In a recent Theopolis lecture, James Jordan pointed to the ritual of Ruth 4 to explain the significance of removing shoes on holy ground. There, a man hands over a shoe as a sign of submission and ceding authority to another. To remove shoes is to acknowledge that God is Lord and we are servants.<\/p>\n
We can extend this point by looking at Ruth 4 in more detail. Verse 7 says, \u201cthis was in former times in Israel concerning the redemption and the exchange [of land] to confirm any matter: a man removed his sandal and gave it to another, and this was the attestation in Israel.\u201d Land <\/em>is being handed over in the handing over a shoe.<\/p>\n This makes sense, given the biblical idiom that a land extends \u201cwherever your foot treads\u201d (Deuteronomy 11:24; Joshua 1:3). Walking the boundary of the land was a way of claiming it, of \u201ctreading it down\u201d and taking dominion over it. As conqueror placed his defeated enemy under his feet, so the owner of a land placed his feet on the \u201cconquered\u201d land. Removing and giving away the shoe was a symbol of giving away ownership and dominion over one\u2019s dominions.<\/p>\n When people come onto holy ground, the come onto Yahweh\u2019s <\/em>property. Holy ground is the place where Yahweh is present in glory; ground is holy when Yahweh\u2019s <\/em>feet rest there. And no one should dare to tread down Yahweh\u2019s dominion.<\/p>\n This adds additional light on the historically odd Christian custom of wearing shoes in church. We believe God is present there by His Spirit, yet we treat His <\/em>ground as if it were ours! Perhaps this is sacrilege; perhaps we\u2019re ignorant of the symbolism. I think rather that our shoes say something profound about the new world we live in: It means God has given us dominion in the place of His dominion; we can tread, with our shoes, on His ground, because in the Seed of Abraham we are, at long last, heirs of God and heirs of the world.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In a recent Theopolis lecture, James Jordan pointed to the ritual of Ruth 4 to explain the significance of removing shoes on holy ground. There, a man hands over a shoe as a sign of submission and ceding authority to another. To remove shoes is to acknowledge that God is Lord and we are servants. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-ot-ruth"],"yoast_head":"\n