“But Ruth said,
‘Don’t press me to leave you
and stop following you;
for wherever you go, I will go;
and wherever you stay, I will stay.
Your people will be my people
and your God will be my God.
Where you die, I will die;
and there I will be buried.
May Adonai bring
terrible curses on me,
and worse ones as well,
if anything but death
separates you and me.'”
-Ruth 1:16-17
Ruth made 6 promises to Naomi.
FIRST, wherever Naomi goes, she will go.
SECOND, wherever Naomi lives, that’s where she will live.
THIRD, Naomi’s people will become Ruth’s people.
FOURTH, Naomi’s God will become Ruth’s God.
FIFTH, wherever Naomi dies, Ruth will die.
SIXTH, wherever Naomi is buried, Ruth wishes to be buried next to her.
Now out of these 6 promises, how many of them do you think the modern gentile church agrees with and accepts?
The answer is only one.
Modern Christianity says “Your God will be my God”…
And that’s where their commitment ends.
Isn’t that interesting?
The church says to Israel:
“Although we want your God…
We will NOT go where you go….
We will NOT live where you live…
Your people will NOT be our people…
We will NOT die where you die
We will NOT be buried where you’re buried”.
Is it any wonder the institutional church played such a pivotal role in helping Nazi Germany persecute the Jews?
It’s because their theology was so twisted and screwed up from the beginning.
Imagine if Ruth had adopted this aberrational theology today?
I doubt we’d even have the book of Ruth in our Bibles.
When we compare the first chapter of Ruth with modern Christian doctrines, make no bones about it folks…
What you get are two OPPOSING theologies that in no way can be reconciled with each other.
One theology says that gentiles can have the God of Israel for their own OUTSIDE of God’s people and the covenants that God has only made with Israel…
Another theology (Ruth’s theology) says if you’re gonna cleave to the God of Israel, you also gotta cleave to the people of Israel.
You can’t have one without the other.
I think it’s pretty obvious which theology is truly Biblical.
If you’re a gentile who has been grafted into the commonwealth of Israel through your faith in the Jewish Messiah, at that instant, not only is your life connected to Israel’s past salvation history, but also their prophetic future…
If you’re really grafted in that is..
Want some irrefutable evidence that you can’t separate the God of Israel from the people of Israel?
Take a look at the part where Ruth says…
“May Adonai bring terrible curses on me, and worse ones as well, if anything but death separates you and me.”
From an ancient Middle Eastern perspective, when Ruth uttered those words, she had just entered into a covenant and sealed it with a vow.
But here’s the really important thing.
Ruth sealed her vow using the Lord’s formal name, YEHOVAH.
I know our English translations will use some generic word like “Lord”, “God” or “Adonai”…
But the original Hebrew is יהוה.
The fact that Ruth used the God of Israel’s formal name when she made her vow is really significant folks.
She swore by the name of the God of Israel…
And NOT Chemosh, the name of the God of the Moabites, her native land…
This is HUGE!
Ruth had just crossed over and become a Hebrew.
In fact, that’s what the word “Hebrew” means: “to cross over”.
In ancient times, a vow was ALWAYS made by invoking a deity’s name.
So when Ruth made her vow using the formal name of the God of the Hebrews, she was demonstrating in no uncertain terms which nation’s deity she now held allegiance to (the God of Israel)…
And by default, she was also demonstrating which God she had forsaken (Chemosh, the god of the Moabites)…
The part where she says “May Yehoveh bring terrible curses on me and more”…
That was the typical vow-making formula used in those days.
You’ll find that same phrase used no less than seven times in 1 and 2 Samuel and in the books of the Kings.
So let’s transition over to the takeaway here.
Ruth is a perfect picture of what happens when a gentile leaves his or her paganism or atheism behind and comes to faith in the God of Israel.
Just as Ruth forsook everything to become part of Israel, so too does the gentile believer.
And again, a key to grasping this mystery is to understand that Ruth went forward to Naomi’s people and Naomi’s God.
Contrast that with Orpah who went back to “her people and her god”.
Or contrast that with modern Christian believers who attempt to take on belief in Israel’s God WITHOUT the people Israel.
Again, that’s really weird when you look at it from a Scriptural perspective…
Actually, let me rephrase that:
It’s an aberration of gargantuan proportions!
Like separating the head from its body and somehow expecting both to live…
Because a people and their God are always organically connected…
ALWAYS!
Whether you like it or not…
Or want to accept it or not…
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“Therefore, remember that formerly you
who are Gentiles by birth
and called “uncircumcised”
by those who call
themselves “the circumcision”
(which is done in the body by human hands)—
remember that at that time
you were separate from Messiah,
excluded from citizenship in Israel
and foreigners to the covenants of the promise,
without hope and without God in the world.
But now in Messiah Yeshua
you who once were far away
have been brought near by the blood of Messiah.”
-Ephesians 2:11-13
“Consequently, you are no longer
foreigners and strangers,
but fellow citizens with God’s people
and also members of his household,
built on the foundation of
the apostles and prophets,
with Messiah Yeshua himself
as the chief cornerstone.
In him the whole building
is joined together
and rises to become
a holy temple in the Lord.
And in him you too are being built together
to become a dwelling in
which God lives by his Spirit.”
-Ephesians 2:19-22
“He answered,
‘I was sent only to
the lost sheep of Israel.‘”
-Matthew 15:24
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