http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14875448/how-does-anger-give-place-to-the-devil
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Have I Sinned If I Fall Short of Excellence at Work?
Audio Transcript
Good Monday morning, everyone, and thank you for listening to the podcast. Well, is it sinful to fall short of excellence in our work? This is a great question, relevant for businessmen, for stay-at-home wives, for volunteers, for students — for all of us. And the question comes to us from a listener named Dylan.
Here’s what he asks: “Pastor John, hello to you, and thank you for taking my question! In Colossians 3:22–24, Paul exhorts his readers to ‘work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.’ Does this mean that any work not done in excellence is sin? How do we apply God’s view of work to cleaning our house, writing a paper for school, or working a nine-to-five job? I have been feeling guilty about the way I handle these things for months now, and I’m not sure if I’m just being self-righteous, or if I am being disobedient to the Lord. Is Paul describing a type of excellence in all that we do?”
Let me begin with an illustration from my ministry from about thirty years ago. We were wrestling at the time in our church with how to think about expectations of excellence in music, in worship services. And there was one group that stressed technical excellence and quoted 2 Samuel 24:24: “I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing” — which, being applied in our situation, meant, “I will not offer God any music in our worship services that has not cost me an extraordinary effort of practice so as to make it technically excellent, even flawless.”
Then there was another group, or maybe I should say there was me. I appreciated that commitment to excellence; however, my gentle pushback to this emphasis was that, in the Christian church, God not only cares about whether we are excellent musicians, but also cares about whether we are excellent forgivers. That’s the way I stated it — whether we are excellent in patience, excellent in long-suffering. For example, whether we show patience and forgiveness if someone’s musical effort was not flawless.
“When it comes to excellence in the Christian life, we dare not ever limit it to the way a person does a skill.”
In other words, when it comes to excellence in the Christian life, we dare not ever limit it to the way a person does a skill or the way a person does a craft. We must always take into account excellence in attitudes, excellence in emotions, excellence in relationships. God has lots more to say in his word about whether we are angry in our attitude than he does about whether we’re competent in our skill.
Undistracting Excellence
The way we finally worked this out among our people, among our leaders, was to use this phrase as our goal: undistracting excellence. In other words, there is something bigger and deeper and more important going on in this service than the technical quality of music. It’s not unimportant; it’s just not most important. The aim here is to know God, meet God, love God, treasure God, trust God, enjoy God.
Those are all acts of the heart and mind. Everything else is subservient to that in this service, helping people get to that, including the excellence of our performances — whether it’s music or the sound system or lighting or heating or air conditioning or preaching or the clothing that we wear. Everything is to remove obstacles — undistracting — and to serve knowing God, meeting God, loving God, treasuring God, trusting God, enjoying God. We captured that goal by putting the adjective undistracting in front of the word excellence.
It implied that not only might shoddy work distract from meeting God — the person continuing to make mistakes. Everybody’s going to be embarrassed; they’re going to be distracted — that’s not going to work. But also, excessive finesse might distract from the spiritual reality of encountering God. And I’m thinking of this in preaching, not just music. A sermon can be so shoddy in its order and clarity that it doesn’t help. And it can be so rhetorically refined that it distracts and doesn’t help. So the criterion ceased to be an abstract view of technical excellence and became a spiritual goal of removing obstacles from people seeing and savoring Christ.
Working from the Soul
Now, Dylan is asking about Colossians 3:22–24 and how it calls us to excellence. So here’s the text:
Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily [it’s literally ek psyches, “from the soul”], as for of the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
I think Dylan is right to draw principles for all of us from these verses, even though they are directed to slaves and masters. And I say that because Colossians 3:17, just above this paragraph, says, “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.” And I think Paul is simply applying that global principle for all of us to the slave-master relationship so that all of us can learn from his application. I would point to three things that he says.
Avoid Hypocrisy
First, don’t just try to be outwardly pleasing to people while your heart doesn’t care about the people and doesn’t care really about what quality of work you do, as long as they think it’s good. It’s “eye-service”; that’s man-pleasing. In other words, don’t be a hypocrite.
If you’re going to give the impression outwardly to your boss, or your teacher, or your spouse, or your friend that you are doing something to please them, then do something really to please them. Don’t be a hypocrite. Don’t be a double-tongued or a double-behavior person who outwardly wants to have a sense of being pleased with their eyes, and deep down you haven’t done good work at all, and you’re concealing it from them. That would significantly affect the quality of work you do if you had that mindset. And Paul says, “Don’t have it.”
