Our sinful world has made a complete hash out of marriage. In this age of divorce on demand, more and more people are skipping out on family life altogether, showering their affections on pets instead of spouses and children. But however much we may love our dogs and cats (and…

What blessings God pours out in today’s passage. Righteous Boaz was willing to stick his neck out, taking Ruth the Moabitess to be his wife, not knowing how such a foreigner would be accepted by his friends and neighbors. Today we find that she was welcomed with open arms. The…

Why didn’t the unnamed redeemer want to marry Ruth? As we saw back on August 6, the Law of Moses said that if a man died without children, it was his brother’s duty to marry his widow so that she could have a child that would inherit her husband’s property…

Wives be subject to your husbands? But what if he’s wrong? What if he’s being foolish? Husbands honor your wives? What if she’s being completely unreasonable? How can you understand someone who isn’t making any sense? Unfortunately, this is all too often the way husbands and wives think about each…

The Romantic view of human sexuality is basically the mutual pursuit of individual happiness. The problem, we are told, is to find the perfect person with whom to share your life, someone who will fulfill all your needs and all your fantasies. That’s why most Romantic movies end with a…

What does the Bible say about marriage and divorce? Quite a lot, for God is the One Who invented marriage after all. Even before sin came into the world, we have the beautiful story of the first marriage, which Genesis 2:24 explained this way: “Therefore a man shall leave his…

Strong and Courageous Joshua 1:1-9 Review: 1. We can have success not because we are skilled, but because we serve a great God Who is with us 2. We can have success not in everything we attempt, but only when we are doing God’s will, fighting God’s battles 3. We…

How should the rich and poor treat one another? In modern America, those who have less often resent and sometimes even hate those who are wealthier, assuming that any of their gains must somehow have been ill-gotten. In contrast, those who have more are all too often indifferent to the…

When things don’t go the way we think they should, it’s easy to blame God, isn’t it? That’s certainly what Naomi did in today’s passage. She went so far as to change her name. Naomi means pleasant, and that certainly didn’t match the way she felt. Instead, she wanted to…

It all must have made perfect sense to Elimelech. Yes, God had promised to bless His people in the land He had given them, but there just wasn’t enough rain in the land of Israel to support either crops or cattle. So, why shouldn’t he go across the Jordan River…