Read the Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:00) Well, we are welcoming Katie Morgan to Live Like It’s True. Welcome, Katie.

Speaker 1 (00:05) Thank you very much. a privilege to be here.

Speaker 2 (00:08) Thank you for joining me. And we’re actually at the True Woman Conference. we are in a hotel lobby right now. So if you hear background chatter or music, that’s what you’re hearing and just kind of a fun vibe, don’t you think?

Speaker 1 (00:20) Yeah,

the coffee shop. The coffee shop ambiance.

Speaker 2 (00:22) I

have my coffee. Katie has her tea. How is the tea? It’s It’s good. It’s good. You may have already noticed that Katie has a Great Britain accent. She’s from London. So welcome over to the side of the pond. Thank you. How many times have you been to the US?

Speaker 1 (00:37) It’s great. Everyone’s so welcoming. A

couple times before.

Speaker 2 (00:43) So, well, Katie is a senior editor at the Good Book Company. She’s an award-winning author of the Songs of a Warrior and The Promise of the Light. We’re going to talk about her newest book here today. You do youth work, right, at your church.

Speaker 1 (00:57) That’s right, yeah, so I volunteer with the 11 to 14s mainly, occasionally the younger ones as well.

Speaker 2 (01:04) So great.

love that. I just had a new teen book released this year, Comparison Girl for Teens. And it’s also in Spanish. Let’s see if I can say it. No te compares para chicas. very good. Very So I have a heart for these young women who fall into the same traps that older women do. And yet, the enemy can be so deceitful in these young ages. So give us just a finger on the pulse of youth in London.

Speaker 1 (01:32) Hmm. Well, mean, yeah, maybe I don’t know how similar or different it is to America, really. We have a lot of unchurched kids that are youth group. yeah, a real range of kind of thoughts about God, like levels of knowledge about him. I think there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of phones, there’s a lot of social media, there’s a lot of anxiety about how people present themselves. But as I guess there is

everywhere in the world where there are those things. But yeah, think we find like, so where we are, it’s pretty, it’s not a super affluent place. And so actually there’s not loads for them to do. And so these kids come, you know, just out of nowhere, they arrive at our youth group and they invite their friends even when they’re not Christians. And it just, they just seem to love it. And I think it’s partly just because it gets them out of the house to see their friends.

But yeah, they’re kind of happy to engage and happy to listen and happy to discuss. Yeah, I think it definitely feels like even amongst unchurched kids, maybe there’s an openness and an interest in spiritual things bubbling up a little bit.

Speaker 2 (02:32) mean, the statistics support coming to Christ in that window. You’re right in that window. Yes. Where they’re exploring. What an exciting place. What an exciting time.

Speaker 1 (02:45) Yeah. And I guess at that age, kind of, you haven’t really got settled convictions about things yet. And you’re kind of, you know, I think they’re so used to kind of, I guess you’re so used to going to school or whatever and, and being in a situation where grownups are telling you stuff and grownups are telling you what to do. And you kind of just, you kind of accept that that’s kind of how your life works. And so you’re kind of, there’s an even like an openness to just sitting in a room, listening to adults talking to you about stuff. And not necessarily that you’re going to

take everything they say and agree with it.

Speaker 2 (03:14) This is just customary. Yeah, it’s just customary.

Speaker 1 (03:17) Exactly. I think that gives us such an opportunity to say, well, this is the Christian viewpoint. Maybe you never thought about this before, but there’s goodness here. ⁓ And to try and just entrench them with the goodness of the gospel.

Speaker 2 (03:26) Yes.

Yes, trans them. Yeah, and I mean, like if we tried to gather a group of adults for us to tell you, here’s like that would just be weird. I love, you know, students, you’re exactly right. You’re capitalizing on a distinct moment in their development. And so like, did your desire to write for this age group grow out of your youth ministry experience?

