The Example of Salmon . . . not the fish!

As I said yesterday, I want to be guilty of posting my thoughts much more often, so here goes. This morning I was spending time with the Lord and hanging out in Matthew 1 this morning for a little while. There, you will find the geneaology of Christ as recorded by Matthew, going from Abraham, through David, to King Josiah (just had to mention that for obvious reasons) and finally to Joseph and Mary. But I was struck by verse 5 and Matthew's mention of Salmon, the father of Boaz, who was the husband of Ruth. This verse mentions two women in the lineage, both Salmon's wife, Rahab, and Boaz's wife, Ruth. If you know your Bible, you know that Rahab was the Canaanite prostitute who helped the spies as Joshua and the boys were making their claim to the land God promised them and Ruth has an entire book dedicated to her and her story of redemption by the "kinsman redeemer" Boaz. What struck me fresh this morning was to see these two stories side by side. You see, Salmon, a Jew, married Rahab, who through her faith (as we see in Hebrews 11) was saved by God and grafted into the nation of Israel. Salmon's choice here of a bride was probably not a popular one considering Rahab's storied past, not to mention her race, but Salmon "redeemed" her. The next thing you know, we have Boaz, Salmon and Rahab's boy, meeting Ruth, a widow from the land of Moab, again, not a Jew, and feeling the same heart of compassion for her as he observes her faithfulness and "redeeming" her into his family.

So many threads to these stories to consider and I could write forever explaining this, but here's my point in making this observation. Salmon, led by God, chose to adopt Rahab into his family through marriage. In this culture, a woman on her own was as good as dead, which is why widows and orphans are most often mentioned together in the Scriptures. For all intensive purposes, they are the same and need someone to "adopt" them into their family. Salmon chose to do this and then we see his son, following in his father's footsteps, making the same choice to "adopt" Ruth through marriage. As I considered this, I thought about my own story. While my parents never adopted officially, my heart for adoption began with an observation of the way they loved kids while I was growing up. They served in many ways as a parental model for many of my friends who didn't have a dad or whose parents didn't love Jesus. I believe it was here that God began to stir my heart for the orphans of this world and continued to foster it to where it is today. Subsequently, I love that Josiah and Selah both already have a knowledge of adoption, both from their own stories and as they walk with us through this process, and pray that, like Boaz observed and followed the example of his father, Salmon, my kids will do the same.

Oh God, that there might be generations of Butlers with a Christ-like passion for orphans and a deep conviction of their role, as commanded in Scripture, to care for them and redeem them, either through adoption or some other means. And that it would spread like wild fire throughout your people, your church, to care for the millions of orphans around the world. This is Your heart, Oh God and I thank you that you "hear the needy" and that they will "see and be glad" (Psalm 69:32-33).

As a P.S. I should mention that we are walking through the book of Ruth on Sunday morning, led by my buddy Blake Holmes, and it is worth taking a listen to. Go to http://www.watermarkradio.com/ and listen to his first message from this past Sunday, "Faith in the Midst of Famine."