Come Alive: Conversations With Scripture: Ruth, Esther, Jonah

By Talbot Davis

Ruth, Esther, and Jonah are some of our most loved Bible stories - the tales of many childhoods, the content of Sunday School felt boards.

But there is more to these famous Bible stories than meets the eye. When read through a grown-up lens, we discover they're far grittier, wittier, and wiser than expected.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Invite Press
• Release date: Sep 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9781953495822

Talbot Davis

Talbot Davis is the pastor of Good Shepherd United Methodist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, a congregation known for its ethnic diversity, outreach ministry, and innovative approach to worship. He has been repeatedly recognized for his excellence in congregational development. During his 10-year term as pastor at Mt. Carmel United Methodist Church prior to serving Good Shepherd, that congregation doubled in size and received the conference’s “church of excellence” award six times. Talbot has also received the conference’s Harry Denman Award for Excellence in Evangelism. Since Talbot began serving at Good Shepherd in 1999, average worship attendance has quadrupled, growing from 500 to 2000 each Sunday. Talbot holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Princeton University and a Master of Divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary. He lives in Charlotte with his wife, Julie, and they have two grown children.

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Come Alive

Conversations with Scripture

COME ALIVE: CONVERSATIONS WITH SCRIPTURE

RUTH, ESTHER, JONAH

Copyright 2023 by Talbot Davis

All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission can be addressed to Permissions, Invite Press, P.O. Box 260917, Plano, TX 75026.

This book is printed on acid-free, elemental chlorine–free paper.

ISBN 9781953495815; eBook 9781953495822

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

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MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To the staff of Good Shepherd Church, for your patient support during the Come Alive journey.

Introduction to

Ruth, Esther, and Jonah

As you hold this particular Come Alive volume in your hands, it is fair to ask, Why these three very different books of Ruth, Esther, and Jonah? What common threads possibly hold books from different time periods and written in different genres together?

Consider the following: one book has all the hallmarks of a masterfully written short story, describing with supreme restraint events that took place in approximately 1200 BC. The book of Ruth is timely and timeless, poignant and personal, artistic and anthemic.

The second book takes the form of a nonfiction novel in its narrative description of life in Persia in approximately 480 BC. So, in addition to a seven-hundred-year gap in time between the two books, we’re also faced with a change in geography and leadership—from the pastoral setting of ancient Israel to the chaotic scenes of early Persia. The book of Esther thrills, educates, and even befuddles with its concluding scenes.

The third book is a bewildering tale we place historically between book 1 and book 2—around 750 BC—but yet we find much later in the chronological pages of our Bible. We find Jonah in what’s called The Minor Prophets section of the biblical library, though I suspect he deserves a category all his own: the only book in the Bible named after the villain.

Ruth and Esther both end in ancient versions of a white picket fence and they lived happily ever after.

Jonah ends with a question mark because if there’s one thing we know about this prophet, it’s that he can’t be happy unless he is first unhappy.

This brings me back to the original question: Why these three books in this one volume? Three primary answers arise:

All three books are named after a figure who, while almost certainly not the author of the book, is nevertheless a central figure in it.

The three convey historic events told with a novelist’s flair. In this holy triumvirate we see all the virtues of Hebrew narrative at its best—irony, restraint, timing, surprise, and wit.

We see the unexpected actions of our God in the unsuspecting lives of women and men. In Ruth, we enjoy how God deploys those who live lives of quiet dignity. In Esther, we witness him working behind the scenes in a land at a time where he is not even to be named. And then in Jonah, we absorb how God works either inside of us or in spite of us—but he will work all the same.

Here’s a ten-dollar word for you: eponymous. What does eponymous mean? It’s a slightly pretentious way of saying something is named after someone. That includes television shows such as Roseanne, Seinfeld, MacGyver, and Mary Tyler Moore. Eponymous movies include Amadeus, Arthur, Matilda, and, if you’re in for a fright, Carrie. From the world of literature, we can add MacBeth, Lolita, Dr. Zhivago, and, naturally, Stuart Little.

Admit it: learning what eponymous means and how you can use it was worth the price of this book.

Yet we know something even better about our biblically eponymous books: God uses the characters within to point to the Character beyond. He masterfully employs the personalities of Ruth, Esther, and even Jonah to point to the Person of Christ. It is for his sake and through his eyes that we come alive in these biblical treasures.

