Making a Choice

August 14, 2011


Background Scripture: Ruth 1
Lesson Passage: Ruth 1:8 – 18

Decisions are made all around us everyday where people live, learn, play, and work. Part of life involves making decisions. In fact, if we try to avoid making a decision, we only concede that we have decided to live with the decision of another—in effect, choosing to make the same decision. The freedom and authority to decide seem fundamental to our being made in the image of God and after His likeness. Decisions also involve great responsibility for decisions have consequences. It is often the consequences that we are trying to avoid when we procrastinate and put off making a decision. Yet, having the ability and right to decide is a privilege of being a free moral agent. Unlike humans, other animals live by instinct and do not exercise the power of making a choice. Instinct serves to support sustaining life whereas making a choice involves determining the quality of life we choose to live. Our lesson today involves six people engaged in making choices that have profound consequences for them as well as countless others. Elimelech decided to take his wife and two sons out of the land of Canaan because of a famine and led them into the land of Moab where he died. His widow and two orphaned sons found themselves strangers in the land away from the land of their inheritance. The two sons made choices of Moabite women to be their wives rather than the Hebrew women back in Judah which would have been according to the Law. In the process of time, both sons died away from the land of their birth leaving their mother and widowed wives in the land of Moab. Upon hearing that conditions had improved in Judah, Elimelech’s widow, Naomi, made a decision to return home. Her daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, desired to go with her but at her prompting, Orpah returned to her family in the land of Moab. Ruth, on the other hand, made a different choice. Ruth chose to forsake her family, homeland, and god that she might be able to follow Naomi. Ruth vowed that Naomi’s destination, lodging, family, God, and place of death and burial would also be hers. Ruth was claiming for herself all that Naomi would embrace and live and die for. This was her choice and the consequences that followed. Ruth did not simply embrace one of the decisions that Naomi was making, she was accepting all of them. So great was Ruth’s devotion towards her mother-in-law that Naomi ceased to try to persuade her otherwise. When Ruth accepted death as a possible consequence of her decision, what more could Naomi say to her? In the few verses covered by our lesson, many years are encompassed and the choices made by six people during that time had major impact for them and others around them. But none of those choices were as all-encompassing or as far-reaching as the one made by the Moabite named Ruth.


Robert C. Hudson
July 28, 2011

Walk in God’s Path

August 7, 2011


Background Scripture: Judges 13; 21:25
Lesson Passage: Judges 13:1 – 8, 24, 25

Today’s lesson chronicles the steps given to a couple from the tribe of Dan to prepare them to receive a blessing. This would be a blessing to them because it will take away the reproach that couples had to bear at that time for being childless. This would also be a blessing to Israel to take away the reproach of being oppressed for forty years at the hands of their enemy the Philistines. As is repetitious throughout the book of Judges, Israel had again found themselves without a leader and had backslidden and did evil in the sight of God. God had allowed the Philistines to oppress them for forty years as a result of their sin. What is different about this deliverance is that the bible does not say that the nation of Israel cried out to the Lord for deliverance from the oppression prior to God sending a deliverer. The focus of the text is the steps the woman had to take as prescribed by God. She was to keep herself from the fruit of the vine and all strong drinks and unclean food. She was to raise the child the Lord was going to bless her with under the vow of a Nazarite from his birth. These instructions were not given to the man but to the woman. She relayed it to her husband and he in turn sought directions from God in prayer relative to it. When the messenger of God returned to the woman the second time, she alerted her husband; he then asked counsel of the messenger. The messenger’s counsel was that the woman must follow the advice he had previously given her and so he repeated it for her husband that he might also know. The woman showed great respect towards her husband as well as confidence in him by sharing with him all that she had been told to do. Likewise, the husband showed great faith in accepting the words of God’s messenger as true and sought more clarity from God concerning the prophecy. When the messenger returned, the couple sought to make a sacrifice and prepare a meal for him. The messenger refused the offer of food and instructed the couple to only offer a sacrifice unto the Lord. At this point, the couple desired to know his name that they could honor him when the baby was born (perhaps by naming the child after him). When the offering was prepared and offered up by fire, the messenger ascended in the flame in the sight of the couple so that they were moved to bow down and worship for they recognized that this was no other than an epiphany or pre-incarnate Christ who had visited with them. This was the last time the couple was visited by the messenger but it was enough to fully persuade them that God was indeed with them. This must have been encouraging for them throughout the pregnancy and childhood of the promised baby. They would never be able to erase the memory of that visit. Whereas fear came upon them after learning the identity of the messenger, a spirit of wisdom was also on the woman in that she understood that this was further confirmation of God’s plans for them. When the boy was born, his mother called his name Samson and God’s favor was upon his life.

Robert C. Hudson
July 28, 2011