The other Sunday, I preached on Nehemiah 13. At the start of the chapter, God’s people are reminded that the Moabites were meant to be excluded from the assembly of God’s people. Afterwards, my dad, who was visiting, reminded me of the case of Ruth, she was a Moabite and yet was welcomed into God’s people when she came with her mother-in-law Naomi to Bethlehem. Not only that but she was affirmed by Scripture as one of God’s people,, included in the family tree of David and later Jesus. How could this be?
Not all Moab is Moab
Well, I want to suggest three things that are highlighted. First of all, that just as Paul would argue in Romans 9-11 that “not all Israel is Israel”, well we might also say that “not all Moab is Moab.” You see, God’s concern was with faith and the promise. True Israel did not include everyone who was an ethnic descendant of Jacob but did include all who believed in God’s promise of salvation in Christ. Ruth demonstrates faith in the promise and so she is included in God’s people. Moab stood against God and his people so the important issue was not about ethnicity but about not including those who not only lacked faith in the promise but actively opposed it. Ruth very clearly does not belong with such people.
New Creation
We believe that becoming a Christian makes you a new person. There is repentance and faith which means that your old person dies with Christ so that the new person rises and lives with and in Christ.
Ruth chooses Yahweh and Israel. She tells Naomi “My people will be your people and your God will be by God” In effect Ruth, the Moabite dies so that Ruth the Israelite might live. She moves from the kingdom of Moab to the kingdom of Israel just as we die to sin and move from our old life in the kingdom of Satan, Sin and Death to life in the Kingdom of God.
Grace works backwards
The ending of Ruth is crucial, there we discover that she becomes an ancestor of Jesus. She benefits from what her descendant does on the Cross. Her inclusion in God’s people is all about grace, she is saved and included because Jesus died for her,
All of this reminds us that there is no one beyond the reach of God’s grace, he is able to save those he chooses.
Faithroots 