GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
RUTH 4:1-2
In this final chapter of Ruth, our author begins and ends with ten men, a sign of completeness, wholeness, and what is right. Boaz visits ten elders of the city to proceed correctly with his marriage to Ruth. Then, in the final verses, there is a genealogy of ten names, showing the complete restoration of Naomi’s family through Ruth.
Boaz Marries Ruth
4 Now Boaz went up to the village gate, and sat down. The closer kinsman Boaz had mentioned to Ruth came through. Boaz said to him, “Come over here, friend, and sit down,” so he went over and sat down. 2 Boaz took ten men, elders of the city, and said, “Sit down here,” and they sat down.
Here Boaz carries out his business in the manner that was commonly accepted at this time. There is a hint in Genesis that this was already the practice in Abraham’s day, since the angels arriving in Sodom also found Lot sitting in the city gate (Genesis 19:1). There is also an indication that family was an important factor in these courtroom-gates in one of Solomon’s psalms: “Sons are a heritage from the LORD… Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate” (Psalm 127:3,5).
This account of Boaz in the gate is a description of what happened in his day. It isn’t a command that regulates the way we carry out legal disputes in our time. This is a good illustration of the difference between a descriptive passage and a prescriptive passage.
A descriptive passage shows us how something was done in ancient times, according to their customs, context, or circumstances.
A prescriptive passage is a command from God as to how a thing is to be done for all time.
For example, when God commanded the construction of the altar for the tabernacle, he commanded that it be made of stones which were not fashioned or smoothed in any way by a tool (Deuteronomy 27:5). This was a prescriptive passage to be followed throughout the existence of the tabernacle. In Solomon’s time, a bronze altar was built for the temple, but God did not object, and the Glory of the LORD filled the temple when it was dedicated then (1 Kings 8:11) just as it had filled the tabernacle in Moses’ day (Exodus 40:34-35). Yet the account of Solomon’s bronze altar (1 Kings 8:64) is merely descriptive. Our altars do not need to be made of either bronze or undressed stone. I have used an end table as an altar in a living room, a bedside in a hospital, or even my own knee as an altar many times, and God has been honored in each case.
We must say the same thing about baptism. The Bible is prescriptive about baptism only in our Lord’s command that it is to be done (Matthew 28:19), but not in the manner or place it is to be done. Baptism is one of the ways we make disciples for Christ among all nations. But the manner of baptism is not prescribed. The earliest baptisms in the Bible were of adults (Mark 1:4-5), although people may have brought their children, since Mark describes “the whole Judean countryside” and “all the people of Jerusalem” going out to be baptized by John. But the earliest circumcisions were also of adults when the covenant was first made (Genesis 17:23), including Abraham who was 99 and his son Ishmael who was 13. And yet God commanded baby boys to be circumcised at eight days old. So also with baptism, there are early examples of adults coming to be baptized, but whole families were baptized as well (1 Corinthians 1:16). There is no command to baptize women anyplace in Scripture, yet there is an example of Paul doing it (Acts 16:15). And again, there is no command as to the manner of baptism. The word simply means to apply water the way one would wash the dishes (Mark 7:4) and yet objects far too large to submerge could be “baptized” just the way we wash the table after dinner (Mark 7:4). Early Christians were baptized in rivers, perhaps dunked under water (John 3:23), and yet the Jailer of Philippi and his family were baptized in his home, where there is no indication of preparations being made; they were simply baptized in their home—probably an apartment attached to the jail—at the very hour of midnight (Acts 16:33). And so the mode of baptism is never prescribed by Scripture; only described. Therefore anyone who insists on one mode over another is going beyond what the Scriptures say. To insist that baptism must not be done to children, or that it must not be done to women, or that it must be done by immersion would be the same as saying that every altar must be made of undressed stone, or that every court case must be heard in a city gate by ten elders (and only in the morning).
We must watch and guard our doctrine closely, so that we don’t ever give up the gospel of forgiveness through Jesus. But we must not add to what the Bible says about that gospel, either. So if you must go to court, use the courts of the land (but see Matthew 5:25). If you would like to use an altar to worship, use whatever is at hand—even your knee, if need be. And if someone is to be baptized, let it be with water and the word of Christ for the forgiveness of sins. Baptism isn’t a law to be kept or broken, it’s a means of grace, a way for God’s goodness and forgiveness to come to us.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota