Good Morning friends,
Well, you're doing great! You made it through the book of Judges with all of its crazy. Today's reading (and tomorrow's) gives us a bit of a reprieve frm the whole..."every one did evil in the sight of the Lord" stuff that we saw so much of in Judges.
The book of Ruth stands in direct contrast to the book of Judges, during a time when the Israelites were going their own way and doing as they saw fit...over in Moab (traditionally an enemy-remeber Lot?) there were those doing what was right. Ruth, well Ruth is awesome. That said, Ruth will be the focus of tonight's Bible Study so I'll keep my coments brief. If you want a link to that Bible Study (on Zoom) shout me an email and I'll send it your way.
I do have a question that has caused me some thought though and it won't steal too much thunder from the Ruth story as it's a question about her mother-in-law Naomi.
Naomi and her Husband and two son's move to a foreign land to get away from the struggles/famine in Israel. They settle in Moab for a decade, her son's marry Moabite women, and both her husband and her sons die. Namomi is understandably bitter about this, in one place she says:
No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!” v13
Okay, big question, what does God think of this coment by Naomi? Has God's hand actually been against her? She has experinced great loss, did God do that? Would God agree with her here? Is she just blaming God for her sufferings? Is she right? Is she wrong? Could there be some mixture of the two? Thoughts?
Keep Reading.