From This Heart of Mine ...: December 2023

Friday, December 15, 2023

I Just Had to Share ... Proverbs 3:1-10

In the spirit of Titus 2:3-5, I offer these thoughts to ladies ...

As I was studying my Bible this morning, I came across this passage that I have, as you can see, marked up. Typically, when I mark in my Bible and or make notes it's because I want the verses to stand out and or remind me of what they're saying. If you are a child of God, I hope it is a sweet reminder ... if you are not, I hope it gives you just a small insight as to what you're missing!

Let's look at how I've marked these Scriptures up in Proverbs, chapter 3:1-10 ...

At the bottom of the page, which I didn't include, I have written the following ...

Verses 1-10: Notice the life blessings that come to those who choose to put the Lord first in their lives and hearts.

With this in mind, let's unpack a few things in these verses ...

look at the word 'heart' in verses 1, 3 and 5.

verse 1: let your heart keep my commandments ... do we want, with all of our heart to obey God's Word ... it's the 'want' that motivates the heart. Side note: did you know that our 'wants' can be trained and influenced by God's Word? Indeed, they can, just as they can be trained and influenced by the world ... it's our choice.

verse 3: write them on the tablet of your heart (what does this passage say to write on the tablet of our hearts ... I'll let you dig that answer out!)

verse 5: trust in the Lord with all your heart ... we must be convinced that God is the Great I AM and that He is able.

We can see already that our heart is a big player in our relationship with God, but let me insert a warning here, make sure your heart is guided by God's word. The heart is deceitful and just because we want to believe a thing, doesn't make the thing acceptable to God. (Jeremiah 17:9)

Verses 5 - 10 tell us what our part is ...

verse 5: trust in the Lord ... hmmmm, does anyone besides me ever struggle with this? That's why I constantly ask God to strengthen my weak faith and make it a priority to study God's word, I can't even do this without God's help!

verse 6: in all your ways acknowledge Him .... that's pretty self-explanatory isn't it!

verse 7: do not be wise in your own eyes ... get off the pride train if you find yourself on it!

verse 7 again: fear the Lord and turn away from evil ... respect, honor, revere; stand in awe of the Lord, recognize evil and avoid it whenever possible.

verse 9: honor the Lord from your wealth and from the first of all your produce ... there it is, put God first in your finances and in all that you have. That simply means support the spreading of God's word, make it a priority from your finances and from all that you have. I believe included in that umbrella of honoring the Lord with what we have is helping those who are truly in need as well. I know that there have been times in our lives when God has used Christians to provide for a specific unexpected need. We as Christians, not only need to intentionally plan how we're going to honor the Lord with what He's blessed us with, but we also need to be ready to be used by God to meet unexpected needs of others, especially those of faithful Christians as they become known to us. (Galatians 6:10) Without going off onto another topic, let me say that I do believe that God wants us to use discretion and be good stewards of what we have. We surely don't want to enable someone by our giving to continue in sin, do we!

There's lots more to unpack in these 10 verses, but I'll leave you to do that on your own.

I hope my thoughts in some way will make you want to seek God and study His word more; may you be blessed by what you've read.

mrs. patsi @ From This Heart of Mine

Thursday, December 14, 2023

Ladies Bible Class: Esther, Lesson 11

Esther 3: 1- 3, Lesson 11

The book of Esther: A study of God in action when nothing appears to be happening!

Note: with this lesson we’ll be taking a holiday break until Thursday, January 4^th, 2024.

Now, let’s delve into today’s lesson starting with verse 1 …

1. After these things King Ahasuerus promoted Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him and set his seat above all the princes who were with him.

“After these things” … likely several years after, about 476 or 475 B.C.

The king promotes Haman … who is Haman?

… the son of Hammedatha the Agagite

… descendant of King Agag (King of the Amalekites) an enemy of Israel in the days of King Saul. God had told Saul to destroy the Amalekites (I Samuel 15:3), but Saul didn’t do it. His failure to obey led to what is about to happen to the Jews here in the book of Esther. (God means what He says and says what He means.)

… ‘prime minister’ of King Ahasuerus

… a proud and ambitious man

“and advanced him and set his seat above all the princes who were with him.”

Did this ‘advancement’ go to Haman’s head? After all, he was given precedence over all the king’s other nobles. We’ll find out later in the chapter!

2. And all the king’s servants who were within the king’s gate bowed and paid homage to Haman, for so the king had commanded concerning him. But Mordecai would not bow or pay homage.

“And all the king’s servants who were within the king’s gate bowed and paid homage to Haman” … according to the Pulpit commentary, these king’s servants were the lower officers of the court, porters and others, of about the same rank as Mordecai.

These servants bowed and reverenced Haman which meant they prostrated themselves before him in the usual Oriental fashion because the “king had commanded it.”

No reason is given for this elevation of Haman and according to research it was unusual, since this type of homage was expected as a general rule. One has to wonder what he did to cause the king to command such an honor.

“But Mordecai would not bow or pay homage.” … Mordecai’s refusal to bow down lay in the fact that he was a Jew which prevented him from prostrating himself/ bowing/worshipping before a man.

The Jewish Torah clearly stated, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Bowing down to Haman would have been interpreted as idol worship. Mordecai, it seems, was not willing to compromise his beliefs by doing so.

One more thought, could part of the reason behind Mordecai’s refusal have to do with the likelihood of Haman demanding not mere allegiance, but worship?

3. Then the king’s servants who were within the king’s gate said to Mordecai, “Why do you transgress the king’s command?”

The king’s servants who were at the gate with Mordecai, it seems, were the first to notice that he did not bow down and questioned him about it.

Why are you disobeying the king’s command?

