The theme for School of Discipleship 2025 is
“What We Miss in the Margins: Re-reading Ruth”.
”The biblical story of Ruth is well known and loved. This short story explores family, friendship, loyalty, kindness and resilience in the face of difficulty. With its strong, female characters, in the midst of the mainly male-focused Hebrew Bible, and its peaceful veneer, the book can feel like a deep, centering breath. But … the story of Ruth is more complicated than many of its traditional readings allow for. It is set in the violent time of the judges, explores difficult themes such as migration, death, and precarity, and portrays characters who stand in uneven relationships of power. Through the School of Discipleship, we will explore these tensions within the Ruth narrative and its interpretations. In re-reading Ruth together, we will consider the interconnections between places and relationships in the story and ask how revisiting these might enable us to re-read the contexts in which we live.”
- Rev. Dr. Bec Lindsay