Speaker 1 (03:53) Yeah, I think so. And I guess as well, thinking of my own life, know, what are the books that, what are the things that pop into my head as I try and make sense of my life? It’s C.S. Lewis. It’s, know, it’s, it’s, or other things, you know, even secular stories, but it’s things really that I read when I was a teen or younger. Just little.

Speaker 2 (04:16) you

Speaker 1 (04:21) little stories or little sayings or things that those I just I think when you’re that age, if you like reading those stories and those it kind of became becomes how you think about life.

Speaker 2 (04:33) So true. mean, I, as a young person, spent whole weekends reading. I loved reading. And I had time to do it then. Yes. Yeah. Which I don’t anymore. I feel like I’d love to take time on fiction, but I just don’t anymore because my life is so full.

Speaker 1 (04:47) Yeah, whereas when you’re 12, you just lie down on your couch and you just read for the whole afternoon.

Speaker 2 (04:52) Right and so, you know

Speaker 1 (04:53) And

I think that embeds it in you in a different way. And so I think, yeah, I just think there’s such an opportunity to travel with kids, not only on their first reading of something, but actually, hopefully, for the next 20 years. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:09) Yes, it gets ingrained. gets instilled

in them. And so if you are listening and you are a grandma or an auntie or a mom and you have a young, uh, you know, eight years old or up girl in your life, maybe boys too, we’re going to talk about, um, Katie’s new book on the, uh, the story of Ruth. It’s called the outsider, Ruth, a retelling. And this is your third young adult or I’m sorry, not young adult.

Speaker 1 (05:24) We’re.

Speaker 2 (05:39) adolescent er

Speaker 1 (05:40) Yeah,

I don’t know. I think it’s interesting actually. I kind of picture it as like eight to 12. But actually, I teens have really enjoyed them and even adults have really enjoyed them.

Speaker 2 (05:52) I

enjoyed it. Yeah, I enjoyed it. Yeah, great storyteller. And this is a story in the Bible. know, I just think it’s so interesting. I feel like we missed this fact that the Bible is an overarching narrative sustained by different narratives. And stories are what capture our hearts. You know, we don’t just look at a story as an outsider, we enter in, you know, it’s like the difference between reading a newspaper article

Speaker 1 (06:12) Exactly.

Speaker 2 (06:17) and watching the same story played out in the theater. In the theater, you cry, you wake up the next morning thinking about the story, the newspaper article, you skim. So that’s how God is. He’s a storyteller and he wants to capture our hearts. So he wants us to enter into this story and to see ourselves in the story. I think it’s by design because he created us. You know, there’s a reason that we, when we listen to a sermon, we’re most moved by the stories. We most…

find ourselves thinking about the stories, remembering, contemplating the stories. So he’s a story telling God, and we are story made creatures. And so I love the fact that you are using story to talk to young people about truth. So this is a story about a woman, a young woman.

who is, you I think every time we enter the Bible is a cross-cultural experience. You’re living in London, I’m living in the US. Neither of us are Middle Eastern people. It’s true. And so Ruth in particular, I think is a cross-cultural book.

Speaker 1 (07:12) For sure. I think, and actually I think that’s, that’s one reason why, writing a retelling of it, that’s kind of fiction in style, but really faithful to the texts. I think really works because, what started me off on writing these retellings was the thought that, you know, if you ask, ⁓ a nine year old kid about the book series that they’re really into, they can tell you like the whole history of that land. They can tell you how the.

you know, how it all works. They can tell you like all this law kind of comes out of them. And I kind of thought, well, in a way that like, why can’t we do that with the Bible, with the Old Testament? ⁓ And so trying to like learn from the techniques of fiction writing to kind of weave in like, I want you to be immersed in this culture and I want you to understand it, but I’m not kind of, you don’t feel like you’re learning stuff.

Speaker 2 (07:49) Thank

Speaker 1 (08:03) you just feel like you’re enjoying a story. And so I spent a long time kind of, you know, trying to figure out there’s all these laws and, you know, all of this agriculture, you know, that I think sometimes as adults, we don’t even engage with that stuff when we read the book of Ruth, because, you know, we love the characters and the characters come through so strongly, but it’s harder sometimes to kind of engage with that background, as you say, the cross-cultural stuff.

