FAITH CHALLENGE
Ruth
Lesson B, Week 1
Scripture: Ruth (CEV)
Memory Verse: Psalm 136 (refrain) in Hebrew, which
translates “For his steadfast love endures forever” (NRSV):
Concepts:
· God's steadfast love endures
forever.
· God calls us to show God's
steadfast love to others.
Objectives:
· The youth will experience what it
was like to make bread in Bible times..
· The youth will learn the story of
Ruth and some of the customs and traditions of the time.
· The youth will learn to speak and
write the scripture memory verse in Hebrew.
Gathering Time
The
Coach leads the opening routine: snack, fellowship, Prayer Wall activity, and
Prayer Chain. Name tags are available.
Workshop Lesson Procedure:
Introductions (Coach):
1. The Coach reviews the timeline and the previous
week’s workshop activity. Ask where the
story of Ruth is found in the Bible. The story of Ruth takes place at the same
time as the Book of Judges, which was a violent time. This was a time before
there were Kings to rule the land.
2. Introduce the
Guide who leads the Workshop Lesson, who will lead the lesson in the character
of Ruth.
Application (Guide takes over from here):
Activity 1 - Making bread flour from grain
The guide should be in costume as Ruth. The class has come to her home to hear stories of her life. However, Ruth is a busy woman and needs help with her chores if she is going to take time to tell stories.
Today’s chore is to make flour of the wheat/barley that was collected (gleaned) from the fields yesterday. Show the class how to shake, roll, rub, the grain from the chaff. Pick out the bits of chaff from the grain. There is no nutritional value in chaff. The stalk of the spear is saved for straw to bed the animals.
Divide the class into 2 groups. The first group will thresh the grain from the spears of grain. Removing all chaff. The second group will grind the grain into flour using mortar and pestle, and stones. (see background notes on bread making)
Scripture/Bible Story
When the class is busy working quietly, begin your story. Tell the story of Ruth in first person style. Use lots of expression, emotion, gestures. After about 10 minutes ask the class to switch chores and continue with the story.
(See the attached
“Tips for Telling Ruth’s Story” for some ideas about how to tell the story and
what to include.)
While you work, discuss with the kids friendships and relationships: The story of Ruth describes what it means to be a friend. Ruth is a compassionate and loyal friend to Naomi. In her loyalty to Naomi, Ruth exhibits what it means to show steadfast love.
·
How was Ruth a good friend? What is the difference
between a good friend and a bad friend? (a
good friend lifts you up, helps you do your best. A bad friend brings you down,
gets you into trouble)
· What makes one person feel loyal to another?
· Why was Ruth (a Moabite) faithful to a God she did not know? How did she know the God of Israel?
· How was Ruth faithful to God and how was God faithful to Ruth?
· How do we love God? (Belonging to God: a First Catechism question # 6. By worshipping God, by loving others, and by respecting what God has created.)
Bring the group together around a table for making bread dough.
Gather the flour from the mill grinders into a bowl. Add some more wheat flour (or barley flour). Add a smidgeon of salt and pour a small amount of water and/or oil into the bowl. There were no recipe books in Ruth’s time. Women learned from their mothers and sisters. Mix the flour into dough. Don’t make it too wet. Divide into 4 balls. Give the dough to the youth and let them take turns kneading it for a while, shape into flat cakes and place on a baking sheet – preferably a stone platter. Another method for baking the bread was to put the dough into a pot with a lid and bake it.
We aren’t going to bake this bread. You can give the kids a piece of flat matzo bread to taste a reasonable facsimile. Clean up.
Activity 2 –
Scripture writing in Hebrew
The memory verse is "For his steadfast love endures forever". It is the refrain of Psalm 136. We are going to learn to say it and write it in Hebrew.
1. Show the poster of the Hebrew scripture. Say the Hebrew phrase as you point to the writing. Tell the kids that you are going to play an audio tape of a man saying the phrase. There are spaces after he says the Hebrew in which we will all repeat back the Hebrew. Play the audio tape.
2. Hand out clipboards, paper and pens to the youth. Show them the poster of the scripture verse again and how the words are represented in Hebrew. Show them which parts are the consonants (the large letters) and which parts are the vowels (the little markings, the “tittles and jots” above and below the consonants).
