One Verse that Completely Changes Your Thinking
Emptiness Isn't a Glitch in the System (Eating with Jesus Series)
One verse.
One single verse taught me that I wasn’t seeing everything God is trying to say through food.
It’s a verse you’ve read many times.
We’ve spiritualized it in thousands of Bible studies and sermons but we jump to the spiritual aspect too quickly (as we in the West are wont to do).
That’s a mistake.
Stick with the food.
That’s where Ruth’s story begins, isn’t it? With a lack of food. A famine.
The eye-opening verse comes at the end of chapter 1 but here is how the chapter begins:
Ruth 1:1 says, “In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.”
(Interesting to note is that Bethlehem means “house of bread.” Moab means “from the father” but not in a great way. When God delivered Lot and his two daughters from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19), they fled to the hills because they were afraid to live in Zoar (understandable when you’ve seen two other cities destroyed by God). Lot’s daughter’s, apparently not trusting God even though they’d been saved, got it into their heads that there were no men coming who might give them children so they got their father drunk and each became pregnant by Lot. The oldest daughter named her son, Moab, “from the father." Ew. In other words, the heritage of Moab is a failure to trust God to supply and, instead, devising one’s own way to fill one’s emptiness— in this case, an empty womb. You see where this is headed, yes?)
Anyway, there was a famine in Israel, a lack of food. Naomi and her husband understandably fearing the empty bellies of their children took their search for food out of their homeland and into a neighboring country of Moab (current day Southern Jordan).
As far as we know, they weren’t on a journey of spiritual discovery.
The text doesn’t indicate that they were dissatisfied with Jehovah.
What it says is that in response to a lack of food they left Judah (which means “thank” or “praise”) and spent at least a decade living in Moab, where we are left to assume they found food.
Very physical, practical reasons for moving on from the land of their God.
Interesting that the Bible never mentions the family eating in Moab.
You’re familiar with the story. We learn that Naomi’s husband dies in Moab. Her sons take Moabite wives but within ten years, they join their father in death. Widowed and destitute, Naomi decides to return to Israel. One daughter-in-law remains in Moab but Ruth vows to remain with Naomi and her God.
The verse that changed my thinking about God’s message through food and eating comes at the end of chapter 1.
