by Jen | May 28, 2024 | 1-22, DISO studies, Ruth 1
NEW TO THIS STUDY? START HERE.
Hello again! This post is set to publish the day after Memorial Day 2024 in the United States. As I’m studying about Naomi, a widow whose two sons also died, I’m thinking about the families whose members paid the ultimate price for their loyalty to America. I pray God will give them courage and strength in their mourning, and that we never forget freedom doesn’t come easily or cheaply. God bless our fallen heroes and their families. And God bless America.
Last Week’s Work
MY PERSONAL TREASURE
Of the five items the Holy Spirit “flagged” for me last week, one HUH? continues to draw my attention: Naomi’s statement about bitterness (v13) and instructions to the women in Bethlehem to call her Mara, for the Almighty had dealt very bitterly with her (v20).
I’m hoping to learn as much as I can about biblical bitterness in the rest of this study. I know the Spirit will help me see what God wants me to discover here.
Now, let’s look at what the Spirit showed me about characters, locations, and timeframes.
WHO (CHARACTERS)
Though the passage mentions several more characters, I feel led to focus on these in particular:
- Naomi, who spoke both statements: it is exceedingly bitter to me for your [her daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth] sake… (v13), and call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me (v20).
- God, Lord, Almighty: Naomi laments, the hand of the Lord has gone out against me (v13).
Narrator indicates Naomi found out the Lord had visited his people and given them food (v6).
Naomi prays that the Lord deal kindly with her daughters-in-law and grant them rest in the house of [new] husbands (vv8-9).
Ruth claims [Naomi’s] people will be her people and [Naomi’s] God will be her God (v16), and swears her faithfulness to Naomi by the Lord (v17).
Naomi says the Almighty dealt bitterly with her and brought calamity upon her (vv20, 21).
Naomi indicates the Lord brought her back empty and testified against her (v21).
- The women of Bethlehem, whose reactive question, “Is this Naomi?” in v19 led to Naomi’s command to call her Mara, not Naomi.
I’m familiar with name changes in the Bible—like Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel, Simon to Peter, etc.—but I still think it’s curious Naomi asked the women to call her something else and used two different names to refer to God, though I acknowledge the latter might just be the author (or translators) not wanting to overuse the Lord. That’ll be easy to determine when I look at original language in a few weeks.
WHERE (LOCATIONS)
I noticed specifically three locations:
- Bethlehem in Judah, where Naomi, Elimelech, Mahlon, and Chilion were from (v1),
- Moab, where Naomi’s family sojourned after fleeing the famine in Bethlehem (v2), and
- Fields of Moab, where Naomi learned the Lord had visited his people and given them food (v6).
These timeframes caught my eye:
- Days when the judges ruled—when the famine happened (v1) that caused Naomi’s initial migration with her men to Moab (v1),
- About ten years—the length of time Naomi and her sons lived in Moab before they both died (vv4-5),
- Then (after the sons died) Naomi set out to return to Judah with her daughters-in-law (v7),
- Naomi stopped telling Ruth to turn back when Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her (v18),
- When Naomi and Ruth came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred(v19). How would you react if a woman you knew left town with her husband and two sons, and then came back with a strange woman? That would definitely generate questions in my mind!
- Naomi and Ruth arrived at the beginning of the barley harvest (v22), which to me indicates the famine was over.
Dig-In Challenges
Whew! So much to dig into from just a few lines of Scripture—but isn’t that the way it always is when we work with the Spirit to really see and understand this amazing book?
I hope you’ve discovered some interesting gems here, too, and it spurs you to work through more of this process. Here’s what I’ll be doing this week:
- PRAY each time I start to study using my prayer from last week.
- MINE: Look for repeated concepts in this passage and, if I find any, consider how that repetition might be relevant to the bitterness Naomi mentions in vv13 & 20;
- MINE: Locate any special statements (blessings, commands, curses, prayers, promises, requests, and/or warnings) connected to that treasure; and
- MINE: See if I can find any lists (3 or more similar items mentioned in the text) and their relevance to bitterness.
See you next week!
