

The Bible, like the roots of a tree, brings life, nourishment and stability to your students’ lives. Our Bible studies help students become Biblically rooted, provide a strategic path to discipleship, and give them the opportunity to form God-centered relationships.

Make a point that students will remember.Getting students talking about their faith is the secret sauce to a small group, and all our small group Bible studies are formatted with that goal in mind. This format encourages group interaction and personal application, and it keeps students engaged. The goal is for students to talk about the Bible, what it means to follow Jesus, their questions and doubts, what God is doing in their lives, and so on.
#Ruth bible study book series#
They’re not 90% teaching and 10% discussion, like other youth ministry series and small group studies you’ll find elsewhere. Each lesson is 50% reading the Bible/teaching and 50% student discussion.

#Ruth bible study book pdf#
Lessons in both Word & PDF format – edit as needed and easily share with volunteers.Series artwork for promotional purposes (cover slide and blank text slide).Topics: honesty, integrity, strategy, hope, healing, Jesus Lesson 4: God Can Do the Extraordinary in the Ordinaryīottom Line: Our decisions affect more than just us and have the potential to be part of God bringing hope to more people than we imagine. Topics: initiative, patience, trust, respect, God’s provision Lesson 3: A Time for Action … and Waitingīottom Line: God cares for each of us, even if it’s hard for us to be patient and see it. Topics: initiative, generosity, kindness, providing for needs, humility, thankfulness Lesson 2: God Provides Beyond our Understandingīottom Line: God’s provision is not always understandable but should always spark gratitude toward Him in us. Topics: famine, moving, marriage, prejudice, tragedy, death, loyalty Or you can purchase this series individually here.īottom Line: We can’t control our situations, only how we respond. Save 78% on one year of small group Bible studies for youth ministry. This Bible study is one of many included in the One Year Bible Study Curriculum, Volume 2. One Year Bible Study Curriculum, Volume 2 This item, like all our resources, is only available as a download. They chime symbolically, however, with the famine which drives Elimelech to leave Judah behind for Moab.This is 4-week small group Bible study on the book of Ruth. But the details of the narrative are too neat to be strictly historical.įor instance, the names of Elimelech’s children, Mahlon and Chilion, literally mean ‘sickness’ and ‘wasting’ respectively these strike us as unlikely names for a parent to give to their children, and given the fates of the two sons, their names seem far too pat. We should view the Book of Ruth firmly as fiction: it’s a ‘short story’, essentially, some two millennia before the ‘short story’ came into existence as a recognised genre. Both Ruth and Naomi are survivors in this patriarchal landscape, but they are nevertheless constrained by its laws and traditions. But it would be wrong to offer a feminist interpretation of the story of Ruth which saw her as somehow bucking the patriarchal customs and laws of her time.Īfter all, the patriarchal laws binding women to men are still present her: Ruth may wish to marry Boaz, but he is intent on observing the law which gives Ruth’s closer kinsman first dibs on her, as it were. Ruth is an idyllic romance, and one of only two books of the Bible named after women (the other one is Esther). If Ruth had never left Moab and followed Naomi to Judah, David would never have been born.Īll of our lives hinge on such chance happenings or vagaries that occurred somewhere in our ancestral history, but for Jews and Christians the story of Ruth’s adoption of Judah as her new home, and her union with Boaz, possesses greater importance because her descendants would include King David of Israel. (Ruth is David’s great-grandmother.) So one ‘meaning’ for the Book of Ruth, and its significance for Judaism and Christianity, lies in its genealogical quality, in providing the story of David’s ancestry. The Dictionary of the Bible emphasises this aspect of the story, and suggests that Ruth’s loyalty to her adopted nation of Judah is important because Ruth is the ancestor of David, the great King of Israel. Whichever interpretation of Ruth we choose to follow, we should bear in mind the key fact of the story, which is that Ruth is a Moabite who leaves her family and her own people behind to begin a new life, as the devoted companion to her widowed mother-in-law Naomi, in the land of Judah.
