SEARCHING FOR CHRIST IN THE BOOK OF RUTH
Lesson Notes: Lessons 1-6
You will find here the Lesson Notes for the 6-part study we conducted in our Sunday School class on the book of Ruth.
As the course title states, this is not intended to be a detailed study of this precious and prescient short story. Volumes have been written about the events that transpired in this story, explanations of the Scriptural, historical, and cultural practices that are acted out in this story, and the prophetic significances of the redemptive pre-enactments that the characters lived out in their actions – all of which were sovereignly superintended by God’s redemptive purpose and plan and pointed to Jesus Christ and His Gospel.
I am not capable, nor was it my purpose, to reproduce those studies. Think of these Lesson Study Notes more as “talking points” to guide us through the reading and discussion of these lessons. All of these “talking points” opened up much more explanation and discussion of the exciting truths that are written here in this Romance of Redemption.
As I have reminded our class repeatedly, these lessons are not intended to be structured lessons or studies. Rather they are prepared and presented to help us all better learn how to read our Bibles on a daily basis and search for and find Jesus Christ there. After all, the Bible is “God’s Story about His Son, Jesus Christ, to us” and Jesus Himself declared that they ALL testify to Him [see John 5.37-40 & Luke 24.25-27, 44-48].
So what we want to do is better learn how we should read, study, understand, and most of all, worship Jesus Christ as He is promised, prophesied, and pre-enacted in the Old Testament Scriptures.
I use the word “pre-enactment” a lot in our Sunday School lessons especially when we are studying from the Old Testament Scriptures because that is what the whole OT is: it is a pre-enactment of the Redeemer God would send us “when the fullness of time had come” [see 1 Peter 1.10-12 & Galatians 4.4]. This Book of Ruth is rich and replete with such pre-enactments.
So I’m making them available to you with the prayer and hope that as we read the Word of God together, we’ll hear the echoes and invitation of Philip’s question to the Ethiopian eunuch, “Do you understand what you are reading?” When the Ethiopian answered, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” … “Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the Good News about Jesus” [see Acts 8.26-35].
I did use three resources in particular to enrich my own understanding and help me prepare to present these lessons to our class. Each of them was extremely helpful to me in distinctive ways:
Christopher Ash, Teaching Ruth & Esther
~Dave Parks 