Will the king’s servants let this go?

Will Mordecai’s defiance and reasoning hold up if they don’t or will it be the catalyst that brings about a great evil?

What are your thoughts?

In our next class we’ll look at chapter 3: 4-6

What is Haman’s reaction?

Does he take Mordecai’s disobedience personally?

Wait a minute, how did Haman find out about Mordecai’s refusal to pay him homage?

We have a lot to unpack in our next lesson on January 4^th, 2024. I’ll meet you back here then.

Merry Christmas everyone!

I hope you’ve enjoyed today's lesson. Don't forget to leave a comment and if you're enjoying this class, please share the link with other ladies who you think might enjoy it as well.

Links to previous lessons:

Lesson 10

Until the next class ...

patsy @ From This Heart of Mine

Thursday, December 7, 2023

Ladies Bible Class: Esther, Lesson 10

Esther, Lesson 10

The book of Esther: A study of God in action when nothing appears to be happening!

Chapter 2: 19-23

The king now has a queen, but drama springs up in a different area!

Let’s see what happens ….

19 When virgins were gathered together a second time, Mordecai sat within the king’s gate.

‘when virgins were gathered together a second time’: some time after Esther was made queen (one source said less than 5 years after her marriage to the king), there was a second collection of virgins at Susa … we simply do not know why but given what we know about the king it does not reflect well upon him.

‘Mordecai sat within the king’s gate’… did Mordecai have some sort of job as a gate keeper at this time? Some sources say he did while others attribute Mordecai’s being at the king’s gate simply as him trying to get news of Esther.

20 Now Esther had not revealed her family and her people, just as Mordecai had charged her, for Esther obeyed the command of Mordecai as when she was brought up by him.

Esther is still holding on to her secret as Mordecai had told her to do.

21 In those days, while Mordecai sat within the king’s gate, two of the king’s eunuchs, Bigthan and Teresh, doorkeepers, became furious and sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus.

“In those days” … likely refers to the time period during the second collecting of virgin girls.

“Two of the kings eunuch’s” … it appears Bigthan and Teresh are really furious with the king about something … they have been offended to such a degree that they plan and plot his demise! Notice that they are doorkeepers (doorkeepers guarded the entrance to the king’s sleeping apartment) and apparently were discussing their plan ‘on the job’ or at the very least where they could be overheard, which wasn’t very wise! (Spoiler alert: some 13 years later the king actually lost his life through a conspiracy formed by Artabanus, the captain of his guard, with Aspamitras, a eunuch and chamberlain.) This position of doorkeeper was one of highest trust and gave conspirators a terrible advantage, hence, Bigthan and Teresh were in prime positions to do harm to the king.

22 So the matter became known to Mordecai, who told Queen Esther, and Esther informed the king in Mordecai’s name.

Somehow Mordecai learns of the plan, did he overhear them discussing their plan, did someone else hear them and mention it to Mordecai?

Josephus says that a slave of one of the conspirators, Barnabazus who was a Jew, betrayed them to Mordecai; another source contributes Mordecai’s discovery to his knowledge of languages. We don’t know how Mordecai learned of the plot, but what we do know is that Mordecai told Queen Esther and Esther told the king in Mordecai’s name. In other words, Esther told the king where she got her information but didn’t reveal that he was related to her.

23 And when an inquiry was made into the matter, it was confirmed, and both were hanged on a gallows; and it was written in the book of the chronicles in the presence of the king.

There’s a lot to unpack in this verse:

"The king made an inquiry" … in other words he made effort to find out if Esther’s information was correct.

"It was confirmed" … this confirmation is a pivotal point for the future of the Jews.

"Both were hanged on a gallows" … no long-drawn-out courtroom trial, no second chances and no explanations. If the king’s life was in danger, then the punishment was swift and deadly. Persian law was very clear on protecting the king. Some sources say Bigthan and Teresh were crucified or impaled as traitors commonly were.

I found this bit of information about 'gallows' by doing a quick Google search online ... The Hebrew term translated “gallows” in Esther is the word for tree. It is frequently suggested that tree should be understood as “stake” and that those executed by the Persians were impaled rather than hung.

"It was written in the book of the chronicles in the presence of the king" … this is a very important detail and it’s done in the presence of the king. Events were not always recorded in the king’s presence; but when the matter was very important the king supervised what was written. This obviously was one of those times.

Persian kings were particularly diligent in rewarding such acts, so the king’s omission was a serious thing that he would rectify in a most astounding way once he realized the oversight.

Sidenote: Josephus says that the king ‘bade Mordecai stay in the palace, as an intimate friend of the king.” However, nothing more was done for Mordecai. This though, would have given Mordecai freedom to move about the palace, making getting news on Esther easier.

The book of chronicles was a daily record of the events in the king’s court and life and is going to be instrumental in saving the Jews in the near future. The fact that Mordecai was not rewarded for coming forth and ‘saving the king’ went unnoticed. This was not ordinary Persian practice and one commentary I read said the reason Mordecai was not rewarded could have been because the court as a whole didn’t like him because he was a Jew. If Mordecai was not liked because he was a Jew and he knew it, then this might be a reason he told Esther to keep her heritage quiet.

I see God’s providence in that Mordecai was overlooked in being rewarded for saving the king’s life. What we might see as 'unfair' could, as in the case of Mordecai, really be God working behind the scenes for something far greater. In this case, God used this ‘oversight’ in His plan to save the Jews!

Do you see God’s providence at work in today’s lesson?

Next week we’ll begin chapter 3 and look at verses 1 – 3.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today's lesson, what are your thoughts?

Don't forget to leave a comment and if you're enjoying this class, please share the link with other ladies who you think might enjoy it as well.