3. On the white board or a flip chart, show the youth how to write the Hebrew letters, breaking the verse down into short bits. Let them copy and practice several times.
4. We’ll practice again next week. Clean up and get ready for closing.
Reflection:
We
are going to say a litany. A litany uses call and response. The leader says
something and everyone responds. We use this method in the beginning of worship
with the pastor as the leader and the congregation responding.
This litany is Psalm 136. It was written to remind the people of all that God did for the Israelites - creation, the plagues in Egypt, the escape with Moses, wandering in the desert, defeating kings and giving them land. Through all of this, God’s steadfast love endures forever (God’s love never fails. CEV).
Hand out the CEV Bibles. Look up Psalm 136. The guide says the first line of the verse. Ask the youth to respond in Hebrew for God’s steadfast love endures forever (God’s love never fails. CEV).
Closing (Coach):
1. The Coach conducts the closing prayer time.
Prayer suggestion: Lord, thank you for being faithful to those who show faith. Go with us this week, guide us each day that we may be faithful to our friends, to our family, and to You. Let our lives be a gift to You. Amen.
(adapted from Hymn 535, “Go with Us, Lord,” The Presbyterian Hymnal)
2. Close/lock the door and turn off the lights.
Guide preparation in advance:
1. Check out the room before your first Sunday workshop so that you know where everything is located.
2. Post a “visual” for the timeline. (see attached)
3. Preparation instructions for this lesson plan –
· Prepare the memory verse on poster to display in class.
· Practice with whole grain flour to make the dough the right consistency
· Practice separating grain from chaff and grinding so you can adjust and give appropriate instructions
· Practice saying the memory verse after the man on the tape.
· Practice writing the memory verse in Hebrew with a chisel-tip marker. You will need to know how to hold the marker to place the thick and thin strokes in the right place. Call Susan Mazzara (387-0920 (h) or 254-1870 (w)) for help.
Supply List
· A large bundle of grain spears that contains grain. (oats, barely, or wheat)
· A large, flat box, tray or something to catch the grain into.
· Mortar and pestle sets, stones for grinding the grain. Enough for at least 5.
· For making dough: extra whole grain flour, large bowl, water, oil and salt.
· Flat matzo bread. You can get this unleavened bread in the international section of most grocery stores.
· For scripture writing: poster of Hebrew scripture, clipboards, paper, chisel-tip markers, cassette tape and tape player, one large chisel-tip marker for demonstrating how to write the Hebrew.
· Bibles
References
· The source of this lesson plan is the information provided to writers of this set of lessons by Susan Mazzara.
·
Ruth lesson by Amy
Crane at www.rotation.org
TIPS FOR TELLING Ruth’s Story: by Amy Crane www.rotation.org
·
Read the story in several
translations of the Bible and Bible storybooks to see other ways to tell it.
·
This is a warm and gentle
story about family loyalty and devotion and love. Tell it in the first person
as Ruth and in a way that is intimate and friendly.
·
Decide why you think
that Ruth decided to leave her people and her God to go with Naomi. The Bible
does not indicate why she makes this decision; she was not required to go.
Maybe Naomi has been a good, loving example of a follower of the one true God.
Maybe Ruth knows who her parents will arrange for her to marry if she stays.
Once you have decided how you want to interpret Ruth, let that color how you
speak for her and Naomi. But remember, there are no right or wrong interpretations.
·
Bring the story to life with
your movements and emotions as well as the words. Orpah and Ruth should cry.
Naomi should be gentle but firm. Ruth probably spoke to Boaz with downcast
eyes. Try to visualize the action, and then include small parts of it in your
telling.
·
Read and reread it until you
are very comfortable with it. Make eye contact and interact with your
listeners, which will help bring the story to life for them. (Consider making
your “cheat sheet” copy of the script into a scroll.)
Ruth’s Story
a story for telling adapted from Today’s English Version by Amy Crane www.rotation.org
Long, long ago, in Israel and Judah, there was a famine throughout the land. There was no food to eat. Elimelech, of the town of Bethlehem, heard that there was food in Moab. So Elimelech took his wife Naomi and his two young sons, Mahlon and Chilion, to Moab. There they lived comfortably for a time. And then Elimelech died. Mahlon and Chilion married Moabite girls, Orpah and Ruth. After about ten years, Mahlon and Chilion died, too. Neither had any children.
