The Book of Ruth Is Not About What You Think It Is

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:00]Let's dive into the come follow me story line this week in 60 seconds. So this week we are learning about two women whose lives look nothing like they planned. Naomi was an Israelite woman whose husband made a decision that uprooted their whole family. During a famine instead of trusting God to provide in Bethlehem, he moved them to Moab, a pagan land, and he died there and then both of her sons died. And Naomi was left completely empty in a foreign country with two Moabite daughters-in-law and no way to provide for any of them. So she tells her daughters-in-law to go home and one of them does, but Ruth refuses to leave her. So they travel back to Bethlehem together with nothing. [music] And Ruth goes out to gather leftover grain from the fields just so they can eat. And the field she walks into belongs to a man named Boaz, a kinsman redeemer, a relative of Naomi's, who has heard what Ruth did and tells his workers just to leave extra grain on purpose. By the end of the story, Boaz marries Ruth, Naomi has been completely restored, and this family line becomes the direct lineage of King David and of Jesus Christ himself. [music] And then there's Hannah. Her plan was to have children, but she can't. And it has left her, in the words of the scriptures, in bitterness of soul. But she doesn't turn her back on God. She walks toward him instead. She goes to the temple to pray and makes a promise. "If you give me a son, I will give him back to you for his whole life."

[00:01:15]>> [music] >> And miraculously, God gives her a son, Samuel, who becomes one of the greatest prophets in the [music] Old Testament.

[00:01:21]This week is about two women with every reason to give up on God who remained faithful anyway. [music] And a God who was working out his plan for the redemption of the whole world through their stories. You guys open Ruth and 1 Samuel this week. [music] They are so good.