So she gleaned in the field until even.
Persevering labour
1. Gleaners in gospel-fields should continue in their gleaning work from morning to evening. How many are but half Sabbath folk, that can spare to spend a morning in Sabbath service, but are for their pastimes after that! Ruth was none of those lazy gleaners.
2. Though God be very bountiful to us, yet will He have us to use all the means in a way of subserviency to His bounty. God will give us at the second-hand what He would not give us at first-hand; He will give us grace and knowledge by the use of the means, which He gives not immediately from Himself. “God sells all for labour,” saith Hesiod. (C. Ness.)
Labour
I. no labour is too insignificant for love. “So she gleaned.” She was of a good family, accustomed to a life of ease and plenty. That which she does now is anything but dignified.
1. A work for the commonest powers.
2. A work for the commonest people.
3. A work whose results bear no comparison to the expenditure of labour.
4. A work in which is redone that which has been considered as done.
Men measure the worth of work by its conspicuousness. The real worth of work lies in meeting the necessity for its existence, and the motive which inspires it. Two lives depend upon her toil--then her work has worth; she loves the woman for whom she toils--then her work has dignity. Her love consecrates lowest means for highest ends.
II. no results of labour are too insignificant for care. She “beat out that she had gleaned.”(S. B. Rees.)
The successful gleaner
1. Ruth was a gleaner; and so should we be. The Bible is that field. Search the Scriptures; glean there. Pick up every grain, for it contains precious nourishment. No matter how many gleaners; there is food enough for all.
2. Alas, how many careless ones there are, who never glean at all! They loiter all the day of their life idle. And so, when night comes, they sink into eternity with nothing done.
3. Others, again, begin when Ruth leaves off, at even. All the bright and sunny portion of their lives they give to the world.
4. Ruth began gleaning in the morning. She felt that every hour must be employed; that every moment was precious. She laboured diligently. May we make God’s Word our daily study! (Bp. Oxenden.)