July 4, 2023
Passage Read: Matthew 1-2
Meditation Verse: 1:5
Thought
Boaz's mother was Rahab, the Canaanite prostitute/innkeeper who hid the Israelite spies and pleaded for her life and the life of her family. Surely she was held in honor by that generation, though it is possible some still looked on her with contempt. So Boaz may have grown up with a complicated childhood. That may have made him more sensitive to the plight of Ruth and Naomi, and it may have driven him to seek the Lord more than others of his generation. Yet he didn't take the opportunity to marry Ruth just because she was a foreigner like his mother, but recognized that she was a very noble woman.
Application
Salmon married a foreign woman who turned to the Lord, regardless of whatever she was before. His son likewise married a foreign woman, who also chose to abandon her home and family and gods to care for her mother-in-law. Like father, like son, they both cared for honorable women who may have otherwise been ostracized by their neighbors. I need to honor all people who turn to the Lord, regardless of any background they may have that makes them stigmatized by others around me.