Week 21 Esther
My guess is that if a guy is living his life in the natural world and figures the natural world is pretty much all there is – no gods, no angels, no postmortem places of the dead, no supra-normals, things like that – and if that guy wanted to read a book in the bible that wasn’t cluttered up with mysterious interventions from some non-material source, then my best recommendation would be to read the book of Esther.
As far as I know God is not once mentioned in the book, so a guy could read it as an outside-influence-free book.
The story of Esther is an account of life in the Persian court in the 5th century BC. Things happen, life goes on, decisions are made, people get divorced and remarry, they act out their romantic and sexual instincts, anarchist’s plot assassinations, state history is chronicled, personal mania blossoms into an extermination campaign, an inattentive king is influenced by his right-hand guy, predatory laws are enacted.
In Esther’s book people’s lives are lived out in a normal series of events. It’s a natural story; no rabbits, no magicians hats. As great stories go, I would rate Esther as number one for the natural guy.
Note: Esther was likely one of the last books written in the OT. I figure that by that time the narrator assumed his readers would fill-in-the-blanks, could read coincidence and see purpose. Still, it’s a great natural story for the natural guy.