We are introduced to Mordecai and Esther. Mordecai is of a family that traces its
lineage back to Levi. Mordecai's
ancestor Shimei was a grandson of Levi. As
such they were an important family in Israel, they were temple servers, a proud
people who stood for the Lord when others were going astray. Esther was apparently a beautiful young woman
but whose life was tragic in that she was orphaned and was being raised by this
uncle Mordecai. She was taken to the
king as a potential replacement for Vashti and she was obedient to the man who
oversaw the king's young woman, a man who certainly knew the way to the king's
heart. She was chosen to be queen and
the king delighted in her. Next we are
told that Mordecai was a relatively important personage in the kingdom, sitting
in the gate as an elder. He overheard a
plot against the king and gave that information to the queen, further securing
her place in the king's heart.
Jesus is clear that He has been sent to represent the Father
and has done so faithfully. As such,
rejection of Him is rejection of the Father.
He makes perfectly clear statements and claims here, none can deny the
clarity of these claims. He did indeed
aver that He and the Father are one, He claimed equality with God. Interestingly, I was doing some research the
other day and came across some things about the Jesus Seminar, a group of
liberal "scholars" twenty years ago who decided that they would be
the final arbiters of what portions of the Bible were actually the words of Jesus
and they chose that there was only one sentence in the book of John that was
true, and that was some innocuous thing.
John's Gospel is the plainest in terms of Jesus' divinity, it is no
wonder that they decided that Jesus didn't say these things, it absolves them
of a failure of belief. Some things
never change.
Paul's speech at the Areopagus is a wonderful example of
good missionary evangelism. Paul does
not denigrate the cultural and spiritual life of the people of Athens but he
does find the place into which the Gospel can be fitted. Their framework for God was such that they
were willing to allow that they didn't know everything, much the same way
people do today with "Coexist" bumper stickers which allow that all
religions are equally valid. The issue
is that one, Christianity, claims to be true in a way that the other religions
don't. Paul speaks into that opening and
offers truth in the person of Jesus. It is,
however, offensive to the intellect of the Greeks in that resurrection from the
dead of a man crucified on a cross who is also God requires faith not simply
reason. The problem is, it is true,
there were witnesses. Truth
matters.
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