One Sunday, a friend of mine stepped into the pulpit to read a section of Scripture. Our church was making its way through the Pentateuch, and this poor soul had been assigned a genealogy chapter. He was a seminarian, a fledgling pastor, and an optimist, but even he stumbled over a few unfamiliar names as he read about the fathers of, the sons of, and the sons of the sons of long-dead patriarchs.
I come from a straight-laced church background, but when he got to the period at the end of the last sentence, someone let out a whoop, and we applauded because he had made it!
I thought about him often when I read through the Bible last year. My tendency is to skim over the genealogies with a dismissive, “We get it.” But if my friend could stand up in front of an entire congregation and read every name, then surely, I could give those names a moment in my quiet time.
When we make it to Ruth 4:18–22, it can be easy to skim over the names we find there: Perez, Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon, Boaz, Obed, Jesse, and David. Especially if we grew up in the Western church, when we see names that feel odd in our mouths or tinny in our ears, we give that dismissive nod to the foreignness of it all: they’re just names.
But they’re so much more than names. In this small grouping of ten names, we see the promises of God fulfilled and the promises of God foretold.
The promises of God are fulfilled in the very survival of this family tree. Way back in Genesis 12, God promised a man named Abraham that his barren wife would bear a son and that he would be the father of a nation (Genesis 12:1–3). God kept this promise through ten more years of infertility. Within two generations, He kept the promise through brotherly betrayal and famine. He kept the promise through harsh slavery in Egypt four hundred years later. And forty years after that, He kept the promise while Abraham’s offspring wandered the desert.
He would keep that promise through judges and kings; through captivity; through exile. He would keep that promise through generation after generation until the promise bore its fruit in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Ruth 4 is just one moment where we see God keeping His word to Abraham: the nation would continue to have fathers and sons.
And in that fatherhood and sonship, we see a promise not just kept, but also, foretold. Because although Ruth’s name is not present in this chapter, we will find her in Matthew’s genealogy in the New Testament as the mother of Obed. This woman—whose name would have been foreign to Israel’s tongue—was grafted into the genealogy of the Messiah.
Much the same way that we who are not of Abraham’s lineage have been grafted into the family of faith.
It would be easy to skim those names in the genealogies with little care. But imagine them as just a foretaste of what it’s like to read the names that God has written in the Book of life—the names of the people grafted into His eternal family.
Imagine you will find your name there.
And then read carefully—because each and every precious soul therein is part of the plan God has been mighty to see to the end.
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41 thoughts on "Ruth’s Legacy"
The faithfulness of our Redeemer, shown through a beautiful story of love, obedience, and faithfulness. Thank you Jesus for being our Redeemer!
Ruth and Boaz is a promise kept to all of us to be redeemed by Christ.
One of the major things I learned from this study was the genealogy of Christ. I grew up hearing this story growing up about Ruth and Boaz love story but this is so much more than just finding true love with man and wife. This is a story of restoration, obedience,family redemption, which lead to the genealogy of our redeemer Christ Jesus. So many hidden gems in this story it truly blessed me. That’s why it’s important to study the Bible for yourself to learn. I use to skip over genealogy as well but through my own experience I realized the importance of bloodlines and legacy. Family name and legacy is important. Who would’ve thought that Naomi would have a grandson after losing her son’s. Who would’ve thought that Ruth would’ve stuck by Naomi’s side after losing her husband, and to end up marrying Boaz therefore producing a Son Obed that kept Naomi’s son’s name alive because Boaz was a blood relative to Naomi. God does nothing by chance but one thing all three of these individuals had in common is that they trusted the process God was taking them through even when they didn’t understand what was happening, and it was scary but they stepped out on faith. I’m grateful for this devotional.
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Loved this study!
