NT Text: Ephesians 2:12-19
OT Source(s):
Source: No public domain commentary confirmation available
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Typology
Significance: Paul tells the Ephesian Gentiles that they "were separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God" (Eph 2:12), and that now they "are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God's household" (2:19). Ruth the Moabitess embodies that very movement in narrative form: an outsider barred from the assembly (Deut 23:3) who renounces her people and gods — "your people will be my people, and your God will be my God" (Ruth 1:16) — and is grafted into Israel, becoming great-grandmother to David and an ancestress of Christ (Matt 1:5). The Connection Method is best read as Analogy with typological depth: Ruth is the historical pattern of the alienated Gentile brought near by covenant attachment, the Gentile Bride whom the kinsman-redeemer claims, anticipating the church drawn into one new household. The escalation runs through Christ — what Boaz did locally as redeemer, Christ accomplishes for the nations "through the blood of Christ" (2:13). The point is not the imitation of Ruth's loyalty as moral example, but the glory of a Redeemer who turns strangers into family; in Him the once-excluded find a people and a God to be desired forever.