Skip to main content

Scripture Review - OT - Ruth and 1 Samuel

This week's Come Follow Me Primary lesson focuses on the book of Ruth and the first part of 1 Samuel. We left off in last week's lesson with the Israelites being governed by a series of Judges who were less than ideal leaders. The chapters in this week's lesson strike a more positive theme.

  • Ruth 1: Following on from the period of Judges, a famine causes Elimelech to leave Bethlehem with his wife Naomi and sons Mahlon and Chilon, and move to Moab. Elimelech dies, and the sons marry Orpah and Ruth respectively. The sons later die, and Naomi is left with her two daughters-in-law. Ruth stays close to Naomi, and the two return to Bethlehem.

  • Ruth 2: Ruth takes to gleaning (collecting left over grain following the harvesting) in the field of a rich man named Boaz. Boaz becomes protective of her, and helps her to collect larger quantities of barley and wheat.

  • Ruth 3: Naomi instructs Ruth to lay at Boaz's feet. She does so in the middle of the night, and a surprised Boaz promises to look after her.

  • Ruth 4: Boaz tries to find a husband for Ruth but fails, and decides to wed her himself. They have a child, Obed.

  • 1 Samuel 1: Elkanah has two wives, Hannah and Penninah. Every year, Elkanah goes to Shiloh to offer a sacrifice to Heavenly Father. Hannah can't bear children, and she prays to Heavenly Father to help her with this. The priest at Shiloh, Eli, thinks she's drunk because she prays silently whilst moving her lips, but upon realising she's serious, he blesses her and sends her home. Hannah goes on to bear a son, Samuel, whom she lends to the Lord.

  • 1 Samuel 2: Hannah sings the Lord's praises, and Samuel tends to Eli the priest. Eli and his sons incur Heavenly Father's displeasure due to the way they conduct themselves. Hannah goes on to have three sons and two daughters.

  • 1 Samuel 3: Heavenly Father calls Samuel in his sleep. Each time, Samuel thinks that it's Eli calling him, and but Eli recognises it's the Lord, and tells Samuel to reply directly the next time to say he's listening. Heavenly Father tells Samuel that he will act against the house of Eli. Samuel relates this to Eli. He goes on to be recognised in Israel as a prophet.

In my next post, we'll start to think of ways in which we can teach these scriptures.



Understanding the scriptures for this weekend's Primary lesson. Photo by Nils Stahl on Unsplash

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Idea Workup - OT - 1 Samuel

In my last post, I discussed some ideas for teaching 1 Samuel . In this post, I'll work up some of these ideas into a potential lesson plan.  Sometimes I get weeks where I toil for ages to find the right angle to teach a lesson from. Last week's lesson was a good example of this, where I really struggled to figure out a theme and a link that I could use. Other times, the right idea just hits you, and this feels like one of those weeks. There's a lot of material in 1 Samuel that could be used for a lesson, and it would be nice to devote more weeks to it. However the David and Goliath story is the dominant story here, and when you're working with young children, then you simply have to teach it. It's the archetype underdog story, which illustrates how the seemingly impossible can be made possible with faith. We want to pass on stories that will inspire the children and give them believe that they can similarly have confidence in themselves and aim high. We haven'
Post a Comment
Read more

Lesson Plan - OT - Numbers 20

My next LDS primary lesson, on Sunday 15th May, will be on a section of the Book of Numbers from the Old Testament. The LDS Primary Come Follow Me lesson plan recommends focusing on Numbers 12 (where Moses' siblings expressed discontent at what Moses was doing), Numbers 21 (the story of the brass serpent) and Numbers 22 (the story of Ballam, the priest who was asked to curse Moses, but who refused to do so). I've been thinking about a different take on this lesson, which focuses on a story from Numbers 20 . It's going to involve some messy water play... Photo by Lubomirkin on Unsplash It tells the story of Moses carrying out a command from Heavenly Father: Crucially, whilst Moses was instructed to talk to the rock, he instead hit it, thus disobeying HF. The way this event unfolds is in contrast to an earlier, similar episode in Exodus 17 , where Moses is instructed to hit a rock, does so, and water emerges. The question is why did a seemingly small difference in Moses'
Post a Comment
Read more

Brief update

For the time being, I'm going to switch formats for future lesson plans, and post my thoughts and plans on Twitter instead. Twitter's terseness makes it much quicker to write, which is ideal as I don't often have time to write the more expansive blog posts. (It's also perhaps a bit more readable too, for anyone with a cursory interest but who doesn't have time to digest the lengthier posts here.) At some point I'll come back and revisit this, with a view to having detailed lesson plans and explanations for as much of the scriptures as I can. In the meantime, you can find me over at  https://twitter.com/bobby_science . 
Post a Comment
Read more