So the three widows, Naomi, Ruth, and Orpah, lived as best they could. One day Naomi received news from home. The famine in Israel was over! How she had missed her homeland. There was no reason for her to remain in Moab, so she packed her things and called Ruth and Orpah to her. “Dear girls, I am going home to Israel. There is no reason for you to come with me. Your husbands are dead, and I have no other sons for you to marry. Go home to your mothers. And may the Lord be as good to you as you have been to me and my sons. May the Lord help you find new husbands.”
Orpah and Ruth began to cry. “No, dear Naomi. We cannot leave you. We will go with you to your people.”
“No girls. It will not work. I have no sons and no family to care for you. You must stay here.”
Orpah cried, but kissed Naomi goodbye and returned to her family. But Ruth would not let go of Naomi. “Ruth, you see that Orpah has stayed with her people. You must do so also.”
“Dear Mother, don’t make me leave you. Wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people. Your God will be my God.”
So Ruth went to Bethlehem with Naomi. When they arrived, the barley harvest was just beginning.
“Let me go behind the reapers who are harvesting the grain and pick up whatever grain remains on the ground,” said Ruth. “I may not find much, but maybe they dropped enough for us to make bread to eat this week.”
So Ruth went out to the fields and picked up the grain dropped by the reapers. It so happened that the field she was working in belonged to Boaz, a distant cousin of Elimelech.
Boaz came that morning to see how his workers were doing. Boaz pointed to Ruth and asked the man in charge, “Who is that young woman?”
“She is Ruth, the foreign girl who came back from Moab with Naomi. She asked if she may glean the fields after the workers have picked the grain. She has been working hard all morning.”
Boaz went to speak to Ruth. “Let me give you some advice. Work in my field every day behind the women. I will see that no one bothers you. Drink from the water jars when you are thirsty.”
“Thank you. Why are you being so kind to me, a foreigner?”
“I have heard how you have cared for your mother-in-law Naomi. I know how you left your own people. May the Lord God of Israel, to whom you have come for protection, reward you for what you have done.”
At lunchtime, Boaz invited Ruth to join him. He shared his bread with her, and she ate her fill and even had some left over.
Privately, Boaz ordered his workers to drop extra grain for Ruth to gather.
At the end of the day, Ruth discovered she had nearly twenty-five pounds of grain! She took it home to her mother-in-law, plus the leftover food from lunch.
“Where did you gather all this grain today? May God bless the man who took an interest in you!”
Ruth told Naomi about her day working in Boaz’s field. “May the Lord bless Boaz! The Lord always keeps His promises. Boaz is a distant relative of ours. Therefore, he is one of those who is to take care of us.”
So Ruth continued to glean grain from Boaz’s field for the remainder of the harvest season.
Some time later, Naomi said to Ruth, “Dear, you really must marry so that you will have a home and family of your own. Remember Boaz? Get cleaned up, put on your best clothes and go to where he is threshing. When he is done working and eating, go to him.”
So Ruth got cleaned up and dressed up and went to where Boaz was working. “Who are you?”
“It is Ruth, sir. Chilion’s widow, Elimelech’s daughter-in-law. You are a close relative and are responsible for taking care of me. Please marry me.”
“The Lord bless you. You are truly showing great family loyalty. Instead of looking for a young handsome husband, you have come to me. Don’t worry Ruth, I will do everything that you ask.”
So Boaz and Ruth were married. The men of Bethlehem said to Boaz, “May the Lord bless you and make Ruth like Rachel and Leah, who bore many children to Jacob. May you become rich and famous.”
The Lord did bless Ruth and Boaz. She had a baby boy. He was named Obed. The women of Bethlehem said to Naomi, “Praise the Lord! He has given you a grandson! Your daughter-in-law loves you and did more for you than seven sons!”
That is the end of Ruth and Boaz and Naomi’s story, but the beginning of many others. For Obed was the father of Jesse, who was the father of David — you know him: shepherd, songwriter, soldier, and King. And of course you remember that out of the house of Jesse was born a baby, Christ the Lord! But, that is next month’s story.
