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Bible Reading Notes
January 2010
Tuesday, January 26th - Esther 9: 16-18
These verses record for posterity the fact that there were two days required for the Jews in Susa to accomplish what their provincial brethren completed in one day. Capital cities of worldly dominions can be more dangerous for believers than country settings. Not only do more crimes take place among such concentrations of sinners, but the sophistication and culture of the cities of this world can and do wage war against many believers’ souls. Very different was life in the capital city of God’s covenant nation, when His people trusted and obeyed Him and lived and served in accordance with His Law that directed them to love their neighbors and to be gracious to strangers in their midst.
Wednesday, January 27th - Esther 9: 18
The Jews in Susa took advantage of the legal allowance that Esther had secured for them to spend a second day defending themselves against the attacks of their enemies (Esth. 9:13). The fact that on the 14th day of the month the Jews killed 300 men in Susa in addition to the 500 men they had put to death on the 13th day, indicates to us the necessity and wisdom of the extended legal protection Esther won for the Jews. The fact that the Jews confined the killing of their enemies to the days allowed to them by express provisions of the law teaches us that the people of God in Esther’s day submitted and confined their actions to the extent of the laws that governed them. Their confinement to the provisions of the law, and the fact that Scripture does not record any further attacks against the Jews in Susa, indicates to us that the people of God effectively and lastingly put down their enemies and secured their peace and security within the limits that the laws of God and men provided for them. We do well to abide by the civil laws that govern us (Rom. 13:1-7), knowing that such limits will not prohibit us from living lives of quiet security in all godliness and dignity (1 Tim. 2:1-3).
Thursday, January 28th - Esther 9: 18, 19
Although the duration of fighting differed between the Jews in the country and those in the city, the final result for all of them was the same. They attained complete victories that were followed by feasting and rejoicing. Yet, the feasts of the people of God were not gluttonous affairs, nor did their rejoicing degenerate into unrestrained self-indulgence. Generosity as well as loving and practical concern for their brethren characterized their celebrations. Those who call and depend upon God for their success and security should never forget that when they are victorious over their enemies, it is due to the lavish grace of their God, who prompts them to lavish loving respect, honor, and practical care upon their brethren, just as their heavenly Father has done for them.
Friday, January 29th - Esther 9: 20, 21
Mordecai recorded the events, presumably from the banquet of Ahasuerus, to Vashti’s deposition and divorce, to the elevation of Esther as the wife and queen of Ahasuerus, to wicked Haman’s promotion and Mordecai’s refusal to bow to him, to Haman’s decree of death for all the Jews of the empire, to Mordecai’s charge to Esther and her waiting on the divine initiative, to the exposure and execution of Haman, followed by the Jews’ victorious self-defense and exultant celebrations, accomplished according to the civil provisions written by Esther and Mordecai. In all of these events, the hand of God was manifestly for His people, causing every detail to work together for their good. Such mercies of God, wrought in the past, are good for us to remember so that our trust in the Lord would grow along with our comforting assurance that He is also working all things together for our good.
Saturday, January 30th - Esther 9: 20, 21
Mordecai not only recorded for the instruction of the Lord’s people in every age the events of God’s preserving and promoting grace, but he also instituted an obligatory annual celebration so that the Jews would together commemorate this redemptive historical event. The written account would serve for individual and family instruction and edification; the annual celebrations would provide opportunity for the Jews to give a corporate expression to their gratitude to God. Such corporate commemorations would also serve to strengthen the bonds of fellowship between the Jews who had been marked for separation from one another by Haman’s death decree, as well as promote fellowship between their descendants who never would have been born had the Lord not preserved their parents. It is good and pleasant for the people of God to dwell in unity that is strengthened by their corporate remembrance of the mercies their God has showered upon them. We have a more full and perfect call to assemble each Lord’s Day to feed on the means of His grace and to rejoice in the glorious freedom of our accomplished redemption from death, judgment, and hell.
Sunday, January 31st - Esther 9: 20, 21
The Jews were to celebrate annually on not only one of the original feasts days, but on both of them. For the Jews in Susa, their final victory over their enemies was delayed for a day after the final victory of their provincial brethren. The protracted fighting of the Jews in Susa would not ultimately deprive them of their entering into the earlier joys of their brethren in the provinces, nor would the later celebrations of the Jews in Susa exclude their provincial brethren. The instituted annual commemoration included both the 14th and 15th days, so that the people of God would learn that they had cause to enter into the full joys of all the people of God, since those who are in the Lord are members of one another, sharing the tears and joys of each other.
