Click this link to hear an audio version of the below text narrated by SOTH member Jerry Rhinehart:
Ruth 4:11-12
“Then the elders and all the people at the gate said, “We are witnesses. May the LORD make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the family of Israel. May you have standing in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem. Through the offspring the LORD gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.””
The witnesses of the legal redemption process affirm and praise Boaz and call upon God to bless Ruth just as God blessed their ancestors. Their role as witnesses is passive but important. They see what Boaz has done and make sure that others do too and by invoking God’s name to bless Ruth they are declaring, once and for all, that this foreigner is an important part of God’s family. We, too, are called to be witnesses to the great things God has done. We are passive because Jesus did all the work! But we have an important role to play to declare the Good News of His salvation to all people and invoke God’s blessing upon them, too! Pray that God would help you and all of us at Shepherd of the Hills to be witnesses to all that God has done and bless others with the Good News that God loves them and wants them to be His children, too!