Work for Jesus
Second, whatever job you have and whomever it is that you are working for as a Christian, always think of Jesus Christ as the one to whom you will give an account for the quality of your work and the quality of your attitudes in the work. Colossians 3:24 says, “You are serving the Lord Christ” — meaning, whomever else you’re serving, you are really serving Christ in serving them. So, whatever quality of attitude and quality of work you would do if Christ were your immediate supervisor, do that work with that attitude.
Look to the Reward
And third, Paul says, “Keep in mind that your reward for the good you do will come from the Lord, even if it doesn’t come from man.”
“Always think of Jesus Christ as the one to whom you will give an account for the quality of your work.”
So clearly, Paul is implying, (1) knowing that we shouldn’t be hypocrites or deceitful men-pleasers, and (2) knowing that ultimately our supervisor for this homework or housework or job work is the Lord Jesus himself, and (3) knowing that our reward comes from him, not primarily from the teachers or spouses or bosses — all of that will exert an influence on the quality of work we do, and the good attitudes with which we do it.
More at Stake Than Excellence
And then Dylan asks, “Does this mean that any work not done in excellence is sin?” And if that question is to be answered with precision, I would say the answer is no, not always. It’s not always sin. It’s not that simple.
For example, if you decide to paint your own bedroom rather than hire a professional painter, because you think God wants you to give the several-hundred dollars you might pay the painter to some missionary friend, and yet you are not a very skilled painter, how will God look upon the exactness of the line between the beige wall and the white ceiling where they meet each other up in the corner?
I’m speaking from experience here. A skilled painter gets a little bead (I’ve seen him do this) of paint on the end of his brush, and he drags it — this perfect little bead — along that line with such amazing precision that the line between the edge, between the beige wall and the white ceiling, is perfect. Now my lines between the beige wall and the white ceiling are wavy. Here’s my answer: God will not view my wavy edges as sin. He won’t, even though they are not technically excellent, like a painter could make them. Bigger things are at stake, in other words.
But if I advertise myself as a painter, with my present skill, and I go into somebody else’s bedroom, and I paint their wall with wavy edges of beige on the wall and white on the ceiling with a wavy line in between, hoping they won’t see it and how shoddy it is compared to what a
real painter could do, that will be sin.Do Your Best
The same thing applies to so many situations. It’s not sin to make a B in algebra class instead of an A if you work hard and do your best. It’s not sin to make five sales this week instead of ten if you’re doing your best.
And I would define “your best” like this: “your best” is defined as a fallible effort to take into account all relevant factors, like sleep (when you sleep) and health and family and my age and energy and gifting and other relationships that need to be attended to. And then, when all is said and done, you entrust yourself to the grace of Christ, who died for you so that you could enjoy his excellent forgiveness.
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Constantine’s Foil: How Peace in Rome Led to Persecution in Persia
ABSTRACT: Constantine’s conversion to Christianity in the early fourth century brought an end to state-sponsored persecution in the Roman empire. Around the same time, however, the relatively peaceful Persian empire turned violently upon the church in its lands. Though the accurate number of martyrs remains difficult to assess, the most conservative estimates place the death toll in the Great Persian Persecution (339–379) far higher — even ten times higher — than the death toll in the worst Roman persecution. In response to such widespread assaults, many Persian Christians fled if they could. Many others, either unable or unwilling to flee, took courage from stories of faithful sufferers and stood firm. Today, their testimonies still give fresh courage to those who suffer for Christ.
For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Donald Fairbairn, Professor of Early Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, to offer a brief history of the great Persian persecution.
When Western Protestants think of the persecution of early Christians, we often imagine believers being thrown to the lions in the Roman Colosseum. According to the story as we learned it in Sunday school and elsewhere, Christians were ruthlessly persecuted for their faith for three centuries, until Constantine’s dramatic conversion around the year 312 brought about a sea change in the Roman empire’s attitude toward Christianity.
This Sunday school version of the story, while not wrong, is both misleading and incomplete. It is misleading because it gives the impression that persecution in the Roman empire was continuous, when in fact it was sporadic, varying from nonexistent to severe, depending on where and when one lived. This story is also incomplete because it does not even acknowledge by far the worst persecution of Christians in the ancient world, the Great Persian Persecution instigated by Shah Shapur II in 339.1 Many Western Christians are not aware that Christianity quickly took root in Persia (approximately modern-day Iran and Iraq) in ancient times.2 A look at the differing fortunes of Christians in the Roman and Persian empires, as well as the ways they responded to persecution, yields important lessons for believers today.
