Mission at the gate

Ruth 4 as a paradigm of identity-affirming integration through diaspora missiology

Bibliographic Data

ID21424019
AuthorsJames Jangwook Lee (0009-0002-8536-9490, Intercultural Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA, USA, corresponding author)
Year2026
Publication date2026-07-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMissiology An International Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0091-8296 • E-ISSN: 2051-3623
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00918296261465378
OpenAlexW7167603080
LanguageEN
References cited9

This article argues that Ruth 4 provides a biblical paradigm for identity-affirming integration —the public incorporation of the outsider into the covenant community without erasure of ethnic distinctiveness. Employing Enoch Wan’s diaspora missiology as the sole analytical framework, the study reads Ruth’s journey from Moab to Bethlehem’s gate as a prototype of diaspora identity alignment. Three features of the gate ceremony receive close analysis: the go’el institution as costly covenantal innovation, the persistent designation ‘Ruth the Moabitess’ at the moment of legal incorporation, and the communal blessing that narrates a foreign woman into Israel’s founding story. A case study of Korean multicultural ministry (focusing on marriage-migrant women [ damunhwa gajok ]) demonstrates the paradigm’s contemporary relevance through Wan’s tripartite strategy of mission to , through , and by/beyond the diaspora. The article contributes to an emerging intersection between diaspora missiology and public missiology, proposing that Korean churches function as contemporary ‘gates’ where migrant women are recognized as subjects, not merely objects, of missio Dei

Blessing · Ceremony · Citizenship · Covenant · Diaspora · Identity (music) · Missiology · Multiculturalism · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Christian Theology and Mission · Pentecostalism and Christianity Studies

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