Ruth: Poverty and Plenty by Tim Chester

Ruth: Poverty and Plenty by Tim Chester

This woman from ancient times was no powerful princess - just a young, vulnerable widow, an impoverished outcast. The story records no famous events or places - just a struggling family facing hard times in a small, agricultural community occupied with their livelihoods and customs.

But the hidden hand of God is at work in the lives of these ordinary people, and wonderfully at work in history. God transforms hardship from bitterness to joy; God's word liberates people to become a community filled with loving kindness towards outsiders; God's people reach out to their enemies. And most significantly, God's great plan, to send a promised savior King to redeem people of all nations, is being worked out.

Like those in the story, we may be just ordinary people, unable to see how the events of our lives will turn out. But by encountering the God who works through the circumstances of life, we too can discover the God who can turn our 'poverty' to 'plenty' through Jesus Christ.

Tim Chester is a church planter and Bible teacher with a Ph.D. from the University of Wales. He is the codirector of The Porterbrook Network, which helps people and churches rediscover mission, and the director of the Northern Training Institute, which offers comprehensive theological and missional training to church leaders. He is one of the co-leaders of the Crowded House, a network of church-planting organizations. Good News to the Poor, The Message of Prayer, Whole Church, and You Can Change are some of his writings. His family and he live in Sheffield, England.