Two Great Persecutions Compared
Persecution of Christians in the Roman empire was generally local in character, confined to a region based on the personal antipathy of the governor toward the faith. But there were two major periods of widespread persecution, encompassing most regions of the empire at the same time. These were a persecution under emperors Decius and Valerian in the 250s, and the Great Persecution under Emperor Diocletian, which began in 303 and lasted a couple of years in the western part of the empire and a couple of decades in the eastern part. It was during this Great Persecution that Constantine became a Christian and gained control over the entire Roman empire.
By carefully counting the martyr lists in given regions at given times, modern scholars can gain a general picture of the severity of the persecution and then extrapolate to arrive at guesses of how many believers were killed in total. An estimate that has gained scholarly acceptance is perhaps 3,000–3,500 deaths in all, of which maybe 500 happened in the west and 2,500–3,000 in the eastern parts of the empire.3 When we consider that in the early fourth century, the population of the Roman empire was between 60 and 75 million people, of whom perhaps 10 percent (or about 6–7 million) were Christians, we can see that the total death toll was relatively small.
In contrast, the Great Persian Persecution is traditionally regarded as having lasted forty years, from 339 until Shapur’s death in 379. In actuality, it was frightfully intense for a couple of decades and then ebbed and flowed until the early fifth century, well beyond the life span of Shapur himself. Estimating deaths from this persecution is much harder than in the case of Diocletian’s, but one of the earliest reports we have is sobering.
The church historian Sozomen, writing about 440, declares, “I shall simply state that the number of men and women whose names have been ascertained, and who were martyred at this period, have been computed to be sixteen thousand; while the multitude outside of these is beyond enumeration.”4 This statement, even if exaggerated, points to a huge death toll. Modern estimates have varied from as many as the eye-popping figure of 190,0005 down to a more “modest” figure of 35,000.6 Even the conservative estimate is ten times the number of Christians martyred in the Great Roman Persecution, although the Persian empire’s population (perhaps 18–35 million) was less than half that of the Roman, with a much smaller Christian population as well. By any estimate, the loss of life in the Great Persian Persecution was immeasurably greater than the death toll of the Great Roman Persecution a few decades earlier.
“The loss of life in the Great Persian Persecution was immeasurably greater than the death toll of the Great Roman Persecution.”
This staggering death toll is all the more surprising when we consider that prior to the fourth century, there had been no significant persecution of Christians in the Persian empire at all. Indeed, early in the fourth century, just as the Roman empire shifted from persecuting Christians (in varying degrees in different places and times) to favoring our faith, the Persian empire changed from basically ignoring Christians to unleashing a savage persecution on them. How did such a shocking change come about? To answer this question, we will need a brief overview of early Christianity in the Persian empire.
Treatment of Christians in the Persian Empire
The early Christian period took place during the long reigns of two great Persian dynasties: the Parthians, who ruled from 247 BC until AD 224, and the Sassanids, who reigned from 224 until they were conquered by the Arabs in 651. The Parthian period was one of relative peace in Persia, and there was essentially no state action against Christians, for several possible reasons.
First, the Parthian regime was benign and decentralized, with a great deal of provincial autonomy. There was little persecution of anyone for any reason. Second, the Romans were the major menace to Persia, and it was common for Persian rulers to take the opposite position on any matter that was important to Rome. Since the Romans were suspicious of their Christian population, the Persians tended to welcome them or at least to leave them alone. Third was the fact that Zoroastrianism, the dominant religion in Persia, was much closer to the Christian faith than Roman polytheism. Zoroastrianism was a dualistic religion focused on the conflict between good and evil, and there were superficial resemblances with Christianity, such as a belief in a coming messiah and judgment after death. As a result, Christians did not stand out in Persian society nearly to the degree they did in pagan Roman society.
The political situation of Persia changed dramatically in the early third century. Significant invasions from Roman forces fueled a popular rebellion against the peaceful Parthian dynasty. A much more authoritarian regime, the Sassanids, gained popular favor on a platform of keeping Persia safe from the Romans, and in 224, they took control. The Sassanids were strict Zoroastrians and made that religion the national faith of Persia.
