Syllabus: Ruth

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi
Ok, here we go...

For my first attempt at an on-line study, I decided I'd kind of go with the flow of the Wife of Noble Character and look at a book that focuses mostly on women: Ruth.

Plus, Ruth is a very short little book, so it'll be a good pilot study.

Anyway, here's the Syllabus for our little walk through Ruth:

Ruth: A Blogged Bible Study
Beerlahairoi.blogspot.com

Syllabus

5/20/08 Introduction

5/27/08 Chapter 1: Losses and Gains

6/3/08 Chapter 2: Gleaning

6/10/08 Chapter 3: Redemption Requested

6/17/08 Chapter 4: Redemption Manifested


One of the things I love about Ruth is that it is a relief to the dismal book of Judges that precedes it. When I was teaching the 'through the Bible in six years' curriculum, Judges and Ruth were almost always put together in one quarter's study...which meant that we ended the quarter on the upbeat of Ruth instead of the downbeat of Judges.

The time period for Ruth is just given as 'when the judges governed'. But, kind of doing some mathematical guesstimation, I'm going to place David's father, Jesse, as a contemporary of Samuel's sons, which means Obed would be more or less a contemporary of Samuel, which means the bulk of the book of Ruth likely took place when Eli was the high priest/judge of Israel. We know from the early pages of 1 Samuel that this was a very corrupt time in the land; 1 Samuel 3:1 says 'the word of the LORD was rare.' The end of the book of Judges does not indicate any leader for the nation prior to Eli; it just says 'everyone did as he saw fit' (Judges 21:25) (aside: there's a sermon in that phrase....).

So, it is in this rather bleak, spiritually dry environment that the events recorded in the book of Ruth take place. It's interesting to note that Ruth is a turning point; things happen in Ruth that are seeds of change for the whole nation.

So...grab a four color pen, or your study guide, or whatever and dig into Ruth along with me! We'll hopefully all learn something.