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They say that Socrates liked to educate his students by asking questions that required his students to think rather than spoon feed his students answers to be memorized.
It’s easy to see the logic in that because as teachers we are developing brains not robots.
As students of the Bible we are in essence teaching ourselves as we read and study. So, like Socrates, we should ask ourselves questions about what we read and not rely primarily on others to supply answers.
Some of the questions I asked myself as I was studying the Book of Esther was how much was God’s hand in these events and why was it important for Esther to become queen.
My guess is that God’s hand was in the whole thing… the raising up of King Ahasuerus, Queen Vashti’s deposition, the rise of Haman and of course the role of Esther and Mordecai. 100% of it.
If true that leads to the second socratic question… why did God do it?
The queenship of Esther was after the first return of the jewish exiles and before the second and third returns of the exiles.
One possibility of why God stepped in was to not only prevent the extermination of the Jews but also to pave the way for them to go back to Judea.
Another possibility was to facilitate the spread of the Good News of Salvation by the Apostles. The Apostles were able to spread the Gospel because of a healthy educated Jewish population in the succeeding Roman Empire with Synagogues ready for the Apostles preaching.
Ask yourselves plenty of questions and ask your students plenty of questions or you and they might end up like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz lamenting that you don’t have a brain.
The story of Esther has been framed as a “beauty” contest. It was nothing of the sort it was a “Queen” contest.
In beauty contests everyone gets to go home. With Esther and the other girls, no one was going home. You either won the prize of being queen or you were a concubine of the King. Both honorary positions but obviously the queenship was the best.
When I was applying for Veterinary school there were about 1000 applicants for 130 places. The selection criteria was based on academics, experience with animals and an interview. I applied three times before I got in. I guess I wasn’t the prettiest the first two times. That was better odds (1 in 8) than with Esther (1 in 127).
By the way… Esther was not only a willing participant but actively tried to win the queenship… she didn’t just want to be a concubine.
Every girl had one night with the king to try to impress him and win the kingship. Keep in mind that King Ahasuerus was no sexual novice and had probably experienced every kind of sex that a woman could offer.
Esther had an advantage that the other girls did not have. She had Hegai the overseer on her side. The scriptures state that Esther “found favor” with Hegai and he counseled her.
Imagine if you were Hegai and you had the ability to do a post-interview with all these young ladies. Also if you could talk to King Ahasuerus afterwards… what did you like about this girl? What did you dis-like? Anyway, Hegai was an expert on the tastes of King Ahasuerus relating to what he liked in women and he was careful to use that knowledge to instruct Esther. Like maybe Ahasuerus’ favorite perfume.
Of course all these young women were virgins and therefore sexually naive. So it must have been something other than sex that impressed Ahasuerus with Esther. Perhaps her spirituality, her innocence, her brain… maybe as a child of God his inability to intimidate her.
I guess we’ll never know but what we do know is that Esther won and became queen of the Persian Empire.
Let’s not frame the story as a “beauty” contest and spiritually confuse and handicap our young Bible students. Esther was in a contest to become Queen of Persia and protect God’s people the Jews.
In Luke 19, Jesus was asked a question about the coming of the Kingdom… because they thought it was coming immediately.
So in typical Jesus fashion he answers with a parable. The Parable of the Minas. There are two things going on in this parable.
The first thing is about a fellow that is going to a distant land to receive a Kingdom. While on the way the citizens of the Kingdom send a message that they don’t want him ruling over them. At the end of the Parable the fellow has the citizens killed.
The second thing is that the fellow going to receive the Kingdom gives three of his workers 10 Minas each. A Minas is about three months wages. He instructed them to invest their Minas’ and there would be an accounting when he got back. Two of the workers did well and were rewarded. The third one did not do well with his Minas and was punished with death.
So how does this parable answer the original question concerning if the Kingdom was coming immediately?
The fellow receiving the Kingdom was Jesus. The ones who rejected him were the Jewish Leaders. Jesus had them killed in the year AD 70.
The three workers were Jesus’ people. He had expectations for them. They had to perform. If they did, in the coming of the Heavenly Kingdom they would be rewarded. If they did not then punishment awaits.
Jesus obviously told them a lot more than what they were asking. The coming of the Kingdom had some markers… punishment for those who rejected and killed him and a standard of conduct to be a citizen in the upcoming kingdom.
Make “mas” not “menos” with your “minas”
A mother spent time vacuuming her house daily. Anytime she saw dirt, dog hair, shavings or crumbs she quickly grabbed her vacuum to remove the mess. Sometimes the mother would have to pull her vacuum out multiple times a day in order to keep the floors spotless.
Her husband and children would moan and groan about her turning that loud vacuum on… not understanding the importance of a clean house. One day they asked, “Mom, why do you like to vacuum so much?”