This time period also saw the rise of Manichaeism, another form of dualism that was directly in competition with Zoroastrianism. Its prophet, Mani, combined many features of Zoroastrianism with some specifically Christian language (he even called himself a disciple of Jesus Christ), and Manichaeism spread like wildfire in Persia and beyond. It was clearly a threat to the national religion, and in the 270s Mani was executed by crucifixion. To the Sassanid rulers, Christianity and Manichaeism looked the same,7 and there was some minor persecution of Christians from 276 to 293 because they were incorrectly thought to be Manichaeans. This was the first time Christians were targeted for ill-treatment in the Persian empire, and while the suffering was mild, it is noteworthy that it came about mainly because of mistaken identity.8
Shapur’s Persecution of Christians
The dawn of the fourth century saw Persia facing increased threats not only from the Romans (who captured most of northern Mesopotamia), but also from the Arabs and other wandering groups who attacked at the same time. When Shah Shapur II was born in 309, the empire seemed on the verge of collapse, but while still a teenager he steeled the Persian people to retake their homeland from invaders again.
Sometime before 325, the now-Christian Roman emperor Constantine wrote Shapur a letter, in which he encouraged the young shah to embrace Christianity.9 Constantine pointed out the presence of many Christians in Persia and urged Shapur to treat them well: “Now, because your power is great, I commend these persons to your protection; because your piety is eminent, I commit them to your care. Cherish them with your wonted humanity and kindness; for by this proof of faith you will secure an immeasurable benefit both to yourself and us.”10 In the process of making these suggestions, Constantine inadvertently called the attention of Shapur’s advisers both to the presence of Christians in their midst and to the fact that Rome now favored followers of the new religion.
In the 330s, with the Roman world solidly in his control and largely Christian, Constantine prepared for another Roman attack on Persia, but he fell ill and died in 337. Shapur immediately counterattacked in an attempt to retake the city of Nisibis (in extreme southeastern Turkey today), which the Romans had taken from Persia some four decades earlier. Shapur’s attack failed, and he blamed the defeat on the Christians in Nisibis, who he claimed had aided the Roman army. Back in the Persian capital, Seleucia-Ctesiphon (on the lower Tigris River near current-day Baghdad), rumors swirled that the Christian bishop of the city, Simon, was providing military intelligence to the Romans. Zoroastrian religious officials spread the rumors to stoke fires of animosity toward Christians, and in 339, Shapur began his massive crackdown on Christians.
The shah began by doubling the taxes on Christians and ordering Bishop Simon to collect. When Simon predictably refused,11 Shapur ordered the destruction of churches and the execution of bishops who refused to take part in the national worship of the sun. The shah personally offered Simon gifts if he would take part in the prescribed worship, but threatened to kill all Christians if he refused. Simon remained obstinate and was thrown into prison to reconsider. Finally, Shapur forced Simon to watch the execution of more than a hundred other Christian clergy before he too was beheaded.12 For at least the next twenty years, the Persians killed Christians throughout their empire. Most of the time, they identified church leaders and singled them out for execution. At other times, the Persians targeted Christians who had converted from Zoroastrianism — that is, native Persian converts, as opposed to Jews or Syrian foreigners who had become Christian. Occasionally they resorted simply to the indiscriminate massacre of Christian populations.
In the 360s, Shapur again had to face a Roman invasion, this one from Constantine’s nephew Julian the Apostate, who had thrown off his Christian upbringing and who had visions not only of restoring the glory of pagan Rome but also of becoming himself a new Alexander the Great. Julian advanced almost to Seleucia-Ctesiphon before being driven back and ultimately killed in battle in 363. Shapur showed no mercy to the defeated Romans; he demanded and received back all the Persian territory that had been taken before his birth. At this point, the shah may have slackened the persecution of Christians within his realm, but even after his death, the new Zoroastrian suspicion that Christians were Roman spies did not completely die down, and persecution continued sporadically.
Finally, in 409 Shah Yazdegerd I issued a decree of toleration. A council held in the capital in 410 praised Yazdegerd for his action and declared the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, Isaac, to be the head (“catholicos”) of the Persian church. But unlike the situation in the Roman world, this edict of toleration would bring no lasting political favor toward Christianity, and the Persian church would live with an uncertain relationship to the state for the rest of its history.13
Persian Christian Responses to Persecution
The responses of Persian Christians to the Great Persecution are especially noteworthy in three ways, all of which stand in partial contrast to the earlier responses of Roman Christians to their Great Persecution.
