The Reward of Faith: Who Gets It?

by: Michael Wilcock

These verses, which tell us about the “reward of faith,” do so in more ways than one.

If the whole idea seems strange, it’s because we tend to think of it as a child doing something clever and being rewarded with an ice cream. Ruth is going to be “richly rewarded,” as Boaz prays (v. 12 NIV). Is she like the good child who earns the ice cream cone?

Not at all. When she asks Boaz the reason why he is being so kind to her, it turns out to be not her cleverness or her achievements, but the kind of person she is. She has been willing to give up safety and comfort and to march out into the unknown. That’s the stuff heroes are made of, particularly the heroes of the Bible, who do it because of what they have heard of the God of the Bible. That is faith.

Ruth has thrown in her lot with Naomi, with Naomi’s people and Naomi’s God, and only afterward does she discover the “rewarding” experiences which follow as a consequence. The reward of faith isn’t earned by our good works. It’s the natural outcome of our entrusting ourselves to the Lord, “under whose wings [we] have come to take refuge.”