{"id":32338,"date":"2023-04-16T15:37:17","date_gmt":"2023-04-16T22:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=32338"},"modified":"2023-04-16T15:37:17","modified_gmt":"2023-04-16T22:37:17","slug":"the-agreeable-ruth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-agreeable-ruth\/","title":{"rendered":"The Agreeable Ruth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daniel Nettle’s book Personality: What Makes You The Way You Are<\/em> describes personality as something internal, stable, inherent to the person. [1] It is something which stands in a casual relationship to their specific choices, motivations, reactions and obstacles when faced with the stream of events. [2] Nettle explains that there is a five-factor model for personalities that is popularly accepted today. He covers these five with a chapter for each in his book. They are extroversion in chapter three, neuroticism in chapter four, conscientiousness in chapter five, agreeableness in chapter six, and openness in chapter seven. [3]<\/p>\n

There was a small test at the end of the book that the reader could take to see which category he or she fell into for themself. [4] My major personality trait was agreeableness, which surprised me. My secondary trait was conscientiousness, which I thought perhaps would be my foremost trait. For the purpose of this blog I would like to look at this trait of Agreeableness a bit closer.<\/p>\n

Agreeableness<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the author, agreeableness is paying attention to the mental states of others, and to factor these states into one’s behavioral choices. [5] People with this trait are quick to forgive and slow to get angry, even with those who are in fact blameworthy. [6] They derive moral pleasure in doing things to improve the lot of others. [7]<\/p>\n

Ruth<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I think of the trait of agreeableness, the biblical character of Ruth comes to my mind for several reasons. When Naomi implored her daughters-in-law to return to their families, Orpah eventually turned back. However, Ruth was loyal to her mother-in-law. She was keenly aware of Naomi’s mental state at that time. She knew Naomi was a widow and had recently lost both of her sons. She was all alone, and had no one to care for her. These facts went into her decision making to stay by Naomi’s side.<\/p>\n

When they returned to Bethlehem, Ruth gleaned in the field of Boaz. When Naomi realized that Ruth had found favor in Boaz’s eyes, she advised Ruth to continue going with his young women to graze in his fields. At the end of the harvest, she told Ruth exactly what to do so that Boaz would know that she wanted him to redeem her as her closest relative. It was a bold move. Other foreign women might have refused. But Ruth knew that marrying Boaz would improve not only her own lot, but also her mother-in-law’s. It would be good for them both. She obeyed Naomi’s every word. And Boaz ended up marrying Ruth as her kinsman redeemer in a beautiful picture of how Christ redeems us. Ruth, though a Moabitess, was grafted in to the genealogy of Jesus Christ. They have a son named Obed, who becomes the grandfather of King David.<\/p>\n

So did Ruth have this personality trait of agreeableness? There’s no proof that she did. But I think so. She was loyal, and obedient. She paid attention to the needs of Naomi, and acted on those needs. In fact, all of her actions were based entirely on the needs of her mother-in-law. Even before she knew this God of Naomi’s, she derived pleasure from making her mother-in-law’s life more bearable. Did she have other personality traits as well? Probably. But was agreeableness one of them? My opinion is yes, it was.<\/p>\n

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[1] Nettle, Daniel. 2009. Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are<\/i>. 1. publ. in paperback. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, p.5.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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[2] Ibid, p.5.<\/div>\n
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[3] Ibid.<\/div>\n
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[4] Ibid, p.250-3.<\/div>\n
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[5] Ibid, p.163.<\/div>\n
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[6] Ibid, p.163.<\/div>\n
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[7] Ibid, p.166.<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daniel Nettle’s book Personality: What Makes You The Way You Are describes personality as something internal, stable, inherent to the person. [1] It is something which stands in a casual relationship to their specific choices, motivations, reactions and obstacles when faced with the stream of events. [2] Nettle explains that there is a five-factor model […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[2268,2269,2757],"class_list":["post-32338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography-drama-history","tag-nettle","tag-personality","tag-ruth","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32339,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32338\/revisions\/32339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}