First, in Persia, we have no evidence of the subversive maneuvering that seems to have been common farther west. In the Roman empire, we have stories of Christians who, when imperial officials came for their copies of the Scriptures, either gave the officials the runaround by sending them to one church member after another (in the hope that they would give up before finding any copies), or handed over heretical writings rather than the Scriptures, or in one case even turned in a medical textbook in the hope that the official either couldn’t read or wouldn’t care as long as he could show some confiscated writing for his efforts.14 No such accounts survive from Persia. Perhaps the Persian Christians were just as cunning as many Roman believers, and we happen to not possess the evidence. Or perhaps they were genuinely more heroic.
Second, we have a good deal of evidence of Persian Christians “voting with their feet” — attempting to read the political situation and migrating to areas they thought would give them more freedom to practice their faith. Such migration actually began even before the Great Persian Persecution. In the third century, when Rome was suspicious of Christians and Persia was more tolerant of them, the Persian church moved its center of operations from Edessa (on the disputed border between the empires) east to Nisibis and even southeast to the Persian capital Seleucia-Ctesiphon. Then as the axe fell on Persian Christians in the fourth century, a number of them — including their most famous theologian/poet Ephrem the Syrian — moved back to the Roman orbit in response to the new political reality.
Even more strikingly, at the height of the Persian Persecution in 345, a group of some four hundred Persian Christians arrived on India’s Malabar Coast (southwestern India) to join the Christians who were already there. These newcomers seem to have been fleeing the Great Persian Persecution, and their presence in India forged bonds between Indian and Persian Christianity that would remain, to some degree, until the present day.15
Third, Persian Christians steeled themselves for resistance and suffering. We have a series of homilies from the pen of a fourth-century Persian writer named Aphrahat, and part of his purpose in preaching these sermons was clearly to encourage Christians who could not escape the hand of Shapur by fleeing Persia. Aphrahat recounted numerous examples of persecution from the Bible, emphasizing that God was still present with his people in the midst of their trials.16 Then surprisingly, he added to these biblical exemplars of heroic suffering for the faith a much more recent one:
Concerning our brethren who are in the West, in the days of Diocletian there came great affliction and persecution to the whole Church of God, which was in all their region. The Churches were overthrown and uprooted, and many confessors and martyrs made confession. And [the Lord] turned in mercy to them after they were persecuted.17
Aphrahat concluded that the church in Persia also had the opportunity to make confession in the midst of its own persecution.
This homily shows a remarkable degree of hope in the midst of a terrible ordeal, but it also demonstrates an equally noteworthy sense of solidarity with Christians in the Roman world. This solidarity is all the more striking since Rome and Persia were mortal enemies at the time, and since few Western Christians then were aware of their sisters and brothers in the Persian world.
Remembering the Persecuted
Most of us know that the Romans dramatically changed their attitude toward Christianity in the early fourth century, but in this essay we have seen that Persia did so as well — in the opposite direction. Shapur’s name is not as well-known as Diocletian’s or Constantine’s, but perhaps it should be. In fact, the very conversion of the Roman empire that brought persecution to an end in the West was one of the main reasons for the persecution of Christians farther east.
The situation of believers was drastically different at various times, and even in different places at the same time. Believers had to make their way through life in the midst of constant uncertainty about the attitude of the government and the surrounding society to their faith. When they could, they sought out regimes that were friendly to Christianity. When necessary, they steeled themselves to face persecution by remembering the sufferings of God’s people in Scripture and Christian history elsewhere. Church-state relationships have always been complicated, changing, and replete with challenges.
As a result, it is important for us not to use too narrow a lens as we examine the impact of political and social forces on Christians. In the fourth century, what was proclaimed in the West to be a miracle and a spectacular blessing led fairly directly to untold suffering for Christians outside the Roman world. Yet, so far as we know, Christians in Persia harbored no ill will toward their newly blessed Roman brothers and sisters. Instead, the Persian believers leaned on the Romans’ example of endurance in suffering as they bore down to suffer in their turn.
“There may come a time when Western Christians must again suffer greatly under persecution.”
