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 take 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!