Boaz is the hero of one of the most beautiful stories in Scripture. When the widow Naomi returned from Moab to Bethlehem with her widowed daughter-in-law Ruth, they were destitute. Ruth went to glean in the fields, and "she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz" (Ruth 2:3). Providence had set up every detail. Boaz noticed Ruth, asked who she was, and extended extraordinary kindness. Naomi recognized God's hand: "This man is a relation of ours, one of our close relatives" — a goel, a kinsman-redeemer. Under Levitical law, the nearest male relative had the right and duty to "redeem" his relative's land and widow. Naomi instructed Ruth how to approach Boaz. Boaz agreed but pointed out there was a closer relative with first right of refusal. In a public ceremony at the city gate, the closer kinsman declined his right, and Boaz redeemed Ruth and the estate. They married, and Ruth bore Obed, who bore Jesse, who bore David. Boaz is one of the great Old Testament types of Christ — the wealthy kinsman-redeemer who took a Gentile woman as his bride, redeemed what was lost, and brought her into the line of the Messiah. Every Christian is a Ruth. Every Christian has a Boaz.