Monday, February 1st - Esther 9: 20-22
In v.20, Mordecai is said to have recorded the redemptive events of God, while in v.21, he is said to have obliged the people of the Lord not only to be informed of those divine deeds, but also to be properly moved by them with grateful celebrations. In v.22, the writer of Scripture reminds all readers of the Word of God of the foundational cause the people of God have in every age to celebrate the goodness of God as expressed to the Jews in Esther’s day. The Lord transformed all of the threats, trials, and terrors that had hung over the heads of the Jews into glorious and lasting victory for them. Our religion is not based on feelings and wishes but rather on facts and solid deeds. The victory God gives His people is the cause, while the grateful and joyful celebrating of God’s people is the effect. What the Jews had cause to celebrate on two days each year we who are in Christ have greater cause to celebrate each Sunday as we commemorate the resurrection of our Savior and His lasting victory over death and hell for us.
Tuesday, February 2nd - Esther 9: 22
The cause the Jews in Esther’s day had for celebration was that God had saved their lives from death and turned their sorrow into gladness. The Lord would have His people then and thereafter to nurture and revive their gladness by their appointed times of commemorating His having turned their sorrows into joy. Our forgetfulness of the Lord’s precious and potent mercies diminishes not only our gratitude to God but also our joy in the Lord that is our strength. Our God is ever and always the God of vital reversals for us, turning our curses into blessings and our afflictions into glory (2 Cor. 4: 16-18). We have abundant cause to rejoice in our Lord always (Phi. 4:4).
Wednesday, February 3rd - Esther 9: 22
The loving works of God’s salvation produce unceasing cause for gratitude and joy in His people. Yet, their joy is not to be an intoxicated giddiness that makes them heedless of anything but their own gladness. The divine love that saves believers inspires within them a loving regard for their brethren who may be in need. We see this operating in the ordinance that directs the Jews to send gifts to one another and especially to the poor among them. True Christian love and joy are inclusive. They ever seek to bring others within their happy compass, especially those in sorrowful need.
Thursday, February 4th - Esther 9: 23-25
These verses tell us that the Jews complied with Mordecai’s directive that they should celebrate and bless one another annually on the days when they had originally feasted after their victory over their enemies. We are also given a brief summary of the events that gave the Jews the cause for their perpetual celebrations. We may be tempted to think that at this point in the Book of Esther we are sufficiently familiar with these events so that we do not need them to be rehearsed again. However, we are prone to forget, and so this reminder is good and necessary. But it is also a glorious story of practical import for believers in every age. It therefore bears telling again and again, in order that we may ever recall that the wisdom, love, and mercy of our God are the same yesterday, today, and forever. Whatever form the adversary of the saints of the Lord may take in any age, our God will ever, only, and always see to it that the evil of the wicked will return upon his own head and upon all sons of wickedness he has spawned.
Friday, February 5th - Esther 9: 23-25
In this summary of events, we are reminded that Haman had cast Pur (a lot or a die) to determine the best day for the Jews’ annihilation (Esth. 3:7,13). The best that the wicked can do in their plots is to base their calculations upon chance. This gambling image is used by the Apostle Paul in Eph. 4:14 where he writes of the trickery of men used against believers. The word translated, trickery, comes from a Greek word from which we get the word, cube. It is a reference to men casting dice to determine from chance their best hope for success. Yet, the dicey chances of the wicked are no match for the solid and sure plans and purposes that our Lord has for us, to give us a future and a hope (Jer. 29:11).
Saturday, February 6th - Esther 9: 26
This verse informs us how the Jews adopted the name Purim for their annual feast commemorating their victory over Haman’s death decree against them. The Lord had sinlessly overruled Haman’s wicked endeavor, causing the die that was cast to determine the day of His people’s destruction to serve, instead, as an indicator of the day of their joyful victory and exaltation over their enemies. Accordingly, the Jews rightly boasted in their Feast of Purim that the instrument used to threaten them had been transformed into a servant for their good. The plural, Purim, suggests the Jews’ consciousness that what the wicked intended as a single day of deadly persecution, their God caused to be two days of His people’s victory, followed by two days of their feasting celebrations. The greater the challenge against believers, the greater will be their triumphant celebration.