@Sara F, I agree that some will argue about Joseph being Jesus’ father, and this is the earthly father that God (His Heavenly Father) had hand picked Joseph. Joseph choosing Mary to be his wife is a divine union. It has to be Joseph and it has to be Mary. There is a reason why Joseph matters. There are 2 genealogies of Jesus in Luke and in Matthew which are different slightly. Matthew genealogy (Matt 1:1-17) records from Joseph’s line tracing down from Adam to Joseph’s real father Jacob. The genealogy in Luke 3:23-38 records Mary’s line, tracing down from Abraham to Mary’s dad which is Joseph’s father in law (here Luke 3:23, says Joseph the son of Heli – see the difference, which means Joseph the son in law of Heli). And the reason why the Luke genealogy listed Joseph’s name in place of Mary’s according to a commentary I studied, there is scriptural precedent for a man’s first son to be reckoned to the mother’s genealogy if her father has no sons (Numbers 27:1-11 and Numbers 36:1-12, Ruth 4:6,) and this is especially appropriate since Jesus was the seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15) and not the seed of man. So considering from both sides of Jesus’ parents, either Joseph or Mary, Jesus is both the bloodline from David if you count down through Joseph or through Mary, which the Lord has promised and delivered. So Joseph must be the father and no one else. I find it so interesting that God is really technical (more than we even know) to cover all grounds of debate so that humans cannot doubt and raise arguments to dethrone His establishments. It is just our lack of knowledge that cause us to doubt and question God, but God since the days of old, He is legit. When God has planted something, it is secure, well thought out.
I have enjoyed this Ruth study and actually kept up with it. I do like reading the genealogies. It took some time to get use to them but now I actually read them instead of skipping over them.
Amen
Whoops sorry my phone had a mind of its own! Adrienne praying for you!
Adrienne praying god you !
Yes, I love this! Amen!
2 The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord— 3 and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears; 4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. 5 Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist. – Isaiah 11:2-5. This was Boaz’ character just as much as Jesus’. My Redeemer lives! Praise be to God!!!
I too, used to want to skip through genealogies, but I am finding that when I take the time to be still and read through the genealogies I am reminded that I too have been grafted into God’s family, and everything the Lord does is intentional. From the beginning He’s been intentional, so if He made ti a point to have genealogy in the most important book we’ll ever read, then it’s not just important, but valuable. God values those who belong to Him and he knows each of us by name, what a beautiful God we serve.
Some people argue that Jesus wasn’t in the line of David truly because Joseph is not his “real father” but I think the adopted child relationship rings true in that situation and in our situation. Also God had to mend Jesus in the womb with a Y chromosome, and I have to think He used Joseph’s.
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Dear one. Hugs to you
Leaving a legacy of faith is what God has been speaking to me lately. This study continued to reinforce that! Thanks.
Yes indeed there is a great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us. May we keep that witness list growing!
Such a wonderful study. Thank you SRT & fellow She’s. I hate to see it end. So rich! Thank you Molly R & Angie for your comments today. Sharon Jersey Girl, praying for your dad & family, & for you to be safe on the road when you’re traveling back & forth. Going thru the prayer requests. Love & hugs to all for a blessed weekend.
I loved this study and sad to see it end (but also excited for the next study!). I love seeing how God restored everything and then gave more to both Ruth and Naomi. Their tragedies turned to triumps. A broken story made whole by our God. So thankful that He’s in the business of mending things- when life seems hopeless and broken, God is still there, working behind the scenes.
Prayers for all you She’s requesting praye.
Every time I get to end of a study I just feel overwhelmed with gratitude, and truly honored, to be able to study the living, breathing Word of God! I feel so small and feeble, but He deems me worthy to soak in this Living Water – filling my soul with worship, filling my heart with thankfulness, filling my mind with resources to tap into for all that I may face, and He fills my hands and feet with good works to do for His glory!
So thankful for this beautiful story of redemption; thankful to be shown in yet another form of literature (after the poetry of Psalms) and to see the thread of steadfast goodness, grace, and provision for His Covenant People, His Family….ME!!!
Every once in awhile I will mention a family member and my grown children will say “Why am I just now hearing about this person?!” But when I start sharing how this person is related…it isn’t long before their eyes start to glaze over trying to keep all the connections straight. So much to absorb and each story unique. Passing along family info often turns into hitting the highlights of memorable moments both good and bad. Humbling to know that God knew them and their circumstances just as much as he knows mine. Praising God this morning for redemptive love.
I’m reading the Chronological Bible also and I am amazed and love seeing how these names fit in to the actual picture and where they fit in. As I was reading the verses in Matthew I was saying yes I remember reading about this person and this person. Our family line may not seem so great but we must remember we ALL BELONG to GOD.
Be blessed and give God the glory to today.
2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. – Isaiah 11:2. I always perk up when I hear attributes of the Holy Spirit. The one person of the Trinity that seems to be cloaked in mystery yet incredibly active in the church. Seeing the Spirit here this morning made me feel light hearted. I’m headed to Angie Mills post to discover the meaning of Eleazar’s name. I’ve always liked the way his name sounds!
