Inconspicuous Providence: The Gospel according to Esther (Gospel according to the Old Testament)
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Overview
The book of Esther often seems like an anomaly. This book of the Bible never overtly mentions God or his direct intervention. However, Esther’s story feels closest to many Christians’ own experience. Few have experienced a dramatic divine intervention. Our world today seems just as secular as Esther’s did then. Moderns are tempted to ask of her world and our own—where is God in all this? If he is real, why doesn’t he show himself? Bryan Gregory reveals to his readers how Esther’s literary techniques depict God’s “absent presence” and “hidden involvement.” These subtle devices remind readers that while God appears uninvolved, he is at work behind the scenes to accomplish his purposes and to deliver his people—ultimately making himself clearly known in Christ.
Top Highlights
“The third technique, which is much more subtle, is the use of the protagonist’s name, which provides a hint of a divine hand that is hidden, yet active.” (Page 7)
“Esther took up sackcloth and ashes, entering into death symbolically, but Jesus took up the beams and the nails, entering into death literally.8 Esther responded in her defining moment with the knowledge that she might perish, but Jesus responded with the knowledge that he would perish.” (Pages 84–85)
“but Christ is also the ultimate embodiment of God’s particular pattern of deliverance in Esther” (Page 19)
“First, Christ is the ultimate revelation of God’s hidden presence in the world” (Page 13)
“By most people’s accounting, that is simply how the world works, and because it is, it is also easy to understand how many Christians end up being more or less functional deists, believing that God exists and is ‘up there,’ but going about the normal matters of daily life as if he were not really involved much at all.” (Page 3)
- Title: Inconspicuous Providence: The Gospel according to Esther
- Author: Bryan R. Gregory
- Series: The Gospel according to the Old Testament
- Publisher: P&R
- Print Publication Date: 2014
- Logos Release Date: 2017
- Era: era:contemporary
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subject: Bible. O.T. Esther › Commentaries
- ISBNs: 9781596387904, 9781596387911, 9781596387928, 1596387904, 1596387912, 1596387920
- Resource ID: LLS:GSPLOTESTHER
- Resource Type: Bible Commentary
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-10-05T17:16:35Z
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