A (1) Boaz introduced as a potential helper

B (2) Ruth offers to glean

C (3) Ruth gleans, and experiences God’s grace through Boaz

D (4-7) Boaz speaks to his men and hears of Ruth’s godliness

E (8-9) Boaz speaks with Ruth, assuring her of protection

F (10) Ruth exclaims, “Why have I found such favour in your eyes?”

G (11-12) Boaz speaks to Ruth about her godliness and the Lord’s reward

F’ (13) Ruth exclaims, “I have found favour in your eyes!”

E’ (14) Boaz speaks with Ruth, providing generously for her

D’ (15-16) Boaz speaks to his men and instructs them to help Ruth

C’ (17-18) Ruth gleaned, Naomi experiences God’s grace through her

B’ (19)  Ruth reports her gleaning

A’ (20)    Boaz described as a potential redeemer

HT: CH

A (v. 1) Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in his ways!

B (v. 2a) You shall eat the fruit of the labour of your hands;

C (v. 2b) you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.

C’ (v. 3a) Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house;

B’ (v. 3b) your children will be like olive shoots around your table.

A’ (v. 4) Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the LORD.

D (v. 5a) The LORD bless you from Zion!

E (v. 5b) May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem

F (v. 6c) all the days of your life!

E’ (v. 6) May you see your children’s children!

D’ (v. 6b) Peace be upon Israel!

Notice the shift from 3rd person (vv. 1-4) to 2nd person (vv. 5-6).

Notice also a couple of the correspondences in the chiasms:

• The fruit of the labour of your hands are the children around your table (B).
• The blessing of the LORD is your fruitful wife (C).
• We see the prosperity of Jerusalem as the LORD preserves our children’s children (E).
• The final blessing is peace for God’s people (F).

With thanks to Steve Hayhow. Click here to listen to the sermon.

(Let’s run with the imagery for a moment, assuming all the usual caveats about biblical imagery, anthropomorphic language, and so on).

Perhaps this explains why the LORD is so often absent from the church in our day. He has nowhere to sit. What – you don’t expect an honoured guest to stand all the way through your church services, do you?

HT: JBJ.

There’s a fairly obvious link between the calming of the storm and Moses leading the Israelites across the Red Sea (4:35-41). But Horne takes it further by highlighting the connection to the next passage. “Legion,” says Horne, is “a military term for a great number of soldiers.”And lots of strange things happen in this (extended) exorcism account. Like the demons (soldiers?) get drowned in the sea.

Ringing any bells yet? Over to Mr Horne again:

Jesus has just brought [His disciples] through the sea by a miracle and now He drives a demonic horde into that same sea to drown them. Like Moses at the Red Sea, the enemy army is destroyed by the very means God uses to transport His people across the water. (pp. 94-95)

I’ll leave you to chew over why Mark bothers to mention that before being liberated the demon-possessed man was always “bruising himself with stones” (5:5). (Genesis 3:15; Judges 5:26; 9:53; etc).

For an example of the latter, consider Micah 6:14-15.

14 You shall eat, but not be satisfied, and there shall be hunger within you; you shall put away, but not preserve, and what you preserve I will give to the sword. 15You shall sow, but not reap; you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil; you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine.

This is the kind of eating that produces no satisfaction; the kind of drinking that leaves a ravaging thirst. Like eating stale bread and drinking salt water.

Or perhaps it’s like drinking sour wine (Mark 15:36), or drinking the cup of the wrath of the LORD (Mark 13:36), as Jesus did as he suffered on the cross for our sins.

In the hand of the LORD is a cup full of foaming wine mixed with spices; he pours it out, and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs. (Ps. 75:8)

Awake, awake! Rise up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of his wrath, you who have drained to its dregs the goblet that makes men stagger. (Isa. 51:17)

This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: ‘Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. When they drink it, they will stagger and go mad because of the sword I will send among them.’ (Jer. 25:15-16)

This is what the Sovereign Lord says: ‘You will drink your sister’s cup, a cup large and deep; it will bring scorn and derision, for it holds so much. You will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, the cup of ruin and desolation, the cup of your sister Samaria. You will drink it and drain it dry; you will dash it to pieces and tear your breasts.’ I have spoken, declares the Sovereign LORD. (Ezek. 23:32-34)

You will be filled with shame instead of glory. Now it is your turn! Drink and be exposed! The cup from the LORD’s right hand is coming round to you, and disgrace will cover your glory. (Hab. 2:16)

It is because Jesus drank like this that we may enjoy the other kind of eating and drinking pictured by the prophet Micah:

They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks … they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken. (Micah 3:3-4)

• What is unusual about the way that Jesus heals the blind man (verses 22–26)?
• What different ideas do people have about Jesus’ identity (verses 27–28)? What does Peter think (verses 29–30)?

It’s possible that the two-stage healing in verses 22–26 is intended to illustrate Peter’s two-stages understanding of Jesus’ mission. Like the man after the first stage of his healing, Peter could see, but not very clearly. Peter understands (sees) that Jesus is the Christ; but he doesn’t yet see that Jesus must suffer.

