Sharon's Video Chat for Week One and Introduction to Week Two Read more »

Day 8 - Ruth 1:14-22 So far, the story has been about Naomi. Today, we get to know Ruth. She has a choice to make. Orpah, her fellow sister-in-law, is persuaded to go home to her parents and hope for another husband. Orpah loved Naomi, but she saw the wisdom in what her mother-in-law said and went home. Ruth, on the other hand, was not deterred by anything Naomi said to her. She had a mind absolutely set on leaving Moab. Her choice to be identified with her husband’s family was resolute. Nothing Naomi could say or do was going to sway her. And this brings us to the most famous verses in the book of Ruth. It's a favorite passage of brides and grooms. […] Read more »

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Day 7 - Ruth 1:1-13 The book of Ruth is primarily told through Naomi’s perspective, the widow who lost not only her husband but also her only two children, her sons. However, Ruth becomes a critical part of Naomi’s story, and her love is stunning. Today, though, our focus is on the great losses Naomi experienced. First of all, Naomi lost her country. As we see Ukrainians leaving their war-torn land today and grieve at all they have lost, we get a bit of an idea what it was like for Naomi when she and her husband and two sons walked away from Bethlehem. They must have been desperate to leave family and farmland behind! Was Naomi in agreement with her husband? The Bible does […] Read more »

Day 6 - Judges 2:6-23 Today, we come to the time in history when Ruth lived. The book of Ruth begins with these words: “In the days when the judges ruled in Israel …” I thought it might be important for us to get a sense of what those days were like. They weren’t pretty, were they? We watch a steady progression towards greater and greater evil as we read the book of Judges. Notice that it started out quite well. As long as Joshua was alive and even the people who knew Joshua, the Israelites by and large followed the one true God. However, they somehow were unable to convey to their children and grandchildren the supreme importance of worshiping only the true God. […] Read more »

Day 5 - Deuteronomy 31:19-21; 32:1-18 I have a question for you. Do songs stick in your head? Can you remember lyrics and choruses from popular tunes of the past? I can. They come back to me with remarkable clarity. In fact, sometimes they are more clear than my memory for my latest password for my computer! Songs and melodies “stick” in our brains. Thus, we do need to be careful what we listen to, don’t we? I can remember singing along with an old song I remembered from my teen years and stopping in horror. Yikes! Those lyrics were not good. And yet there they were in my memory banks. Well, Moses, through God’s guidance, gives the Israelites a song to sing and learn. […] Read more »

Day 4 - Genesis 19:12-38 This, to me, is one of the most disturbing passages in the entire Bible. If Lot and his daughters and wife were the “best” people left in Sodom and Gomorrah, how corrupted and broken must the rest of the people have been. Perhaps in some strange way it was a mercy that little ones were destroyed that day in the city and brought straight to Heaven instead of having to have endured abuse and crippling nastiness that would have wounded and hardened them over time. I don’t know. I just know it makes me sad. In any case, had Abraham not pleaded for Lot, and had the angels not literally dragged him and his wife and daughters out of the […] Read more »

Day 3 - Deuteronomy 24:14-25:10 We entered into the dense field of Jewish law today. God had Moses write down laws for His people as they wandered the desert and then settled in the land. God wanted His people to live orderly, kind lives, not taking advantage of one another. He is both a God of justice and mercy, and we see both qualities exhibited in the ancient laws of the Hebrew people. We looked at two separate laws today in our reading that will help us understand the story of Ruth better. First, we read in Deuteronomy 24 many commands that made sure widows, orphans and foreigners were cared for appropriately, along with other poor folk who had very little money or property. Don’t […] Read more »

Day 2 - Joshua 2:1-20 We are going to spend the next five days building a scaffolding on which to place the book of Ruth and the precious story within it. In order to understand this tiny little book, we need to get some background information. Today, we are looking at Boaz’s mother. Boaz is a main character in the story of Ruth and ends up (spoiler alert!) … marrying her. Did you know that Boaz had a famous mother as well as a famous wife? He did! Matthew 1:5 says this: “Salmon was the father of Boaz (whose mother was Rahab). Boaz was the father of Obed (whose mother was Ruth).” So … today we looked at Boaz’s unique mama! Oh my. What a […] Read more »