OBC COURSE DESCRIPTIONS  OBC ENROLLMENT INSTRUCTIONS

A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF BIBLE WOMEN

This series of lessons is entitled "A Systematic Study of Bible Women” (part 1).  It will be an 8 lesson course, beginning with Eve and ending with Bilhah, handmaid to Rachael.  Other lessons dealing with other women in Hebrew history should be offered at a later time until the study is finished.  There are nearly 200 women identified in the complete series.  Our purpose is to identify and scrutinize the actions and character traits of each woman as well as her position in the home, family and the nation where she lived.  We will also study how she carried out her duties as a servant of God.  We will see how her life influenced those around her and particularly how she used that influence for good or evil.

Many times the lives and actions of men in the Bible seem to overshadow the lives of the women contemporary with them, or at least the lives of men seem to take precedence in our Bible studies.  However, we cannot gainsay the fact that the women who were mothers, wives or daughters to these men not only shared their experiences, but also influenced them and others for good or evil.  These women, great or lowly, should also be studied in order to understand the complete picture.

Individual lessons for this class  

A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF BIBLE WOMEN are taken from a book by the same name, written by Coleman Overby—last printed in 1945.  Because Overby’s book contains such extensive research, it has been the basis for several larger publications written by several modern day authors.  However, rather than following those newer works, we feel that our time would best be spent studying the original.  You will not be expected to buy anything since the book is now out of print.

My sincere hope in this lesson series is to provide more than just a cursory look at each personality in order to help us compare the information we glean with God’s will for us as Christians.  We will attempt, in every case, to compare what actually happened with what should have happened.

“Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”

(1 Cor 2:12-13)

 His servant,

Beth Johnson