The Living Word for Sunday, September 26, 2021, is a non-denominational Bible study which relies on the Bible explaining the Bible, uninfluenced by any church’s traditions or preferences, and following the Bible’s sequence of progressive revelation. Read the whole passage first and let the Holy Spirit begin speaking to you through it, then go deeper with the verse by verse commentary and reflections. The week’s readings are as set by the Revised Common Lectionary, an inter-denominational resource shared by many different churches and chapels. The Bible version, widely used in contemporary churches, is the NIV © Biblica. Ref TLW38B
Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22 — Esther petitions to spare her people
Mark 9:38-50 — Choose to deal with sin and gain eternal life
James 5:13-20 — How to experience the abundant life of the kingdom
And also read: Psalm 124
Theme: God is for us and we experience that when we choose to live for Him
- See also this week’s article Choose Life which draws out and bring together the teaching of these three passages.
Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22 — Esther petitions to spare her people
God delivers the lives of His people through her courage in exposing Haman
1-2 So the king and Haman went to Queen Esther’s banquet, and as they were drinking wine on the second day, the king again asked, “Queen Esther, what is your petition? It will be given you. What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted.”
“What is your petition… it will be given…” – Esther‘s delaying tactics overcome the king’s royal indifference.
3-4 Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favour with you, Your Majesty, and if it pleases you, grant me my life — this is my petition. And spare my people — this is my request. For I and my people have been sold to be destroyed, killed and annihilated. If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet, because no such distress would justify disturbing the king.”
“Have been sold” — a decree made as a result of the huge bribe Haman offered to the king, Esther 3:9, 4:7. Esther then quotes the exact terms: “destroyed, killed and annihilated”.
“Merely… sold as…slaves” – killing the Jews instead of enslaving them would lose the king the valuable asset of their labour. For comparison, ESV “Our affliction is not to be be compared with the loss to the king.”
5 King Xerxes asked Queen Esther, “Who is he? Where is he — the man who has dared to do such a thing?”
6 Esther said, “An adversary and enemy! This vile Haman!”
A fitting retort to Haman’s invective, “that Jew Mordecai”, Esther 5:13, 6:10. Later (in the omitted verse 8) there is irony as Haman falls before the Jewess Esther, because the plot to exterminate the Jews stemmed from Mordecai’s refusal to bow before Haman, Esther 3:1-6.
Then Haman was terrified before the king and queen.
“Terrified” – intense, paralysing fear, as when King David encountered a sword-bearing angel at Araunah’s threshing floor, or Daniel before the angel Gabriel, 1 Chron. 21:30, Dan. 8:17.
9 Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs attending the king, said, “A pole reaching to a height of fifty cubits stands by Haman’s house. He had it set up for Mordecai, who spoke up to help the king.”
“Harbona” – the courtier introduces a second charge, Haman conspiring to kill the king’s benefactor. Mordecai had revealed an earlier plot against the king’s life, Esther 6:1-3.
The king said, “Impale him on it!”
10 So they impaled Haman on the pole he had set up for Mordecai. Then the king’s fury subsided.
“On the pole he had set up” – cause and effect divine retribution can be in our present lives, as Job 4:8, Psalm 7:15-16, Proverbs 26:27 and NT reference Gal. 6:7-8 amounting to a foretaste of the final judgment, the view of Obadiah 15, Revelation 22:11-15.
20-22 Mordecai recorded these events, and he sent letters to all the Jews throughout the provinces of King Xerxes, near and far, to have them celebrate annually the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar as the time when the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month when their sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a day of celebration. He wrote them to observe the days as days of feasting and joy and giving presents of food to one another and gifts to the poor.
“Mordecai recorded these events” — the official letters he sent, with other recollections added, may have become the Book of Esther.
“Celebrate… the fourteenth and fifteenth days” — today Purim (lots) recalls both days on which the rural Jews celebrated their deliverance, and a day later in the city of Susa.
Reflection
SUMMARY Persian astrologers used the pur, lot, to choose the most opportune time to do something. In this case, Haman had favour at court to offer the king a huge bribe to issue an edict calling for the destruction of all the Jewish exiles (this was in the year 474 BC). But the lot was ultimately decided by God in a deliverance with echoes of the passage through the Red Sea.
APPLICATION Today, the nation’s providential deliverance from a death sentence is celebrated in the Jewish festival Purim in late winter/early spring. We draw from this that God’s purposes are good, He holds His people in His hand — and He acts to give life to His own.
QUESTION What helps you, and what holds you back, from trusting that God is for you?
Mark 9:38-50 — Choose to deal with sin and gain eternal life
Follow God’s way with your whole heart and don’t cause others to stumble
38 “Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in Your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”
The disciples’ preoccupation with status, a Jewish trait seen most in the Pharisees and teachers of the law, had already been confronted by Jesus in verses 33-37. It fostered a narrowly judgmental view of discipleship and who did or didn’t belong.
39-41 “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in My name can in the next moment say anything bad about Me, for whoever is not against us is for us. Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in My name because you belong to the Messiah, will certainly not lose their reward.