Speaker 2 (08:30) this is an agricultural society built around like the seasons and the book opens with it’s the barley harvest and they would all that all like triggers a lot of thoughts and ideas about what is happening at this moment for Ruth and also the fact that she’s a Moabite. There’s history in that. Do you want speak to that?

Speaker 1 (08:49) Yeah, well, I guess, you know, the Moabites and the Israelites were not friends. So they are enemies.

Speaker 2 (08:54) They’re enemies. It’d

like saying Boaz the Israeli meets Ruth the Palestinian. It’s true. Immediately when you hear that you’re like, is tension here. Huckle’s rise. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:10) Yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s striking how often she’s called the Moabites in the story. We are really meant to notice that. like she should not be, she should not be getting involved with the Israelite people. I think as well, like one of the things that I really enjoyed thinking about was how, you know, the, the, unique the Israelite religion was, you know, in, that, in that culture, in that world that they lived in.

Speaker 2 (09:15) Yeah, we’re meant to notice that.

Sure, yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:37) you know, they would have been obviously idol worshipping, worshipping multiple gods, worshipping in a completely different way. And what could it have been like for someone who had that expectation about the world, you know, that maybe you, you you pray to to the gods for a good harvest and you’ve got to like, you’ve got to give them gifts so that they, they look kindly on you.

Speaker 2 (09:59) Yeah,

it’s very obscene sorts of gifts. I don’t worship is not just I mean, it’s R rated. It’s. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:06) It really is.

And what would it be like for someone from that culture to encounter the God of the Bible, the God of Israel?

Speaker 2 (10:17) Yeah, and Ruth in large part is encountering God for the first time because I don’t know what your thoughts are on this. I’ve read different perspectives, but I tend to think that when Naomi and her family left to go to Moab, this was a misstep. This was like a lapse in faith. They weren’t…

It wasn’t like everybody left, you know? The famine wasn’t, like they didn’t all abandon and God’s promises are built around this land and this people. And so to depart both, to leave the land, to leave the people and to marry their enemies, like this is a lapse in faith. And so I don’t know how much, you know, don’t know how much Ruth learned from Naomi, her mother-in-law, but she’s learning more about God as she reenters Bethlehem.

Speaker 1 (10:58) Yes. And

those people. Yes, I think so. Yeah. And I think we don’t know what Naomi’s exact faith was like. It really strikes me how she, you know, towards the beginning of the story, she’s so bitter towards God. believes in him. But for her, this, you know, he’s taken, he’s just taken exactly, just taken everything away from her.

Speaker 2 (11:11) Yeah.

She believes, it’s sort of like those people that you meet, they believe in God but they’re angry because God has done, He’s not done anything that they asked. He’s not provided for them. And you look around and you’re like, but wait, you’re missing this, you’re missing that. I have a couple of those people in my life and they just think God is after them and He hasn’t. And I’m like, but look at where you live. Look at your family. Look at all these gifts that God has given you. You’re missing, you’re missing. You’re not seeing it.

Yeah, I see that with Naomi and we see a progression in her.

Speaker 1 (11:52) Yes. Yeah. And I wonder if, you know, in some ways you might want to say to Naomi, like your, your view of God is, a little bit like those idol worshiping culture. Yeah. Where you, you are thinking about what can I get from God and like, how can I earn his favor and like, what have I done to lose his favor? ⁓ And I feel like maybe both, both Ruth and Naomi, I like to imagine kind of have this journey of.

Speaker 2 (12:01) You’ve been influenced.

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:19) of realizing that God is kind. And it’s not about ⁓ earning his favor. It’s not about how many good things you’ve ticked off your list.

Speaker 2 (12:31) I wrote a Bible study on the life of Abram and Sarai, which is where this people group, know, the Israelites, this is where they came from. And the story opens with God making promises to them, not saying, will you do this for me? He says, I will.

