A December 2020 BBC article led with this headline:
Divorce rates are increasing around the world, and relationship experts warn the pandemic-induced break-up curve may not have peaked yet. [1]
But it’s not only marriages that are struggling. Friendships, work colleagues and relationships with extended family members are all experiencing the same kind of relational crisis.
The expression “bite the bullet” means “to endure a painful, challenging or especially difficult situation or experience that can’t be avoided.” Some believe the expression originated from the practice of having a patient clench a bullet between their teeth as a way of coping with the pain of a surgical procedure when anesthesia couldn’t be applied or wasn’t available.
Now, perhaps more than ever, we desperately need friends who will “bite the bullet” and stand BY us, WITH us and FOR us, regardless. The book of Ruth describes that kind of “bite the bullet” friendship.
It describes the covenant friendship of two women: a young woman in her twenties named Ruth and her much older mother-in-law, a lady named Naomi.
Whenever someone says, “Let me tell you about my mother-in-law,” what immediately comes to mind isn’t likely good. We usually expect some kind of negative statement or “one-liner”, because the mother-in-law caricature has become a standard centerpiece in comedy routines around the world. But the book of Ruth, tells a different kind of story. Ruth actually loved her mother in law.
Over the next few days we’ll explore the book of Ruth and this relationship with a view towards how we can improve the friendships we have with a core group of people in our lives.
So, let’s dive in.
The book of Ruth is one of my favorite books in the Bible. It’s an amazing little book. It’s one of only two books in the Bible named after a woman. It’s only four chapters long. You can probably read it in about 15 minutes. Try it. Right after you finish this blog post.
Here’s why I love this book and have loved it for more than 30 years.
It’s a book for people who live in the real world. It’s a book for people who wonder where God is when there are no visions, dreams, prophets, prophecies, breakthroughs or miracles.
It’s a book for people who had the game plan… Whose “S” curve was heading up and to the right, and all of a sudden the bottom fell out. Life ripped them off. Now, they’re left shaking their heads wondering, “Where is God?” as one tragedy after another keeps piling on and piling up in their life, and their life “S” curve begins to trend down and to the right.
It’s a book for people who wonder how God could use their utterly ordinary lives to do anything great or significant.
Ultimately, it’s a book of HOPE that paints an amazing picture of the work of art God can create from the broken and messed up pieces of our shattered lives.
Here’s an overview of and a few bullets on the book.
- It’s a FRIENDSHIP story.
Again, it describes the friendship of a young widow named Ruth and a senior widow, who happened to be her mother-in-law, named Naomi.
What I love about this friendship is that it bridged the generational gap, the ethnicity gap and the culture gap to become a friendship that transformed the lives of both people and all of history.
- It’s a LOVE story.
Some believe it’s the most beautiful short story ever written.
It’s the story of a single again twenty-something-year-old girl from the wrong family and the wrong side of the tracks and a forty-something-year-old bachelor with money to burn. The way this guy and girl meet is the stuff of epic love stories. The way she proposes, well, that’s another story for another day… (Find out for yourself. Read the entire book after you finish this blog. It’s so good.)
- It’s a book about biblical MANHOOD and WOMANHOOD.
The book of Ruth gives us an incredible picture of what it looks like to be a godly man and a godly woman in a godless culture. By the way, there are differences, and the book celebrates those differences.
- It’s a book about RACIAL TENSION and RECONCILIATION.
Here’s the dirt on Ruth. She was a member of a doomed race of people known as the “Moabites.”
According to Genesis 19:37, the Moabites were the descendants of an act of incest that took place between a guy named Lot and his own daughter. On top of that, they worshipped a false god by the name of Chemosh. Their worship actually involved child sacrifice (Numbers 21:29; 1 Kings 11:7, 33; Jeremiah 48:7).
Ruth’s family of origin represented the kind of past people prefer to forget about and sweep under the rug.
Boaz, on the other hand, was a God-fearing Jewish man.
When the sparks flew and Ruth and Boaz became an item, their relationship would be an interracial relationship with all the challenges that involved. But, most important, it would be a relationship saturated with GRACE. In fact, that leads me to the next bullet…
- Ruth is a book about GOD’S RADICAL and RELENTLESS GRACE.
Did I mention, I love this book?
Oh, and did I mention that Ruth was a Moabite? This fact gets mentioned several times in the book (vv. 4, 22; 2:2, 6, 21; 4:5, 10). Evidently, it’s important. Here’s why.
Deuteronomy 23:3 contains an important commandment.
“No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants for ten generations may be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.” —Deut 23:3 NLT
Evidently, the sin and history of the Moabites was so messed up that God said through Moses, “We’ve got to draw a line. These are the rules… The Moabites can’t come into this community for at least ten generations.”
But the great thing about the book of Ruth is that it isn’t a story about keeping the rules. In some ways, it’s a story about BREAKING THEM! It’s a story about radical, amazing, extravagant, relentless and reckless GRACE that will stop at nothing to reach us where we are!
