Welcome to the Mariners Church Life Group Leader podcast. This weekly conversation is designed to equip and resource youth to build a healthy life group community that studies God's word, practices spiritual rhythms, and changes the world together. Welcome back to the Life Group Leader podcast. This is week two of Return to Love, Our Study through the Book of Ruth.
And while this is a short series, only three weeks, this second week is gonna be a beautiful conversation about redeeming love or really redeemers. Who are the redeemers and how does that point us towards the future story of redemption that is coming in the person of Jesus. And so Jeremy, why don't you give us just an overview of this week's big idea, what's the intent for our conversation? Yeah, so this week we see that in the story of Ruth, in the book of Ruth, there are two redeemers.
We see Boaz, very literally as the kinsman Redeemer, and we'll talk a little bit about what that means and that culture. And that ultimately it was God, who is the one working through their circumstances and working through Boaz to meet their needs. So ultimately God was the Redeemer for Ruth. But then as you pointed out, it also points us, the imagery is gonna point us forward to Jesus and how he's going to be the ultimate Redeemer for all people and all of God's family.
So this week, I like that you even mentioned the short story. I wanna remind people about the resources link at the beginning of each guide. And we have videos and blogs and online commentaries and even a playlist with songs curated by our worship team just kind of put us in the right headspace and prepare our hearts. And one of those is a blog post from the Bible Project, there's some great videos about book overviews and about God's character and the loyal love we mentioned last week.
But there's a blog post too about a big message in a short story about the book of Ruth. So just a reminder that those resources are linked at the beginning of each leader guide. I love that you include those because for so many of us, as we've stepped into leadership, we may not always feel fully equipped to do the things that God or some pastor at church invited us to be a part of. And so while we include these things, it's really meant for you to incorporate into your personal study as you are just stepping into a potentially a position of leadership.
And it's an open conversation or invitation for you to just get to know God's word more and to feel more equipped and resourced in that way. But by means it's no expectation that you are reading every single one of these and watching every one of them. While we love to provide resources, there's no grade for this. So it's just you and your own beautiful relationship with God.
And hopefully as you grow in your connection and relationship with God, that's gonna overflow into your leadership, both in your life group and potentially your family, your marriage, other aspects of your church life as well. And so, okay, Jeremy, why don't we then, let's get into this biblical picture of a kinsman redeemer. What does that phrase mean? What's the context for it that we need to know for our group conversations?
So this week we are looking at the final chapter of Ruth. Last week we did chapters one through three. This week we're looking at Ruth four versus one through 17, a reminder to leaders that in a narrative text like this that it can get easier to spill over into other texts. So don't go into the final lineage that's gonna point us to King David, and ultimately to Jesus, we're gonna do that next week.
This week we're really focused on how Boaz steps forward to be the kinsman redeemer for Ruth, and then Ruth's extended family would include Naomi. And so what the kinsman redeemer was in this culture, we see all these Old Testament laws and commandments and instructions to take care of the widow, the orphan, the alien. We see God's provision for those who are most vulnerable in this type of society, through laws that we even see played out in the story, like how they don't glean the fields all the way to the edges. That if they drop something, they leave it, that they leave kind of the edges of the fields so that others who are kind of in desperate need of something as simple as food could follow along and pick up what they needed.
And so we see God's care for people in this society, especially those who are vulnerable. An idea of a kinsman redeemer takes it even a step further to where if a woman was widowed, for example, a woman's widowed, she loses her son, or she loses her husband, she doesn't have any sons, then she could be ultimately, she has no rights and she has no way to provide for herself for the most part in this type of culture. And so a kinsman redeemer would ensure that she had a family, that she was taken care of, and that the property, any property that belonged to her family in an agrarian society, this is your livelihood. And so any property that was a part of her family would be redeemed, would be bought back, would be purchased by this other family member, so that not so that he had rights to the property, but so that this family member that he's acting on behalf of, so that she could have a future, so that she could have a kind of stability, and so that this property, these means of provision, would stay in her family line, and ultimately he would also try to provide a male heir to be, so that she would have an ongoing family line to provide for her and to carry on the name as someone, especially as part of the nation of Israel, the people of Israel, kind of carrying on that name and that family legacy as the people of God.
