Word for the Week

Gleaning wisdom for a Godly workplace

Week beginning: 26th December, 2021 | By Phil Roberts | London

So Boaz said to Ruth, 'My daughter, listen to me. Don't go and glean in another field and don't go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.'

At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, 'Why have I found such favour in your eyes that you notice me - a foreigner?'

Boaz replied, 'I've been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband - how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.'

Ruth 2:8-12 NIV

In Bethlehem in the time of the Judges there were no burnished credentials for inclusive workplaces - no 'Best Agricultural Landowners to Work For' awards - instead "everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 17:6). Boaz is thus a remarkabl