2023-Q4-L12: Esther and Mordecai

Read for This Week’s Study: Daniel 1:1-12; Daniel 6:1-9; Esther 2:1-10,20; Esther 3:1-15; Esther 4:1-14; Esther 9:1-12.

Memory Text: “ ‘I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth’ ” (Isaiah 49:6, NRSV).

Notes

• Mordecai: (early) Don't tell anybody that you are a Jew.
• Mordecai: (later) Tell the king that you are a Jew
• Hagar. Amalekites.
• Mordecai. Tribe of Benjamin, son of Kish, were king Saul came. (1 Sam. 9; Esther 2:5).
• 2 Samuel 1. The Amalekite lies about killing Saul.
• 1 Chronicles 10. Saul's real method of death.

SUNDAY. Captive in a Foreign Culture.

From the lesson: Esther and Mordecai, her cousin, were Jews living in the capital of the Persian Empire, Susa. For whatever reason, unlike other Jews who had returned to Judah, they, along with others, remained in the land of their captivity.

None of us, for instance, lives in an Adventist country where the principles of our faith are, to some degree, the law of the land. But before being deported, the Jewish people had been living in their own country, where the principles of their faith were also enshrined in the law of the land.

On one level, think how easy that should have made it to be faithful to God. After all, how much easier would it be to keep the seventh-day Sabbath if, in fact, keeping the seventh-day Sabbath were enshrined in the legal codes of the nation? [The truth is the opposite]

Notes

• Not where they were supposed to be.
• Examples: Esther and Mordecai. Jacob on his flight north. Jonah flees. Elijah flees. Samson deviation to the Philistines.
• On the Sabbath being the law of the land, how is it that they were unfaithful to the "law of the land" and taken captive to Babylon.
• The truth is the opposite: When you make laws to enforce Sabbath worship or even Sunday worshiop, it incites unspirituality and rebellion.
• When one makes religious laws, one opens the way for religious intolerance and works-based faith.

MONDAY. In a Foreign Court

TUESDAY. Mordecai’s Faithful Witness

WEDNESDAY. For Such a Time as This

THURSDAY. The Miracle of Purim

FRIDAY. Further Thought: “To every household and every school, to every parent, teacher, and child upon whom has shone the light of the gospel, comes at this crisis the question put to Esther the queen at that momentous crisis in Israel’s history, ‘Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?’ Esther 4:14Open in Logos Bible Software (if available).”—Ellen G. White, Education, p. 263.

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