Discover The Word

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Ruth chapter 1

IDEA: For better or worse or something in between, our actions and our words reveal who we are.

PURPOSE: To help listeners consider what their actions and words reveal about them.

One principle of good story-telling is to “show,” rather than to “tell.”

Inept story-tellers will tell you that the apartment was very dirty.  But better story-tellers will describe it so that you can “see” the apartment and decide for yourself that it was filthy.

The author of Ruth, as a good story-teller, lets the readers draw their own conclusions about the main characters in his story.  We make up our minds and feelings based on what the characters say and do.

I. One of the main characters in Ruth’s story is a woman named Naomi.

What do you know about her from what we read in the first chapter of Ruth?

What do you know about her life experiences and what they did to her?

What do you suspect about Naomi from the ways her daughters-in-law related to her?

What do you imagine about the way Naomi related to them?

What can you gather about Naomi’s relationship to God?  Was she religious?

At the end of chapter 1, how would you describe Naomi to someone else?

II. Do you think what we have done in “seeing” Naomi is legitimate?