1: Imagine we are in a church. We see a table of books. We wander over. There’s a book titled The Man God Uses or The Woman God Uses.
What do we assume about this book?
Probably, it’s about a missionary. Perhaps a church leader.
Yet, when we read the Bible, we see God works through all sorts of ordinary people.
“It is often hard to get Christians to see that God is willing not just to use men and women in ministry, but in law, in medicine, in business, in the arts,” says Dick Lucas, an English Anglican preacher in Tim Keller‘s Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work.
No more so than the story of Esther in the Old Testament.
Which is “an extended case study on the themes of self-interest, power, and vocation,” Tim writes.
The story begins with the Persian emperor, King Xerxes, disposing of his Queen Vashti “because she was too bold and displeased him,” Tim recounts.
“He looks for another queen and discovers Esther, a beautiful young Jewish girl.” They become intimate. Before long, she is the queen of the royal palace.
All the while, Esther hides her Jewish identity.
“Almost all readers of this story are offended by this early part of the book of Esther,” Tim notes. “Feminist interpreters are outraged at Esther’s subservience. Others are offended by the fact that unlike Daniel, who identified himself as a Jew and lived as one publicly in a pagan court, Esther keeps quiet. People of traditional moral views are bothered that she sleeps with a man to whom she is not married.”
The question is: “In such morally, culturally, and spiritually ambiguous situations, does God still work with us and through us?”
The short answer: Yes.
What happens next? Haman, a high-ranking official, convinces the king that the Jews are a danger to the Persian empire.
He secures a royal decree “that on a future date, neighbors of Jewish families throughout the realm will be free to kill them and plunder their wealth,” Tim writes.
Esther’s relative, Mordecai, a Jewish leader, contacts her. He tells her she must take action and use her power as queen to avert this danger.
“This is a huge request,” Tim notes. “Here a believer in God, whose place of power in the public sphere is tenuous, is being called to use her personal and cultural capital to bring about a more just social order.”
And Esther’s concerns are justified. If she falls out of favor with the king, she will likely lose her life. Tim writes: “Surely Esther is remembering that the last queen was deposed because she was too bold! Mordecai doesn’t know what he is asking of her; she could lose everything.”
She tells Mordecai that it is a capital offense for anyone to approach the king without an invitation: “. . . unless the king extends the gold scepter to them and spares their lives. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king” (Esther 4:11).
2: Mordecai says to her, “And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”
“He is reminding Esther that she did not get to the palace except by grace,” Tim notes. “She did not develop or earn her beauty, nor did she produce this opportunity; they were given to her.”
Tim recounts a sermon he once heard from a Hispanic pastor preaching on the book of Esther.
“Many of his older church members had been immigrants and had little money or clout, but many of the younger generation had gone to college and had become professionals,” he writes.
“The preacher told them that even though they didn’t see it, they were in the ‘palace.’ They had more financial and cultural capital than they realized. . . He reminded them that there were poorer people across the city who needed their connections and talents. He said that inside their circles of influence and fields of work, there was corruption that needed their attention. . .
“Don’t just get into the palace and bend every rule you can to stay there,” he told them. “Serve. You have come to your royal position for such a time as this.”
3: Do Mordecai’s words have direct application to us?
Not us, we say. We bristle if someone suggests our professional accomplishments are a result of grace. They don’t know how hard we’ve worked. The sacrifices we’ve made.
“However, [we’ve] worked with talents we did not earn; they were given to us,” Tim suggests. “We went through doors of opportunity we did not produce; they just opened for us.
“Therefore, everything we have is a matter of grace, and so we have the freedom to serve the world through our influence, just as we can through our competence.”
Us? Perhaps we have some clout now, but our consciences aren’t clear. We may not have spoken up when we should have.
“Do we think Esther’s conscience was clear? Is anyone’s ever completely clear?” Tim asks.
He encourages us to push forward.
“God urges us to think about where we are and why we are there, to realize the importance of being in the palace. It’s possible that only then can He use us to His work in this world.”
More tomorrow.
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Reflection: How does Mordecai’s exhortation to Esther, “Who knows, but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” sit with me?
Action: Discuss with a family member, friend, or colleague.
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