What does Tribe teach about book of ruth?
Drawn from the message where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At Tribe, the teaching on the book of Ruth is rooted in the larger story of what it looks like to follow the Holy Spirit rather than your own instincts. Brian Hunter introduced Ruth not as a standalone love story but as part of God's design in the festival of Shavuot, one of seven yearly traditions God established for all of his people. The feasts, Brian argued, belong to God, not only to Israel, and Ruth's story was given to us precisely at the season of Shavuot to show what faithful, Spirit-led following actually looks like in practice.
Brian drew attention to the pattern of following that runs through the whole book. Ruth followed Naomi. Boaz instructed Ruth to follow his workers through the field. Ruth told Naomi she would do everything she said. That repeated gesture, Brian taught, is not incidental. It is the shape of a life responsive to God's leading. He also paused over the way the inspired author of Ruth keeps calling Naomi by her given name even after she asks to be called Mara. The point he pressed was that God only ever calls you by the name he has for you, not the name you try to put on yourself out of grief or failure.
The congregation engaged with the text together, reading through Ruth 1 and sitting with what loss, loyalty and provision look like when God's people are paying attention to his movement rather than their own conclusions.
Taught from Ruth 1:1-22 · Ruth 1:16 · Ruth 2:8-9 · Ruth 3:5 · Deuteronomy 16:9-12
The passage taught · Deuteronomy 16:9-12
9 You shall count for yourselves seven weeks. From the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain you shall begin to count seven weeks.
10 You shall keep the feast of weeks to Yahweh your God with a tribute of a freewill offering of your hand, which you shall give, according as Yahweh your God blesses you.
11 You shall rejoice before Yahweh your God: you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the Levite who is within your gates, the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are among you, in the place which Yahweh your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there.
12 You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt. You shall observe and do these statutes.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- June 9, 2024 The Festival of Shavuot Brian Hunter walks through Deuteronomy 16, the book of Ruth, and Acts 2 to show what it actually looks like to follow the Holy Spirit rather than your own instincts.