{"id":4491,"date":"2023-01-11T17:37:45","date_gmt":"2023-01-11T23:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4491"},"modified":"2023-01-11T17:37:45","modified_gmt":"2023-01-11T23:37:45","slug":"devotional-on-ruth-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-ruth-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Ruth"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-O9ifnTkcYZc\/XbyDsduOVmI\/AAAAAAABCfo\/E6hF5yNFu_ADwzlD7X8uNphbsiKdrV15QCKgBGAsYHg\/s1600\/P9299776.JPG\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Sedona, AZ<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>People are watching<br \/>\nRuth 3: Everybody in town knows what a courageous woman you are.<br \/>\nThere\u2019s a lot of cultural stuff in this story that seems odd to me. Apparently, even though Ruth is a widow, she\u2019s still considered to be \u201cmarried\u201d to her husband\u2019s family. If she marries again, it needs to be \u201cin the family.\u201d Naomi tells Ruth it\u2019s time to act. Boaz is eligible to marry Ruth and he\u2019s shown kindness to her. Maybe even more than kindness is in the air! Ruth makes herself as beautiful as possible and attends his harvest party. As the festivities wind down, Boaz finds a place to sleep and that\u2019s when Ruth makes her move. She quietly lies down at his feet. Again, there\u2019s some cultural stuff happening here that feels strange, but apparently this is a way for Ruth to let Boaz know she\u2019s interested in him. When Boaz sees her there he\u2019s quite pleased and promises to pursue the legal side of marrying her. I find his comment that \u201ceveryone knows what a courageous woman you are\u201d to be interesting. Apparently, from the time Ruth arrived with Naomi people have been watching her. She\u2019s not an Israelite; in fact, her people have been sometimes enemies of Israel; so they\u2019ve kept an eye on her. At first, she was possibly even unwelcome but little by little her faithfulness to Naomi, her solid work ethic, and her courage have won them over. People may not be interested in hearing me tell them about Jesus. They may think I\u2019m strange and not worthy of their trust. However, they are watching. As I go about living for the Lord in good days and in bad and as I concentrate on doing the right thing whether or not it\u2019s convenient doors will open for me that were closed in the beginning.<br \/>\nTake Away: A life lived for Jesus will open doors for spiritual conversations with people who have been watching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>People are watching Ruth 3: Everybody in town knows what a courageous woman you are. There\u2019s a lot of cultural stuff in this story that seems odd to me. Apparently, even though Ruth is a widow, she\u2019s still considered to be \u201cmarried\u201d to her husband\u2019s family. If she marries again, it needs to be \u201cin [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1530,7],"tags":[149,320,342,1157],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4491"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4491"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14185,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4491\/revisions\/14185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}