Sunday, February 7th - Esther 9: 26-28
While Mordecai obligated the annual observance of the Feast of Purim, he did so not by direct commandment from the Lord, but rather from a due sense of the appropriateness of such annual observance. The obligation was one of loving gratitude in response to loving mercies the people had received from their God. Therefore, it is referred to in v.27 as a custom rather than a religious holy day. The Lord has not given the rulers of His people authority to establish holy days that would distract from the weekly Sabbath that He has commanded His people to observe. However, by the good examples of godly leaders in His word, He allows Church leaders to adopt appropriate customs that serve to glorify God and edify the flock under their charge. Such edifying family and personal customs are also allowed (Rom. 14:5).
Monday, February 8th - Esther 9: 26-28
The Feast of Purim was intended to bring to the remembrance of the people of God in every generation the historic reality and redemptive consequence of their deliverance from the death decree against them. While the Jews’ enemies relied on chance and fell as victims to their own malicious designs, the people of God enjoyed solid joys and lasting pleasures. The perpetuity of this custom served not only to revive the Jews’ grateful recollection of their deliverance from death, but also to portray a sign of the eternal character of all believers’ salvation.
Tuesday, February 9th - Esther 9: 26-28
While the Feast of Purim was to be observed annually by every generation of the Lord’s people and so serve as a sign of the solid joys and lasting pleasures showered upon them by the hand of their God (Ps. 16:11), by the coming of Christ and His accomplishment of our redemption we are to understand that Purim was part of the shadowy economy that pointed to the substance of our salvation in Christ. In place of this annual shadow that commemorated civil deliverance from physical death, we who trust Christ have a weekly commemoration of our Lord’s resurrection and victory over death and divine condemnation for us. As good as the shadows were, the substance is much better.
Wednesday, February 10th - Esther 9: 26-28
The Feast of Purim was not only for the Jews, but also for all who allied themselves with them (v.27). Gospel blessings, even in the old economy of types and shadows, are open to all who have the faith of Abraham in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and who accordingly are circumcised in heart, being true Israelites (Rom. 2:27-29). The call is open to all to cease being cursed slaves of wickedness delivered to death and to partake of the mercies of God and an eternal life of joyful celebration.
Thursday, February 11th - Esther 9: 29
This verse reminds us that the letters of Mordecai were written with the full civil authority of Queen Esther and King Ahasurerus. The first letter (Esth. 8:8-10) called upon the Jews to prepare to fight, while the second (Esth. 9:20-22) called upon them to feast and rejoice in the remembrance of the victory God had given to them. But as Esther and Mordecai were instituting this civil custom, nothing is said in these letters (or in the whole Book of Esther) about God. Yet, the people of God, who knew that their help was in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth, knew in whom they trusted and to whom they owed gratefully and joyfully rendered praises, even though none of their civil ordinances told them. In our nation, where civil acknowledgements of the Lord are fast being erased, we who know and serve the King of kings should recall that even when civil authorities deny the God who upholds them and gives them authority to rule, such denial does not cut short the saving arm of the living God.
Friday, February 12th - Esther 9: 29, 30
The letters written by Mordecai and Queen Esther were both sent to every corner of the empire of Ahasuerus. The character and consequences of both of them served to bring truth and peace. Even in the Jews’ fighting, they were but defending themselves against wicked men who sought to destroy them, and they did so with full divine and civil authority that authorized them and resulted in peace not only for the people of God but also for all throughout the empire who refused to be swept into the murderous determination to destroy the Jews. In this vast, godless empire, the people with faith in God acted, as they do in every age and nation, as salt and light, causing the liberating truth and blessed peace of God to prevail wherever they shine and serve by God’s grace and for His glory.
Saturday, February 13th - Esther 9: 30, 31
By the faith and faithfulness of Esther and Mordecai, the universal threat of death against the Jews and widespread confusion among the other peoples of the empire (Esth. 3:14,15) were replaced by universal peace and cause for celebration (Esth. 8:15-17). Peace blossomed in the place of fighting and the integrity and liberating power of truth overcame the cunning and deceptive malice of the wicked. All nations would benefit by their having many citizens who regard the God of truth and peace above the cunning of intriguers and the changeable, finite, and fallible rule of kings, presidents, and prime ministers.
