by Seth Davey

 

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Fatherhood: Man’s Ideal


Ruth 2:8–9

Fatherhood: Man’s Ideal

Ruth 2:8-9

Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.”

The juxtaposition between the manhood we saw displayed at the end of Judges and the manhood displayed here by Boaz could not be starker. For Judges effectively ended with a man of the cloth tossing a woman out to the dogs to save his own skin, yet Ruth begins with a man of the cloth using his power and wealth and authority to protect women from the dogs. Not just the one woman he has eyes for, but all his vulnerable servant girls.

Men, if you’re reading this, here is the anatomy of spiritual manhood, and it has nothing to do with testosterone levels or bone density or muscle mass. It doesn’t matter whether you can bench 300 pounds or whether you’re stuck in a wheelchair. It doesn’t matter if you’re a fighter like Tyson or a lover like Shakespeare, or whether your hands are calloused from manual blue-collar work or softened from computer engineering. Protecting women in this fallen world is in your divine DNA. No matter your infirmities or deficiencies or the ways you’ve been victimized and bullied yourself, God made you a man, and He made you strong, and He wired into your spiritual anatomy the high commission of giving yourself up and putting yourself in harm’s way for your weaker half.

But notice that Boaz calls Ruth “daughter” here, which I believe reveals a crucial principle of manhood. Think of it: wouldn’t you agree that men love women most divinely not when they treat women merely as lovers or partners or friends or even sisters, but when they cherish them as daughters? Isn’t it true that to be a man in this world is to accept the role of father, in the image of our Good Father? As a father of two precious little girls myself, girls I’d give my life for in a heartbeat, just as I would their mother, I’m only now in my late thirties coming to understand that.

 

 

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