What did Israelites think of Moabites? Moab was a son born of Lot's incest with his own daughter (Genesis 19:6-8, 30-37). Moab's people settled east of the Dead Sea. When Israel journeyed out of Egypt toward the promised land the Moabites refused Israel passage and relief (Deuteronomy 2:26-30). Thus the law came to say: "No ... Moabite shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord" (Deuteronomy 23:3). Moabite King Balak hired Balaam to curse Israel (Numbers 22). Moabite King Eglon invaded and oppressed Israel for 18 years (Judges 3:12-14). Ruth was one of those Moabites. Who invited her?

Years later while Nehemiah was overseeing the rebuilding of Jerusalem's walls, he realized that because Judah's men had married Moabite women, their children could not even speak the language of Judah. "I contended with them ... and I made them take an oath in the name of God" that they would not let their children intermarry with the pagan people of the land (Nehemiah 13:25). Next Nehemiah explained why intermarriage was bad. "Wasn't this exactly what led King Solomon of Israel into sin? ... There was no king from any nation who could compare to him, and God loved him and made him king over all Israel. But even he was led into sin by his foreign wives" (Nehemiah 13:26 paraphrased). Solomon's downfall was not his wives' foreignness itself, but that it led Solomon to worship foreign gods (1 Kings 11:1-13).

Did Boaz marry out? Or did Ruth marry in? Matthew opens the New Testament: "An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham" (Matthew 1:1). Then Matthew borrows the closing line of the book of Ruth (Ruth 4:21-22; Matthew 1:5-6): "and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David." Notice that Matthew includes two names the book of Ruth left out — Rahab the faithful harlot from Jericho, and Ruth the faithful Moabite. What is God's point? Could faithfulness matter more to God than background? Could God so love the world that God gave us Jesus Christ — so that everyone who believes in Jesus may have eternal life? Everyone — even Moabites?

Every Christmas we remember Ruth's adoptive hometown, Bethlehem (Luke 2:4), which came to be nicknamed after Ruth's great-grandson, King David, Jesus' royal ancestor. Think of Naomi straggling home to Bethlehem, bringing that alien Moabite Ruth. Think of Boaz marrying that alien. Bethlehem probably buzzed: "Who invited her?"

God did. Would your church? Would your family? Would you?

Next month:
Jesus — divine alien