Esther, A Heroine?

As a young girl, whenever I was told the story of Queen Esther in Sunday School, I would sit in class completely horrified at the facts being told and befuddled at the interpretation of those facts! I couldn't understand how it could be part of God's plan for a woman to be the wife of an ungodly narcissist who sleeps with a multitude of women and who got rid of his first wife because she refused to be paraded in front of a group of drunken men. I also couldn't understand why her uncle, Mordecai, who supposedly loved and raised Esther as his own, would support this. If I was Esther I would have felt used, betrayed, and debased.

Esther may have been a heroine in the world's eyes, but she was not a heroine for a godly young woman to aspire to. Both Mordecai and Esther should have trusted God to intervene, but neither God nor prayer is ever mentioned in any of the nine chapters of Esther. I know for certain God would never ask any woman to use her sexuality to accomplish His goals and marry such a wicked man, or ask any person to go against His holy character and standards to fulfill His plan. I see the book of Esther only as a historic account of how the Jews were saved during the reign of King Xerxes, where two people executed their own plan without God — but not, I am sure, without personal negative consequences.

The Lord God is almighty, for nothing is impossible with Him.

"For nothing is impossible with God."

Luke 1:37 (NIV)

He is also holy, holy, holy!

"'Holy, holy, holy

is the Lord God Almighty,'

who was, and is,

and is to come."

Revelations 4:8b (NIV)

As Christians we need to study God's Word carefully and not allow man's past misconceptions of Scripture to cloud our thinking, and not instill wrong ideas of God in others. The only hero any man or woman should ever have is God alone.