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For I know the plans I have for you,declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jer 29:11 |
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| Archived Manna: | |
Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Monday, May 1, 2023
Today's Passage : Today's Passage :The Story of Ruth (part 5) Bible Verse:Ruth 2:13-23 "[If you have not been following along, you might want to read Ruth 1 and 2:1-12 before reading today’s selection.] May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord,” she said. “You have given me comfort and have spoken kindly to your servant, though I do not have the standing of one of your servant girls.” At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.” When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over. As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, “Even if she gathers among the sheaves, don’t embarrass her. Rather, pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.” So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about six quarts. She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough. Her mother-in-law asked her, “Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you!” Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. “The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz,” she said. “The Lord bless him!” Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. “He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.” She added, “That man is our close relative; he is one of our kinsman-redeemers.” Then Ruth the Moabitess said, “He even said to me, ‘Stay with my workers until they finish harvesting all my grain.’” Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with his girls, because in someone else’s field you might be harmed.” So Ruth stayed close to the servant girls of Boaz to glean until the barley and wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law." Message:
Naomi calls Boaz “one of our kinsman-redeemers.” The concept of a redeemer was part of the Jewish law of the time. When a person died, certain close relatives would have certain duties and rights concerning the estate and family of the deceased. Usually, this role would fall upon a brother.
For example, if the deceased had owned land but had lost it, the redeemer might be able to repurchase it or even retake it for free, for the benefit of the heirs. A brother might be obligated to marry his dead brother’s wife. In some cases, if a man had been murdered, his redeemer might be obligated to kill the murderer. The rights and obligations varied from time to time and place to place.
Job from Bible, painting by Bonnat
Job
Naomi is, perhaps, being optimistic when she calls Boaz a kinsman-redeemer. Although he is a kinsman, he is not an immediate relative like a brother of her husband, and so it is doubtful that the Law required a great deal of him. It seems that Boaz is following the spirit of the Law, trying to take care of the widows of his distant relatives when they had nobody else.
Of course, we understand that Ruth’s true redeemer, in the most ultimate sense, will be her great-great-something grandson: Jesus of Nazareth! This sense of redeemer is one of the strong continuation ideas that merge the Old Testament into the New, like the idea of a sacrifice for sin, a sacrificial lamb, and dozens of ideas we inherited from Judaism. We see it in the oldest book of the Bible: “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; . . .” (Job 19:25-27.)
Meditation : Prayer : All through this day, O Lord, by the power of your quickening Spirit, let me touch the lives of others for good, whether through the word I speak, the prayer I speak, or the life I live.......Amen |
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