Sunday, February 14th - Esther 9: 30, 31
The Feast of Purim directed that the Jews and their descendants should recall their fasting (Esth. 4:15-17) even as they feasted. It is good for believers to remember the fires from which they have been plucked. Our glorifying God with thankful praises diminishes when we forget that He has delivered us from our fear of death and from the sorrows that the shadow of death cast over our lives (Heb. 2:14,15). We do well to recall that we have been delivered by God from the dominion of sin, from death that is the wages of sin, and from Satan’s accusations and from the condemning judgment and holy wrath of God. Of such manifold deliverance, the civil deliverance of the Jews was but a token.
Monday, February 15th - Esther 9: 32
This verse is not a needless repetition but rather a necessary emphasis upon the fact that the Jews’ celebration of their Feast of Purim resulted not from their own fanciful desires but rather from factual deeds of deliverance and the full, legitimate authority of God and of the civil government that was an instrument in His hand. Similarly, our weekly worship of our God on the Lord’s Day, our hearing and heeding the great and precious promises of His Word, and our profiting from the administration of His sacraments all are based on the great, transforming, and everlasting transactions of redemption through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord and Savior.
Tuesday, February 16th - Esther 10: 1, 2
In these two verses we learn how both Ahasuerus and Mordecai fared in the years following the critical events surrounding Haman’s threat against the Jews. From the opening chapters of Esther, we saw how the king was an indulgent, weak, and easily manipulated man. Here at the end of Esther, we see how he has been transformed into a wise and competent monarch, who used his royal authority rightly to reign over his empire and to strengthen his power and secure his people. Even if a worldly man does not personally trust in God, he will prosper and be useful to others if he will rely on godly people, as Ahasuerus relied on Esther and Mordecai. From his reliance on the godly, such a man may come to trust in and glorify the Lord in whose people His glory shines through their good deeds. We should not be surprised to find Ahasuerus in heaven.
Wednesday, February 17th - Esther 10: 2, 3
As for Mordecai, we have seen him develop from an exile dwelling in a foreign empire to one of the highest officials of that empire. His trust in the Lord and his faithful and loving rearing of Esther prepared him to be advanced from his small domestic sphere to the administration of a great empire. His good deeds that initially went unnoticed by men were removed from the secrecy of their obscurity and shouted from the housetops—all by the doing of his Lord who always rewards those who faithfully seek and serve Him (Heb. 11:6). This meek man of faith inherited most of the world in his day. He, like Joseph and David before him, was faithful in the little things assigned to him by God, and so prepared himself for promotion that God had prepared for him and for which God had prepared him to enter and use for His glory and for the good of many.
Thursday, February 18th - Esther 10: 2, 3
As Joseph was raised up by God from his humiliation to be second only to Pharaoh in his authority, power, and glory, so Mordecai was exalted by God from his humiliation to be second only to King Ahasuerus in his authority, power, and glory. By the exaltation of such godly servants of their heavenly Lord and earthly kings, these exalted servants not only received blessing and dominion and honor and power, but they used their exalted positions to do good to all men, especially to those of the household of faith. Their exaltation surely betokens the exaltation of all believers in Christ to reign in glory with Him forever. Ours is a glorious faith that will lead us to work out our salvation unto a marvelous and everlasting glory. Through the opposition of wicked men and devils, through the valleys of humiliation and the shadows of death, God is with His people, though His name may be for a time hidden, to lead them inexorably to victory, glory, royal exaltation, and everlasting joy. This is the lesson and the priceless truth that the Book of Esther gives to us.
The Letter to the Galatians
Friday, February 19th - Galatians 1: 1
The Letter to the Galatians gives a clarion call for all believers to know that they have been justified in the sight of God by the saving grace of God alone, working through saving faith alone, in the person and work of Christ alone. It was written by the Apostle Paul, who knew from his dramatic and personal experience with the risen Christ on the Damascus road (Acts 9:1-9), what it was to be liberated by God from the bondage of legalism and to be transferred into the world of divine grace. Paul wrote this letter very likely before the Jerusalem Council of which we read in Acts 15, since the apostle makes no mention of that Council’s letter (Acts 15:22-29) which, if it had been drafted before Paul wrote to the Galatians, would have been very helpful for him to refer to in his own letter. Accordingly, Paul may have written this letter as early as 48-49 A.D. If so, it stands as the apostle’s earliest canonical epistle. It is fitting that he who had been so clearly saved by grace should be in his early apostolic career the champion of grace, as he remained throughout that career.
