The Girl's Still Got It: Take a Walk with Ruth and the God Who Rocked Her World - Softcover

Higgs, Liz Curtis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1578564484 ISBN 13: 9781578564484

Verlag: PRH Christian Publishing, 2012

Inhaltsangabe

You know Ruth’s story. Now meet her in person. And prepare to be changed.
 
Walk with Ruth as she travels from Moab to Bethlehem, certain of her calling, yet uncertain of her future. Hold Naomi’s hand and watch love put the pieces of her broken life back together. And hang out with Boaz, their kinsman-redeemer, who blesses both women and honors God, big time.
 
With best-selling author Liz Curtis Higgs by your side, you’ll tarry in the corners of their ancient houses, listen to their conversations, and consider every word of every verse until you can say, “I totally get the book of Ruth. And I see what God is trying to teach me through this rags-to-riches redemption story—he has a plan for my life.”
 
Girl, does he ever!
 
Think of it as time travel without gimmicks, gizmos, or a DeLorean: a novel approach to Bible study that leaps from past to present, gleaning timeless truths that speak to the heart.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Liz Curtis Higgs is a popular conference speaker and the author of nearly 30 books, with more than 3 million copies in print, including her best-selling nonfiction series, Bad Girls of the Bible, Really Bad Girls of the Bible, Unveiling Mary Magdalene, and Slightly Bad Girls of the Bible, and her award-winning Scottish historical novels inspired by the biblical book of Ruth, Here Burns My Candle and Mine Is the Night, a New York Times bestseller. Liz and her family live in Louisville, Kentucky.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Before We Dive In

Which Girl’s Still Got It?

Ruth’s definitely got it. Yes, that Ruth. The one in the Bible. And her mother-in-law, Naomi? She’s still got it too. So do
you, beloved.

What do I mean by “it”? Value. Significance. Vibrancy. Worth. Something vital and meaningful to offer, no matter how many times you’ve been around the block.

Look at Ruth. Even thirty-two centuries later, her shining example of boldness and faithfulness still blows us away. Why don’t we take a walk in her sandals and see where the Lord might lead us and how he might use us?

Resist the urge to say you’re too old, too young, too busy, too scared, too worn out, too washed up, too anything to be useful to God. Truth is, you’ve always been part of his love-the-world plan. Need proof? From the day he formed
you in your mother’s womb, God has watched over your every step, making sure you got where you needed to go.

When you stumbled, it was God who steadied you.

When you fell, it was God who rescued you.

When you lost your way, it was God who carried you home.

Why? Because he knows you fully, loves you completely, and holds you close to his heart. God will never give up on you, my sister. You claim a special place in his Big Picture.

As the book of Proverbs says, “You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.”1 Count on it. As surely as we know how the book of Ruth ends—happily—God knows how your story is going to unfold.

We don’t use the phrase divine providence much anymore, but here’s what it means: “God is there, God cares, God rules, and God provides.”2 How comforting to know that we’re never alone and never unloved, that Someone powerful
is in charge and looking out for us. The book of Ruth is a crash course in Sovereignty 101, with God whispering all through it, “Trust me!”

Okay, but trust is an easy word to say and a hard thing to do. It took a decade of Bad Girl foolishness before I understood how good and trustworthy God is. The refrain of one classic hymn never fails to bring a lump to my throat
(not good when you’re trying to sing):

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er!
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!
O for grace to trust Him more!3

Yeah, that last bit. Gets me every time.

From childhood Naomi learned to trust the Sovereign God of Israel. Ruth discovered his faithfulness a bit further down the road. Some of us are only now realizing what it means to live in the circle of God’s embrace and at the absolute
center of his will.

I’m still getting my head around it. Maybe you are too.

Suppose we hang out with these ancient sisters for a season and see what they can teach us about God’s steadfast love. First, we need to figure out how to transport Naomi and Ruth into the present. Or project ourselves into the distant past.

