Orpah comes to Bethlehem

Ruth and Naomi – Bible readers love this romantic and moving tale. Set in the time of the Judges (around 1100 BC) before the Israelites became a kingdom, it tells of a woman forced by famine, together with her husband and two boys, to leave her hometown of Bethlehem in the land of Judah and settle east across the Jordan in Moab.

There among the Gentiles the boys marry local girls Orpah and Ruth (tradition says they were princess sisters). But tragedy follows hard on Naomi’s heels, leaving her and her daughters-in-law all widows.

Hearing that the famine is over, the mourning Naomi leaves for home. She is all out of options and has nowhere else to go. Orpah and Ruth follow her, but in her bitterness and pain she thrusts them away. “Go home! Things are far worse for me than for you, for the Lord Himself has raised His fist against me.”

Orpah turns her back on Naomi, choosing to remake a new life for herself among her pagan people. But Ruth won’t leave. Clinging to the anguished Israelite, she speaks some of the most beautifully selfless words in the Book (Ruth 1:16-17):

“Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.”

Her love for Naomi is unconditional on how her mother-in-love reacted or behaved. In response to Naomi’s bitterness, Ruth has only compassion. Tenderness and kindness guide her words and determine her actions. This love, and the way she honours Naomi, will eventually bring healing and joy to the older woman and a wonderful, timeless blessing to the girl.

Where do we find these women today?

We see Naomi in the Jewish people. Driven from their land by God’s ‘fist,’ they have lived among the Gentiles for nearly 2000 years, where they have been dogged by persecution, suffering and death. Today the remnant of what would otherwise have been one of the largest nations on earth has returned – and is returning – home. Outwardly they are an enviable nation – reconstituted, thriving, self-sufficient and successful. But within them lies centuries of accumulated pain.

Ruth represents believing Gentiles who have attached themselves eternally to Naomi’s God, to Naomi’s people, and to the land covenanted to them. They see the Jews through eyes of compassion and unconditional love. Also appreciation: everything they hold dearest in life – God, Messiah, the Bible and all it contains – they have received through the people of Israel. They read in the Scriptures that Israel will always have a national purpose in the purposes of God, that national Israel has a hope-filled, glorious future. In fulfillment of the words of Zechariah (8:23) they have taken hold of the Jews and entreated them: “Let us go with you for we have heard that God is with you.”

But what about Orpah? Where is that faithless woman and what is she doing today?

Orpah is ungrateful, Orpah is haughty, Orpah is wise in her own opinion, and Orpah is everywhere (Romans 11:19,25). She disdains her relationship to Naomi. If she was ever tempted to feel compassion for her hurting mother-in-law, and history makes this doubtful, that inclination is long gone.

Orpah today are those rejectionist, apostate Gentiles who, while claiming to be Christians, have chosen to sever themselves from the very foundations of that faith – the Jewish roots. They are adherents of so-called Replacement Theology or Secessionism – believing that the Church has fully replaced Israel in God’s redemptive plan for mankind. On top of that, they have turned on the Jewish people who remain the true focus of these purposes of the Lord – the apple of His eye.

For years, the spirit of Orpah has manifested as covert and explicit anti-Semitism through professing Christian leaders, churches, organizations and groups. Count among them the Roman Catholic Church and the 349 Protestant denominations represented in the World Council of Churches, including the often at the forefront Uniting Church in Australia and Presbyterian Church USA.

Orpah has been and remains the misdirected mainstream of Christendom – it has been this way since the early church became majority Gentile.

Orpah represents those who say that they got their faith and their gift of eternal life through the Jewish people, but that those people have now served their purpose and have lost their significance as a nation.

What’s more, they say, it’s their own fault, for they rejected Jesus.

Orpah’s message to the Jewish people is this: “He is ours, now, your Messiah, thank you very much. We don’t need you any longer and, anyway,  you gave Him up when you killed Him. We will live among our own nations and hold to our “New Testament” Christianity and have nothing to do with you – except to point our fingers in criticism and judgment, and threaten you with hell and damnation if you refuse to repent and convert.”

Today – March 10, 2014 – this hostile Orpah is coming to Bethlehem, the town of the woman she once spurned, but the town Naomi can no longer – for the present – call her own.

She is coming in the ominous form of the ardently pro-Palestinian Christ at the Checkpoint Conference. It is her third visit to this town, and she is free to come and go because today’s Bethlehem is under the spiritually dark and oppressive canopy of PLO control.

Sponsored by the Bethlehem Bible College, Orpah is coming to the five star Jacir Palace in the form of hundreds of delegates and participants from different parts of the world. (Over 600 people attended the 2012 conference and according to the website the 2014 event is sold out.)

PLO officials, including the terrorism-supporting mayor of Bethlehem and terror-applauding prime minister of the PLO’s Palestinian Authority, will be there to roll out the welcome mat.

Every day of the program will begin with a visit to “The Checkpoint” – the barrier Israel was compelled to construct to keep suicide bombers from Bethlehem and elsewhere in the PLO-controlled areas from blowing Jews to smithereens. It is to this “symbol of Israeli oppression” that the conference is bringing their “Christ.”

