Read Ruth 4
Boaz does not waist any time. He goes straight to the gate where legal transactions take place. The closest of kin just happened to pass by and Boaz stopped him. Boaz gathered 10 elders to hear his proposal. It take 10 men to make a minyan, which is a quorum required to publicly discuss the law. (Sort of like "this phone call may be recorded for .....") The man was ready to redeem the land but when the string attached was Ruth, he fishtailed. He was not willing to ruin his line of inheritance with a Moabite woman. He took off his shoe and gave it to Boaz to seal the deal. Boaz got his prayer answered. He bought the land of Ruth's inheritance and Ruth. He promised to raise up the name of the dead, or in other words, to carry on Mahlon's inheritance.
Ruth and Boaz do have a son and the people name him Obed which means "serving". I find that strange that Naomi nursed the baby and the neighbors named him. From this line came David and Jesus. It is like the baby was a community baby. He was a symbol for all to see. This union between the Jew and the Gentile was prophetic and so was the off-spring.
If Ruth stands for the church then what we should reproduce should be servanthood. Serving one another is self-sacrificing, humbling, and rewarding.
Jesus broke Jewish protocol when he grafted in the Gentiles but he also completed the plan of God by doing it. His plan all along was to bring "all men" to repentence and the knowledge of Christ.
Boaz was Ruth's kinsman redeemer. He married her and gave her life (a son). That is what Jesus is to us: a husband who reproduces life through us. To Naomi, the Jew, Jesus will be a retorer of life and their nourisher.
How vast and how wide is your love and power. You span from generation to generation and from Jew to Gentile.
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