Reflections on Shavuot and Pentecost

We review the first book by Simon Pease, a member of our own review team.

Maureen Trowbridge reviews ‘Finding a Place to Settle: The Book of Ruth: Learning to Find God-Gifted Identity’ by Stephen Bishop (Zaccmedia, 2016).

This book focuses on the life of Ruth, and God’s intervention in her difficult circumstances to bring her to a place of understanding her identity.

Ruth’s Journey

When Naomi, her husband and two sons had to leave Bethlehem because of famine, they travelled to Moab. First Naomi’s husband died, and then her two sons (who had married Moabite women). A heartbroken and sad widow, when she heard that the famine in Israel was over, Naomi decided to return.

Naomi’s complete trust in God in spite of all her suffering had made a deep impression on Ruth, her Moabite daughter-in-law. It must have been a great blessing for Naomi to hear Ruth say “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16).

The story then unfolds as the two women start a new life in Bethlehem, encountering poverty and hardship. Eventually they find grace and security in the form of Boaz, ‘a shadow’ of Jesus.

According to the author Stephen Bishop, “God had worked in Ruth’s life…[to bring her] to a stage in her journey where she had fulfilled God’s purpose for her and also to find her particular God-gifted identity, a place to ‘settle’.” Turning this into an application for readers, he suggests that this is “an awareness which God wants for each of us”.

Life Lessons

There is so much to learn from the story of Ruth, which each of us can apply to our own journey through life, as we encounter a God who loves us too much to leave us as we are.

In the introduction it is recommended that readers should take a good look at Psalm 107, because of its relevance to the book’s content (e.g. Ps 107:7: “He led them by a straight way to a city where they could settle”). It is helpful to bear this psalm in mind as the author unpacks challenges on life’s journey, such as rebellion and wandering, in the context of God using life’s ups and downs to teach us about relationship with him.

At the end of each chapter there are four ‘Thoughts for Reflection’ which help to apply the teaching personally.

I thought I knew the book of Ruth fairly well but I found there was much more to learn. Stephen Bishop is a very accessible writer who has had other books published on biblical characters. In this helpful study he encourages us all to “pause and take stock of where and who we are in terms of our God-gifted identity”.

‘Finding a Place to Settle’ (146pp, paperback) is available from the publisher for £5.99. Also available elsewhere online.