I used to skim over the chapters with all of the genealogies because (just like Jasmine said) the names were foreign and hard to pronounce/understand. But lately I have tried to read through each name, remembering that God fearfully made each individual in those genealogies and loved each one of them dearly. I remind myself that God made them each with specific traits and to live in the specific time, place, moment that He placed them. He cared for each one of them, seeing them and knowing them each by name. It blows my mind to think about how many people that have lived so far and yet, God made each one, knows each one, loves each one and ordained each one to live in the timeframe that they did/do. The lists of names doesn’t mean much to me at times but each of those names represent a person that God loves and deeply cares for. He cares for the seemingly “insignificant” people that don’t have a huge role to play or a story dedicated to them in the Bible and he still had a wonderful purpose for them. He was faithful to each one, providing for them and leading them, all the while making way for the Messiah, our Savior!
I have to admit that I skimmed over the names in Matthew. I did read through in Ruth and Isaiah. Thank you ANGIE for giving us the meaning of these names!
Won’t this be a great day when “the land will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is filled with water.” Isaiah 11:9
Good morning sisters. Would love your continued prayers. Yesterday was such a rough day for me mentally. I felt so anxious at work. It may not have helped that I drank some caffeinated tea, so that may have had an impact. But I am so tired of feeling this way and I am honestly mad at God. I want to get a different job and I don’t see any options open. My management is great where I am, which stinks because I still don’t feel well. I am so tired and just want to feel well during the day. Physically I’m tired because I am nervous every day. I’m thankful to be working from home, so that I have time to make lunch and walk around my neighborhood. Please pray that I would rely on God’s promises and who he is, and that he would provide another job. I am finding it hard to keep pushing through, even though I know he will use this for his glory and it won’t last forever. Thank you all.
Thank you Angie for the insight on the names in the genealogy. Loved it! And Jennifer, I always am blessed by your words! Thank you. Praying for all requests and for a joyful and peaceful weekend for everyone. Glory to God in the Messiah down all generations! ❤️
The tiny day-to-day details of our lives matter. Each ordinary thing we do is a thread woven into our stories. And each of our stories are woven into God’s story. It is necessary to focus in and focus out to see the hand of God working on His creative masterpiece. The story of Ruth is full of unexpected details that I could never have connected to directly to goodness. She lived in a pagan, foreign land. Her people served other gods, yet they had plenty. Naomi and her family served the true God of Israel, yet they were struggling under famine in thier homeland. God’s land. God used the famine to push a covenant covered family into a foreign land for food and relief from hunger and death. And He used the tragedy of their story to reach in and pluck Ruth out of darkness to usher in light and ultimately the salvation story for all of mankind. Focus in, focus out. If I stay too long on the tragedies, I miss the light of God’s greater blessing. The threads of salvation woven with ordinary lives, even when all seems lost. Life and death is not the point. But rather life and eternity. Like grass and flowers fade and wither away, so people fade out of this world. But, thanks be to God, who laid a pathway to eternal life with Him. He uses broken steps, broken people, and difficult things to pave a smooth and beautiful road for us to travel. This life is an adventure, and we are equipped with Messianic strength and hope when we trust God and grow in our faith. Every gift of sunrise, every breath I take, every good thing from the hand of God, I keep as treasures in my heart. I carry the goodness with me, and lay down the heavy things at His feet. I remember how God has answered my prayers. And I trust Him with my prayers now. As I keep my heart open to Him, ears tuned to His voice, eyes open to His light, I am ready for this day. Lord, hear my prayers, and Thy will be done. Guide my feet to Your peace, and let my heart remain open to You like a harp in the wind. Play the best music from my life, and sift away the chaff. Selah. Maranatha. Amen.
So thankful we serve a God who is faithful and who keeps His promises! May I be faithful and obedient to walk into those promises. I hope everyone has a blessed weekend <3
@Sharon Jersey Girl Praying for you, your dad, and your siblings
BEAUTIFUL! The faithfulness of the Lord will never cease.
I wanted to spend a little more time on the genealogy than I normally do. I usually do skim over them, thinking of them as just names. Today, I looked up the meaning of each name.
What a rich heritage of faith these names seem to portray. They knew the truth about God. They knew the following about God:
-He exists (Jesse).