GO TO WEEK 4 >
by Jen | May 21, 2024 | 1-22, DISO studies, Ruth 1
NEW TO THIS STUDY? START HERE.
Welcome back, I’m glad you’re here, my friend! I just want to remind you I’m sharing my answers in these posts to provide an example of the treasure that can be discovered in this passage using the DISO study steps. If you’re working with the Holy Spirit and are seeing different results, know that you’re on the right track, even if your findings are different from mine.
That’s because He knows what each of us needs in our faith journey. How awesome is God that He provides our own personal Bible tutor—and the more we study, the more we will develop the skills to hear the Holy Spirit’s voice. So, let’s keep studying!
Last Week’s Work
MY PRAYER
Here’s the prayer I created and plan to pray before digging into Ruth 1:
Thank You, Lord and Father God, for another chance to dig into Ruth. Thank You for sending the Holy Spirit to help me see, understand, and apply the principles here to my life. Remove the scales from my eyes and the plugs from my ears and unburden my heart so I can see all You want me to discover here. Give me wisdom to recognize Your good counsel and courage to follow it no matter what. In Jesus’s name I pray. Amen.
If you’re studying along with me, feel free to use this one or the one you wrote: God hears us no matter what we say!
HUH? and WOW! MOMENTS
Next, I slowly read through the study text, focusing on my reactions, and noting the parts that caught my attention. Here are my responses:
- HUH? What’s the significance of Elimelech’s family being identified as “Ephrathites from Bethlehem?” v2.
- HUH? How far is Moab from Judah?
- HUH? What does “it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake” v13, and “call me Mara,” v20, mean?
- WOW! What would make a woman who didn’t know anything about God until she met and married a Jew want to leave everything she’d ever known to go to Judah with her mother-in-law? v16 In fact, she made a vow in the name of that God she hadn’t even known before joining their family! v17.
- WOW! “… I went away full and the Lord has brought me back empty” v21.
Was your list longer than mine? I have studied this book before. I am pretty amazed at how much came back to me as I re-read this chapter. I do plan on sharing some of that with you as we dig further. If you’re not able to study along right now, hopefully you’ll still benefit from checking in each week, my friend!
Dig-In Challenges
Next week, I plan to:
- PRAY: Read my prayer as I start studying this passage.
- MINE: Identify which aspect of this study I feel the Spirit leading me to dig deepest into right now. It could be one (or more) of the Huh? and Wow! Moments I wrote about this week, or some other item the Spirit hasn’t yet called to my attention.
- MINE: Focus specifically on the setting of the scene in Ruth 1 (who’s involved, where and when did the action take place), and note anything the Spirit emphasizes.
See you again soon, I hope!
GO TO WEEK 3 >
by Jen | May 14, 2024 | 1-22, DISO studies, Introduction, Ruth 1
Welcome, and thank you for joining me for this Digging into Scripture Ourselves (DISO) Bible study!
Let’s Study Ruth 1!
I’m so excited to dig into Ruth again with this process! It was one of my very first DISO studies and it took me more than a year to get through it. Now my plan is to complete all four chapters in a little over six months. Tall order! But as we saw with Acts 1:6-11, DISO is self-paced, so if it takes a little longer to get through it all, we aren’t sweating it!
This week, I’ll work through two of the five steps in the process. If you want to work along with me, here’s what I recommend you start with:
- A copy of Ruth 1, plus access to the entire book of Ruth.
I copy the text from www.blueletterbible.org, paste it in a word processing program (Google docs or MS Word), change the formatting to suit my preferences, and print it out. If you want to use the ESV translation, here’s a copy I created with plenty of room for doodles and notes.
- A study journal.
Step five involves revisiting what you’ve discovered throughout this study, so plan to record at least some highlights from Steps One – Four. I’m old-school and like the pen/pencil and paper method for journaling my studies, but it’s okay if that’s doesn’t work for you. If you don’t have time to physically write or type your notes, consider dictating them into a notes app or recording audio files, instead.
If you just don’t have the bandwidth to study right now, no problem. You’re welcome to just read the posts I publish here. They’ll help you become more familiar with the process and show you how the Spirit speaks to my situation. I’m praying there will be enough similarities between my life and yours that you’ll find it worth your while to keep checking in with me, even if you can’t study on your own yet.
