Category: Christmas

The Truth on Ruth

The third woman in the genealogy of Jesus? Let’s talk about her on Deeper Waters.

We’re looking at the Christmas story this month on Deeper Waters and right now we’re going through Matthew’s genealogy and looking at notable mentions in it. I’ve said that women seem to have a tendency to pop up in the genealogies, which is highly unusual for a genealogy of the time. The first and second one have both involved morally questionable situations, but when we get to this third one, she is definitely as pure as the driven snow.

One of my favorite ministries is the Ruth Institute, which is an excellent pro-marriage ministry, and a great place to go to if one wants to know why we should oppose redefining marriage. In talking with the founder of this group, I found that it was named the Ruth Institute because of the character of Ruth in the Bible. Ruth is one of those books not quoted in the Old Testament, but one that is extremely important. How come?

The story starts with a family that leaves Bethlehem and goes into Moabite territory due to a famine. While there, the sons marry two Moabite women. Shortly after that, all the men die. Naomi, the mother, hears that the famine has ended and starts heading back. Her two daughters-in-law come with her and she tells them to go back. One of them agrees but the other says:

“Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”

This is one determined woman and this is not a simple platitude. With this, she was abandoning her Moabite heritage and saying she wanted to be a part of the people of Israel. That also meant abandoning the religion and living in the service of the God of Israel. We may see this as a small change today as many people change their religions all the time, but in that day and age, your entire identity was being changed. This is no small gesture on Ruth’s part and we should not see it as such.

Ruth and Naomi come to Bethlehem then and in order for them to survive, sends Ruth out in the fields to glean. This was an allowable practice where someone was supposed to leave some food behind in a field so that the poor could come in and get what was left behind. Ruth gets noticed in the field of a man named Boaz. He makes sure she is well provided for. When Naomi finds out, she is overjoyed and says that God is to be praised because He has not forsaken the living or the dead. That is the most important line in Ruth. It is the central one and the rest of the story is built around it. The author of the account wants you to know that God has not forsaken those people who have died and is still fulfilling the covenant. This will become more apparent later on.

Naomi tells Ruth that Boaz is a kinsman-redeemer and thus is eligible to marry Ruth so she can be provided for. Naomi, a crafty mother-in-law, gives Ruth clear instructions. Take a good bath, put on the best perfume, and put on a really good outfit. Why? You are to go down and see Boaz and make an appeal to him to marry you. Ruth does this and she does it in a way that is not immoral at all. It was within the custom of the time. Boaz wakes up to find Ruth at his feet when she makes her request. He tells her there is a kinsman-redeemer closer than he and he must have a chance first, but if he does not accept, then Boaz will marry Ruth. Ruth spends the night at Boaz’s feet and leaves before anyone else wakes up. There is no reason to believe that any sexual activity took place that night.

When the morning comes, Boaz speaks to the other kinsman-redeemer, who is so unworthy in his actions that he is not even given a name in the book. All other individual characters, even those without dialogue, are named. This person is not. He refuses to marry into the family of Naomi and so loses his honor. Boaz takes it upon himself then to marry Ruth and he does so. The elders bless the union and pray that it be as bountiful as that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, a name we saw earlier in this blog.

So the family goes back to Bethlehem, (And yes, the Bethlehem Jesus was born at) and there they have a son whose name is Obed. Okay. A lot of you might not have heard of him. He is the father of a man named Jesse. Now the names are starting to seem familiar. Jesse is the father of David. Indeed, God has not forsaken the living or the dead. He has fulfilled His covenant to Israel in David and ultimately, by David’s son, the Christ.

Ruth is a figure that should be upheld and celebrated in the church today. It is also amazing that she is not just a woman and a gentile, but a Moabite, a distant cousin of Israel of whom they weren’t always on best terms. Deuteronomy 23 shows us that. For those concerned, David would qualify to enter the temple on two grounds. First, his father was an Israelite so he would be Israelite by descent. Second, Ruth had been accepted into the people of Israel and forsaken her Moabite heritage.

Ruth gets us from the time of Judges to the time of David with 1 Samuel filling in even more of the information, but though the book of Ruth is not explicitly cited in the NT, we dare not underestimate Ruth’s importance. God is still able to be the God of all who call on His name.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Woman In The Wall

Can there be a harlot in the genealogy of Jesus? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

We’re looking at the Christmas story this month and going through the genealogy in Matthew. Our next stop is to look at the story of a woman that is also surprising to find mentioned specifically. Any time, Matthew could have left out these women, but he chose not to.

If you asked a lot of people for a favorite character in the Bible other than Jesus, you would get a lot of responses. For my wife, right there high up on the list would be Rahab. Rahab? Yep. Who was she? When the Israelites invaded Jericho, they sent spies to find out what was going on in the city beforehand. The spies went to a spot where a woman named Rahab was who was a prostitute. She had heard about what Israel’s God had done for them and responded favorably to the spies and hid them so that they would not be found. In return, they granted her and all those with her their lives.

