The Lesson of Ruth
The Gentile Bride Who Helped Rescue Her Jewish Momma
By Tim Moore and Paul Wilkinson
[Note: Our guest author, Dr. Paul Wilkinson, wrote the book Israel: The Inheritance of God which was featured in an episode of Christ in Prophecy.]
There is one evangelistic role that the Church has demonstrably failed to fulfill over the years. Paul wrote that because of Jewish transgression, “salvation has come to the Gentiles to make them jealous” (Romans 11:11). Most Christians spend little time considering how to make the Jews jealous—or even endeavoring to bless them in a Gospel-centered way.
It is not our purpose here to expand on the transgression which Paul delineates in his letter to the Church in Rome. He simply asserts, “Now if their transgression is riches for the world and their failure is riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be!” (Romans 11:12) We take God at His Word and anticipate that at the end of the Tribulation, a great remnant of the Jewish people will come to the end of themselves, look upon the One they have pierced, and weep for Him as for an only Son (Daniel 12:7). Then, the Lord will pour out His Spirit of grace and supplication on them and they will cry out, “Baruch haba b’Shem Adonai!” — Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the LORD! (Zechariah 12:10; Psalm 118:26).
Lest we overlook the admonition to inspire jealousy, Paul repeats that refrain in Romans 11:13-14: “But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if somehow I might move to jealousy my fellow countrymen and save some of them.”
So Far, Not So Good
Jesus was unambiguous. He told the Syrophoenician woman, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24). He initially commanded His disciples to focus their evangelistic efforts solely on Israel (Matthew 10:5). Only later did He announce the Great Commission, fulfilling the prophecies “that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His Name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47).
Paul was unashamed of the Gospel, because he knew that it is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the [Gentile]” (Romans 1:16). Every believer begins growing in Christlikeness after they are born again. Because we know that God does not change, we know that Jesus’ love for His people Israel is steadfast and unwavering—and we are called to reflect that same love. The Jewish people are His inheritance, His nachalah—a Hebrew word-gem that sparkles 222 times in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 4:20; 32:9). As Paul emphatically declares, to the Jews belong “the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises… and from whom is the Christ” (Romans 9:4-5).
You would think, then, that as wild branches grafted into the olive tree (as Paul describes Gentile believers in Romans 11) we would all be so grateful that we would want to bless the original branches—by sharing the Gospel with them, and by making them jealous of our relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
How is the Church collectively doing in that effort? Not so good.
From a Jewish Perspective
From a Jewish perspective, the worst persecutors of the Jews over the past centuries have been professing Christians. Prior to the modern era and the rise of radical Islam, the nations that perpetrated expulsions, pogroms, and even the Holocaust were all nominally Christian. Spain was Roman Catholic, Russia was Orthodox, and Germany was Protestant. Only America offered a safe haven where religious freedom enabled the sons of Jacob to live in relative security, but now the Jewish people are under threat here as well.
Certainly, many Jews rejected the Lord Jesus while He ministered here on Earth. That is why He called out Capernaum, Korazin, and Bethsaida (Matthew 11:20-24). But for the past 19 centuries, the main stumbling block to Jewish evangelism has, to a large extent, been “the Church.” Jews have struggled to recognize true Christianity—and hear the voice of Jesus—amidst the clanging noise of religious ritualism and theological anti-Semitism. A case in point is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a “whitewashed tomb” where six nominally Christian denominations vie for political control and ecclesiastical supremacy.
We can testify that in recent years, Jews in Israel have come to recognize that there is one group of Christians who really do love and support them: Evangelicals. This has provided a much-needed opening for the Gospel, for people often do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.
Sadly, even among Evangelicals there are many who have closed their hearts to the Lord’s brethren. But do we care enough to love the Jewish people even while they are far from faith? Again, if we are seeking to be Christ-like, then there is no other option, for “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). As Paul further reminds us, “From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers” (Romans 11:28).
A Biblical Example
In the Old Testament, there is perhaps no greater example of love extended from a Gentile to a Jew than Ruth the Moabite, who was grafted in by marriage and left her own people to remain with Naomi after they were both widowed.
In her despair, Naomi (which means pleasant) changed her own name to Mara (bitter) because she perceived that the Almighty had afflicted her and her hope was dried up (Ruth 1:20-21). But Ruth demonstrated such loyalty and faithfulness to her mother-inlaw that hope began to dawn again in Naomi’s heart. The ultimate restoration of their fortune required the love of a selfless kinsman-redeemer—clearly a foreshadowing of our great God and Bridegroom, Jesus Christ. As Ruth famously declared to her, “your people shall be my people, and your God, my God” (Ruth 1:16).
Onto the stage of redemptive history stepped Boaz, a noble kinsman-redeemer who was captivated by Ruth’s loyalty and pronounced this blessing over her: “May the LORD reward your work, and your wages be full from the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to seek refuge” (Ruth 2:12). Boaz took Ruth to be his wife, and in so doing foreshadowed Jesus, the Great Redeemer not only of Israel, but also of the Gentiles—and the Bridegroom of His Church. The Jewish widow Naomi was restored and renewed, so much so that the women of Bethlehem celebrated by pronouncing this blessing: “Blessed is the LORD who has not left you without a redeemer today, and may his name become famous in Israel. May he also be to you a restorer of life and a sustainer.” (Ruth 4:14-15).
May it be our aspiration for the Jewish people to recite a similar blessing over Jesus/Yeshua, when they realize that throughout the long centuries of despair and bitterness, God never left them without a Redeemer—and even raised up Gentiles like you and me to help rescue, restore, and renew them.
The Least of My Brothers
The initial Church in Jerusalem was made up only of Jews, but over time they were greatly outnumbered by the Gentiles.
As the end draws near, increasing numbers of Jews are coming to know their Messiah, and Messianic congregations are multiplying and growing. Surely Gentile Christians should be celebrated and encouraging this trend!
When the Son of Man comes in all His glory, Jesus will laud those who acted compassionately toward “one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them” (Matthew 25:40). Preachers like to make a universal application from this passage, and certainly there is an element of Christian compassion that should extend to all people made in the image of God, but Jesus was speaking specifically here about the Jews.
Failure to love the Jewish people as Christ does is a terrible stain on the Church. Let us endeavor, with God’s help, to love them the way Jesus does.
He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
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