Hmm…

Time Travel Without the DeLorean

If only we could jump into a time machine! Instead of simply reading about biblical history, we could live it. Rather than merely studying maps and books, we could see, touch, and experience that long-lost world firsthand. Wouldn’t
that be something?

H. G. Wells created a device for his Time Traveller out of nickel, ivory, and quartz. Doc Brown sent Marty McFly back to 1955 in a plutonium-powered DeLorean. I’m thinking we’ll employ something God designed—our imaginations—
and toss in a healthy measure of old-fashioned research. (No worries. That’s my gig.)

Page by page I want us to go there—to Moab, to Bethlehem, to the days of Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz. We’ll tarry in the corners of their homes and listen to their conversations and consider every word of every verse until we can say, “I
totally get the book of Ruth. And I see what God is trying to teach me through this rags-to-riches redemption story—he has a plan for my life.”

Girl, does he ever!

Before we step back in time, here are three things you’re going to love about the book of Ruth.

First, it’s a guaranteed great read.

A combo of “literary art and theological insight,”4 these four chapters in Scripture have “enchanted every age,”5 including our own. I’ve pored over Ruth’s story in fourteen translations and a hundred books and commentaries, and I still get tears in my eyes when the women of Bethlehem sing out, “Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer.”6 Yes, yes, yes! Plus, the book of Ruth has all the stuff English majors swoon over: fascinating parallels, flashbacks, and clever repetition. Watch for all the uses of return (shubh in Hebrew) and favor (hesed ). Very cool. Scottish theologian Sinclair Ferguson said, “Like the stories we loved to hear again and again in childhood, the pleasure of this one lies partly in spotting the clues.”7 We’ll be regular Nancy Drews before we’re done.

It’s also a deliciously chatty story. In the New International Version nearly sixty of the eighty-five verses include dialogue. Lots of “she said, he said.” Love it.

Second, wait until you find out how this true story began.

Though Jewish tradition gives Samuel props for writing the book of Ruth,8 most modern scholars don’t agree. It’s a timing problem, since the book ends with David’s name. Everyone reading it three millenniums ago would have
smiled and nodded, recognizing the famous ruler. Yet Samuel died before David became king around 1010 BC, meaning Samuel’s authorship is improbable.9 Instead, the book of Ruth was likely composed around 1000 BC,10 a century or two after the actual events. Could be it was written even more recently than that, anywhere from 1000 to 500 BC,11 depending on who’s doing the research.

Guess who preserved the account of Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz until it was finally recorded? Storytellers.

Accomplished troupes knew all the favorite songs and familiar legends and shared them at public gatherings and festivals.12 Since the book of Ruth began in poetic, oral form and circulated that way for ages,13 these storytellers of old kept Ruth’s history alive by carefully memorizing every word, then recounting the much-loved tale wherever people hung out, especially around the spring or at the town gate.14

Don’t panic! This is still God’s Word, a work of the Holy Spirit. Through the centuries the Lord used ordinary people to bind his truth onto stone, clay, papyrus, leather, parchment, copper, potsherds, and silver.15 Yet many of the ancient texts, those God-breathed words, were spoken long before they were written.

Ruth’s story is so skillfully arranged, so beautifully narrated, we can easily imagine a gifted storyteller standing before an audience, commanding everyone’s undivided attention from the opening words: “And it came to pass in the
days of the judges…”

That third thing you’ll love?

The book of Ruth is all about our biblical sisters. They don’t simply make an appearance or hover in the background; it’s a women’s story through and through. Some commentators go a step further, believing the Naomi-Ruth saga
was “passed on by a guild of women storytellers.”16 Other scholars suggest “the writer was a woman.”17

Oh my. Not only spoken by women but also written by a woman? Well, we know songs written by women are included in Scripture. Miriam exhorted the assembled, “Sing to the Lord, for he is highly...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: PRH Christian Publishing
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2012
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1578564484
• ISBN 13: 9781578564484
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 240
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@phaidon.com; gpsr@phaidon.com; ; Zähringerstraße 24; Berlin; 10707; Deutschland