I will, I will. It opens with him saying, here’s what I’m going to do with you. And it’s a covenant. And the covenant is based not on, you know, they would have these covenant cutting ceremonies. I’m sorry, I’m getting into the weeds here, you know, and endure with me. So they would have these ceremonies where they cut animals in two and the two parties would walk through the pieces to say like, I’m making this deal with you. And may it be to me like these dead animals if I don’t keep my promises to you. But in this instance, Abram was asleep.

He’s asleep and God alone walks through the pieces. And so it’s, he’s saying, I will keep, I’ve made the promises and I will keep the promises. And yes, I want you to respond to the promises. You know, your whole, the whole thing is built on responding to God as a promise making and promise keeping God. um, and yet, you know, here we have a family that they haven’t really been faithful to God. You know, I’ve kind of departed and yet that does not.

dissuade God from keeping his promises to them. so, so let’s talk though about Ruth, because we’re, we’re seeing in this story, we’re seeing a change in her and all good stories have character development, right? We have a character who wants, desperately wants something. And in this story, we have a girl who wants to fit. She wants to belong. She’s an outsider. I mean, that’s, I think that’s the cultural, you know, this is a cross-culture expo.

cultural story where we need to recognize she is an outsider by everyone’s standards. She’s not, she does not belong. And of course she wants to fit. Of course she wants to belong. And the way to belong as a woman in this culture is to have children. And by the end of the story, she does, she belongs, she has a child and this child is part of those bigger promises we just talked about. You know, this child is going to lead to the lineage of

Speaker 1 (14:14) She does not belong.

Speaker 2 (14:34) Christ. And so she has a huge role. She’s mentioned in Matthew, the opening verses in Matthew, the lineage of Jesus includes several outsiders, including Ruth.

Speaker 1 (14:43) Yeah. Including

Ruth. Yeah. And I just love that. It’s just such a great example again, of the Lord’s kindness. You know, she’s not, she’s not just, it’s not just like, okay, Ruth, you can kind of come in. We’ll enjoy you. Exactly. You know, you, you can like, you know, come around on Wednesdays, but like don’t, don’t invade the rest of my life. Do know what I mean? Yeah. But she is at the center.

Speaker 2 (14:57) We’ll endure you.

No. Fully integrated.

Speaker 1 (15:11) She is at the heart of God’s people, of this story of redemption.

Speaker 2 (15:15) a

beautiful picture for all because I’m not Jewish. You’re not Jewish. Yeah. So from the beginning, I think that I think that’s why those women are listed in Matthew’s genealogy is like from the beginning. You know, we have rehab. have, um, who’s the other one? Tamar? No, no, no. Well, yeah. Women with, with ill repute, but we have outsiders being welcomed in not just, you know, like you said, to be endured in their own little separate quarters. No, they’re an integral part. are.

welcomed in and play a huge role and we do too, which is so exciting.

Speaker 1 (15:46) And that’s what I wanted to get across with this book. even just in a, obviously there’s the kind of macro level of what we know about the inclusion of the Gentiles and being in Christ allows us to be part of God’s people. But also just on a micro level of when we feel like outsiders. I’ve had the experience of

Speaker 2 (15:50) too tight up

Speaker 1 (16:09) you joining a new church, moving to a new place and just feeling like, I don’t know who my people are, you know, I, trying to make friends, but I feel lonely, you know, and then just people opening their homes to me and welcoming me in and just wanting me to be there even though I couldn’t offer anything, know?

