Posted on 06/18/2010 8:37:18 AM PDT by Patriot1259
Almost immediately people began accusing me of twisting the Scriptures by calling Ruth an "illegal immigrant." After all, Ruth was married to an Israelite and the law said that Moabites were only supposed to be excluded from the assembly of the Lord, not from the people of Israel (Deuteronomy 23:3). The response was so strong that I even began to second guess myself--until I read Nehemiah chapter 13 and it dawned on me that it was against the lawfor a child of Israel to marry a Moabite in the first place--which is exactly what Boaz did in the story of Ruth. No matter which way you look at it, Boaz did what even God's law forbade and He was commended for it--by God.
In the interests of clearing some things up, I'd like to make a few clarification points:
1. Many people have called me blasphemous because I wrote that Joseph discovered his wife was pregnant with an "illegitimate child." I thought it would be obvious to the average reader that after Joseph discovered his betrothed wife was pregnant and before his dream, it certainly would have appeared that Jesus was conceived in an illegitimate way. People have written me and said that Mary should not have been stoned according to the law because she was innocent. Of course! But did Joseph know that before the dream? No he didn't, and yet the Scriptures still refer to him as a just man precisely because He chose compassion over the letter of the law. (Compare Deuteronomy 22:20-21 with Matthew 1:19)
(Excerpt) Read more at thecypresstimes.com ...
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