"The Book of Ruth"
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.
Download or email this sermon Importance of Genealogy
Kings had to be descendants of David, priests had to be descendants of Levi, High Priests had to be descendants of Aaron. The tribal inheritance allocated by Joshua had to be preserved according to Torah. So a legal descent had to be perpetuated. Otherwise, how would you know who the high priest was going to be? How would you know who the king was going to be? How would you know what was the inheritance of your family? And ultimately, how would we know the Messiah?
The lineage had to be established and perpetuated. There is a biological bloodline, and a legal one. One of the genealogies in the New Testament gives a legal descent; the other gives the biological, or genetic descent. That is one of the ways you account for the discrepancies; there are other ways, but that is one of the two main ones.
There was only one form of birth control practiced in ancient near east – ex-vaginal ejaculation. Today you will find Christians teaching against birth control for married people based on the verse that says there was a sentence of death if you practiced ex-vaginal ejaculation. But the only situation where that was forbidden was in Levirate marriage. It was designed to prevent you from reducing your brother's widow to a concubine, a sex object. The reason for having sex with your brother's widow was to procreate offspring on his behalf for two reasons.
The first reason was financial provision for his widow. The Hebrew word for “honor your parents” (it has to do with honorarium) does not mean you have to agree with every word of your parents, just because they are your parents. It means it is something heavy for you that you are expected to carry. The same thing as a mother is supposed to take care of the baby when it is little so, when she is old, that baby is going to be responsible for her in God's economy. Having children was a form of welfare provision for the aged. The first reason for Levirate marriage was so the brother's widow would have provision for her old age.
The second was the inheritance. The off-spring would perpetuate the family inheritance. If the land went out of the family line, due to debt, in the year of jubilee there would be a restoration of it to the family. The Pharisees taught that you could legally deny giving help to your parents by dedicating your goods to God – rendering them “corban” (Mark 7:11-13). They invalidated the commandments of God by their teachings. Jesus attacked them for this.
Your responsibility to your parents was woven into Jewish thought. It is perpetuated in the New Testament, which says you will not have a long life in this world if you do not look after your parents in their old age (Eph. 6:2-3).
We read in Ruth that the widow's brother would not raise up children on behalf of his brother in order to keep his brother's name from being cut off. This is a typology of Jesus. The Jews who, under the Old Covenant, died faithful to God needed somebody to come after them to redeem them. When someone procreated children on behalf of their deceased brother and took his land, it was called a “right of redemption”. A Jew who died under the Old Covenant needed someone from among his kinsmen to come after him, someone who would redeem him, prevent his name from being cut off from his fathers, and prevent him from losing the inheritance of promise. It points to Jesus.
How were the Jews under the Old Covenant saved? The same way we are. Hebrews tells us that the blood of animals could never take away sin. They could only cover the sin, if accompanied by faith and repentance, until the Messiah came and He would take them away. Under the Old Covenant the Jews were dependent on someone to come after them, to bring their redemption. It all points to Jesus.
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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.