Speaker 2 (16:26) And I’m also thinking of your teens that you serve at your church, who aren’t church, you know? Maybe they do the wrong thing. I think we’re going to see some of that in the story we’re going look at here in a second. It’s like people are doing their, it’s like, this is not right. Yeah. This is very improper. It’s very, it’s like culturally unacceptable. A lot of missteps here. And yet.

there’s redemption at the end of it. And that’s our God. And that’s what we should be as the people of God, welcoming outsiders in and being gracious toward one another. So let’s look at this text. think it’s gonna, this is like, man, this is the height of the text. We’re jumping into the middle of the story. I love that you chose this little section. We’re in Ruth chapter three. And so like, just to kind of give you the, you up to the story, it’s like we’ve talked about Naomi,

has lost her husband, lost her sons, and one of her daughter-in-laws has stayed back in Moab. And Ruth has re-entered Bethlehem. So it’s just a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. And they’ve come at the barley harvest. And so at this point in the story, it’s like, this is the threshing. This is like the height of the, know, everything is built on this agricultural timeline. so this story comes, Boaz is,

harvesting the, the barley, right? The barley. Okay. And so, um, he is like sleeping with his buddies. They’ve, yes, I guess they would just sleep by the piles of grain. It was maybe their custom. would enjoy food and drink and so he’s probably not intoxicated. And so Naomi comes up with this plan. Like, let’s get y’all prettied up.

Speaker 1 (17:44) and wheat.

You

Speaker 2 (18:08) Take a shower, put some perfume on. Let’s, and I love the way you described it, know, wear your best clothing. Let’s brush out your hair and let’s get you ready and let’s sneak you in in the middle of the night. Sounds like a good idea.

Speaker 1 (18:21) a great plan.

Nothing could possibly go wrong.

Speaker 2 (18:26) Exactly. Okay. So would you read, let’s see, verses seven through eight? Let’s just start with those. Yes.

Speaker 1 (18:33) When Boaz had finished eating and drinking and was in good spirits, he went over to lie down at the far end of the grain pile. Ruth approached quietly, uncovered his feet, and lay down. In the middle of the night something startled the man, he turned, and there was a woman lying at his feet.

Speaker 2 (18:50) I love that storytelling language. Behold, there’s a woman. What? Well, what is surprising here, Katie?

Speaker 1 (18:57) I mean, it’s pretty surprising that she does this, I think. It’s interesting to me how the narrator earlier on in the story has made it really clear that Ruth is not safe. It’s mentioned, so Boaz says, I’m gonna keep, I’ve told the young man not to touch you. is a concern. And Naomi says to Ruth earlier on, she says like, stay with Boaz’s.

harvesters because somewhere else you might get hurt.

Speaker 2 (19:25) They’re both concerned for her safety.

Speaker 1 (19:27) Everyone’s concerned for read safety. She’s a young woman. She’s on her own. Everybody knows that she’s not got a man who’s, you know, there’s no one’s going to kind of come and beat you up if you touch her.

Speaker 2 (19:37) Right.

And this is a shame on our culture. That’s, that is how it worked is, you know, you were protected by your family, by those looking out for you and everybody knew, she belongs to that family. If I, if I hurt her, I’m hurting the whole family.

Speaker 1 (19:49) I’m hurting that whole family.

Speaker 2 (19:51) And so, yeah, so this is, so she doesn’t have that. She doesn’t have that protection. And so everybody’s a little bit more concerned for her. And it also, I mean, don’t get this idea that this is some idyllic society where no crime occurs, right? You know, I mean, I think maybe, maybe that’s what we might assume. Oh, these are all gobbling men. course, something would happen to her. Not so much.

Speaker 1 (20:11) Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And so I think the, it’s just, it’s amazing that she, she takes this step of going to this, I think dangerous place where she’s not protected. People are possibly drunk. you know, it’s the middle of the night. and she goes and lies down next to Boaz. just like that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:34) That is, you don’t even, you don’t have to be a Bible scholar to realize like that’s weird. And don’t over-spiritualize the Bible and think, they knew something we didn’t know. No, we all look at this and say, this is not normal. Like a young woman sneaking out in the middle of the night to lay at the feet of a man. mean, just think how you would feel if someone crept into your, you and I are both staying in a hotel. How would we feel if someone came into the room in the night and we found out that they were there? Like, okay, immediately.

Speaker 1 (21:01) Not again!

