Ruth 1:16

Intreat me not. These words introduce Ruth’s decisive answer to Naomi’s suggestion that she follow Orpah’s example, and return to her own people. Ruth’s answer is the keynote of the whole book. It is not merely that Ruth’s love for her mother-in-law leads her to cleave to Naomi. Ruth has discovered that it is Naomi’s faith that makes her a wonderful woman. Ruth resolutely makes her decision for the true God: “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” No more sublime affirmation of love and devotion is to be found anywhere.

Thy God my God. Ruth’s only knowledge of the true God was what she had seen of Him reflected in Naomi and the other members of Naomi’s family. It is ever thus that God reveals Himself to men — by a demonstration of the power of His love operating in the lives of erstwhile sinners. The transforming power of divine love is the best argument in favor of the truth. Without it our profession is no better than “sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal” (1 Cor. 13:1).