Ruth gleaning a painting by J. James Tissot (1836-1902)
Bread and Bread-making Notes
In the East bread is primary, other articles of food merely
accessory; while in the West meat and other things chiefly constitute the meal,
and bread is merely secondary. Accordingly "bread" in the Old
Testament, from Genesis 3:19 onward, stands
for food in general.
Methods of Preparing
Food.
1. Cereals:
The most primitive way of using cereals was to pluck the fresh ears (Leviticus 23:14; 2 Kings 4:42), remove the husk by rubbing (compare Deuteronomy 23:25 and Matthew 12:1), and eat the grain raw. A practice common to all periods was to parch or roast the ears and eat them not ground.
Later it became customary to grind the grain into flour, at first by the rudimentary method of pestle and mortar (Numbers 11:8; compare Proverbs 27:22), later by the hand-mill (Exodus 11:5; Job 31:10; compare Matthew 24:41), still later in mills worked by the ass or other animal (Matthew 18:6, literally, "a millstone turned by an ass"). The flour was then made into bread, with or without leaven.
Another simple way of preparing the grain was to soak it in water, or boil it slightly, and then, after drying and crushing it, to serve it as the dish called "groats" is served among western peoples.
Kneading dough was preparatory to baking, as it is now in the East, by pressing it between the hands or by passing it from hand to hand; except that in Egypt, as the monuments show, it was put in "baskets" and trodden with the feet, as grapes in the wine press. (This is done in Paris bakeries to this day.)
2. Vegetables:
Lentils, several kinds of beans, and a profusion of vegetables, wild and cultivated, were prepared and eaten in various ways. The lentils were sometimes roasted, as they are today, and eaten like "parched corn." They were sometimes stewed like beans, and flavored with onions and other ingredients, no doubt, as we find done in Syria today (compare Genesis 25:29,34), and sometimes ground and made into bread (Ezekiel 4:9; compare Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palastina-Vereins, IX, 4). The wandering Israelites in the wilderness looked back wistfully on the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic of Egypt (Numbers 11:5), and later we find all of these used for food in Palestine
3. Oil:
Olive oil was extensively and variously used by the ancient Hebrews, as by most eastern peoples then, as it is now.
They even mixed oil with the flour, shaped it into cakes and then baked it (Leviticus 2:4). The "little oil" of the poor widow of Zerephath was clearly not intended for the lamps, but to bake her pitiful "handful of meal" (1 Kings 17:12).
The cake of unmixed flour might be baked till almost done, then smeared with oil, sprinkled with anise seed, and brought by further baking to a glossy brown. A species of thin flat cakes of this kind are "the wafers anointed with oil" of Exodus 29:2, etc.
Oil and honey constituted, as now in the East, a mixture used as we use butter and honey, and are found also mixed in the making of sweet cakes (Ezekiel 16:13,19). The taste of the manna is said in Exodus 16:31 to be like that of "wafers made with honey," and in Numbers 11:8 to be like "the taste of cakes baked with oil" (Revised Version margin).
Meals and
Meal-Time
It was customary among the ancient Hebrews, as among their contemporaries in the East in classical lands, to have but two meals a day. The "morning morsel" or "early snack," as it is called in the Talmud, taken with some relish like olives, oil or melted butter, might be used by peasants, fishermen, or even artisans, to "break their fast" (see the one reference to it in the New Testament in John 21:12,15), but this was not a true meal. To "eat a meal," i.e. a full meal, in the morning was a matter for grave reproach (Ecclesiastes 10:16), as early drinking was unusual and a sign of degradation (of Acts 2:15).
The first meal (of "meal-time," literally, "the time of eating," Ruth 2:14; Genesis 43:16), according to general usage, was taken at or about noon when the climate and immemorial custom demanded a rest from labor. To abstain from this meal was accounted "fasting" (Judges 20:26; 1 Samuel 14:24
The second and main meal was taken about the set of sun, or a little before or after, when the day's work was over and the laborers had "come in from the field" (Luke 17:7; 24:29). This is the "supper time," the "great supper" of Luke 14:16, the important meal of the day, when the whole family were together for the evening.