-He is Father (Abijah).
-He judges & governs (Jehoshaphat).
-He is exalted & exalts (Joram).
-He is strong, powerful, & our strength (Uzziah).
-He is perfect & complete (Jotham).
-He strengthens (Hezekiah).
-He heals & supports us (Josiah).
-He is able, He prevails, He completes, He establishes (Jeconiah).
-He sets up (Eliakim).
-He establishes (Achim).
-He is majestic (Eliud).
-He helps (Eleazar).
-He adds & increases (Joseph).
-He saves (Jesus).
They knew these truths in their heads, but many of them did not love the truth, neither did they live out the truth with their lives.
May we be found faithful in knowing who God has revealed Himself to be, wholeheartedly loving Him & trustingly living out that truth. Amen!
Thank you Father God that Your promises are and always will be Yes and Amen!
Wow, this devotion touched my heart. I was reading through it, agreeing with the difficulty of pronouncing many names in the Bible, cringing when Jasmine mentioned skimming through them, pondering the importance of each one … and then she wrote about those names being in God’s Book of Life and my name being written in that very book. Overwhelmed with joy! Followed by an immense sadness for those who don’t know Christ as their Savior. So many in my family, same as in many of yours. Continuing to pray for their salvation.
And yes, TINA, the people connections made over time that result in us being here and others in our lives – God’s plans are amazing! As I was getting to know my husband when we started dating, we realized how many times we had been so close to meeting over the years but never did – shared friends galore – and then met randomly, unrelated to any of those potential connections. And thinking about how my parents met, and his parents, and so on. Then I also have to think about all the things I did in those interim years – Impatiently thinking I was the one in charge, resulting in a lot of poor choices and regrets. But God! He was waiting, thankfully, for me to come to my senses and turn back to Him.
Praying for your dad, you and your siblings – SHARON, JERSEY GIRL, for mercy, strength, comfort.
CORALLIE BUCHANAN – welcome!
MANDI – praying for your daughter and the medication’s effectiveness
JENNY SOMERS – my heart goes out to your family, especially your cousin and her children. Praying for her and her medical team.
This whole study has reminded me how our decisions can have so much impact on things we don’t even know about. How does raising our children in faith help shape who they will be? How does listening to God about where I should work/live help shape a future He has planned? Now obviously none of us are going to be great great great grandmothers of the Messiah, but our faith and our willingness to follow it does make a difference.
Yes, Tina, praise God he has a purpose and a plan for us! I so often look back, just like the Israelites did, and see how God has been working in my life and my family’s life and the lives of my friends! Such a powerful God to shape so many paths simultaneously and such a merciful God to continue to shape us into a holy people!
Now that I’ve read Ruth three times, it’s very easy for me to skim through it because I know exactly what is going to happen.
Amen Tina Amen
Thank You, Lord for faithfully holding to Your promises, seeing to it that Your plans come to pass despite working through us humans to accomplish them.
SHARON JERSEY GIRL – agreeing with you for the Lord to be merciful to your father. Praying all in your family have peace as he is nearing his finish line.
JENNY SOMERS – praying for your sister and her family
It’s neat to read these names and think about what was happening during each generation. Which ones traveled to Egypt during a famine, suffered under slavery, saw the hand of God through Moses, etc. It might be just a list of names, but as Jasmine said, there’s a rich history in that list.
I hear you sister JASMINE HOLMES. I HEAR YA!!
I recently lost a dear dad, who in his last days told me of the relatives of long ago and their place and stations in their life. We knew of those living, because dad made sure we met them often at family gatherings..but those that had gone ahead weren’t mentioned much.
How wonderfully important it is to know your history and background.. afterall if A didn’t meet B, who would C be. Or if C didn’t move to another state or country what would Ds heritage be..
Absolutely fascinated by this since doing the ancestry stuff..
Genealogy matters!
In the book of Ruth, the Genealogy at the end matters without mentioning her..
BUT GOD..
..gives her a mention and a nod in Matthew.. how wonderfully cool is that..
We matter. Our place here on earth has a purpose, though sometimes we struggle or can’t see our purpose.. God does and knows the plans He has for you/us.. He has redeemed us so we fulfill this purpose and plan He lovingly has for us..
We may not see it , BUT PRAISE GOD, He does..
AMEN..
Happy Friday ma dears, so lovingly wrapped in hugs and prayers..❤