From there, according to the CATC website, the freshly inspired delegates will flock back to the hotel for a time of “worship and a Bible study focusing on the nature of the Kingdom of God in the teaching of Jesus.”

Amidst full days of talks and panel discussions, there will be visits to sites “directly affected by the conflict” where individuals will discuss how the conflict affects their lives, and the delegates will be given time for “personal reflection and prayer.”

Evenings will round off the days with more “praise and worship” followed by two more speakers.

The list of these speakers is a who’s who of anti-Israel, pro-Secessionist voices: A couple of Messianic leaders have been sown on as fig leaves to cover the otherwise revealing lineup of 13 Arab speakers and 19 international figures.

Most prominent among those from outside the Middle East are Gary Burge, Porter Speakman, Colin Chapman and Manfred Kohl. Represented from abroad are other anti-Israel notables – Friends of Sabeel UK, World Vision International, WCC Member the Coptic Orthodox Church, the World Evangelical Alliance and the Lausanne Movement.

What kind of things can we expect to hear from Orpah? A few quotes from the 2012 CATC event clue us in:

“If we look close enough in the faces of the oppressed [read “the Palestinians”] we can see our own faces. And if we look closely enough at the hands of the oppressor [read “the Israelis”], we can see our own hands.”

“Jesus [was] not advocating a passive resigned attitude toward oppressors [read “the Israelis”]. Jesus’ response was to call on the oppressed [read “the Palestinians”] to take command of their situation.”

“If our theology of land, of justice, of chosen-ness, become absolute—they become heresy.”

“We are not inventing our suffering. The checkpoint is our reality.”

“We really want to educate the church at large, but especially the evangelical church, about what is happening here. We want Christians from around the world to come, see the checkpoint, see the wall, see the occupation as it is. And then, open the Bible and say, ‘What does Christ tell us about this?’”

“Love is not an opportunity to overlook justice. Love is an opportunity to pursue justice…. I am not embarrassed to say that I love the Jewish people. Every Jewish person is a gift from God. But I hate injustice…. The Israeli occupation is a sin. And people need to repent from that sin….”

Orpah has come to Bethlehem to curse Naomi.

And Naomi knows.

Jews know, only too well, the nature of Orpah – of these “Christians” gathering in Bethlehem.

Jews know what these people believe, what they will say, how they will sound and of what their teachings will smell.

Jews know, from two millennia of bitter and desperately painful experience, the beliefs and the views and the convictions and the motivations of these people.

They know that their most enduring and inexorable foe is “the Christian.”

“The Christian” who teaches that the Jews killed Christ.

“The Christian” who hold that the Jews suffered as a nation because they rejected Christ – and that it serves them right.

“The Christian” who sees Jesus as “our Savior”

“The Christian” who “loves the Jewish God but hates the Jew.”

“The Christian” who tries to take the speck out of Israel’s eye when they can’t see the plank in their own nation’s.

“The Christian” who believes in crusading for Christ and against Christ’s people, of laboring for the coming of the ‘Kingdom of God’ by working tirelessly against the “restoration of the kingdom to Israel.”

“The Christian” who says Jews must reconcile with Arabs by relinquishing the inheritance and calling that they have from God.

“The Christian” who endorses the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions) movement against Israel.

Yes, the Jewish people know what is happening in Bethlehem today.

They have seen the cartoons of soul-less IDF soldiers turning Joseph and Mary away from Bethlehem.

And they have heard about one of CATC’s top goals: its desire to drive a wedge between the overwhelmingly pro-Israel Evangelical Christian world and Israel.

On March 9 the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued an unprecedented “suggestion” to Christians to steer clear of Christ at the Checkpoint.

In a personal correspondence with a local Christian publication an MFA official reportedly said that “unfortunately, we well know about the conference.” He explained that for the Israeli government, the event “is particularly problematic, because it is designed for the evangelical Christian leadership – an extremely important audience to us.”

The ministry did not mince its words in an official last-minute statement concerning the Christ at the Checkpoint event:

“The attempt to use religious motifs in order to mobilize political propaganda and agitate the feelings of the faithful through the manipulation of religion and politics is an unacceptable and shameful act. Using religion for the purpose of incitement in the service of political interests stains the person who does it with a stain of indelible infamy.”

Orpah’s bitter and jealousy-driven attempt to pry Ruth away from Naomi, using Christian “love” and deceptive words of “reconciliation” to entice her back to her pagan land and ways, will not work.

And we, Ruth, need today to draw especially near to Naomi to reassure and encourage her with God’s promises, faithfulness, and His deep, deep love.

“Naomi, God made you His chosen and He gave you this land. His gifts and His calling are without repentance. Your preservation during centuries of wandering, and your return to your land is of Him. He has brought you back here to stay, and He will not have you run off, pushed out, delegitimized or destroyed.

“Don’t look at what is happening over in Bethlehem. Don’t listen to those voices and pay no heed to those lies.

“You are God’s special treasure. He has brought you back here to plant you in your land, to rejoice over you with singing, and never to uproot you again.

“Naomi, we know how much you are hurting, how lonely and insecure and loveless you feel. But listen, listen to the words of your beloved daughter-in-law. Hear again the expression of identity, full commitment and sold out love in the words of Ruth and, in them, please hear our words:

“Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.”