Familiar Words

‘But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."’ Ruth 1:16-17

What familiar words! Most of us think of these words as marriage vows. However, these words are an entreaty from a daughter-in-law to her husband’s mother. Ruth desires to go with Naomi. Commentaries suggest Ruth had become a follower of the one True God and wanted to continue to worship and serve Him and serve Naomi.

In verse 16, Ruth says “Don’t urge me…” This word ‘urge’ in the Hebrew can mean to push against, rushing someone with hostility, desired request be granted (Key Word Study Bible (NIV), page 1543). We might wonder if Ruth felt the hostility in Naomi’s words of returning home and was pleading with her to stop the hostile words. Ruth was not going back to Moab.

These words could remind us of missionaries all over the world. With their lives, they make these words their vow as they minister to these people. However, as they pray and minister to lost people all over the globe, they pray our God becomes their God. Many times these missionaries are discouraged, tired from culture shock, and homesick. Nevertheless, they continue to plant their feet firmly in their new homes and remain to share with these precious lost people. They remind us of Ruth. They are not returning home.

Today, take time to pray for God to encourage the missionaries you know and give these missionaries fruit for their labor. Don’t know any missionaries personally? Then pray for these:

NAMB
William and Teresa Johnson
Janet Morrison

IMB
*J
*P
*M family
(*Names withheld for security reasons.)

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" Romans 10:14-15

“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’” Isaiah 52:7