The Threshing Floor

My most recent sermon on Ruth chapter 3, The Threshing Floor, is available for streaming or downloading on the TBPC website.

So I don’t buy into the “Naomi is urging Ruth to commit a sexual encounter” interpretation of this chapter, though I do acknowledge that Ruth goes into a situation that I would be unwilling to encourage my sisters of daughters to do themselves.

Also: Naomi! Love how she’s empty in chapter 1 and we’re seeing God (alone) fill her back up. Great picture of the grace of God working in our lives through those God has chosen as his Saints around us… apart from any worth or our own.

Also, Also: Ruth! This book is often touted as a love story. It’s possible that the reason Boaz notices Ruth working in the field is because she’s pretty, but it’s just as possible that she’s just a hard working dynamo (something the foremen of the field mention) and that grabs his attention. We don’t have any indication that suitors are coming on to Ruth but she’s holding out for Boaz… it just doesn’t seem to fit the stereotypical Hollywood love story of a (particularly) attractive girl winning the heart of an otherwise unassuming career minded man with her looks and determination. I mean, Ruth is the kind of girl who can sling an 80 lb. bag of grain on her back and hoof it back to town. Gwynneth Paltrow she was probably not. But that makes the marriage of Boaz & Ruth even more awesome, because it’s such a wonderful depiction of the marriage between Christ & his bride. We’re not beautiful starlets captivating any who look upon us. We’re covered with blood and sin and ugliness and it is Christ Jesus alone who takes us from that state & adorns us beautifully (see Ezekiel 16:9-11).

So the sermon – Let me know what you think of it. I’m done with homiletics… I’m going through feedback withdrawals.

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2010: 06/28
POSTED BY: Jason Anspach
CATEGORY: Christianity
Sermons
Tacoma BPC
2 comments

http://heritagecs.net Glenn Fisher

So I guess commenting on this makes me an enabler. Anyway, although I didn’t hear this sermon I did hear the previous one on Ruth. It reminds me of a phrase that one of my college professors used, “disneyfide”. I think that our traditional reading of Ruth has been just that; sanitized and romanticized. This is probably more about our desire to read the OT as heroic stories instead of redemptive history. Thanks for the work that you have put into Ruth and I look forward to hearing chapter 4.
http://heritagecs.net Glenn Fisher

So I guess commenting on this makes me an enabler. Anyway, although I didn’t hear this sermon I did hear the previous one on Ruth. It reminds me of a phrase that one of my college professors used, “disneyfide”. I think that our traditional reading of Ruth has been just that; sanitized and romanticized. This is probably more about our desire to read the OT as heroic stories instead of redemptive history. Thanks for the work that you have put into Ruth and I look forward to hearing chapter 4.

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