The book of Ruth is a story about FAVOR that is completely undeserved. It’s a story about LOVE that is totally without conditions. In the book of Ruth, Ruth not only gets included in the community life of the chosen Jewish people, she ends up marrying a Jewish man by the name of Boaz, becoming the great grandmother of Israel’s most famous king, King David, and, she even gets included as part of Jesus’s family tree! That’s GRACE!
Ruth is a picture of the truth contained in Romans 5:20.
…where sin increased, grace increased all the more… — Romans 5:20 NIV
Maybe you’re reading this blog and when you look at your life you think, “Chris, I’ve done too much…” Here’s the gospel in two words:
Grace happens!
“But I’ve had an affair…” Grace happens!
“But I’ve been through a divorce…” Grace happens!
“But I’ve been in prison…” Grace happens!
“But I have a private addiction…” Grace happens!
“But I’ve been a religious hypocrite…” Grace happens!
“But my family is so dysfunctional…” Grace happens!
The book of Ruth gives us an incredible picture of God’s grace.
- Finally, the book of Ruth is a book about the SOVEREIGNTY of GOD.
The book doesn’t describe any mind-boggling miracles. (By the way, it’s important for me to point out that I believe in miracles and I believe we ought to expect miracles.)
But in the book of Ruth, the Red Sea doesn’t part, the walls of Jericho don’t come crashing down, and the sun doesn’t stand still. At first sight, it appears that nothing miraculous is occurring. But a view thru the lens of history gives us insight that those actually living the story never had. God was still at work, guiding the lives of an ordinary man and two ordinary women towards their extraordinary destiny!
A modern worship song contains these words:
“Even when I don’t see it, You’re working.
Even when I don’t feel it, You’re working.
You never stop, You never stop working.
You never stop, You never stop working. You are…
Way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper
Light in the darkness,
My God, that is who You are!”
—Waymaker, Written by Sinach and performed by Leeland
The book of Ruth demonstrates this reality.
Over the next few days we’ll explore the book and the amazing friendship of Ruth and Naomi for principles for becoming the kind of friend and developing the kinds of friends who “bite the bullet”.
Today, we’ll cover just one verse.
In the days when the judges ruled in Israel, a severe famine came upon the land. —Ruth 1:1a NLT
“The days when the judges ruled” is equivalent to the dark ages in Israel’s history. It was that period of time between the death of Joshua and the coronation of King Saul. It was one of the darkest, most rebellious, sinful, violent, wicked and immoral periods in Israel’s history. Read the book of Judges. It’s rough. The action covers a period of history roughly between 1400 – 1000 B.C.
Very similar to the spiritual landscape in 2021, the people of God were surrounded by people who didn’t know God or live for God, but instead of living a counter cultural lifestyle and being “salt and light” to their neighbors, the people of God ended up allowing the world around them to “squeeze them into its mold” (Romans 12:1-2 Phillips). God’s people left God and His principles and they paid the price for turning their backs on God.
But against this backdrop of a really godless, lawless, immoral culture, the book of Ruth paints an amazing picture of one little family TURNING BACK to GOD.
This family made some wrong choices. They didn’t get everything right. But, ultimately, they turned their hearts back to God in repentance and allowed Him to rewrite their story.
It’s really cool that the Hebrew word “sub” (pronounced shoob) appears 12 times in Ruth 1. It gets translated “turn,” “return,” “go,” or “back” (See verses 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15 [twice], 16, 21, 22 [twice]).
It’s the Old Testament’s main word for TURNING BACK to God’s covenant grace and mercy. It’s a word that often gets used for repentance.
The book of Ruth describes what God can do when two friends (Ruth and Naomi), or one man (Boaz), or one woman (Ruth, Naomi), or one little family (Boaz, Ruth and Naomi) make a decision to TURN BACK to GOD as the ultimate relationship and priority in their lives.
I’ll end this post with this principle:
A “Bite The Bullet” Principle: A revival in our relationships is possible when we return to God as the ultimate relationship in our lives.
We’ll see this principle played out as we dive deeper into the story. Make sure you check out the next post. But right now, why not perform a diagnostic on how you’re doing in your relationship with God.
Spiritual drift occurs so effortlessly. It happened to God’s people in the book of Judges and Ruth. It’s still happening today. When we drift from God, not only do we feel the distance and pay the price, but the people we’re close to feel the distance and pay the price, as well.
This is exactly what Jesus said to a group of people who had drifted in the New Testament.
“I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! 5 Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first.” —Rev 2:4-5 NLT
Here’s that “Bite The Bullet” one more time.
A revival in our relationships is possible when we return to God as the ultimate relationship in our lives.
In the book of Ruth, one little family’s decision to TURN BACK to GOD changed EVERYTHING for EVERYONE in that family.
What could God do in your relational world if today you made a decision to RETURN to GOD as the ultimate relationship in your life?
Why not “bite the bullet” and make that move right now?
[1] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20201203-why-the-pandemic-is-causing-spikes-in-break-ups-and-divorces