Speaker 2 (21:02) Especially

if it was someone from the opposite gender. this is, you we just know, we intuitively know this is not right. And I think it’s also surprising that Naomi suggests this. Like, mother in law did, you know, why is she suggesting it? Do you have any thoughts?

Speaker 1 (21:18) Yeah, I mean, some people have said they think that Naomi’s plan is that Ruth and Boaz will sleep together and she’s kind of ensnaring Boaz, basically.

Speaker 2 (21:28) I wondered that, It’s almost like she sees Providence unfolding. know, we’re going to talk in a moment about this being a kinsman redeemer. She’s put the pieces together and in a sense she’s matchmaking and yet

Katie, wrote my first book was called Control Girl, Lessons on Surrendering Your Burden of Control from Seven Women in the Bible. And I made the case that all women struggle with control because we are all daughters of Eve. And God said in Genesis 3, 16, your desire will be for your husband. And that desire, it’s not a sexual desire, it’s a desire to overtake, you know, because we see the parallel language in Genesis 4 where God says,

Sin is crouching at the door. It’s desires for you. It’s like this desire to overtake you, to take control. And this is the result of Eve first taking the control. She wasn’t just taking fruit, she was taking control. She was taking the steering wheel for the family. She wasn’t just rejecting God’s rule. She was rejecting his rule over her.

And so as a result, are the consequences God’s giving. You you want to take control. I’m going to allow you to become a controlling woman. And so I think there are seeds of this in all of us and it plays out in different ways, but particularly in relationship, I think we women, ⁓ I feel it in my heart. I want to control everything for my children. You know, I’m very invested in who they date and who they marry. Like very much so. And I have, I even have that desire to do this matchmaking into

You know, I see where this is all headed and I feel like it’s up to me and that I just have to look for that in my heart and know that it’s there. Like this is my bent in sin. I have a desire to, I believe in God’s providence, but I have this desire to take it into my own hands. And so I see this in Naomi. just think she’s trying to matchmake. She’s scheming. And she’s scheming. And this is not, I mean, she’s putting Ruth at risk, you know?

sending her into the dark, into the night, not only risking her safety, but risking her reputation, risking Boaz’s reputation. I mean, if she truly is trying to allure him, I mean, he’s drunk, entice him to sleep with her, well then everybody’s reputation’s at risk. This is rash, this is not wise. ⁓ And it’s very surprising. So in this podcast, we just look at what was the surprise? How’s this a story? Well, this is like,

Speaker 1 (24:29) surprising.

Speaker 2 (24:36) drama here. And so, how about this? Is Boaz surprised?

Speaker 1 (24:41) He seems pretty surprised, doesn’t he? I love the language. And that was a woman.

Speaker 2 (24:45) Behold, there is a woman.

Speaker 1 (24:47) He’s not expecting to see her.

Speaker 2 (24:50) Or any woman. Like what is a woman doing here? This is not, this is not. I had a situation, we were in a, you know, an adult class where we’re discussing the Bible and there was, we had asked for a prayer request. My husband was asking for prayer because he was taking our daughter to a father daughter retreat. And he, he was just making, you know, making a joke, but he’s like, Shannon was really concerned wanting to know like where are the girls going to sleep? Like who’s going to.

You know, she’s going there with her dad. And I just said, without thinking, you know, look, I don’t want my daughter sleeping with a bunch of men. They all laugh. Like, yes, I think most people would have that concern. There’s just this funny moment. that’s, mean, know, Boa is a surprise here. It’s just, you don’t want a woman to be in this situation, you know? So he’s surprised, we’re surprised. Everything about this is surprising. And yet.

Speaker 1 (25:27) Do it.

Speaker 2 (25:45) the response is also surprising. So would you continue on read verse nine through 13 for us?

Speaker 1 (25:52) So Boaz is speaking to begin with. Who are you? asked. I am your servant Ruth, she said. Spread the corner of your garment over me since you are a guardian redeemer of our family. The Lord bless you, my daughter, he replied. This kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier. You have not run after the younger men with a rich or poor. And now, my daughter, don’t be afraid. I will do for you all you ask. All the people of my town know that you are a woman of noble character.

