Pastor and author John Piper called Ruth “God’s ideal woman” in A Sweet and Bitter Providence. Why? “Faith in God that sees beyond present bitter setbacks. Freedom from the securities and comforts of the world. Courage to venture into the unknown and the strange. Radical commitment in the relationships appointed by God. This is the woman of Proverbs 31:25 who looks into the future with confidence in God and laughs at the coming troubles... It is a beautiful thing to watch a woman like this serve Christ with courage.”

Following Ruth’s example is another way to fight and win against temptation. She could have stayed in her comfort zone and done the culturally expected thing, as Naomi advised her to do (vv. 8–9). But she must have seen something of the one true God in the lives of her in-laws. She’d become His follower. There was no going back (see also Luke 9:62). So she chose the more difficult but more faith-filled option: “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God” (v. 16).

Naomi’s offer to release her two Moabite daughters-in-law from their family obligations to her as a widow was logical and generous in one sense, but also bitter and self-pitying. “The LORD ’s hand has turned against me!” she lamented (v. 13). Even when she arrived back home, she complained, “The Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty” (vv. 20–21).

God, though, had remembered Naomi by providing Ruth to come with her, just as He would later remember Ruth’s need for a husband and provide Boaz. Ruth’s character quickly earned a positive reputation in Bethlehem, and she became an ancestor of the Messiah (Matt. 1:5).

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