Yes, today I did my best to sell you on the idea that this whole Esther story is awesome.

And I don't want to give it all away because it's going to be fun to get into all of the

details of it and to leave a little bit of surprise here and there.

But hopefully I made my case that this is a great story, whether you think there's a God or not,

whether you're into the Bible or not, whether you even know stuff about the rest of the Bible or

not, whether you're into history or not, at its most basic level. This is an amazing story

of an underdog who finds himself in a very difficult, very high-stake situation.

And this underdog, Esther, has access to the people who make the big decisions and have the power.

But she doesn't have a ton of power herself. She's going to have to depend on shrewdness and cleverness

and even something bigger than herself if she is going to overcome all odds and defeat the evil

bad guy who wants to inflict a horrible calamity on her people. It is a great plot and a great story.

And I think the main character of the book of Esther from a biblical theological perspective,

is the same main character as every other book in the Bible. It's God. Even though God isn't even

mentioned in this one, we'll talk about the theology of all of that and why that's the case

many, many times as we unpack this thing together. I think the second main character is clearly,

it's Esther. It's a queen. It's the main point of view character. And then I think you've got

some very important supporting characters like her cousin, an ally, Mordecai, the confused

bumbling clown king, the evil conniving villain who uses manipulation and deception to try to

carry out a great evil against Esther's people. But in terms of the pecking order, if we say God

is the main character, and Esther is the number one human character, then I think the third most

significant character in the book isn't anybody else who I just mentioned. I think it's Persia herself.

She is such an interesting historical lady as well. She's the first of the great mega empires

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