• Jesus now begins to teach something that we’ve not yet heard much about in Mark’s Gospel. What is it? How does Peter respond (verses 31–33)?
• How does Jesus’ explanation in verses 34–38 address Peter’s initial reaction?

Why might Peter have said what he did in verse 32? Do you ever find yourself thinking the same way? How might verses 34–38 be relevant to you?

But who could have guessed just how significant this particular digression would prove to be? Here we catch our first glimpse of the theme that will occupy much of our attention for not only the rest of the book of Genesis, but the whole Bible – how will God create and preserve a people to fulfil the task at which Adam failed in Genesis 3?

It’s striking that the theme is introduced as a problem to be solved, a human impossibility that God alone can overcome. The moment when human wisdom and strength can go no further is the point at which God really sets the ball rolling.

We see emptiness; God sees a vessel that he alone can fill. We see impenetrable walls; God sees a city doomed to destruction. We live in weakness; God sees an opportunity to display his grace and power.

The book of Nehemiah is all about rebuilding the wall and gates of Jerusalem, so we must understand their significance in order to grasp the message of the book.

The walls of a city are a means of security and defence, and thus a comfort for its citizens and a measure of its stature as a city. It’s handy to have high walls because you can drop millstones from them onto people’s heads (Judges 9:52), while if the walls are broken down, the city is finished (Josh 6). Walls define the geo-political ‘space’ occupied by the city, and thus serve as the boundaries of the city’s civic activity, governance, and so on.

The gates in particular serve this civic function – lots of civic affairs take place there (e.g. Dt 17:5; 21:19; 25:7; Ruth 4; Amos 5:10; Ps 127:5). The gates are also the place where public announcements are made (since it’s the main thoroughfare) and the place where God’s people encounter the pagan world. So if you wanted to proclaim the gospel to the nations, where would you stand?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the walls and gates of the City of God are ‘salvation’ and ‘praise’ (Is 60:18), and the LORD himself is identified with the walls of his city (Ps 48:12-14). After all, what else would God’s people announce to the world other than the gospel of their King, and who else would be their protection?

In summary, the walls and gates of the people of God say two things to the world:

1. Walls mean KEEP OUT! The Israelites built the walls to keep the nations out so that they could follow the Lord. So also the church needs to be separate from the unbelieving world so that we can follow Jesus.

2. Gates mean COME IN! The Israelites built the gates to welcome the nations in so that they could also follow the Lord. So also the church needs to welcome people in so that they can also follow Jesus.

Or, to put it another way, we’re separate from the world for the sake of the world. We leave the world in order to save the world. And so on.

For more, see ‘Wall’ and ‘Gate’ in the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (IVP).

It wasn’t really fair of me to describe Samson as suicidal. True, he ended his life by pulling down the Philistine temple on top of himself and the Philistine army. But given his circumstances (blinded, imprisoned, etc) this was actually a fairly brave thing to do. And, after all, we all rejoice in a Saviour who willingly gave himself up to death in order to conquer our enemy. ‘Suicide’ isn’t quite the right word.

Perhaps Samson’s problem was not so much the way he died, but the sense of uncontrolled fury that pervaded his life. He was hardly a man in control of his desires and actions, in stark contrast to the Lord Jesus, who always knew exactly what he was doing.

Jephthah is a little more complicated. On Sunday I said that his great mistake was the foolish vow he made to God, that ‘If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whatever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the LORD’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering’ (Judges 11:30-31). This rather hasty undertaking backfired spectacularly when ‘Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah. And behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances. She was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter’ (vv. 33-34).

It then looks like Jephthah made matters far worse by actually going ahead and doing what he’d promised. Convinced that he ‘cannot take back [his] vow,’ Jephthah ‘did with her according to his vow that he had made’ (vv. 35, 39).

However, it’s just possible that we should read the passage another way. James Jordan suggests that after the Spirit of God ‘empowered’ Jephthah, He ‘provoked’ him to his vow, which was ‘calculated, not rash.’ It was an expression of ‘gratitude to God,’ and a confession that only ‘God is able to do the work.’ Jephthah is anticipating that a person, not an animal, will come to meet him – after all, sacrificial animals don’t live inside houses. And, crucially, ‘the whole burnt sacrifice represents the consecration of the whole person to God, wholly dedicated to him.’ Jephthah had in mind not the execution of anyone or anything, but ’some permanent service to God that would prevent the person from living a normal life’ (Jordan, Judges: A Practical and Theological Commentary, pp. 200-201).

Perhaps this reading gains additional credence from the fact that Jephthah’s daughter laments not her death, but her virginity (vv. 38-39). On the other hand, such appalling mistreatment of women was not entirely unheard of during the period of the Judges (cf. ch 19). Dan Block is one commentator who takes the more critical view of Jephthah (Judges, Ruth [NAC], pp. 364-379), and his treatment is well worth considering in detail. For now, I’m not sure, though I still think I incline more towards Block’s negative interpretation of Jephthah’s actions than Jordan’s positive construction.

Maybe we’ll have some sermons on Judges sometime.