In a blog posting at John Piper's "Desiring God" web site, David Mathis posts a short article titled Esther & Jesus: "The Reverse Occurred" in which he tries to demonstrate, from one verse in the Book of Esther, that Jesus' death was foretold in the Book of Esther. Those who are familiar with the Gadfly blog know that I have challenged others to demonstrate where Esther was inspired scripture, and how it meets one of the "canonical rules" by testifying of Jesus. See the Mathis posting here
Mathis wrote:
"The Hebrew Scriptures point to Jesus in a myriad of ways. One way is narrative patterns, like the one in Esther 9:1:
On the very day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain the mastery over them, the reverse occurred: the Jews gained mastery over those who hated them.
And so it happened at the cross. At the very moment when the Enemy of the True Jew hoped to gain the mastery over Jesus, the reverse occurred: Jesus gained mastery over the one who hated him.
God has innumerable ways of pointing us to his Son—after all, according to Colossians 1:16-17, all the universe is in Jesus, through Jesus, and for Jesus.
If all the universe, then how much more the Scriptures."
This is that testimony of Christ that is essential to being "scripture"? (See John 5: 39) If a man can make Esther 9: 1 "point to Jesus," he can find Jesus anywhere. Is this not eisegesis? Is this not the thing that brother Piper ought to be against?
4 comments:
Care to try eisegesIs instead of eisegesUs? If one can't even get the spelling right I doubt we need to worry so much about David's alleged reading of Jesus into Esther, the sole canonical book that doesn't mention the name of God, just because he makes a comparison. Talk about straining at gnats! If the Church had held to such an absurdly limited view of inspiration, Esther would have never made it into the canon, in view of lacking the name of God. Thankfully Stephen's sectarian views were not held and so we have this wonderful narration of God's grace. Soli Deo Gloria!
Dear Russ:
You think a typo proves all that?
Blessings
Stephen
Typos are not the issue.
The question was,"Where is Jesus in Esther?" Please see http://bereansearching.wordpress.com/category/bible-studies/ for a more complete answer than that provided by David Mathis.
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