Ruth Series

At the end of 2012, after an ever increasingly bruising look at Judges, where we sadly saw how bad God's people can become, how good men can fall and how God can use foolish and unfaithful men to bring about his purposes, we turned to a beautiful story of kindness, steadfast loyalty, compassion and love -- nothing less than hesed -- that arises from the same period of Israel's history. We see God taking care of a poor but noble young foreign widow and her empty and bitter mother in law who both return to Bethlehem from the far country to take shelter under the wings of Yahweh and his covenant people. We also see that through his righteous people, Yahweh is preparing for the king that Israel needs.