How should we read the Book of Ruth? What is its theme? Is it a romance? A pre-feminist manifesto? Is Boaz pre-figuring of Jesus? In short, does the book itself give us any clues about how to read it?
As we enter Ruth 1, we'll see that Ruth explores the theme of kindness: Ruth to Naomi, Boaz to Ruth, Ruth to Boaz, and - above all - God to his people. Set against the backdrop of an era so desperately lacking in kindness, collated in a series of books in which God is 'distant', this book has a lot to say about life 'under the sun' in an 'overlap of the ages'.
