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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 queenship. 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. Maybe even Ahasuerus knew that beauty and sex were not the most important qualities to be Queen of the Persian Empire.
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
