THE ARITHMETIC OF GRACE

1. Kindred Daggers

The future is an untold tale. Never judge it until you have heard it.  

In some parts of the world, especially Africa, it is traditional to worry if one has no child, or if the children are few. Sometimes the worry is not that the children are few but that they are all females. Then, even kindred tongues join the mob to stab mercilessly that there is no male. The ancients of Bethlehem seem to have had a different and deeper perspective.  

2. Bethlehem Eyes

In the Bible book of Ruth, we read about Naomi, a withered widowed and mother-in-law, with Ruth her very faithful daughter-in-law from the disreputable country of Moab. When those ancients of Bethlehem saw how faithfully Ruth stayed with Naomi, and when Ruth remarried and had her baby, they spoke of Ruth the foreigner as _“better to thee than seven sons”_ (Ruth 4:15). 
 
In what arithmetic is ‘one’ greater than ‘seven’? What kind of eyes would see an immigrant female as _“better”_ than seven sons? How could one adopted daughter be nobler than the seven sons one could have had? Mark you, _“sons”?_ That, certainly, is not how things are seen in Africa. In traditional Africa and parts of Asia, one son is better than seven daughters even if the son was made of stone and the daughters of gold.

3. Unlikely Keys

Ruth married Boaz and had a son called Obed whose name means worshipper (of God). That was the son at whose birth the women of Bethlehem made those profound proclamations. It is not stated if the young Ruth and the old Boaz had more children after Obed. Maybe none. We do not know how many children Boaz had had before he met the young immigrant girl (Ruth 3:10). Maybe some; but they all paled into irrelevance when Ruth, who was _“better … than seven sons,”_ stepped in with Obed her single candidate. Ruth and Obed became the lineage through which came David the king and Jesus the Messiah (Matthew 1:5-6; Ruth 4:17). But for Ruth, there may have been no Obed and no record of Boaz _“the mighty man of wealth”_ (Ruth 2:1), despite the many sons that there might have been before then. The ancients were correct: the value of children is not in their gender or number. The sweetness of wine is not in the beauty of the bottle. Ruth and Obed gave to Boaz a page in history that his mighty wealth could not have done. Their stream watered the withered stock of Noami and Elimelech to such flowery and fruity prominence than the killing fields of seductive Moab had taken from them. The future is an untold tale. The size of a key does not always determine the size of the door it opens. Only distance makes a star look smaller and dimmer than the moon.

4. Worthless Sons

Gideon had seventy-two sons; not daughters but all sons, yet it was a wasted family of mass murders (Judges 9:1-6). He was to learn in his sad grave that value is not always in the quantity. Jesse had seven sons, besides the despised David. From that lot God could find none. David became _“better”_ than those many seven sons (1 Samuel 16:6-13). But for him, we might have heard nothing of Jesse in the holy records. Abdon Hillel the ruler had forty sons with their thirty nephews. All they ever achieved in history, if the records should be trusted, was ride their seventy cars around town in their pitiable parade of regal donkeyish sterility (Judges 12:13-14). Alas, not in the quantity.

Hannah had five more children after Samuel; three sons and two daughters (1 Samuel 2:21). We know their gender and their number but not even their names. Despite their number, they were not _“better”_ than the one Samuel who had been given to God, and who also gave himself to God. The ancients of Bethlehem were right. The value of children to a person is not in their gender or their number. There are daughters better than many sons, and ‘only’ children who turn out _“better”_ to their parents, their community, and their ancestry than a thousand fools with only their gender and number to show.

5. The Arithmetic of Grace

If we should cease to worry about the gender and number of sons and daughters, we could begin to see unlikely Ruths and ‘only’ Obeds leading to royal and messianic ancestries. It is merely distance that makes mighty stars look smaller and dimmer than the miniature moon. In the arithmetic of grace, ‘one’ can be greater than ‘seven,’ and daughters _“better”_ than some sons. O that some ears were circumcised to hear the Heavens in jubilation: _“There is a son born…”_ and a daughter _“better to thee than seven sons.”_

_There is a son born to Naomi … he is the father of Jesse, the father of David … David the king_ (Ruth 4:17; Matthew 1:6). Amen.