Esther

1:4 – some party – 180 days! And the public bash – for seven days!

1:8 – people felt obligated to drink there was so much provided (sounds like some parties I've seen and heard of). Separate party for the ladies – I wonder why!

1:17 – the male chauvinist's text – if the Queen gets away with not strip-she teasing in public, then all the wives will get uppity"

1:20 – "... all women will give honour to their husbands, high and low!" I love it – what a Mother's Day text! It even beats Charlie Newcomb's challenge to preach that service on "you cows of Bashan!"

2:1 –Ah! The meat market – round up some chicks!

2:7 – a couple of cousins with an age spread – one raised the other (adopted her)

2:8 – Esther taken as Queen.

2:9 – the ultimate beauty pageant!

2:10 – keeping your faith in your pocket for advancement purposes.

2:18 –Ah! – the fun of a novelist – the imagery for a party – remission of taxes – we should suggest that for the coronation of the next king or the next royal marriage (let them pay for a few things for a change).

3:2 – Haman was the "typical Gentile fit only for destruction" so why should he bow down before him. Under pressure he said he was a Jew (second commandment) (versus that he disrespected the man).

3:8, 9 – a booty cut, an appeal to King's profit motive. King maybe was a giver?

3:15 – "and the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was perplexed"!

4:8 – "he broke her anonymity"

4:13 – wake up lady! Help is from God is implied (and he will get through) – kick in or take the consequences. Cf. a lot of Jesus’ stories – pee get off the pot.

4:13b – "and who knows, perhaps you have been called to the kingdom for just such a time as this". How many thousand sermons have kicked off on that line?!

4:14 – okay – kick it into high gear guys – fast etc. I'm going to need a Turbo-boost!

4:16 – if I perish, I perish (she will anyway – cf. 1st Kings 6 – "why sit we here till we die?"

Chapter 5 – rising suspense through delayed request and rise of Haman (and his hatred).

6:1 – can't sleep – like Sun center – one thing an alcoholic doesn't like is facing himself – God, the un-settler!

6:7ff – this is quite a good "short story" with its irony etc. and as a parable is quite meaningful – love the irony here.

7:5 – he is made out to not know the details and implications of this civil-service action – like Cpl. Reilly getting signatures on "M*A*S*H"

7:8 – the snowball goes the other way

8:17 – the resurgence of institutional religion in this author – oh well!

10:1 – what a sick book and ending – Jews rise to power at the expense of Gentiles – nice hero.

– nowhere near the heights that other stuff in the Old Testament rises to.

– but perhaps a reminder that for Jews and Gentiles, Christians and non-Christians, there is "squalor of life" aplenty and that the salvation of God through Christ is grounded and rooted in the ugly reality of sin and attitudes expressed in this story.

– "saved from what?" is amply answered here.

– "came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity"

– "admitted that the above life ("mine") is unmanageable and I'm powerless over" the various evil forces at work in it.

"We fight not against flesh and blood" etc.

"Therefore put on the whole armour of God" etc.

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