Today as well, most of the Christians who suffer grievously for the faith do so in eastern and southern lands (especially the Middle East and eastern Africa), not in western ones. Today the persecutors are not the Persians, but often the Muslim Arabs who conquered Persia (and all of western Asia and northern Africa) in the seventh and eighth centuries. But the Christians who suffer persecution today have a long history of bearing it with patience and as much grace as possible. They have seen this before, and their history is full of stories that help to sustain them.
Meanwhile, we in the West suffer very little, if at all, for the faith. Will we learn the stories of our brothers and sisters in the East, both then and now? Will we stand against the great injustices done to them by societies opposed to the gospel, even as we stand against the much smaller injuries perhaps done against us by our societies that have largely turned their back on Christ? After all, there may come a time when Western Christians must again suffer greatly under persecution, and we will need to be ready.
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A Worthy Wife to Be: Tracing the Rare Beauty of Ruth
She knew that typically the man would make the first move. She knew that what she was doing would appear at least suspicious, perhaps scandalous. She knew what other people might say. She knew just how much she might lose (after all she had already lost). And yet there Ruth lay, in the dark — vulnerable, hopeful, trusting, courageous — waiting quietly at the feet of a man who might wake up at any moment.
Even in a more egalitarian age, the strange and brave step Ruth took that night can make many of us uncomfortable:
When Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain. Then she came softly and uncovered his feet and lay down. (Ruth 3:7)
Such was Ruth’s way of asking Boaz to take her as his wife. But why did she ask like that? Wasn’t there another way? Couldn’t her mother-in-law have put out some feelers with Boaz’s servants?
Maybe. But God, in his wisdom, decided to join this man and this woman in this unusual way. And when we stop to look closer, the strangeness of the scene actually enhances the beauty of their love. This potentially embarrassing moment highlights what makes Boaz a worthy husband — and what makes Ruth a worthy wife.
Worthy Woman
As scandalous as it may seem for Ruth to lie down next to Boaz while he was sleeping, it seems that, in God’s eyes, she acted honorably and in purity. For all the beautiful glimpses we get of Ruth in these four chapters, she is called a “worthy woman” just once, and it’s right here, at this most vulnerable moment. Boaz, recognizing her in the dark and receiving her humble and submissive initiative, says to her,
Now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you all that you ask, for all my fellow townsmen know that you are a worthy woman. (Ruth 3:11)
“A truly worthy woman is as worthy in secret as she is when others are watching.”
Worthy when her husband died, worthy when her mother-in-law was left alone, worthy in a foreign land, worthy while working long days in the fields, worthy even here, in the darkness, on the threshing-room floor, waiting at the feet of the man she desired. A truly worthy woman is as worthy in secret as she is when others are watching — and Ruth was just such a woman.
So, what sets Ruth apart as a worthy wife-to-be — yes, in the eyes of Boaz, but all the more in the eyes of God?
Loyal Woman
The story of Ruth’s worthiness begins with her surprising loyalty.
Her mother-in-law, Naomi, had lost her husband as well as her two sons, including Ruth’s husband. Naomi saw how bleak their future had become and tried to convince her two daughters-in-law to go back to their families. In response, “Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her” (Ruth 1:14). When Ruth had great reasons to leave and save herself, she stayed and cared for her mother-in-law instead. Listen to the intensity of her loyalty:
Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you. (Ruth 1:16–17)
Ruth could have walked away, but faith and love had bound her to Naomi. Staying meant suffering. Staying meant sacrifice and risk. Staying could have even meant death — especially in a period when the judges in Israel, though charged to care for the widow, “did what was right in [their] own eyes” (Judges 17:6). But nothing would make Ruth leave now.
As news spread, her future husband was especially drawn to this loyalty in her: “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before” (Ruth 2:11).
Fearless Woman
Ruth could not have been loyal in these circumstances without also being courageous. You hear and feel her fearlessness in the vows she makes to Naomi:
Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you. (Ruth 1:17)
She was not naive about what they might suffer. Remember, she had already buried her husband and her brother-in-law (and likely had never even met her father-in-law). Death had become an intimate part of their family. She left with no guarantee that a widowed life in Israel would be any better than the trials they had known. And yet, when love met fear — real, serious, life-threatening fear — her love prevailed.
In this way, Ruth was a daughter of Sarah, that worthy wife before her, who hoped in God and clothed herself with the beauty of obedience. For, despite how fragile and daunting her life had become, Ruth “[did] good and [did] not fear anything that [was] frightening” (1 Peter 3:5–6) — because Sarah’s great God had become her God (Ruth 1:16). Women like Ruth are not easily deterred, because they have experienced a wise and sovereign love bigger than all they might fear.