Saturday, February 20th - Galatians 1: 1
Profound and lasting marks of God’s saving grace are clearly expressed throughout this opening verse. The very name of the author, Paul, speaks of the transforming grace of God in Christ, for Paul was the new name of a changed man. He had been born Saul of Tarsus, a Hebrew of Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin, and was circumcised on the eighth day according to the Law of God (Phil. 3:5). He was naturally proud of these endowments, but he also boasted in his religious attainments, such as his having become a Pharisee and a zealous persecutor of the Church, whose members claimed to have been saved not by their own righteous works but by Christ’s atoning sacrifice for them on the cross (Phil. 3:6). Yet, when the risen Christ graciously encountered Saul the Pharisee and brought him under conviction for his persecution of the manifestly glorious living Lord of heaven and earth, Saul regarded his natural endowments and attainments as rubbish in comparison with the treasure of Christ and His salvation (Phil. 3:7-11). Accordingly, God graciously gave to Saul a new name and new nature in which Paul forever thereafter would gratefully boast.
Sunday, February 21st - Galatians 1: 1
Not only was Paul’s name and nature changed by God’s grace. The Lord also gave to Paul a new calling, office, and authority. Paul was made an apostle, meaning, one sent to proclaim a message—in this case the blessed, saving gospel of salvation through Christ. This calling clearly was a work of God’s grace, for Christ chose Paul when he was still Saul, who hated Christians and persecuted Christ. Paul was a chosen instrument of the Lord to bear Christ’s name before Gentiles, and earthly rulers, and the sons of Israel (Acts 9:15). This choice took place when Saul knew practically nothing of Christ, except that his appearance on the Damascus road was glorious. All that Paul was and did after his encounter with Christ was a result of divine grace and made him a trophy and a champion of that grace. If we are saved, it is by that same profoundly transforming divine grace.
Monday, February 22nd - Galatians 1: 1
Paul declares that his calling and equipping as an apostle resulted not from men. No man or body of men elected him or commissioned him as an apostle. Neither did men play any part in his education and training as an apostle. It pleased God to transform the greatest and most capable and determined enemy of the Church and opponent of Christ into the greatest and most richly equipped apostle and champion for Christ, His gospel, and His people. By God’s grace, sovereignly exercised, we have through the ministry and epistles of Paul the greatest contribution any man except for Jesus ever has or will make to the edification of the members of the Body of Christ. We do well carefully and thankfully to read ponder, and apply to ourselves the teaching of this apostle.
Tuesday, February 23rd - Galatians 1: 1
Paul declares that instead of men choosing and training him, he was made an apostle and equipped to serve faithfully and fruitfully in that high office by God alone. Specifically, Paul’s apostleship was conferred by God the Father working in blessed harmony with Jesus Christ, God’s Son, just as the Father and Son had blessedly cooperated in every aspect of the redemption of sinners, most clearly and wonderfully in the death of Christ for our sins and His being raised from the dead by God the Father as the fruit and seal of the Father’s approval and full acceptance of Christ’s justifying work on the cross (Rom. 4:24, 25). This apostle could not have been called and commissioned by any higher authority or greater power.
Wednesday, February 24th - Galatians 1: 2
Paul’s letter was written to and circulated among several churches in an area he designates Galatia. Scholarly opinion is divided over whether these churches were in southern or northern Galatia. It seems likely, from Scriptural data, that this region referred to by Paul was in the midst of modern Turkey, and probably included the churches Paul and Barnabas planted in Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe (Acts 13:13,14,46-52; 14:1-7). In those cities in that Gentile region, Paul faced terrible persecution from the unbelieving Jews, even to the point of their having stoned him and left him for dead at Lystra (Acts 14:8,19). However, Paul survived the stoning and carried on preaching the gospel and making disciples of Christ (Acts 14:20-28). These disciples were formed into churches, bodies of those literally called by God through His Word and Spirit out of darkness and death and into light and life through and in Christ. Paul also affectionately commends his accompanying co-workers as brethren, who had been made members of the mutually loving family of faith by the grace of God, just as the Galatians had been incorporated into that family of faith. We who trust in Christ are also among those blessed brethren.
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