Dig-In Challenges
So here’s what I’m going to do this coming week:
- PRAY: I’ll be creating a prayer that I can pray every time I study Ruth 1. I’m going to write it in my study journal, so I’ll have it handy each time I study.
- SURVEY: And then I’ll read Ruth 1, noting anything that makes me say, “huh?” (as in, “I wonder what that means?”) or “wow” (as in, “that is so awesome!”). I’ll record these and ask the Spirit to reveal which one He would have me dig more deeply into right now.
I’m looking forward to sharing what I discover in this process with you—I hope you’ll keep checking in with me each week!
GO TO WEEK 2 >
by Jen | May 7, 2024 | 6-11, Acts 1, DISO studies
NEW TO THIS STUDY? START HERE.
Hello once more! Here’s what I discovered from working through Step 5 last week:
Last Week’s Work
LESSON(S) LEARNED
As I went back over my study notes, again and again, the Spirit called my attention to the word power.
- The definition, from Strong’s G1411, included power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature. This is the power the disciples received when the Holy Spirit [came] upon [them.] Friends, this is the power we Christians receive when the Spirit comes upon us, too!
- Holy Spirit power enabled Mary to conceive, men to prophesy, Jesus to survive 40 days in the wilderness with no food, men to converse in languages they did not know and speak effectively to synagogues, rulers, and authorities. It’s the only power any of us needs to be Jesus’s witness to the end of the earth!
CONVICTION
I felt convicted rereading this passage, especially verses 7 and 8: It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witness…
I can remember as a child wanting to serve God in some way, impatient to fulfill what I thought was a calling to the convent. A few decades later, more impatience led me so far off the straight and narrow path that the Lord had to physically intervene to save my soul. Not knowing what really happened that day, I called it a heart transplant akin to what David longed for in Psalm 51:10, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
But even then, I was anxious to tell my story. More recently, I’ve been anxious to finish and publish my book. Now, through this study, I see more clearly my heavenly Father has fixed a time for the book He is bringing forth through me by His authority. AndActs 1:7 tells meIt’s not my business to know when that is.
Even so, I’m anxious to get it ready for you because I believe it will enable you to connect directly with God through His Word on your own. You won’t need me or anyone else to read or interpret or apply Scripture.
CORRECTION
The verse that corrected me from this study is one of the cross-references I discovered, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,” says the Lord of Hosts(Zechariah 4:6 ESV). This was a prophecy through Zechariah to Zerubbabel, a forefather of Jesus whose calling was to lead Jewish exiles from Babylon back to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. God wanted to make sure Zerubbabel—and all who would read these words—realized the power for the project would not come from human hands alone, but by His Spirit working through them.
If you’ve studied with me in the past, you’re probably having déjà vu. Is God not the most patient, loving Father?! So many times, I try to serve Him in my own strength and my own power, and He consistently calls me on it, doesn’t He? I hate eating humble pie! But I’m beginning to get used to the taste.
ACTION PLAN
This time, for a change, my action plan is STOP doing something: stop worrying, stop arguing, stop forcing the book project forward. I acknowledge the truth that God has already determined the time/season for it, and no amount of my personal effort, might, or power will impact that timeline.
Our Next Study
After much prayer, I believe the Spirit is leading me to revisit some of the blog studies I did before my website went down last October. If you’re relatively new to this blog, I’ve been summarizing my study notes online since 2019. Last fall, during a family health crisis, my website went down, and I lost the published versions of all blogs prior to July 2023.
I’ve been wanting to republish them for a while. Most of them were done as I developed the DISO study method, so I’m excited to revisit them with the current, more streamlined process. I hope you’ll join me for these “Blasts from the Past,” starting with a chapter-by-chapter study of my favorite Old Testament book, Ruth. I can’t wait to dig into Ruth 1 with you beginning next week. Hope to see you then!
by Jen | Apr 30, 2024 | 6-11, Acts 1, DISO studies
Welcome back! I’m grateful you’re checking in this week!
