This post is written to complement our Sunday morning sermon series, The Redeemer: God’s Faithfulness in the Story of Ruth.

If you are unfamiliar with the story of Ruth, you may wish to read Ruth 1 before continuing. This post will be here when you get back.

In the story of Ruth, it is easy to overlook the character of Orpah. Most of the attention we pay her is to point out that Oprah Winfrey is named after her (which is true) or to just name her as the sister who turned back.

We know that Ruth made the right choice in moving to Israel, but Orpah made the logical choice in staying in Moab. Orpah chose to stay with her own family, in her own country, worshipping her own god. She would dearly miss Naomi, but she wouldn’t feel her mother-in-law’s pain of living in a foreign land for a decade.

We don’t know how Orpah’s life ended. We don’t know if she remarried. We don’t know if she ever regretted not moving with Naomi and Ruth. We don’t know if she ever worshipped the true God of Israel. Ruth left her family and gained incredible blessing. Orpah stayed behind, and we never hear from her again.

Ruth and Orpah’s choice reminds us of the choice Jesus’s followers faced. His call for disciples to follow him was the call to be loyal to him above every other loyalty. This call was too much for some potential disciples, like the rich young ruler of Mark 10:17-22, who turned back and who are never heard from again. But the disciples who dropped their fishing nets in order to fish for men were used by God in an incredible way to bring others into the kingdom.

Orpah faced an impossible choice, but it’s a choice that we face every day. The call to the Christian life is the call to do the right thing, often at the expense of the easy or logical thing. It is the call to give up everything, but to gain even more. May God grant us the grace to daily pick up our crosses and to follow Christ.