My Favorite Book of Scripture

What book of Scripture do I enjoy reading the most? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I figured I’d write something on my favorite book of the Bible since I don’t think I have done that before. Now some of you are already trying to guess, which is fine. I would do the same thing. Is it one of the Gospels? Maybe it’s the adventure of Acts. Maybe it’s one of the epistles. Perhaps you like the idea of end-times in Revelation?

No to all of those.

Well, maybe you like one of the prophets most like Isaiah. Maybe you like the Exodus account or maybe you like Song of Songs so much or Proverbs. Again, these are all good guesses, but they are still wrong. The one I like most is one most of us don’t think about, but we should.

As a child going through Scripture for the first time from Genesis to Revelation, I came across the book of Esther not knowing anything about it. As I started reading through it, I could not stop. It was like reading an adventure novel and I had to know how the story turned out. I read it all in one sitting.

Today when I get to that book, it is still a great moment of joy for me. This book is full of excitement and I have been going through it at night though using my main method of two verses at a time so I can think even better about it. I have not been disappointed so far.

Something fascinating about the book also is that God is absent in the book. Well, He’s absent in name. Now I know some people say if you go back to the original languages and look a certain way, God is smuggled in. They could be right, but the name of God does not really appear written in a normal way. God is supposedly absent, but He’s also ever-present.

When you go through the book, you see so many little coincidences that take place. What if Vashti had not refused the king’s command? Would Haman have succeeded in his plot? What if Mordecai had not reported to Esther about the officials wanting to assassinate the king? What if the king had not had insomnia and asked the royal records to be read to him?

There is also great irony in that everything is reversed. The villain of the story gets what he has coming to him. The Jews who are the victims at the start turn out to be the victors. Mordecai who refuses to honor Haman is himself given great honor recognizable by all.

Also interesting to me is that Esther is described as a very beautiful woman, which I don’t doubt was essential to her winning the heart of the king. One of the highest compliments the Bible usually gives to a woman is to describe her as beautiful. Beautiful women play a part in influencing the society around them as today for good or for evil.

God’s absence is something I think important to this story. It’s how we will look at our own lives one day. Events that seem random and unrelated at the time will one day turn out to be greatly related. We often don’t know what God is doing going into a situation. It’s coming out that we know what’s going on.

I hope I have encouraged you if you haven’t read this book of Scripture to read it. I think Christians should read all of Scripture. There are parts that we will honestly like more than others. For me, Esther is my favorite one to go through. I wind up wondering about events going on in my own life and how those can be working together for a greater good I cannot fathom.

In Christ,
Nick Peters