So as you were telling this, it's impossible to separate out the literal kinsman redeemer and the story of Boaz as he steps into redeem the life of Ruth, it's impossible to separate that out from also the biblical narrative of what God through his son, Jesus, has done for all of us. And so when we talk about two redeemers, what we're saying is there is a literal redeemer, a kinsman redeemer named Boaz, and there is also this metaphorical picture that Boaz represents this future redeemer who will do the very same things. You get a picture of the powerless, those who cannot save themselves, the ones who are in desperation and need because of loss in their life, God is going to redeem. He's going to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
And so I would avoid, if possible, in our conversations about whether we agree or not with a woman needing a redeemer in the Old Testament. I mean, it really was a society where this was a patriarchal society right or wrong, whether we agree with it or not, or whether it's true today or not, it is the reality of in which Ruth's life was. She was widowed and she would have been, for all intents and purposes, abandoned, forgotten, pushed to the edges of society. And that is where not only do we see Boaz come in and save and rescue, but it's also for those of us who now think about our life today, whether we like it or not, people get pushed to the edges of society, people get pushed outside of what the world is going to applaud and take care of.
And it is God who redeems and saves and restores. And so there is a redeemer in this story and there is also a picture of a future redeemer. But again, as we've mentioned a couple of times here, we don't want to get too far ahead into the literal genealogy of Jesus, but it is okay in this week's discussion to talk about that picture of really God being the ultimate redeemer in this story. And so Jeremy, anything else that you would add even just to that segment of this conversation, this idea of both the kinsman redeemer, but also the picture of God as the ultimate redeemer?
Yeah, I love that you brought up, not to get distracted with kind of how we feel about the idea of a redeemer in our culture today. Like that's just something that's hard for us to wrap our minds around the idea of another relative stepping in and providing children for someone else's former wife. That's just hard for us to wrap our minds around. One other point that I would bring up about not only would these people be marginalized and have difficulty, if not it be impossible for them to provide for themselves, but in many ways they could also be considered cursed or judged by God, the fact that we don't know what she did, but she must have surely brought this upon ourselves and God's judging her.
And that's why she's in this kind of helpless desperate situation. Which is so critical because it really gets us into this crazy place where like she doesn't deserve to be cared for and provided for. Man, what a kind of a messed up philosophy that would be, you know? Yeah, and so you kind of see a potential hints of that in the way, so Boa is in this section that we're gonna read today.
He's technically second in line. There's one relative that is technically ahead of him in line that has first kind of first writer refusal to use language today that he has the right to redeem Ruth. If he so chooses and if not, he needs to officially decline and revoke his right to redeem Ruth. And we see that he says, I don't want to redeem her.
I think it would jeopardize my own ability to provide for my own family. Like there's kind of too much risk involved. I don't want to take this step of faith and redeem her for a variety of reasons. And what we know kind of knowing where the story's headed is that this is ultimately, I don't know if Ironic is the right word, but we kind of see the fact that he says, I feel like this could potentially jeopardize the future of my own family, but we see next week we're gonna see how ultimately God's going to, that again, this is not just a metaphorical picture of redemption and what God is doing, but ultimately King David, one of the great kings of all of history, certainly in Israel's history, in Solomon would come from his line and ultimately Jesus Christ himself.
So the future family is one of the greatest lineages in all of human history. And this guy's excuses, I don't know what this, this could jeopardize my future family. So I'm gonna let you take this, Boaz, and he does. He steps up and takes just a selfless and beautiful act and God blesses that and works through it in ways nobody could have ever expected.
Yeah, so as we are in our conversation this week, I would, of course we wanna follow through our guide as we look down, we look into God's word, we get to really ask a few key questions of the scripture there. And then in this look in section, I think this is an opportunity for us to really consider some potential areas where we have missed out on blessings and places where we have also experienced blessing in unexpected ways. This might be a great week where we get to identify some of those places where we missed out and to really see, okay, what has been the implication of my life because of that circumstance, how have we learned and grown from that? But then also where are some places where we can celebrate with one another, where God has unexpectedly blessed us and he has been that redeemer, that provider, the one who has when all hope was lost, when all things seem to be impossible, God stepped in and he did what only he could do.
That's worth celebrating. And I love when our life groups take a moment to just go, you know that that's not normal, right? Like what God did for you is beautiful and it is worth celebrating and it is worth sharing as well. So if one of those things come up in your group this week, pause, acknowledge it, praise God for it, because that's the kind of beauty that we get to experience in the church that really most people don't even understand outside of the church and so acknowledge it man, because it is an incredible thing.
So Jeremy any final thoughts for us today? Just that reminder that you brought up last week, don't forget if anything was especially meaningful to you or anyone in your group, especially helpful or challenging or convicting from the weekend teaching or the weekend worship, any part of the service in your time together corporately, be sure to bring that up and provide those opportunities for people to share that as well as it relates to what we're seeing here in God's Word. Amazing, well thank you Jeremy, life group leaders, we are so grateful for you, enjoy your second week conversation and we will join you next week as we wrap up return to love, take care.