Although it is true that I am a guardian redeemer of our family, there is another who is more closely related than I. Stay here for the night, and in the morning if he wants to do his duty as your guardian redeemer, good, let him redeem you. But if he is not willing, as surely as the Lord lives, I will do it. Lie here until morning.

Speaker 2 (26:38) First I have to say, Katie, I could listen to you the Bible all day long. I just love your-

Speaker 1 (26:42) I feel the Hermione Granger voice, think.

Speaker 2 (26:44) So great. okay. Well, what is surprising here in his response to her?

Speaker 1 (26:50) I just love that you get the sense of someone who is not out for what he can get. Do you know? I think, you know, we know that Boaz is this upstanding, know, moral worthy, godly man. And so I think in a way it’s not surprising that he doesn’t, it’s not surprising that he doesn’t take advantage of her. That’s kind of what we expect from the way the story has gone so far.

Speaker 2 (27:13) is consistent with his character. He’s been a noble. He’s watched out for her.

Speaker 1 (27:16) Yeah.

but in a way I think, I guess the surprise is that he doesn’t say, you know, sure, let’s get married in a way he does, but he says, there’s this other, this is other guy who actually has a greater right than I do to.

Speaker 2 (27:31) So, in a he’s deferring to providence. Yes. He’s deferring to God’s sovereignty.

Speaker 1 (27:36) Yes.

I feel like he’s so, he’s just really wants to do the, do the right thing. He wants to, he wants to do things properly. he wants to do things righteously. And so, and he’s, he’s not thinking, you know, I think sometimes we tell this story as like this romantic love story and I, and I totally get why we want to do that, but I actually think it, it sells it short in a way because I, you know, Boaz isn’t this guy who’s like,

you know, I’m attracted to you and so let’s get married. know, they’re not burning for each other or maybe they were, but that’s not what the text emphasizes. Instead, he’s measured. says, you know, he makes this promise as surely as the Lord lives, I will redeem you. You know, this is a man who is completely reliable, completely trustworthy, but he’s not

there’s no sense in which he’s, he’s out to kind of fulfill himself or, make his life better. He’s not like, great. This lovely young woman wants to be my wife. Fantastic. know, exactly. and I just think that’s so, that’s so beautiful. And particularly in this context where we’ve seen this, this danger, this lack of safety, that Boaz is, he’s not only generous, he’s also

Speaker 2 (28:32) opportunistic.

Speaker 1 (28:45) you he follows through on his, on his generosity. You know, he’s not like, he, he, he, he, feels earlier in the story, like he’s, he’s quite an extravagant giver. And even here, like just after this passage, he, he kind of gives her like an enormous amount of grain. And I feel like sometimes people who are very, who are very generous like that, they’re quite impulsive, you know, and they’re quite, it’s like, it’s like, it’s a wonderful trait, but it sometimes goes with,

you know, the reason they’re like that is because they, they actually, they’re maybe a little bit changeable or, know, ⁓ whereas with Boaz, it’s, mean, maybe he is impulsive, maybe, you but, but he, he follows through on that. He’s not, he’s a steady, he’s a steady giver, you know.

Speaker 2 (29:16) an emotional exactly response.

steady, measured, wise, considerate, kind, all of these beautiful characteristics

Shannon Popkin (29:38) Well, we’ve been talking with Katie Morgan about her best-selling book, The Outsider, Ruth, a retelling. It’s a biblical fiction chapter book for middle school kids, ages eight through 13. So if you’ve got one of those running around your house or a granddaughter, a grandson, I would love for you to check out this book, especially over break. It’s a great time.

to be reading in between the ⁓ school sessions and the holidays. So check out that book, The Outsider. And you’re gonna wanna join me next time because we’re gonna finish this conversation about Ruth and Boaz and this story of redemption for the outsider.