I must admit I’m continually amazed at Ruth’s commitment to Naomi and the people and God of Israel.
Think about it for a sec.
Ruth was a gentile (a Moabite) who…
Turned her back on her former nation…
Turned her back on her parents and family…
Turned her back on her former god (Chemosh)…
She sacrificed all of this to…
Travel a long and dangerous journey all the way to Bethlehem of Judah…
Declare allegiance to and worship the God of Israel…
…and…
Become one with the Hebrews...
Ruth could have had a comfortable life living in her parents home until she found a new husband.
But she threw all that stability away for the uncertainty of a future living among a people she knew little about to take care of an elderly Hebrew lady, Naomi.
I’m reminded of the following words of Yeshua.
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.”-Luke 14:26
Or these verses:
“To another Yeshua said, ‘Follow me!’ but the man replied, ‘Sir, first let me go away and bury my father.’ Yeshua said, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God!‘ Yet another said, ‘I will follow you, sir, but first let me say good-by to the people at home.’ To him Yeshua said, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and keeps looking back is fit to serve in the Kingdom of God.’“-Luke 9:59-62
Based on the above verses, I imagine Yeshua would have been most pleased with the character and commitment of Ruth.
In her story, we can see how this mysterious and inseparable bond is created between Jew and gentile when that gentile converts to the worship of the God of Israel.
Unfortunately this seems to be a reality that goes against a well entrenched doctrine in Christianity and the gentile church that says the church has replaced Israel.
This false notion has led to a wall of separation between Jew and gentile that exists to this very day.
I can’t mince my words here.
This so-called “Replacement Theology” is the result of blatant anti-Semitism that caused the early Roman church to distance themselves from anything Jewish in order to create their own pork-eating, Sabbath-abolishing gentiles-only religion.
As a result, what should have been a beautiful merging of Jew and gentile in one body of Messiah has led to the exact opposite.
In worst cases, this led to leaders who sought to wipe the Jews off the face of the planet while still worshipping their Jewish savior.
Talk about blaspheming the Son of God!!!
No wonder a Jewish person looks at the cross as an object of both suspicion and persecution.
Make no bones about it…
For Christianity to only accept the story of Ruth as a type and shadow of the Church and their Jewish savior while at the same time ignoring the part that so clear shows that converted gentiles are grafted into the people of Israel is PURE hypocrisy.
Can’t you see how the Book of Ruth so clearly exposes the hypocrisy of Roman church doctrine?
I don’t know how anyone can read Ruth and still feel there’s any basis for Replacement Theology at all.
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