According to Jewish law, and for special reasons, the chief meal was at midday--"at the sixth hour," according to Josephus (Vita, 54; compare Genesis 43:16-25; 2 Samuel 24:15 Septuagint). It was Yahweh's promise to Israel that they should have "bread" in the morning and "flesh" in the evening (Exodus 16:12), incidental evidence of one way in which the evening meal differed from that at noon.
At this family meal ordinarily there was but one common dish for all, into which all "dipped the sop" (see Matthew 26:23; Mark 14:20), so that when the food, cooked in this common stew, was set before the household, the member of the household who had prepared it had no further work to do, a fact which helps to explain Jesus' words to Martha, `One dish alone is needful' (Luke 10:42; Hastings, Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, under the word "Meals").
Customs at Meals.
In the earliest times the Hebrews took their meals sitting, or more probably squatting, on the ground like the Bedouin of today (see Genesis 37:25, etc.), with the legs gathered tailor-fashion The use of seats naturally followed upon the change from nomadic to agricultural life, after the conquest of Canaan.
Saul sat upon "seats" (1 Samuel 20:25), as did Solomon and his court (1 Kings 10:5; compare 1 Kings 13:20, etc.). With the growth of wealth and luxury under the monarchy, the custom of reclining at meals gradually became the fashion. In Amos' day it was regarded as an aristocratic innovation (Amos 3:12; 6:4), but two centuries later Ezekiel speaks of "a stately bed" or "couch" (compare Esther 1:6 with "a table prepared before it" (Ezekiel 23:41), as if it was no novelty. By the end of the 3rd century BC it was apparently universal, except among the very poor (Judith 12:15; Tobit 2:1).
Notes are edited from:
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Customs and Bread-making
Flour
Barley and wheat were widely used as a breadstuff then, as it is now. There were
three kinds, or qualities, of flour, distinguished, according to the way of making:
· a coarser sort, rudely made by the use of pestle and mortar, the "beaten corn" of Leviticus 2:14,16
· the "flour" or "meal" of ordinary use (Exodus 29:2; Leviticus 2:2; 6:15), and
· the "fine meal" for honored guests (see Genesis 18:6, where Abraham commands Sarah to "make ready .... three measures of fine meal") with which we may compare the "fine flour" for the king's kitchen (1 Kings 4:22) and the "fine flour" required for the ritual meal offering, as in Leviticus 2:1; 5:11; 7:12; 14:10; 23:13; 24:5; etc.
Bread-Making
1. Grinding:
After thoroughly sifting and cleaning the grain, the first step in the process was to reduce it to "meal" or "flour" by rubbing, pounding, or grinding. (In Numbers 11:8 it is said of the manna "The people went about, and gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in mortars.")
2. Kneading:
The "flour" was then ordinarily mixed simply with water, kneaded in a wooden basin or kneading-trough (Exodus 8:3) and, in case of urgency, at once made into "cakes" and baked. (See Exodus 12:34, "And the people took their dough before it was leavened.") The Hebrews called such cakes matstsoth, and they were the only kind allowed for use on the altar during Passover, and immediately following the Feast of Unleavened Bread (also called Matstsoth).
A lump of leavened dough of yesterday's baking, preserved for the purpose, was broken up and mixed with the day's "batch," and the whole was then set aside and left standing until it was thoroughly leavened.
3. Baking:
We find in the Old Testament, as in the practice of the East today, three modes of firing or baking bread:
Hot Stones - That represented by Elijah's cake baked on the hot stones (1 Kings 19:6 compare "the cakes upon the hearth"). The stones were laid together and a fire was lighted upon them. When the stones were well heated the cinders were raked off, and the cakes laid on the stones and covered with ashes. After a while the ashes were again removed and the cake was turned (see Hosea 7:8) and once more covered with the glowing ashes. It was thus cooked on both sides evenly and made ready for eating. Out of these primitive usages of the pastoral tribes and peasants grew other improved forms of baking.
