-- Wednesday, 9/15/10 -- SEDUCTION OR BUSINESS AS USUAL? - Ruth 3:1-18
J.R. & Bonnie Ricks
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SEDUCTION OR BUSINESS AS USUAL? – Ruth 3:1-18 NIV
The actions Ruth takes – as instructed by Naomi – can be confusing. After all, today, if a mother-in-law told her widowed daughter-in-law to go lie at the feet of a man after he went to bed, it would appear that she was encouraging her daughter-in-law to sin! After all, wouldn’t the “natural” intent of a woman crawling onto the foot of a man’s bed be seduction? So, when reading this passage with a 21st Century mindset, the natural questions that arise are… “What in the world was Naomi thinking? Was Naomi so hopeless that she was trying to turn Ruth into a prostitute? Or possibly trying to create a scandal where Boaz would be forced to marry Ruth?” These same questions might have been asked by people who saw what Ruth was doing… But none of these questions are valid… or come even close to the reality of the situation…
In truth, it was customary for a servant to lie at the feet of his/her master, and even to take a portion of the master’s covers for warmth. And, by following this custom, Ruth would be able to inform Boaz that he could be her kinsman-redeemer – either by finding someone to marry Ruth or by marrying her himself. So Naomi’s instructions were not a prelude to seduction; they were simply business as usual.
Appearances can be deceiving… There are any number of situations where – to an outsider looking in – it might seem that a person is no behaving in the way WE think he or she should behave. We might even think that the person is committing a sin. We don’t know the whole story… we don’t understand all the circumstances… so we sit in judgment. We become part of that group whose only exercise is jumping to conclusions… If we took the time to find out the circumstances, we’d get a whole different perspective of the situation.
Some years ago, we were involved in a massive effort to put a new Christian radio station on the air in an area that was in a “black hole” where Christian programming was concerned. Early in the effort, we raised enough money to buy a building in which to put the station, and the perfect building came on the market… so we bought it. One of our volunteers went the extra step, volunteering to take care of the grounds of the building – mowing the grass, trimming the edges, picking up any trash tossed there by passing traffic. After about a year, suddenly the grass started growing, trash was piling up, and the building began to look abandoned. We weren’t aware of the inattention because the building wasn’t on our normal route for work, etc. But others saw it, and the rumors began to spread about the man who had made the commitment to keep the grounds looking nice. “He’s lazy!” “You can’t depend on anything he says!” “When he said he’d take care of the grounds, I knew he wouldn’t stick with it… he never sticks by anything he says.”
One of those complainers finally called us, and our first question was, “Has anyone called him to find out what’s going on?” The caller stammered out an answer that showed what we suspected – no one had talked to the man to find out why he wasn’t mowing the grass, etc. So we called him. His wife answered, and the first thing out of her mouth was, “I’ve been intending to call you and ask for prayer. David had a massive heart attack and is in the hospital in the critical care unit.”
Not one of the rumors was correct. David wasn’t falling down on his commitment… he was sick! He needed prayer, not condemnation!
It’s true that in our lives as believers, we have to be very careful with our actions, making sure that the things we do will not reflect badly on Jesus. But in these circumstances, David didn’t have a choice… He wasn’t neglecting his responsibilities… he’d had a heart attack! Ruth wasn’t being seductive… she was doing what she needed to do in order to make a better life for herself and Naomi.
When you see someone doing something that doesn’t seem “right”, don’t jump to conclusions. Check into the circumstances. You’ll be surprised how many times you’ll find that there’s no “seduction” involved… it’s just “business as usual”… people doing what they have to do in order to follow God in the way He’s set out for them.
“Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment." John 7:24 NIV
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