With Christmas fast approaching, many pastors and small group leaders’ are getting ready to teach through the holiday. In a season as busy as this one, it can be difficult to adequately prepare.
That’s why we’re giving everyone a free commentary on Matthew all through November.
This month, get a free commentary on Esther and a bonus commentary on 1, 2, & 3 John for only $0.99 more.
The book of Esther is a classic story: the peasant who becomes a Queen and saves her people. But what was the author’s theological intent behind the book? Is there a single overarching theme or message for today’s readers to walk away with?
Commentators are divided. Some, such as Adele Berlin see the book as entirely secular—the exiles live completely without God. Others, such as the New American Commentary’s author see faithful service to God throughout.
But what if there were a third option? One which acknowledges some of the difficulties of both points? What follows is my struggle to reconcile two separate viewpoints.
I want to explore the idea that the book of Esther is a treatise on God’s loving response to practical atheism—that is, God’s people living as if he doesn’t exist.
In this month’s free commentary, Tomasino notes several concerning elements:
“The name Mordecai almost certain derives from Marduk, who was a storm god and chief god of the Babylonian pantheon.”
Furthermore,
“Mordecai ordered Esther to conceal her Jewishness, to blend into the world around her. It is a counsel that will contribute later to her success and the Jews’ triumph over their enemies. But is concealment a righteous response to a potentially hostile environment?”
Also,
“It is apparent from this verse that unlike Daniel, Esther does not request a kosher diet: to do so would make it impossible for her to conceal her Jewish identity, as she is said to do in the very next verse.”
Another striking element is that God is not named once throughout the entire book.
Here are two more reasons for the argument that the story of Esther presents God’s loving response to practical atheism:
Many commentators have seen Mordecai’s refusal to bow down to Haman as a religious observance: refusal to to worship anyone other than YHWH.
However, the text provides a different answer:
“After these things King Ahasuerus promoted Haman the Agagite” (Esther 3:1).
Thanks to the power of Logos Bible Software, I can search for every time the term “Agagite” is used in Scripture and I see it recurs throughout Esther, every time that Haman is introduced. Why would the author try and continually remind us of Haman’s ethnicity?
Most interpreters through the ages have understood the text to mean that Haman was a descendant of Agag, king of the Amalekites (a summary of these sources can be found in Moore 1971, 35). Given the apparent connection of Mordecai with the line of Saul, the connection between Haman and the line of Agag seems poetic and darkly foreboding.
Another Logos search on the root “Agag” shows me that the primary story around Agag comes from 1 Samuel 15. Here, Agag, king of the Amalekites, dies as Samuel hacks him to pieces in front of Saul.
Looking at the family tree of Saul, we see that he too is a descendant of Kish. Mordecai, you may remember, was introduced in Esther 2:5 as a “son of Kish, a Benjaminite.” It is reasonable then to conclude that by refusing, Mordecai was simply defending a long-standing ethnic animosity, rather than a religious conviction.
In Esther 3:13, we read: “Letters were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces with instruction to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods.”
But as Tomasino notes: “The thirteenth day of the first month, the month of Nisan, would be the day before the Jews were to celebrate Passover.” Rabbis for generations since have made the clear connection between Purim and Passover. But it is striking that there is no explicit reference to the Jewish holiday. However, if these exiles were living a life without consideration for God, it makes sense to ignore the holiday.
In the face of all these considerations, it seems possible that these Jewish exiles, living in the shadow of their captor’s palace, are brought back to YHWH by the imminent threat of death.
What would this mean for today’s Christians? In today’s climate, it’s easy to be a so-called “cultural Christians.” People who claim to believe, but do not truly seek to serve the one true God.
Let’s take a lesson from Esther and Mordecai and daily ensure that our actions are not on our own behalf, but rather are intentionally in the service of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Study Esther for yourself! Get Esther from the Evangelical Exegetical Commentary Series absolutely free!
This month’s free book is The Lord and His Prayer by Dr. N.T. Wright. Wright discusses the Lord’s Prayer phrase by phrase to show how understanding the original setting of the Lord’s Prayer can rekindle your own prayer life.
Here are six insights from Wright’s historical study of the Lord’s Prayer:
“In John’s gospel Jesus uses the image of father and son to explain what he was himself doing. In that culture, the son is apprenticed to the father. He learns his trade by watching what the father is doing. When he runs into a problem, he checks back to see how his father tackles it. That’s what Jesus is doing in Gethsemane, when everything suddenly goes dark on him. Father, is this the way? Is this really the right path? Do I really have to drink this cup?”
Whether you have a good relationship with your father or not, Jesus’ actions provide the perfect example of how a child should relate to God the Father; as an apprentice to the master craftsman.
Dr. Wright points out that the phrase, “thy kingdom come” takes its roots from the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah.
“Jesus took the three parts of Isaiah’s kingdom-message and set about implementing them. Release for captive Israel; the defeat of evil; and the return of YHWH to Zion.”
These three elements would have been incredibly significant for national Israel. But this also highlights the importance of the Old Testament to Jesus. It was the Old Testament that foreshadowed his arrival. It was the Old Testament that he taught from. And it was the Old Testament that he himself fulfilled.
“We come to prayer, aware of urgent needs, or at least wants. It’s tempting to race through the Lord’s Prayer, as far as ‘on earth as it is in heaven’, so that we can then take a deep breath and say ‘Now look here: when it comes to daily bread, there are some things I simply must have. And then off we go into a shopping list. To do this, of course, is to let greed get in the way of grace.’”