Baking Pans:
An ancient method of baking, prevalent still among the Bedouin of Syria and Arabia, is to employ a heated convex iron plate, or griddle, what we would call a frying pan, in lieu of the heated sand or stones. The Hebrew "baking-pan" (machabhath, Leviticus 2:5; 7:9; compare Ezekiel 4:3) must have been of this species of "griddle." The reference in 1 Chronicles 9:31 is probably to bread baked in this way
Ovens:
The Bowl-Oven:
The simplest used by the ancients were hardly more primitive than the kind quite commonly used in Palestine today. It may be called the "bowl-oven." It consists of a large clay-bowl, which is provided with a movable lid. This bowl is placed inverted upon small stones and then heated with a fuel distinctly oriental, consisting of dried dung heaped over and around it. The bread is baked on the stones, then covered by the inverted oven, which is heated by the firing of the fuel of dung on the outside of the cover.
The Jar-Oven:
The jar-oven is another form of oven found in use there today. This is a large earthen-ware jar that is heated by fuel of grass (Matthew 6:30), stubble (Malachi 4:1), dry twigs or thorns (1 Kings 17:12) and the like, which are placed within the jar for firing. When the jar is thus heated the cakes are stuck upon the hot inside walls.
The Pit-Oven:
The pit-oven was doubtless a development from this type. It was formed partly in the ground and partly built up of clay and plastered throughout, narrowing toward the top. The ancient Egyptians, as the monuments and mural paintings show, laid the cakes upon the outside of the oven; but in Palestine, in general, if the customs of today are conclusive, the fire was kindled in the inside of the pit-oven. Great numbers of such ovens have been unearthed in recent excavations, and we may well believe them to be exact counterparts of the oven of the professional bakers in the street named after them in Jerusalem "the bakers' street" (Jeremiah 37:21).
Eating
It is still significantly customary at a Syrian meal to take a piece of such bread and, with the ease and skill of long habit, to fold it over at the end held in the hand so as to make a sort of spoon of it, which then is eaten along with whatever is lifted by it out of the common dish (compare Matthew 26:23). But this "dipping in the common dish" is so accomplished as not to allow the contents of the dish to be touched by the fingers, or by anything that has been in contact with the lips of those who sit at meat.
Work for Women:
Every household of importance seems to have had its own oven, and bread-making for the most part was in the hands of the women
The women of the East are often now seen taking a hand in sowing, harvesting and winnowing the grain, as well as in the processes of "grinding" (Ecclesiastes 12:3; Matthew 24:41; Luke 17:35), "kneading" (Genesis 18:6; 1 Samuel 28:24; 2 Samuel 13:8; Jeremiah 7:18) and "baking" (1 Samuel 8:13), and doubtless it was so in ancient times to an equal extent.
Sanctity of Bread:
As in Egypt everything depended for life on the Nile, and as the Nile was considered "sacred," so in Palestine, as everything depended upon the wheat and barley harvest, "bread" was in a peculiar sense "sacred."
All life was seen to be dependent upon the grain harvest, this in turn depended upon rain in its season, and so bread, the product at bottom of these Divine processes, was regarded as peculiarly "a gift of God," a daily reminder of his continual and often undeserved care (Matthew 5:45; consider in this connection the Lord's Prayer, "Give us this day our daily bread," Matthew 6:11; compare Luke 11:11). Bread has in it an element of mystery and sacredness as coming from the Giver of all good.
In partaking of the hospitality of the primitive peasants of Palestine today, east and west of the Jordan, one sees what a sign and symbol of hospitality and friendship the giving and receiving of bread is.
Wilkinson. Ancient Egypt, 1878, II, 34; Erman, Aegypten und aegyptisches Leben, 1885, 191; Nowack, Lehrbuch der hebr. Archaologie, 1894; Maimonides, Yadh, Temidhin U-Mucaphin, v, 6-8; Bacher, Monats-schrift, 1901, 299; Mishna B. M., II, 1, 2; Robinson, Biblical Researches in Palestine, II, 416; Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta, I, 131; Josephus, BJ; and Bible Dicts. on "Bread," "Dietary Laws":
"Matstsoth," "Challah," etc.
George B. Eager
Notes are edited from:
Copyright Statement
These files are public
domain and are a derivative of an electronic edition that is available from Crosswire Software.
Bibliography
Information
Orr, James, M.A., D.D.
General Editor. "Entry for 'BREAD'". "International Standard
Bible Encyclopedia". <http://www.studylight.org/enc/isb/view.cgi?number=T1681>.
1915.