Ordinary People: Orpah

Orpah appears only in the Book of Ruth, and while she is named (not always a guarantee for women in scripture), she appears in only the first chapter and doesn’t have a speaking role. She then disappears from the narrative and from historical memory, until the family of an infant girl born into poverty in Kosciusko, Mississippi, in 1954 chose her name for a child who would grow up to become one of the most admired and recognized women in America. arry Hayward preaches from Ruth 1:1-18. Summer Sermon Series: Ordinary People. It is in the loves and hates, the hopes and fears, the strides and stumbles of ordinary people that God is both known and active in the world and which is narrated in Scripture. This summer’s series will highlight four men and four women from the Bible and hold them before our eyes that we may observe what they experienced, what moved them, and how God may have been present to them.