The Message of Esther: God Present but Unseen (The Bible Speaks Today | BST)

por David G. Firth

Editorial:

Inter-Varsity

, 2010

Overview

By any assessment, Esther is a rather strange book to find in the Bible. Not only is it, along with Daniel, the only books of the Bible to be set entirely outside of the Promised Land, it also shows no interest in that land. Esther is the only book in the Bible which definitely does not mention God. None of this should be taken as meaning that the book has no theological intention. On the contrary, it has a developed theology, but it is a theology which operates precisely because it does not mention God directly.

David Firth explores this paradoxically important book and its implications for our own contemporary context, where the reality of God’s presence is experienced against a backdrop of God’s relative anonymity and seeming absence.

Key Features

• Applies the truth of Scripture to everyday life in the contemporary world
• Engages a variety of readers with accessible, nontechnical language
• Analyzes the flow of thought in passage-by-passage exposition of Old Testament books
• Provides insightful treatment of key themes

Contents

Top Highlights

“Esther is the only book in the Bible which definitely does not mention God” (Page 19)

“God continues to work in and through his people, often in ways we cannot immediately discern” (Page 58)