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King Lemuel’s Mother has given him sound advice about addictions and lusts, that is, anything that distracts him from the main concerns of God, what we often call the laws and commandments of the Lord. I would emphasize that we have learned from Jeremiah that God gives these laws not because he is a tyrant, but because they are for our own good. Following them leads to a lasting relationship with God as well as an inclusive and supportive society. Thus, we refuse to follow Go

I welcome Guest Author for today’s devotional: Samantha Owen. If you are a woman who has spent any amount of time around the church, you will have at one time or another been invited to a women’s conference or Bible study where you will have heard about the “Proverbs 31” woman. (Cue the eye rolls.) She is presented as the ultimate standard of biblical womanhood, the metric by which each woman ought to measure and judge herself– devoted, diligent, family-oriented, and busines

Teachings that King Solomon attributed to King Lemuel’s mother began by emphasizing the dangers of living a desire-driven life. It is difficult to avoid that in today’s culture with songs, movies, and advertising all pushing the idea of constant and immediate self-satisfaction as the standard of the good life. Buy this, order that, do this, dress for success. If that is not happening, then you are not a happening person; or so they say. “For the wicked boast of the desires of

Last week we were introduced to someone we did not know; King Lemuel or Chief Lemuel, probably the leader of a clan outside the Israelites, but still one of the children of Abraham, just not a child of the Isaac–Jacob line that leads to the Israelites. King Solomon collected wisdom sayings, mostly his own, but he also added at the end Lemuel’s mother's teachings. Though not in the Hebrew tradition, wisdom is wisdom, and all wisdom is God’s wisdom. Lemuel’s mother’s first tea

The glorious story of Esther comprises the book of Esther which, in the Christian arrangement of Bible books, comes at the end of the Historical books (Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah) and at the beginning of the Writings or more poetic books (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs). Therefore, in our series on “Women with a Story to Tell,” it is appropriate to find our next woman with a story to tell in Proverbs. Proverb is the word w

This is the way that empires work, including sprawling nation states like China, Russia, and the United States. First, they control on their citizenry through the use of census data, the classification of kinds of people which is useful for dividing and manipulating the population, the management of news and information including undermining the free press and overwhelming the media with their own propaganda, and the suppression of dissent including shutting down the venues f

Esther and Mordecai have pulled off the first step of a rescue operation by discovering and removing an obstacle to God’s plans for the remaining children of Israel. Mordecai had conceived a diabolical plan, a final solution to the “Jewish problem.” Of course, the language has similarities to Nazi Germany, and the problem was not a Jewish problem but rather a Gentile problem. Their problem was race hatred aka ethnocentrism. The key person in this ancient story was a governmen

The cat is out of the bag. What was hidden has seen the light of day. The king flushes so hot with anger that he goes outside into the garden to cool down a bit. Now he has a real problem; his chief advisor may implicate him in a personal plot to endanger a certain group of people. Further, it turns out that Queen Esther is a member of that group. What can he do? ” The king rose from the feast in wrath and went into the palace garden, but Haman stayed to beg his life from Qu

The king has shown kindness to Esther and invited her to come into the court. Now she is at the height of power, before the ruler of the largest empire of its time. Under Xerxes (c. 475; or some argue that it was later under Artaxerxes) the empire stretched from Libya to Pakistan and encompassed around 50 million people. Much of the empire was made up of conquered and displaced peoples (the Persian homeland is only Iran), but the empire was also known for its religious tole

Esther is standing in the outer courts waiting for Ahasuerus (Xerxes), King of Persia, to notice her. If he is not in a good mood, it could go badly for Esther. If he reaches out his scepter, then she is recognized and welcomed into his presence. Her heart races, emotions swirl inside her as she tries to look composed yet in urgent need. How did she get here? A racist government official has convinced the king to let him issue a decree (thus keeping the king’s name out of it

