FLAMING WORD – P24
RUTH 1:1-3
Part 1
1 Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehemjudah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons.
2 And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehemjudah. And they came into the country of Moab, and continued there.
3 And Elimelech Naomi’s husband died; and she was left, and her two sons.
Naomi was a widow who had also lost her two sons, leaving her with her two Moabite daughters-in-law. She had come with her family to the land of Moab because of the famine in Bethlehemjudah. They came hoping to escape death by famine. In v2, we are told they “continued there”; other translations say, “and settled there”. Yet in the land of abundance, the men in the family, the breadwinners, lose their lives.
That one decision by Elimelech, the husband, father and head of the home cost three lives.
The decisions our husbands and fathers take have many consequences. Some may be spiritual, financial, social, intellectual etc. And sometimes the end might be the spiritual “loss of lives” in that some wrong decisions can lead people astray from the faith.
My dear, can we keep praying for the men in authority in our lives: the fathers and husbands?
1 Timothy 2:1-2
1 I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
2 For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
Shalom
