Church Blog (Page 3)

“Work out your own salvation.” This is an interesting thing to hear from the apostle Paul (Philippians 2:12). We usually keep work and salvation in separate arenas. Isn’t Paul the same guy who said that justification comes not through works but through faith? (Galatians 2:16) But here in Philippians 2, “work out” is exactly what it sounds like – hit the gym! Yes, salvation is an event, the event of Christ inserting himself into history in order to remove the…

As Paul uses his letter to the Philippian church to describe the joy he feels at being in prison, a joy the church is struggling to share with him, he seems to perceive their will to find out how to help him. But Paul doesn’t need help getting out of prison; he’s overjoyed at the opportunity to share the gospel with the people he’s meeting there. But the Philippians can help him in a different way. The best thing the…

In Paul’s letter to the Philippian church, we encounter a joy that’s not rooted in circumstance, a joy not subject to the roller coaster of life’s various victories and failures, a joy that reaches its perfect expression when Paul finds himself in prison. The fact of the matter is, Jesus is a threat to those in this world with too much power and money. Nothing is more terrifying to Caesar than the gospel proclamation that the world really belongs, not…

There’s always another table, isn’t there? Always another meal, another source of sustenance. The table, the place of the experience of God’s provision, never seems to stop giving, does it? It is this knowledge that allows the people of God to boldly pray, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” What more could we want? In God’s presence, and at God’s table, we lack nothing, so we want nothing. God’s desire to keep bringing us to a table,…

When we read the story of Esther, we’re seeing the will of God find its way into the world through those with limited power. Ahasuerus and Haman have unlimited power, but it is Esther and Mordecai – those who mourn, those who feel out of place, those who take risks – who carry out justice and experience victory. That being said, by the end of the story, Mordecai’s power isn’t so limited anymore. “Mordecai the Jew was next in rank…

Haman is out of the picture, but that’s not the end of the story. The Jewish people successfully (and overwhelmingly) win the battle against their attackers, but that’s not the end of the story either. Before the story can end, we must be allowed the chance to live in the new, post-conflict reality, a new equilibrium. And this new reality is built around a dinner table. The conflict happened on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, and Mordecai declares…

What makes Haman such a great villain is that even though he’s removed from the story, his poisonous hatred of Mordecai and the Jews has already managed to spread all across the Persian empire. There are many who are all too happy to carry out Haman’s plan to “kill, destroy and annihilate” the Jews when the designated time comes (the thirteenth day of the twelfth month). Esther and Mordecai wish to cancel the date of the conflict altogether, but King…

When we meet Mordecai in Esther 2, the first thing we learn about him is his family history. “Now there was a Jew in the citadel of Susa whose name was Mordecai son of Jair son of Shimei son of Kish, a Benjaminite. Kish had been carried away from Jerusalem among the captives carried away with King Jeconiah of Judah, whom King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had carried away.” (Esther 2:5-6) The story of Mordecai and his family is one of displacement.…

Once Esther musters the courage to ask on behalf of her people for an act of advocacy and liberation from the king, the tide turns immediately. The king is happy to be in his wife’s corner and happy to turn on Haman, having him executed for his violent insanity (Esther 7). In the wake of Haman’s removal from the story, the king elevates Esther and Mordecai to Haman’s former position of authority. Once again, we can hear the faint voice…

The book of Esther is a story about power run amok. King Ahasuerus throws a ridiculously indulgent party in his palace. Memucan legislates that wives are legally prohibited from defying their husbands. And Haman legislates that others must bow down to him. And when Mordecai runs afoul of Haman, Haman makes his vendetta not only against Mordecai, but against all the Jews, legislating that they are to be annihilated. This is how power behaves in the story – it behaves…

The book of Esther opens up with king Ahasuerus throwing a palace-wide party that lasts 180 days (6 months!). And at the end of 180 days, the king opens the party up to the whole capitol city for an additional seven days. For Ahasuerus, this is what it means to have power, to do as one pleases for as long as one feels like. When he is “merry with wine” he decides to summon his wife, Vashti, simply for the…

There’s a common Biblical word that is conspicuously absent in the book of Esther. The word is “God.” Yes, God is not mentioned a single time in the entire ten chapters of Esther. In one way, Esther is a kind of Exodus story – the Israelites finding themselves embedded in a hostile foreign nation and experiencing deliverance. On the other hand, the complete absence of any mention of God makes it a quite different tale than the Exodus which is…