Lessons from Ruth: Reversal & Restoration

God is working, through human loyal-love, to bring about his upside-down kingdom.

As we read the story of Scripture, we encounter a story much like our own — full of success and failures, full of joy and grief, full of celebration and despair.

Unfortunately, in many spaces, we have been trained to read the Scripture through a very flat lens that looks for a hero, a villain, and a moral lesson to take home. But, if we allow the Scriptures to remain in their complexity, I believe we will find a much richer and more honest story that we are invited to enter.

We encounter Ruth’s story in the midst of one of the dark periods of this story — the time of the Judges. In the conclusion of the book of Judges, we are told that all seemed lost as “Israel had no king, and everyone did as they saw fit” (Judges 21:25). Violence, death, and evil ran rampant with little hope for a better future.

It is in those evil days that we encounter three characters: (1) Naomi the Widow, (2) Ruth the Moabite, and (3) Boaz the Israelite Farmer.

First, Naomi. Naomi tragically loses her entire family early in the story, becoming a vulnerable widow thrust into a state of grief. In this time and context, a widow was among the most vulnerable in society…