I’ve spent the past few days gathering information on Ruth, trying to get a general overview of the book and a feel for the upcoming study. I have been looking forward to this study since we drew it’s name out of the basket. It’s a book I’ve read several times, and read several studies on, but I have never really dug into it for myself. I always get so much more out of a study, when I am forced to wrestle with it and dig into it myself. And it seems, I am never able to dig as hard as when I am having to teach on it.
Teaching always intensifies my study time and prayer time with God, because unless He opens my minds to understand the scripture, unless He enables me, and His spirit works through me, I have no hope of teaching anything. I have nothing good in myself to give. I will have nothing to feed the ladies when I sit down before them. I don’t want to give them empty facts or lifeless knowledge which is all I can come up with by myself. I want to give them spirit-filled words that haunt them long after they leave the study. Words that dig their way into the depths of their hearts and lodge themselves there, unable to be forgotten or shaken loose until slowly but surely the Spirit brings about new life through them.
I love teaching by simple, expository bible studies, taking a book of the bible and just studying through it word by word, verse by verse for however long it takes us to get to the end; sometimes a few months like 2 Timothy, and sometimes a couple of years like our past study on Luke. I’m always able to get so much more out of the study when you are not bound to a schedule or outline, but are free to slowly stroll past each word in each verse at your own pace and sometimes even set up camp there until it gives up its secrets.
I always feel a little bit like a tour guide as I lead a group of women out to study a specific book of the bible. The only problem is I’ve never been very good with schedules. I have tried doing studies where I start out with a specific route planned, specific scenes and places I want to stop and rest, specific times allotted to do so with a final date at the end when I am suppose to have all the women back to the station when the study is suppose to end – but I’m always late.
I can never stick to time tables. There are so many extra stops; places I want them to see and not miss while we are in the area! I know this may be the only time some travel this way and they may never have another opportunity to take in a breathtaking scene or see a wonderful gem of a truth that I know lies real close to where we are currently at, just around the corner… or just a bit deeper if we keep digging a little bit more…
I am afraid of the bigger books of the bible, such as Isaiah or Psalms that if we ever set out on one of these trips we may never quite make it back. It would be like an Exodus study, 40 years of wandering…in real time! But what an awesome trip it would be! I know our guilty faces would be glowing when we returned from our personal encounters with God and from our gathered treasures that we’d be carrying, for we certainly would not be returning empty handed!
I can’t wait to set out through the book of Ruth. I have heard that though the beginning is a bit dark and the road is a bit rough, a trail of many tears and sorrows, it leads to a land that is rich with hidden treasures and gems buried in a beautiful love story for us to dig through. What more can a group of women want? Ruth is a beautiful love story buried within an even greater love story. Some have even referred to it as a Cinderella Story. It is a story about decisions, grief, sacrifice, friendship, love, faithfulness, courage, providence and so much more. If you can’t make the bible study, I hope you will join us by following the blog on it and maybe even by sharing your own thoughts on it through your own blog or journal. Writing is the soul’s way of taking pictures so that it can remember the insights it has seen and the places the heart has been before time causes their memory to fade away. I hope you’ll study and write with me as we dig our way through the book of Ruth.
