Socrates, Esther and the Scarecrow

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.