Ruth — Book Overview
The Bible4Jesus.com Podcast
About this episode
The book of Ruth opens in a time of spiritual and moral chaos. This was a time of apostasy, of covenantal unfaithfulness, of cyclical rebellion followed by brutal oppression, followed by a desperate cry for deliverance. And as is so often the case in Scripture, spiritual famine is answered by the sovereign God with a physical one. We come now to the central hinge of the book of Ruth. Everything has been leading up to this moment, and everything will flow from it. And what we find here is a plan that, to our delicate modern sensibilities, might seem shocking, risky, and perhaps even a bit scandalous. We have had a beautiful story of romance, loyalty, and redemption, and now it seems to conclude with a dry list of names from the phone book of Bethlehem. But to think this way is to fundamentally misunderstand what the Holy Spirit is doing here.
This overview explores the whole book. Read the explanations sampled in this summary: