The Gospel of Ruth: Loving God Enough to Break the Rules, by Carolyn Custis James, is a fascinating book. While I’ve always enjoyed the book of Ruth, I’ve never taken the time to do a deep dive into it’s message and narrative. Unsurprisingly, there is far more to this short book of the Old Testament than many would assume.

James does a powerful job of dispelling the mistaken ways we romanticize the story through our modern cultural bias and instead brings light to how the ancient writer and readers would have read the text. What comes through are incredible lessons in hesed, in seeing the dramatic ways in which Ruth broke with expectations, how Boaz and Ruth both serve as incredible examples of kindness way beyond what was expected or required. James’ comments on Naomi’s story’s connections to the book of Job were eye opening for me.

Walking with God takes us into a sea of possibilities that stretch our capacity for sacrifice and our imagination for obedience, reminding us there’s always more to following God than we think. (p. 102)

All that to say, I really enjoyed this book. It’s definitely worth checking out. It’s fascinating to see how Ruth and Naomi pushed the cultural bounds and expectations. It’s amazing to learn about the response of Boaz and the community. This book really helps open the reader’s eyes to what God accomplishes and teaches through the book of Ruth.