Perhaps you think you are better off living a private Christianity outside of the local church. Christ’s church is a messy place, full of saved sinners who will rub each other the wrong way, sin against each other, ignore each other, or try to control each other. While you may feel you get some benefit from walking in nature, practicing yoga, serving at the food bank, private devotion, etc., God has promised that it is in Christ’s church where you will grow up into love and be spiritually strengthened. No other activity can make that promise.
A while ago I was listening to a podcast about Jessica Buchanan, a humanitarian aid worker who was kidnapped and then rescued by SEAL Team Six. Such stories are filled with bravery and courage, not only by the person being rescued but obviously by those rescuing. The interesting thing was that Jessica had no idea that a seal team was going to rescue her; she had no idea what was going on for her behalf. The book of Ruth is similar in one particular way: The story focuses on a small Hebrew family that needs spiritual rescuing. God sets about rescuing them, and they don’t even see it coming.
In Ruth 1 we find both a nation and a family in spiritual disarray.
The story of Naomi’s family is set in the time of the Judges. If there is anything that is obvious about that time, it is that the people of Israel were continuing to fall away from God on a deeper and more tragic trajectory. Israel’s allegiance to God weakens more and more as the book of Judges progresses.[1] Elimelech and his family’s actions follow the mindset of life during the time of the Judges:
In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. (Judg. 21:25)
When faced with difficulty, Elimelech, Naomi, and their two children, Mahlon and Chilion, leave their home in Bethlehem and go to Moab to find sustenance. This is not just a normal move across town. As theologian Iain Duguid points out,
Elimelech’s choices were not equal choices, theologically speaking, in the way that the choice of city in which to live might be for us. God had called Elimelech to live in Bethlehem. He therefore had no business leaving there to go anywhere, least of all Moab.[2]
The land of Israel was God’s chosen land for his chosen people. God had given this land to Abraham’s descendants as a fulfillment of a promise to Abraham, and it was a land that was part of a special covenant between God and his people. Turning away from this land signaled a turning away from God who had given this land. Possessing the land was a special privilege, and having part of this land symbolized having a part in the people of God—a part in a life blessed by God. The Moabites, enemies of God’s people, ruled over Israel for 18 years during the time of the Judges. They had caused the people of Israel to sin grievously during the Exodus; therefore, God placed a curse on the sinful Moabites.
Elimelech’s family found weakness and death away from God and his people.
So while Elimelech, whose name means “My God is King,” and Naomi, whose name means “Pleasantness,” should have stayed in the land and cried out to their King for help to restore the pleasantness of the land of Israel, it seems that instead they looked with their eyes to find more pleasant fields of life in Moab.