“Do not stop him” — in the context of someone who has already received Jesus and is therefore able to minister in His name. The saying in Matt. 12:30 appears to contradict this but the context is different, those who are very much in opposition to Jesus.
42-43 “If anyone causes one of these little ones — those who believe in Me — to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.
“Millstone” – turned by a donkey to grind grain. A small one would weigh half a ton.
“Thrown into the sea… cut it off” – figurative exaggerations to make a memorable point. Sin calls for a willingness to undergo radical ‘spiritual surgery’.
45 “And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell.
“Enter life crippled” — repentance, like all change, involves some loss and pain, but far better this than the prospect of hell.
47-48 “And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where ‘the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.’
“Thrown into hell” – literally “thrown into Gehenna”, the ravine valley of Hinnom, the putrid maggot-infested garbage dump outside Jerusalem where refuse burned continually, and historically a place of pagan human sacrifice, Jer. 7:30-34. A powerful image of the horror of eternal damnation.
49 “Everyone will be salted with fire.
“Everyone” — every believer will “come through fire” in life’s trials which purify and deepen faith. Unbelievers will face the eternal fire of God’s judgment.
50 “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”
“Salt…saltiness” – genuine Christian character has a purifying influence anywhere, unless it loses its distinctive edge. Salt mined from the Dead Sea often contained gypsum that lacked the taste and effect of the real thing.
Reflection
SUMMARY A preoccupation with who was ‘in’ and who was ‘out’ led the disciples to be judgmental of some righteous people who appeared to be entering the kingdom of heaven, as ‘outsiders’, while they themselves were in contention about who was most important, Mark 9:33-35.
APPLICATION We, if we are believers, are trusted to be good mentors of others who are finding Jesus and His way, and to to stand up against all that is selfish and dishonest or immoral. Such tendencies have to be addressed, and sin radically renounced and removed. Scandals in parts of the church today which have been covered up bring this home. To hold a position and ‘talk the talk’ while failing to ‘walk the walk’ will bring its own judgment.
QUESTION What in my life is causing the ‘salt’ of Jesus truth and nature to become insipid?
James 5:13-20 — How to experience the abundant life of the kingdom
Confess sins and pray for each other with the faith that Elijah demonstrated
13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise.
“In trouble” – ‘suffering’ in some versions, but the meaning is broader than physical sickness.
14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.
“Call the elders of the church” — the Bible knows nothing of ‘one person ministry’. The presumption in the early church was of several persons of wisdom and spiritual maturity to call on.
“Anoint… with oil in the name of the Lord” — oil was used medicinally but this is bringing the sick person before the Lord in faith for His merciful consideration and healing, Mark 6:13 (not a ‘last rite’ because they are dying).
15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.
“Prayer offered in faith” — ‘prayer of faith’, ESV, implies a more authoritative declaration style of prayer than asking (e.g. “Your kingdom come!”) based on precedents and promises drawn from Scripture. The prayer of faith is often allied with the prayer of agreement, Matt. 18:19 in Jesus’ words, “Where two on earth agree… it shall be done for them.”
16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
“Confess your sins” – the Bible teaches that there can be a cause-and-effect relationship between sin and physical sickness, John 5:14, but not always, John 9:1-3. Repentance for sin in the community is a prelude to healing in the community, 1 Cor. 11:30.
“Prayer of a righteous person” — preparation before praying for healing, allied to confession of sin and the prayer of faith. For this kind of prayer to be powerful and authoritative, those praying need to affirm their position and reliance on Christ and be free from unconfessed sin.
17-18 Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
“Elijah… even as we are” — revered as one who worked signs and wonders, but here depicted as a regular person who, however, prayed earnestly. The drought of “three and a half years”, 1 Kings 17-18, is symbolic of judgment (half of seven, Dan. 7:25, 12:7, Rev. 11:2; 12:6,14). The point James makes is that we, not necessarily elders, can pray bold prayers and be heard in heaven.
19-20 My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.
“Remember this” — the jump in logic shows these verses (like the opening James 1:2-4) are ‘bookends’ which close the letter.
SUMMARY The Letter of James is written to encourage believers as those born again into new life in Jesus, to take hold of what is theirs and to avoid common pitfalls, deceptions — and sin. All of this has a bearing on maintaining a confidence in God while facing trials and disappointments.
APPLICATION Physical, emotional and spiritual healing are all part of the New Covenant in Jesus, but need to be grasped in faith, and any sin issues which may give the devil legal rights to oppress, brought honestly into the light. This part of the letter offers a practical ‘how to’ in seeking God’s freedom from sickness, praying the Prayer of Faith, with the empowering of the Holy Spirit implied throughout the letter.
QUESTION To balance our stories about longed-for healing that hasn’t worked out as we hoped, what accounts can you share of when God did show up and heal — perhaps unexpectedly?
PRAYER Lord, looking onto Your eyes is looking into life itself. Help and empower us to be people of the New Life – and life-givers to others who in their pain may need our faith exercised on their behalf. In Jesus we pray, Amen.
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