An Offer You Can't Refuse? Bible Study Blog for Ruth 1

An Offer You Can’t Refuse?
Bible Study Blog – Ruth 1
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Recently, my daughter accompanied me on a visit to a parishioner who resides in a skilled nursing care facility. After the visit, she assured me that when Elizabeth and I become old, she will take care of us at home. Naturally, I was touched by her graciousness because I know she meant it 100%. But as parents, we never want to be burdens for our children. My parents and grandparents all said the very same thing.

In Ruth chapter 1, we witness a similar dynamic between the widow Naomi and her two recently-widowed daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth. A famine brought Naomi and her deceased husband and two sons to the land of Moab, where they lived as refugees. Her two sons married Orpah and Ruth while in Moab, but shortly thereafter, both sons died. When Naomi learned that the famine had subsided, she decided to return to her hometown of Bethlehem. Orpah and Ruth decide they will accompany her. But Naomi understood that this would be a tremendous sacrifice for them to make. If they remained in Moab with their families, they might have been able to remarry and even bear children. But if they accompany her to Bethlehem, they have little chance at a bright future.

Orpah accepts the grace Naomi extends to her and returns to her family in Moab. Remember—this is what Naomi wanted for her. Ruth, on the other hand, promises that she will remain with Naomi until death. But Ruth’s grace to Naomi does not make everything instantly better.

With the love of Jesus Christ in our hearts, there will come a time when you will be compelled to sacrifice yourself for someone else—and there will come a time when someone else will be compelled to sacrifice themselves for you. Our bible study participants agreed that it is much more difficult to receive someone else’s sacrificial grace than it is to extend it.

In her first call, Elizabeth cared for a family of four where the father/husband suffered kidney failure. Since he had many other ailments, he was ineligible for the transplant list. Therefore, his best possibility of survival was for someone to donate a kidney to him. It turned out that his youngest son was a match, and he was willing to give up his kidney, fully knowing that his sacrifice may not be enough to save his father’s life.

Would you be able to receive such a sacrifice from a loved one? In a situation like this, there is no right answer. I can tell you that the father accepted his son’s kidney donation, and the family was able to share about five more good years together before the father passed away last summer. I imagine that this was a terribly difficult gift for him to receive from his son. But the grace given and received within this family exemplifies the self-sacrificing grace of Jesus Christ, as does the grace given and received between Naomi, Ruth, and Orpah.

God’s love for you is revealed in Jesus’s sacrifice of himself for you. His gifts of salvation and forgiveness are not a reward for right beliefs or good works. These gifts are given because you need them, and because you are valuable to God.

In the giving of ourselves to others, and in the receiving of gifts we neither deserve nor can repay, we experience firsthand the love of Jesus Christ.