LOVE or Justice? What Ruth Teaches About Jesus and How We Apply His Love
Does anyone still read books? I'm more of a podcast and audiobook guy, but I'll grab a murder mystery on vacation. When I looked it up, romance was the top-selling genre of 2026. I believe it, because I see romance novels everywhere, from the assisted living where I work to the tables at bingo.
The Bible has every genre you can imagine, including a love story. It's a little book called Ruth. It really is a romance, but romance is only the top layer. Underneath, this is a story about restorative justice. It's also one of the five core values that shape who we are at Altered Church: Jesus at the Center, Grace-Filled Love, Deep Belonging, Restorative Justice, and Transformational Discipleship.
A Love Story on the Surface
A famine hits Bethlehem, and a family of four moves to Moab looking for food. The two sons marry Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. Then tragedy strikes: the father dies, and so do both sons. In the ancient world, three widows with no one to provide for them faced almost certain ruin. Naomi tells her daughters-in-law to stay in Moab and start over. Orpah goes. Ruth refuses.
"Where you go I will go... your people will be my people and your God my God." (Ruth 1:16)
They arrive in Bethlehem hungry. Ruth gathers leftover grain in a field owned by Boaz, who is kind to her and protects her. There's a little PG-rated romance, a wedding, and a baby. It's sweet, but it's not the whole story.
Two Words for Justice
When we hear "justice," we usually think of retribution: you hurt me, so you have to pay. The Bible mostly uses two other words. Mishpat shows up over 400 times and means making things right, especially for the widow, the orphan, and the poor. Hesed shows up about 250 times and means loyal, covenant love that keeps showing up and goes further than it has to. Mishpat says what's right. Hesed makes sure the hurting person is actually treated right.
Justice Built Into the Field
Ruth gives up her own safety to see Naomi restored. That's mishpat. Then the community's laws step in. God told farmers not to harvest everything:
"When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest... Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God." (Leviticus 19:9-10)
The leftovers weren't charity. They belonged to the poor by right, and the landowner didn't get to decide whether he felt generous that day. Ruth qualified three ways: poor, foreign, and widowed. It went further than that, too. Debts were forgiven every seventh year, and every fiftieth year land went back to the family that had lost it.
"The land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers." (Leviticus 25:23)
You didn't earn being born where and when you were. None of it is yours, so use your field to restore balance.
Boaz Raises the Ceiling
The law said to leave the edges. Boaz left extra in the middle, kept Ruth safe, and fed her at his own table. Mishpat sets the floor. Hesed raises the ceiling. Then he married her, even though the law said:
"No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, not even in the tenth generation." (Deuteronomy 23:3)
Boaz saw a human being on the other side of that law. He brought a foreign widow into a place of full belonging.
Ideology or Scripture?
If I said God wants you to set aside part of what you have for the poor and the immigrant, and to forgive debts, some of you would reach for a political label. That reaction is worth noticing. Many of our faith systems are built on ideology with Jesus added on top. If you believe poor people are a nuisance and foreigners are a drain, ask yourself where that came from. Stories of exclusion, retribution, and hate are never part of God's story.
The end of Ruth tells us Boaz was the father of Obed, Obed of Jesse, and Jesse of David. Generations later, Jesus sits at the end of that family tree.
"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
Do people deserve our generosity? Jesus asks us a deeper question: do I deserve God's grace? No. So how dare we withhold giving our all to anyone who needs it? This is the crux of our salvation.
Three honest steps:
Ask where your beliefs about the poor and the foreigner came from, and whether you can find them in Scripture.
Look at your "field" this week and leave something at the edges for someone else.
Go beyond what's required for one person who doesn't expect it.
The story of the Bible is a story of restorative justice, so it has to be our story too. As a church, we won't be shy or afraid about living it out. We will always be more generous than seems reasonable. We will stand with people on the margins and speak up for the lost, the broken, and the hurting, no matter who is offended. To our whole community, we want to say what Ruth said to Naomi: where you go, we will go, and your people will be our people.
