Discover The Word

Friday, August 20, 2010

“While Ruth was there, Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters.  ‘The Lord be with you!’ he said.  ‘The Lord bless you!’ the harvesters replied.  Then Boaz asked his foreman, ‘Who is that girl over there?’  And the foreman replied, ‘She is the young woman from Moab who came back with Naomi.  She asked me this morning if she could gather grain behind the harvesters.  She has been hard at work ever since, except for a few minutes’ rest over there in the shelter.’  Boaz went over and said to Ruth, ‘Listen, my daughter, stay right here with us when you gather grain; don’t go to any other fields.  Stay right behind the women working in my field.  See which part of the field they are harvesting and then follow them.  I have warned the young men not to bother you.  And when you are thirsty, help yourself to the water they have drawn from the well’ ” (Ruth 2:4-9 NLT).

IDEA: How we treat those who work for us reveals a great deal about what we are.

PURPOSE: To help listeners realize that we should deal with others as God has dealt with us.

Have you ever been in a situation where someone treated another person who worked for him with disdain?

Have you known employers who treated those who worked for them with dignity?

Does that tell you anything at all about that employer’s character?

I. In the story of Ruth we are introduced to a man named Boaz.  From how the storyteller first describes him in Ruth 2:4-9, what do you know about him?

From what the storyteller gives us, what impressions do you have of Boaz?

How old was he?

Where do you see him on the social scale?

What do you imagine was his relationship to his employees?

What do you learn about him from the way he relates to Ruth?

What do you make of his saying, “I am going to command the young men not to lay a hand on you”?  What do you think Boaz is talking about?

Why do you think it is significant that he urges her when she gets thirsty to drink the water that the young men have drawn from the well?

In a cultural context when normally foreigners would draw for Israelites and women would draw for men (Genesis 24:10-20), this is extraordinary.  Who brings coffee to whom in an office is sometimes significant.

II. What do we learn about Boaz from the way the storyteller describes his actions?

Does it reveal something about people by the way they relate down the pecking order and the way they relate up?