Living the Ruth Life in an Eve World: Being Loyal or Being Self-Centered

by Debra Ann Elliott
(Birmingham, AL, USA)

So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah.
Ruth 2:17 NIV


In today's society loyalty takes on a very different meaning for the Christian woman. We have to loyal to our family, our friends and our church. We have to be loyal to God!

Ruth was loyal!

The Book of Ruth tells us Ruth was loyal in respect to her family and the Lord.

She was loyal to her mother-in-law.

After the death of Ruth's husband Naomi urged Ruth to return to her to her mother's home. Ruth loved her mother-in-law and respected her. She showed her loyalty by staying with Naomi.

But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God." Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."

Ruth 1:16-17 NIV

She was loyal to Boaz.

The second book of Ruth tells us how Ruth came to know Boaz and how she showed her loyalty to gain favor.

In Ruth 2:2, Ruth pleads with Naomi.

And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, "Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor."

She found herself working in the field belonging to Boaz. Boaz was intrigued my the strange woman working in the field.

Boaz asked the foreman of his harvesters, "Whose young woman is that?" The foreman replied, "She is the Moabitess who came back from Moab with Naomi. She said, 'Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.' She went into the field and has worked steadily from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter."
Ruth 2:5-7

Because of her devotion and loyalty she gained favor with Boaz.

So Boaz said to Ruth, "My daughter, listen to me. Don't go and glean in another field and don't go away from here. Stay here with my servant girls. Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the girls. I have told the men not to touch you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled."

At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She exclaimed, "Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?"

Boaz replied, "I've been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge."
"May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord," she said. "You have given me comfort and have spoken kindly to your servant—though I do not have the standing of one of your servant girls."
Ruth 2:8-11


She was loyal to God.

Because of Ruth's action's and loyalty toward her mother-in-law and Boaz, the Lord blessed her and Boaz took as his wife and she became the great grandmother of King David.

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. Then he went to her, and the LORD enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. The women said to Naomi: "Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! 15 He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth."

Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him. The women living there said, "Naomi has a son." And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.
Ruth 4:13-17

Are you loyal? Is everything you do for your family, your church, God?


In today's society, most of us are no different than Eve. We only think about ourselves. We're bombarded with television shows telling us we should only care about number 1. Number 1 should not be you! It should be God! He should come first in your life. “Real housewives” believe in God. Are you a “real housewife or an Eve?

Are you self-centered? Does everything have to revolve around you?

Eve was self-centered!

She listened to the serpent.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
Genesis 3:1 NIV

She did not listen to God.
The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden," "But God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die." "You will not certainly die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
Genesis 3:2-6 NIV


I want you to think about who you really Are? Read the Book of Ruth and dig deep into your soul to find “your loyalty”.

Don't be an Eve!