When I started this sub-series on Esther, I told you that her given name was Hadassah “myrtle.” This family of trees gives us several essential oils Notice that Isaiah 41: 19 implies that God will plant useful trees in the wilderness, “the cedar, the myrtle, and the olive” (See also Isaiah 55: 13). As she rises in the Persian hierarchy, her name is changed to ‘Esther’ which is a form of Ishtar, a Mesopotamian goddess recognized by several cultures. Since Persian is an Indo-E

King David’s downfall was his illicit affair with Bathsheba. David’s power met his lust and in his self-serving the woman became pregnant and the husband was killed to cover it up. “The thing that David had done displeased the LORD.” Bathsheba then gave birth to their son, but the child “became very ill.” David fasted and prayed; he even lay all night on the cold floor, to the dismay of his counselors. The child died anyway. David then rose up, washed, changed his clothes,

In the 1800s, Christian missionaries from England and Australia sailed to the South Seas to preach the Gospel and gain converts. Often new converts joined them in spreading the Good News to the next islands. The London Missionary Society, the Church Missionary Society, and the Wesleyan Methodists all sent missionaries who began in the east (Tahiti and the Cook Islands) and sailed across Polynesia to the west (Tonga, Samoa, and Fiji). Catechisms were developed and schools were

“So much death. What can men do against such reckless hate?” So said King Theoden of Rohan. “Ride out with me. Ride out and meet them,” answered Aragorn, the returning king of Gondor (Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien). One could ignore the threat and hope that it goes away. With the Nazis, it just got worse. Or, one could find a place to hide and hope that, if trouble comes, one could keep on fleeing from danger. In our days of immediate communication and rapid transport

Last week we learned that Esther and Mordecai are in trouble; there is a substantial threat to their lives, and it comes, of all places, from the government. How did this happen? What will Esther and Mordecai do? My friend Bill Mefford (The Fig Tree Revolution: Unleashing Local Churches into the Mission of Justice, 2017) points out that their antagonist, Haman the Agagite, is skilled in using the strategies of racism fanning the flames of hatred of certain ethnic groups in

We have been introduced to Esther and her adopted father Mordecai. Mordecai was one of the captives of the war with Babylon which Judah lost, along with his cousins who were the parents of Esther. Esther herself likely was born in captivity in Persia, but there is no ‘birthright citizenship’ in this evil empire. Esther and Mordecai are Jews, but the Jews are among dozens of ethnic groups that have been captured and enslaved by the Persians. The Jews are keeping a low profil

What does God have in store for the woman Esther, a captive Jewish slave in one of the strongest and most extensive empires to ever exist? ”Now there was a Jew in the citadel of Susa whose name was Mordecai … a Benjaminite who had been carried away from Jerusalem among the captives carried away with King Jeconiah of Judah … (by) King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon…. He had brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his cousin, for she had neither father nor mother; the young woman was

Hadassah, ‘myrtle’, that is her given name, but we know her as Esther, ‘the star’. The book, Esther, is one of only two books in the Bible that are named for a woman. The other book is Ruth, whose story we have already considered in this series of devotionals about women in the Bible. We will have several devotionals about Esther, the people around her, her social and political context, and why she is an outstanding woman. It is a complex and revealing story. I should note u

Time is running out on the kingdom of Judah; the only political stronghold left to the people of Israel since the northern kingdom was destroyed and dispersed in 721 BC. Today’s story occurs about 100 years later, specifically 640 to 609 BC, during the reign of King Josiah of Judah. Judah is on a downhill skid, more like a roller coaster ride; down, then up, down, down, then up, etc. Soon the downs will overcome the ups and Judah will also disappear from the map. After tha

Last Sunday at the end of the service, we sat in the pews for the Postlude, as we always do because we have a wonderful organist. The organ rang with a rather bombastic song, so I looked to see what he was playing. It was the March from Athalia by F. Mendelssohn. Now, any other time in my life I probably would have shrugged my shoulders, said “That’s nice,” then walked back to greet the pastor. Instead, when I got up and walked toward the front, Teresa said, “Where are you