"The Book of Ruth"

by James Jacob Prasch

The book of Ruth tells the story of a rich powerful Jewish man who takes a Gentile Bride and exalts her, the way that Jesus, on the day of Pentecost, raised up the Gentile church, as the Bride of Christ.

  1. Introduction
  2. Ruth's Loyalty
  3. Ruth Gleans in the Fields of Boaz
  4. Boaz Will Redeem Ruth
  5. The Marriage of Ruth
  6. The Line of David Began Here
  7. Why Us?
  8. Something Special
  9. Orpah
  10. Ruth
  11. Levirate Marriage
  12. Imortance of Genealogy
  13. Gleaning
  14. I Will Bless Them That Bless Thee
  15. Sacrificing Babies to Demons
  16. Learning from Israel's Mistakes
  17. Second-Class Christians
  18. A Woman of Excellence
  19. The Key to Their Redemption
  20. Take the Grain to My People
  21. Redeemer and Restorer
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Orpah

There are two Gentile women. Every Gentile Christian and Gentile church will come either in the character of Ruth or in the character of Orpah. Orpah seems to be quite polite and pleasant. But, once her own interests are at stake, she goes back to her people and to her gods.

Notice that: "To her gods" (Ruth 1:15). The post-Nicene Church, after Constantine “Christianized” the Roman Empire, the Church lost sight of its Jewish roots, something
that Paul warned should not happen (Rom. 11:17-18).

I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? "Lord, they have killed Thy prophets, they have torn down Thine altars, and I alone am left, and they are seeking my life." But what is the divine response to him? "I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God's gracious choice. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace. What then? That which Israel is seeking for, it has not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened; just as it is written,

"God gave them a spirit of stupor,
Eyes to see not and ears to hear not,
Down to this very day" (Romans 11:1-8).

The Church lost sight of their Jewish roots. Then what happened? Paganism invaded Christendom – the emergence of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, perverting the original Christianity of the New Testament, which was a Jewish Hebraic faith. They went back to their old gods once they lost sight of their Jewish roots!

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Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.