Kinsman Redeemer

Kinsman Redeemer Aug 23rd 2020 Ruth 4

1. A Relative

2. Possessing the Necessary resources

3. Willing to pay the price

4. Willing to take the “Bride”

Hello, I'm Pastor Greg from Calvary Reformed Church and we are here in Portage at the courthouse. We have a couple of courthouses in Kalamazoo. We have one in Paw Paw as well. We're going to continue our teaching on the book of Ruth and I wanted to be here just because it's a place where law enforcement officers are…where a judge renders a verdict between right and wrong.

We are going to look today at Ruth Chapter 4 concerning right and wrong and about a judge

rendering a verdict (or almost 10 judges rendering a verdict) for Boaz…which then affects Ruth and Naomi. Let's have a word of prayer:

Father God, we come before you and give You thanks for the Book of Ruth. We thank You for all that we have learned, and we ask for continued

insight within our lives through Ruth. It is in Your name we pray, amen.

The Book of Ruth, if you have been following along, is an amazing book. A story of loss, of love, of leaving an area and then returning. It is a story about redemption. This week we are going to look at Chapter 4. Chapter 4 deals with what is called in the Old Testament, a Kinsmen Redeemer.

A Kinsmen Redeemer is simply someone in the old testament and the word they use for it is a ga’al. A ga’al is an individual who is a relative who can buy somebody back if they have been sold into slavery. They can buy somebody's land back if the land had left the family.

If you remember in the Old Testament, Yahweh God had set up that every family was to have a certain amount of land and they would keep that land through generations and generations. The ga’al or the Kinsman Redeemer was able to buy it back for the family. Naomi has lost her husband. Ruth is her daughter-in-law and Ruth has gone out into Boaz's field to glean to provide and Boaz has been very kind to her.

Last week we looked at Chapter 3. Ruth actually shows up on the gleaning floor. While Boaz is sleeping, she uncovers his blanket and sleeps at his feet. He wakes up and she says, Boaz, I want you to cover me with your skirt. I want you to put your wing over me. In other words, she is saying, Boaz, I want you to marry me, to be my kinsman redeemer. You have got to remember that Ruth is a Moabitess. She is a foreigner.

We are going to pick up the story here in Ruth Chapter 4. Meanwhile, Boaz went up to the town gate, the town of Bethlehem. Interesting who else was born in Bethlehem…Jesus. When the kinsman redeemer, the one closer to then Boaz came along,

Boaz said to him, Come over here my friend. Sit down. So, they went and sat down together, and Boaz went to get 10 of the elders of the town.

10 judges/10 elders and he said sit here and they

did. He said to the kinsmen redeemer, the one closer to Naomi, ‘Naomi has come back from Moab. You know about it. She is selling the piece of land that belonged to our brother, Elimelech. I thought I should bring the matter to your attention and suggest that you buy it in the presence of all those seated here. If you want to redeem it, do it. But if

Not, tell me so I will know. I am next in line and the closest kinsman redeemer to Naomi. I will buy it. I will redeem it.

I would imagine at that point in time Boaz’s heart might have sunk because he thought, okay, there goes the woman whom I have grown to love, Ruth. Then Boaz says, ‘On the day you buy the land from Naomi and Ruth, the Moabite, the foreigner… In other words, you're going to be buying land from somebody who is not of Jewish or Hebrew heritage, but one from Moab. You will then acquire the land, but also the dead man's widow, Ruth. At this time, the closest kinsmen redeemer said he could not do it. He said I do not want to do it. I am not going to buy the land. I do not want to take Ruth on. I do not want to take on that responsibility.

So, the kinsman redeemer said to Boaz, buy it yourself. He removed his sandal. In the Old Testament, there was the process that when an agreement of land being sold was finished,

at the city gate, the one would take off their sandal and give it to the other as a symbol to the other