I took a little extra time to finish up refining what I’ve mined from our study text this time, and I’m glad I did. God’s Word is so packed with treasure—let me tell you about what the Holy Spirit showed me as I dug into the cross-references for Acts 1:8.
Last Week’s Work
CROSS-REFERENCES
Working through the cross-references for Acts 1:8, I was first drawn to what was written about the Holy Spirit coming upon people. I didn’t find any specifics about this process, but as I’ve been studying this text, I’ve been thinking a lot about my salvation experience. I’m convinced that was the moment the Holy Spirit came into my life, because a power surrounded me that I can’t explain. That moment was the first of many miracles: a new career, an avoided accident when my car died, then miraculously restarted itself in time to avoid collision with a fully-loaded dump truck, dozens of in-the-right-place-at-the-right-time moments, all growing or benefiting me in some way. I can’t help wondering, though, is that really the kind of power the Spirit supplies—all about me?
I’m not sure. What I did find is plenty of instances where the Holy Spirit came upon people and empowered them to advance the kingdom through:
- Life. In Luke 1:35, power accompanying the Holy Spirit enabled Mary to give birth to Jesus while still a virgin.
- Prophecy. Filled with the Holy Spirit, John the Baptist’s father prophesied (Luke 1:67). So did Jesus in the power of the Spirit in Nazareth (Luke 4:17-21).
- Signs and wonders, such as fire (Acts 2, prophesied by John the Baptist in Luke 3:16 and Jesus in Acts 1:5), Jesus’s endurance of forty days without food (Luke 4:1-13), and the disappearance of Philip immediately following the Ethiopian eunuch’s baptism (Acts 8:39). And Paul indicated his words and deeds, signs and wonders, were accomplished by the power of the Spirit of God in Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum.
An interesting story appears in all the synoptic gospels, though. When Jesus tried to perform miracles in Nazareth, His power was curbed (Luke 4:23-24, Mark 6:5-6, Matthew 13:58). Matthew attributes this problem directly to disbelief. I also observed belief required for miracles in my 2023 study of the healing of the Centurion’s servant (Matthew 8:5-13).
Friend, this gave me pause. Where the cross-references indicated the Spirit of God came upon the men of Galilee and Paul for the benefit of others, my own experience was more that the miracles helped me. Then the Spirit reminded me of the other promise in verse 8—the men would be Jesus’s witnesses to the world. He brought to mind a phrase often heard in a megachurch I used to attend: “we’re blessed to be a blessing.” I was spared and favored, though I certainly didn’t deserve it. Yet those experiences gave me a testimony and a conviction to help you personally find treasure in God’s Word—treasure you can mine and, with the help of the Spirit, refine and align your life to its principles.
I hope that’s what I’m doing here now. If there is any way I can help you do that, please let me know through my contact form or [email protected]. I appreciate your feedback and will do my best to respond appropriately to it!
Dig-In Challenges
It’s hard to believe we’re almost done with another study. This week, let’s
- Read the prayer we created in Step 1.
- ALIGN: Review our study notes and other work, focusing specifically on what we’ve learned.
- ALIGN: As we consider those “lessons learned,” notice what the Spirit is using to convict you in this study. In other words, where is He showing you misalignment between what you’ve discovered and how you practice your faith?
- ALIGN: Next, we’ll think about a part of this study that offers us a way to correct that misalignment. For me, this has often—but not always—been a verse either from the study text or from one of the cross-references.
- ALIGN: And finally, we want to reflect on how we can change our walk or talk (or both) to align more closely with God. To really make this work, I commit to changing something and do my best to act on that commitment everyday for at least three weeks.
That may seem like a lot to consider in one week, but my experience has been the Spirit often leads me through steps 2-5 very quickly (though sometimes I have to pray about it more than a couple of times during the week). If you’re working with me, just do what you can. Any study done with the Spirit is good study, my Friend!
I’m looking forward to sharing what the Spirit reveals next week, as well as a preview of the next series I believe God is laying on my heart, and the first study text in that series. I hope you’ll stick around and keep digging into Scripture with me!
GO TO WEEK 9 >
