Thanks Tom

Are you able to scan in B&W? The recent magazines are very interesting - but the file size is hard to handle for us old folk who don't have the latest hardware.

Hi Greg; yeah I agree the file size is not ideal for some of these scans. They were actually not done by myself but kindly given to me by a brother in America. I don't have a very good process for converting them efficiently on my pc at the moment so I just uploaded them as they were. Though thinking about it I have some code used elsewhere on the site that can just extract the scanned images and generate a b&w pdf so I'll put that in place as a download option soon.

Can anyone explain why this periodical was called "Handfuls of purpose"? It has always struck me as the most obscure biblical reference imaginable... Timothy

Ruth 2:16

But why Ruth 2.16? Every commentary has to retranslate the verse for it to make any sense let alone make it a suitable title for a devotional magazine... I don't recall the retranslation using either the word 'handfuls' or the word 'purpose'.

Sorry if I misunderstood the q, but Brethren read quite a lot into the book of Ruth, as in a typological sense, Boaz being a picture of Christ, and in Chapter 2, Ruth is gleaning in His field, which I think is viewed as a picture of feeding from the Word of God (His field). He doesn't just give her the grain, she has to glean and beat it out, ie. how the believer has to make the effort to read the Bible and meditate upon it, but He does generously give 'handfuls of purpose', more than the law required him to give. So the phrase 'handfuls of purpose', or however it might otherwise be translated, is analogous to Christ giving food from the Bible to His people, so it makes a nice periodical title, as that is what the periodical (is meant) to be doing.

Thanks, Tom....It's the length of the requisite explanation that is a bit daunting, so that the title appears to revel in obscurity. I'd have expected something like 'Gleanings among the sheaves' or even 'An ephah of Barley'. Mind you, none of this stops Ruth from being my bible story of preference!

Many thanks, was looking for this, Stewart Gillespie, www.graceinchrist.org