04/01/2026
From a Cursed Nation to Christ’s Bloodline
Ruth is often reduced to a gentle, feel-good story about loyalty. But that reading strips away how shocking and radical her life actually was.
Ruth was a Moabite not an Israelite, not part of God’s covenant people. Moab itself was born out of in**st (Genesis 19:30–38), practiced idol worship, and was considered spiritually unclean.
Scripture is explicit:
“No Moabite shall enter the assembly of the Lord, even to the tenth generation.”
— Deuteronomy 23:3 📖
Ruth didn’t just come from the wrong family.
She came from the wrong nation entirely.
Then everything collapsed.
Her husband died. She had no children, no land, no inheritance, and no legal protection. As a foreign widow, Ruth had no future and no obligation to stay with Naomi. Going back to Moab would have been safer, more familiar, more comfortable.
Instead, Ruth chose faith.
When she declared,
“Where you go, I will go;
where you stay, I will stay.
Your people shall be my people,
and your God my God.”
— Ruth 1:16 📖
She wasn’t making a sentimental promise.
She was cutting herself off from her past with nothing guaranteed in return, no husband, no security, no status. Only obedience.
And God noticed.
Ruth ends up gleaning in the fields of Boaz:
“As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz.”
— Ruth 2:3 📖
What looks like coincidence is actually providence.
Boaz, a righteous man, extends protection and kindness to a woman society had no use for. Ruth marries Boaz, and from their union comes Obed, then Jesse, then David.
“Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife… and the Lord gave her conception.”
— Ruth 4:13 📖
A Moabite widow becomes the great-grandmother of Israel’s greatest king.
And God doesn’t stop there.
When Matthew records the genealogy of Jesus, Ruth’s name is included intentionally:
“Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth.”
— Matthew 1:5 📖
God could have erased her past from the record.
He didn’t.
The bloodline of Christ runs straight through a woman from a cursed nation who chose faith over comfort.
Ruth’s story is uncomfortable because it destroys the idea that God only works through people who look right, belong right, or start right. God has always been drawn to humility, obedience, and faith, even especially, when it comes from outsiders.
“You were once far away… but now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”
— Ephesians 2:13 📖
If God can take a foreign widow and place her in the lineage of Jesus, then no past disqualifies someone who truly turns to Him.
And if that truth offends us, the problem isn’t Ruth.
It’s how small we’ve made grace.
A Call to Us
May Ruth’s story remind us to love and embrace others despite their past.
May we stop using history as a weapon and start using grace as a bridge.
“Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”
— Romans 15:7 📖
May we give people room to repent, space to change, and love to grow just as God has done for us.
Because when someone chooses God wholeheartedly, their past no longer defines their future.