting.
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