Unwavering Woman
Ruth was not just fearless but determined, and her mother-in-law knew so. “When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more” (Ruth 1:18). Her love was a fierce, durable, stubborn love.
It’s not that Ruth wouldn’t hear and consider counsel (Ruth 2:22–23; 3:3–5), but she also wouldn’t retreat or give up easily. She kept loving when lesser women would have walked away. She kept working when lesser women would have quit. For instance, when she came to Boaz’s field, his servant reported, “She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.’ So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest” (Ruth 2:7). Even the servants were surprised by this woman’s effort and endurance in the field.
Ruth did what she could (even straining her capacity at times) to care for those God had given to her, even when the risks were great, even when her strength ran low, even when others would have understood if she stopped, because Ruth was a worthy woman.
Godward Woman
Lastly, Ruth was a worthy woman because she was a Godward woman.
Though Ruth had been a foreigner, a Moabite by blood, she was now also a God-fearer by heart. “Your people shall be my people,” she said to Naomi, “and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16). She sounds like the apostle Peter when Jesus asked if the disciples wanted to leave with the others: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). Ruth’s loyalty to Naomi, and her fearlessness in leaving home, and her tireless determination, surely all blossomed from the garden of her newfound faith in God.
Faith tied Ruth to Naomi, and it also drew Boaz to Ruth. On the day he met her, he said,
All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me. . . . The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge! (Ruth 2:11–12)
“Do not be mistaken: worthy women are not proudly independent women.”
Yes, he admired how she cared for her mother-in-law, but he also saw how she had hidden herself in God, taking refuge under his wide and strong wings. She was not only a faithful woman, but a faith-filled woman. Do not be mistaken: worthy women are not proudly independent women. They know themselves to be needy, dependent, and vulnerable, and entrust themselves to the grace of God. They serve and sacrifice and risk with their eyes lifted above this earth to where their true hope lives.
When Boaz awoke and saw his future wife lying at his feet, he did not see the simple, fleeting beauty of a younger woman (though she was much younger); he saw the deeper, more complex, more durable beauty of a truly worthy wife.
Should She Move First?
What about single women today wondering if they should take a step toward their own Boaz? Should the man always act first, as the counsel so often goes? Was Ruth wrong to make the move and let her interest be known? Could she still be a model for women today who want to honor the man’s calling to take initiative? For my part, I believe Ruth is one wonderful example for single women today, and not just despite the unusual step she took, but even in it. I suspect some potential godly relationships may be prevented by an excessive fear that any initiative by women would undermine a man’s call to lead.
I do believe that God calls the man to bear a special burden of responsibility and take the greater initiative toward the woman. I believe the man should generally be the one risking rejection, protecting the woman by consistently putting himself forward in ways that require courage, great and small. I also believe that, should the couple marry, the man will uniquely bear the responsibility to lead, protect, provide, and shepherd her and their family — and I believe the tracks for that kind of healthy leadership are laid from (and even before) the first date. A godly woman should want a boyfriend, and eventually a husband, who consistently initiates and leads in their relationship.
Ruth, however, was in an unusual situation. Perhaps you are too. Boaz, being a worthy man (and a considerably older man, Ruth 3:10), might never have considered approaching Ruth. He also knew that he was not the next “redeemer” in line (Ruth 3:12), and so he may have not wanted to dishonor the other man by making the first move toward Ruth. Perhaps Ruth and Boaz never would have married if Ruth had not been willing to communicate her interest.
And as strange, even suggestive, as the scene may seem to us today, it very well may have been the most honorable way for Ruth to communicate that interest in her day. Even her bold step was discrete, and left the ultimate initiative in his hands, not hers. She found a way to communicate interest that upheld and encouraged his honor and leadership as a man.
So, yes, God calls men to take the initiative in Christian dating, but that doesn’t mean a godly woman never takes any steps of faith to communicate interest, especially in the context of a Christian community that can help her express that interest while shielding her from some of the pain of rejection. If there is a particular godly man you would like to pursue you, ask God if there are creative, humble, open-handed ways you might invite his initiative.
And as you do, it may not hurt, following that worthy example of Ruth, to ask an older woman in your life for counsel and help.