The Lord’s Prayer is not a buffet where we pick and choose individual elements that appeal to us.
“Failure to forgive one another wasn’t a matter of failing to live up to a new bit of moral teaching. It was cutting off the branch you were sitting on.”
Each element is essential to a life in Jesus’ kingdom economy.
As Wright points out, “The imagery of Christmas Eve, such as hasn’t been obliterated in our world by frantic preparations for the next day, properly includes the sense of the deep darkness before dawn, darkness before the Morning Star rises.” And yet, while Jesus was the light of the world, the light indeed shone in darkness (John 1:5). So, when Jesus reached the culminating point of his earthly ministry, we see him again, facing the darkness with prayer:
“In Gethsemane, Jesus shrank from drinking the cup held out to him. But he turned that shrinking into agonised prayer, until finally he stretched out his hands, in obedience, to take the poisoned chalice. ‘Behold, the handmaid of the Lord’—and, now, behold her son. This is what obedience looks like when it stares evil in the face.”
“This concluding doxology doesn’t appear in the best manuscripts of either Matthew or Luke, and it is only comparatively recently, in the last few centuries, that it has been restored to the liturgy of the Western church. But it was already well established within a century or so of Jesus’ day; and it is actually inconceivable, within the Jewish praying styles of his day, that Jesus would have intended the prayer to stop simply with ‘deliver us from evil’. Something like this must have been intended from the beginning.”
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Read these, and other valuable insights for yourself. Get the Lord’s Prayer completely free, now through the end of May!
All through April, you can get Isaiah by Brevard Childs for free!
The book of Isaiah is central to understanding the Old Testament prophets and helps us appreciate other Major Prophets like Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. It informs our view of sin in the Old Testament, and plays a major role in the New Testament gospel message.
Now through the end of the month we’re giving away this great book. You can also add a commentary on Jeremiah for $0.99.
Get both books today for 99 cents.
One important insight from Isaiah revolves around the meaning of sin. For example, we often hear that “sin” is merely “missing the mark.” Dr. Childs, however, argues that:
The term sin (ḥaṭṭā’āh) is not a deviation from some ideal norm, or simply missing the mark, as often suggested, but in the context is directly related to rebellion against God by Israel’s action.
This clearly fits within the context of Isaiah where the people have not only “missed the mark” but have completely turned their backs on YHWH. With this commentary, you can gain additional insights into the meaning in the original text.
Download Childs’ commentary on Isaiah for free!
The New Testament takes many of its messianic quotes from the book of Isaiah. A quick Passage Guide, run in Logos Bible Software, shows over 15 quotations from the book of Isaiah in the Gospel of Mark alone.
The Gospel writers had a deep understanding of the Prophet Isaiah. They themselves were living in the aftermath of Israel’s sin: an oppressive Roman regime.
Before reading these important quotations in a gospel context, it’s important to go back and understand them as they pertained to the original audience. This exciting literary commentary allows you to do just that.
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This seven-volume series of The Old Testament Library offers powerful commentary, exegesis, and literary insight into some of the most critical writings in the Old Testament. With over 3,000 pages of rich scholarship, The Old Testament Library Series (OTL) is worthy of a prominent place in your modern biblical library.
This collection is a $229.95 value—enter to win it below!
All through March, you can get 1 Corinthians by Roy A. Harrisville for free!
Paul’s letters to the Corinthians are incredibly relevant to today’s church member. The disunity and conflict common to the Corinthians church, still plagues congregations today. Contemporary Christians face a culture bent on imposing its views of sexuality, marriage, and morality. All this and more is discussed in 1 Corinthians.
Now through the end of the month we’re giving away a commentary on this important book of Scripture. You can also add a commentary on 2 Corinthians for $0.99.
Get both books today for 99 cents.
These two commentaries, authored by respected scholars, offer solid insights into the situation at Corinth. In 1 Corinthians 3:5–9, Paul writes regarding the role of God’s servants:
What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? They are servants through whom you believed, and each has the role the Lord has given. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. Now the one planting and the one watering are one in purpose, and each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God’s coworkers. You are God’s field, God’s building. (HCSB)
Paul uses agricultural imagery to explain the various roles played by God’s coworkers. While this would be very familiar for the original audience, it requires some unpacking for most of us today. Roy Harrisville, author of the 1 Corinthians volume, notes:
The reference to reward (RSV: wages) is jarring. It summons up the ancient notion of a day when punishment or bliss would be meted out according to whether the evil or good done in this life had tipped the scales. Verses 10–17 make clear that for Paul that Day and each shall receive his ‘reward’ were still correlative.
Fortunately, as believers, we are not judged on our merits. Harrisville continues with an incredible devotional thought:
Grace is the giver, grace the empowerer, but never in the abstract, never in the timeless, always in the temporal, historical, and for this reason spelling “labor,” for each to whom “the Lord has given” is never done with doing, since grace is never done with seizing. And if “each will have his own reward” that can only mean that grace is not a possession but a continually being possessed, through a word needing continually to be heard—for we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building (v. 8).
With verse-by-verse commentary, the Augsburg commentaries on 1 and 2 Corinthians allow you to quickly understand the background and intended meaning of the Apostle Paul, as he writes to this body of believers.
The Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament traces the influence of Scripture on important influences throughout church history, such as Augustine, Luther, Barth, and more. After you download your free book (and get another for $0.99) enter to win the entire 15-volume commentary set—that’s a $229 value!
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