Bible literacy teacher, MA in Religious Studies
Has taught adult Bible literacy classes for fifteen years and holds an MA in Religious Studies. Her working assumption is that most of the difficulty people have with the Bible is a matter of genre and context, not of faith — and that both are teachable.
Bible Study
Starting at Genesis is the most common mistake. Here is a reading order that works, how much time to set aside, what to do with the hard passages and how not to stall in Leviticus.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
The Bible is not a dream dictionary and never assigns a fixed meaning to a dream symbol. Here is what it does contain: a handful of specific dreams, and an interpreter who says every time that the meaning is not his own.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
The whole of Psalm 91, block by block, in the public-domain World English Bible: who is speaking in each part, what the ancient dangers were, and the one thing the psalm never promises.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
Moses appears in four books of the Bible, from a basket on the Nile to a grave nobody can find. Here is what the text says about him and what came from later tradition and art.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
Fifteen Bible stories with a suggested age, the exact chapter where each one lives, and an honest note about the ones with a heavy part that children's material usually erases.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
The Bible in a year, the New Testament in 90 days, the Gospels and Psalms in 30: what each plan asks of you, how long it takes daily and the three reasons most people quit.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
Eight verses, one repeated word and a walking pilgrim. Psalm 121 block by block in the World English Bible, with the travel dangers behind each line and what the psalm does not guarantee.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
David gets more chapters than almost anyone else in the Hebrew Bible: anointed as a boy, hunted as a fugitive, crowned, then exposed. Here is the whole arc and where to read it.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit appears in three Gospels and in one specific scene. Here is the literal text, what Mark 3:30 says the accusation was, and how each Christian tradition defines the sin today.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
Spaced repetition, handwriting, first-letter drills and three more tested techniques for memorizing verses — and still remembering them months later.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
What Genesis 1 actually says, how to tell the six days at each age, and what to answer when your child asks about dinosaurs or about what the teacher said at school.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
Read at weddings, written for a fight. All thirteen verses of 1 Corinthians 13 in context, with the fifteen things Paul says love does and the argument the chapter is actually settling.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
Esther is a Jewish orphan who becomes queen of Persia and risks her life to stop a massacre. Her book is also the only one in the Hebrew Bible that never mentions God.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
Paul wrote a large part of the New Testament and never met Jesus before the crucifixion. Here is his life as Acts and his own letters tell it, and where the famous details come from.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
Noah's ark is the most decorated children's story and the most heavily edited: in the text, the flood kills everyone left outside. What to say at each age, and what not to invent.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
Four different words are translated “hell” in English Bibles, and none of them describes Dante's nine circles. Here is what the biblical text says about both destinations, and where the Christian traditions diverge.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
Fifty-one verses in three movements: the prologue, the testimony of John the Baptist and the first week of disciples. John 1 block by block, in the public-domain World English Bible.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
Mary Magdalene is named in all four Gospels and is the first witness of the resurrection. The Bible never calls her a prostitute — here is where that idea came from.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
David and Goliath is the courage story told most often in Sunday school — and the one that loses the most meaning when it becomes a self-esteem lesson. What 1 Samuel 17 says, and what to say about the ending.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
Thirty-nine verses that move from a courtroom verdict to a groaning creation to a list of things that cannot separate you from God. Romans 8 block by block, in the World English Bible.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
The New Testament gives four lists of the twelve, and they do not match exactly. Here is each name, what the text actually reports, and where the famous martyrdoms come from.
Ruth Callaway ·
Reflections
The Bible does not answer this with a single sentence. Ecclesiastes, Luke 23, Philippians 1 and 1 Corinthians 15 say different-sounding things, and the Christian traditions assemble them differently.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
The order of service, what the water, oil and candle mean, how long it takes and where a guest is meant to stand — for infant baptism, adult immersion and everything between.
Ruth Callaway ·
Bible Study
The wise men are never counted, never named and never reach a stable; the ox and the donkey come from tradition, not the Gospels. How to tell Christmas faithfully without spoiling it.
Ruth Callaway ·