Introduction to

Ruth

As faithful interpreters of Scripture, we admit the need to know the story behind the story in order to understand the story itself well.

That applies even to as remarkable a story as Ruth.

Discovering the story behind the story involves answering these age-old questions: Who, What, When, Where, and Why?

Who Wrote Ruth?

The author of this eponymous book is himself anonymous. It is unlikely if not impossible that Ruth is herself the author—not because of her gender but because of her life expectancy. The concluding lines of the book record events three generations after the one in which Ruth’s story takes place. That means if she wrote the book, she was at least ninety years old when she did so, something that stretches believability.

Instead, the most likely scenario is that this tale of unusual courage and faith involving Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz landed in the hands of a literary genius who is lost to history but known to the Father.

What Kind of Book Is Ruth?

If the Bible is a library, into what section do we place Ruth, and how do we describe its particular genre? Biblical experts have long placed this little book within the larger section of historical narratives, serving in many ways as the bridge between the anarchy of Judges and the monarchy of 1 Samuel. In terms of genre, Ruth has the characteristic of a nonfiction novella in that it records historic events with artistic flair. (For more information on Judges, see my book Crash Test Dummies: Surprising Lessons from the Book of Judges, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2017).

When Was Ruth Written?

The book’s opening tells us when the events took place: when the judges ruled means sometime between 1200–1000 BC. Ruth’s closing line gives us a clue to the date of its composition: Obed the father of Jesse and Jesse the father of David. The reference to David suggests that our author wrote this book sometime after David became king over a united Israel in approximately 1010 BC.

Where Was Ruth Written?

Ruth was written by a Jew, for Jews, and it weaves a tale steeped in Jewish customs and mores. The most likely places of original composition include Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

Why Did Ruth Make It into the Bible?

Ruth starts in anarchy. It ends in monarchy. The fascinating story of getting from one place to another is, in fact, the reason why the ancient rabbis included Ruth in their catalog of Scripture. We’re so glad they did, and I can’t wait to show you why. For that, turn the page to Day One.

DAY ONE

Ruth 1:1–18

In the historical narrative of Ruth, the Scripture will fill us with characters, plot twists, cultural nuance, and a God who works almost behind the scenes. We will find few takeaways of thus saith the Lord! or I am memorizing that verse to help me cope with life. Instead, the underlying message will emerge from the story itself, and then—and this is both critical and delightful—we will appreciate the remarkable artistry with which Ruth’s author crafts this memorable tale. So, if you like well-told stories involving resilient characters leading to a jaw-dropping conclusion, Ruth is for you!

Have you ever had things go from bad to worse? You’ve had those days; you know what I’m talking about. That day you lost the tennis match, and the girl said she didn’t want to go with you to the movie? Bad to worse. Or that time you got laid off from your job, and then that evening your guy broke up with you? Bad to worse. Or you got thrown out of the crowd at your kid’s ball game for being too vocal, and on the way home you got a traffic ticket? Bad to worse. Or you find out someone is leaving the church for a more sedate one around the corner on the same day that the hip cool church gets a big magazine spread, and nobody in the world is paying attention to you? Bad to worse. I’ve been there, you’ve been there, some of you are there today.

If that’s you, you’re not the first, you’re not the worst, and you’re most certainly not alone. We have this incredible privilege of digging into an incomparable story over the next few weeks, the biblical book of Ruth. Ruth begins as the poster child, and I mean the poster child, of bad to worse. Here’s the situation. This is ancient, ancient Israel, probably around 1200 BC, three thousand and two hundred years ago, and it’s after Moses but before David—a real in between time before the Jews established a central government and stable borders. Let’s take a look.

Ruth opens with these words that are at the same time subtle in tone and pregnant with meaning:

In the days when the judges ruled . . .

What does that mean? If you do know, you will understand what I mean about Ruth’s time period. The era of the judges, immortalized in the book of Judges, appearing right before Ruth in the Bible, was a time of anarchy, corruption, and lawlessness. Upon reading—or, more likely, hearing—when the judges ruled, everybody in the original audience would have raised their eyebrows and said, Nobody was ruling then! Maybe worst of all in that lawless era, down became up, sin became good, and get this, human trafficking (rape for profit) was called God’s will. It’s why the author at the end of that book throws up his hands and says, I got nothing; these people are awful, ‘everyone did as they saw fit.’ Boom. The end. Women were not safe on the streets of Israel in broad daylight. That’s how bad it was. Bad.

And then, in