She answered, “To you it has been granted to understand the mystery. You see, our hearts are like a house. Sometimes, dirt or sin can creep in. We must be diligent in removing that sin immediately. When you don’t get that trash out it is left to spread and pile higher. We need to keep our hearts pure and clean by vacuuming them daily, sometimes even multiple times a day.”
From Jennifer Cargile
The book of Esther opens with a banquet being given by King Ahasuerus of the Persian Empire that lasted 180 days for all the nobles of the 127 provinces of Persia. Presumably this gathering was to get all the nobles on board for the upcoming Persian invasion of Greece.
After the Greco-Persian War, King Ahasuerus came back home and Haman offered to pay 10,000 talents of silver for the privilege of killing and plundering (for one day) the Jewish population of the Persian Empire. Keep in mind in todays dollars that would be about 450 Billion US dollars.
Now, I really don’t think Haman had 450 Billion dollars. I think he expected to plunder the wealthy Jews of the empire to swell the coffers of King Ahasuerus. It’s surprising that King Ahasuerus would agree to this unless the Greco-Persian war had left him with a cash shortage. Wars are not cheap.
It also brings to the forefront why Mordecai cautioned Esther not to reveal that she was a Jew. The obvious answer was that a significant part of the population hated the Jews. After all Mordecai engineered the deaths of some 75,000 enemies of the Jews across the Persian Empire.
Which begs the question, why were the Jews a hated people? Certainly as in the case of Haman there was ancestral hatred for the Jews. God had ordained the decimation of King Agag and the Amalekites. But in addition, God had caused his people Israel to prosper in the Persian Empire and there can be jealousy and hatred for those who are doing better than you are, especially if a people like Israel carried themselves with a sort of spiritual arrogance as we know that Mordecai did.
Of course we know the end of the story. Mordecai becomes second in command of the great Persian Empire and Esther is Queen.
Like with Joseph in Egypt and Daniel in Babylonia and now Mordecai/Esther in Persia God’s people… like cream… rise to the top.
The Book of Esther introduces Esther as a young jewish virgin from one of the 127 provinces of the Persian Empire. She has had some tragedy in her life… both her parents have died and she is being raised by a cousin.
She has been chosen as the most beautiful young woman of her province and immediately with all the other young girls became concubines of King Ahasuerus and a candidate for being Queen of the Persian Empire.
Of course these young women would be political capital for their provinces and could influence the King for political favors… especially if as a young woman you became Queen.
The story of Esther starts off with her being in subjection to her father Mordecai and to Hegai the chief Eunuch of the Harem. She listens to them and follows their advice.
But then a plot against the Jews is revealed and Mordecai has to convince Esther to approach her Husband/King at the risk of her life. She agrees to Mordecai’s demands but then the “worm turns” so to speak… and she tells Mordecai what she wants to happen. A three day fast for all the Jews, etc.
She devices a plan to approach her King and and defeat Haman the enemy of the Jews.
After the death of Haman the role between Esther and Ahasuerus changes. She can come to him unbidden. He continually asks her… what more can I do for you Queen Esther? And she is not reluctant to let him know.
Esther has transformed from being a naive young jewish girl with limited experience with men to becoming Queen of the Persian Empire with all its political intrigues.
It helps when God is on your side and God still has the power to transform his people.
There’s an interesting thing that occurs in the Genesis account of creation. After creating every kind of life on earth God decides to create something “in his own image”… man… he made them male and female. Genesis 1:28
Now… I’m not sure I understand everything about God creating man in his own image and all that implies, but what I do understand is that God gave man dominion over all the other life on this planet earth. God gave man responsibility over the animal world.
Adam and Eve were like God because God had dominion over his whole creation and he shared that power with Adam and Eve.
There’s another way that Adam and Eve were like God. In Genesis 2:24 God said that Adam and Eve would become “one flesh”.
The account in Ephesians 5:22-33, when comparing the relationship between Jesus and the church with the relationship between a husband and a wife, states that “the two shall become one flesh” and that it was a “great mystery”.
Some say man and woman become one flesh just by engaging in sex.
Sorry… that’s not a great mystery.
In my opinion, becoming one flesh with a woman is progressive and involves the close relationship that comes with experiencing life together with all its successes and failures.
And following the recipe for becoming “one flesh” found in Ephesians through love and subjection to each other.
Adam and Eve were created in the image of God because their becoming “one flesh together” mimicked the spiritual oneness that we see in the relationship between God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
Here’s a question… can a man and woman living with each other in a sexual relationship without having made vows to each other or vows to God and having not invited God into their relationship be of “one flesh”?
Let me answer this question with another question… can a Bull and a Cow be “one flesh”?
Do you want to be like cattle or do you want to be like God? Follow God’s plan and you can reap the full benefits of being made in his image rather than following and becoming the image of Satan.
Get married and quit sinning