The Israelites had gone to a place where people would be found. As it is today, a place of prostitution is a busy place as most men passing through an area wouldn’t mind getting a little bit of sex in on the way. The place was known enough that when soldiers from Jericho came through looking for the spies of Israel, they made sure to stop there. Rahab’s response showed her faithfulness to the God of Israel and her desire to be included amongst the people. After all, once her city was destroyed, where else could she go? This was a drastic act of faith on her part as she was abandoning her ways and lifestyle to be a part of Israel.

How is she seen in the New Testament? Quite favorably! When James writes his epistle. He gives two examples of faith. One of them is Abraham’s offer of Isaac, which would have been a defining story for the people of Israel and one that they would all have known about. If you wanted an Exhibit A for faith, you would always go to Abraham. Who is the other story? It’s the story of Rahab! This woman who was a prostitute is being put right alongside the very founder of the Jewish people! What greater compliment could be given to her?

What this means to us today is even more amazing I think than Tamar. Tamar was in a position where she could have thought she had to do what she did. Rahab was not. Rahab could have stayed a prostitute and blown off the people of Israel as if it was just a myth. She did not. She was ready to turn her life around and give herself over to the people of Israel and let their God be her God, something that we will see even more of with our next woman in the account. As a result, she was not only in the people of Israel, but she was included in the genealogy of Jesus Himself. She who had used sex so disgracefully in the past had sex used so wonderfully in her to bring about a child through whom would come about the very savior of the people. Matthew is not only reaching out to women here as being in the genealogy, but to a gentile as well!

This is why my wife likes Rahab so much. Rahab is a reminder that with all the screw-ups we’ve made in life, that when we come to God and seek to make Him to be our God, then we are capable of being used. Now since Jesus has come, you will not be used to bring about the lineage of the Messiah any more. That’s been done. You could be used to bring about the birth of Christ in the life of your fellow man. It does not matter if you were a prostitute before or anything else. You are not beyond redemption and not beyond leading someone else into redemption.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Why Is Tamar There?

What is Tamar doing in the genealogy of Christ? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Tonight, I’d like to start looking at Christmas information and start with the genealogies of Christ. After all, around this time of year, Christians are asked a lot of questions about what we believe. The first place to start would be what we usually turn to at the beginning, and that is the book of Matthew, the first book of the New Testament. It starts off with a genealogy. What we’ll be looking at is a few of the unusual names in there.

First, why do these genealogies exist to begin with? I have a mother-in-law who enjoys doing genealogies and a cousin who does. Shortly after our wedding, my cousin gave me the Peters family genealogy. In there, I found information on myself and my parents of course, but then I was surprised to also find my wife was already included along with her family and her birthday. My cousin had really done his homework.

Genealogies were extremely important to Jews. You had to establish your pedigree in the ancient world. When Nathaniel says “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” he is speaking a common sentiment. When the Jews have a hatred of the Samaritans, they are also going along with this. Your origins story was extremely important, and this would have to be the most important story of all Matthew was writing. What were the origins of the Son of God?

As we go through the list, we find some names we don’t expect. The first one is Tamar. What is unusual about her?

To begin with, women were not usually in genealogies. This was about men. Matthew has a number of women in his which sets it out as unusual. This had to be a purposeful addition and since a writer would only want to include the most important information in a writing, there had to be some purposeful meaning behind what was said. Matthew wants us to know that Tamar is included in the lineage and not just Judah.

Establishing that Jesus is from the tribe of Judah is important since this is where the Messiah was to come from, but establishing Tamar was not. After all, we have no mention in this genealogy of Sarah, Rebekkah, or Leah, the respective wives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (Jacob did have Rachel and two concubines, but Judah was born through Leah.) The first mention we have of a woman is Tamar.

Note that I said woman and not wife. Tamar was not a wife. In fact, she was the daughter-in-law of Judah. The story is found in Genesis 38. Tamar was the wife of Judah’s son and that son was wicked so God put him to death. History kept repeating and Tamar was doubtful she would get a child then since Judah was hesitant to give his youngest son to her. So what did Tamar do? She disguised herself as a prostitute and waited for Judah to come by. Judah falls for the ruse and in that encounter, Tamar gets pregnant. She gives birth to Perez and Zerah. Perez is the one through whom Jesus comes.

In some cases in history, genealogies are given flavor to make the person look good, such as saying that one is descended from the gods. Part of the authenticity of the account of Matthew is that it includes such a shameful event. Every Jew would recognize it immediately, yet Matthew includes it. Why? Because it would not be denied for one point. The way the Christians dealt with a number of scandals was to admit them. We will look more at this in our look at the virgin birth so put it in the back of your mind for now.

Not only that, that a person of shame is used in the account can show the way of God in using that which is shameful regularly to fulfill His purposes. Many people wonder how God could use them, and the genealogy can indicate to us that anyone can be used. Also, not only can we be used, but our sinful actions can be. We should not seek to sin, but when we do, it cannot overturn the purposes of God. By biblical standards, the action between Judah and Tamar was wicked, but the child does not bear the blame. The child was still used to bring about righteousness for all people.

We today should be thankful to see these people in the genealogy of Christ and it can remind us of how the accounts are authentic due to the criteria of embarrassment that Tamar brings.

In Christ,
Nick Peters