This is the part of the book I’ve been waiting to learn about. I couldn’t wait to hear how our pastor would explain the passages and today’s application of them.

If you’re not familiar with 1 Timothy, Paul is writing to his protege about teaching corruption in the church they’ve established. He’s asking Timothy to instruct the teachers who are teaching the law rather than the truth.

In chapter 2, Paul addresses the proper order of authority in the church, including women’s roles. In earlier days, my pride would have risen to the top and I’d have tuned out this sermon, writing off the passages as old fashioned. Today, I know the words to be truth.

I’ve known hundreds of strong women in my life. My mother and grandmother, my sisters-in-law, teachers, step sisters, and many, many friends. All of them have one thing in common. They are extraordinarily independent. But I’ve also watched and learned to understand, that their strength is pliable and rooted only when they feel secure in their male relationships. Whether a father, brother, close friend or husband, male leadership plays a crutial role in keeping these strong women secure in their faith, their place in the community, and their place in their family. The women I know without this security (and without Christ) in their lives have a tendency to be hard, unyielding, unsure and constantly in survival mode, almost like soldiers in a jungle with possible enemies on all sides.

So men are to be in authority. Why not? Is it so bad to feel the need to rely on someone who is both physically and, in general, emotionally stronger than we are? Isn’t that the way God created us? I will unashamedly admit that I seek the counsel and strength of the men in my life on a regular basis and I thank God he designed me that way.

However, this does not mean I don’t have authority to lead. Our faith does not prevent us from leading in our community and in our work place. God uses all of our strengths when we avail ourselves to Him. But what I’ve learned in various ways over the last year is that if I submit myself to male leadership in every other role in my life whether church related or not, I am much more likely to submit myself to my husband’s leadership and even more importantly, the teaching of Christ himself. I also realize my worth and value in our home much more willingly than I ever have in the past. I am comfortable with my place in God’s Will.

Beginning a study of the book of Esther and being asked not to read ahead, I wanted to catalog the thoughts as we go along.

The emphasis so far is on how God uses adverse circumstances to carry out His will. The Bible is full of instances where God uses the most unlikely candidates and circumstances to execute His plan. There are some definite unlikely characters in Xerxes, Queen Vashti, Mordechai and Esther.

The first thing that God used in the book of Esther is a crazy party of drunken men, a prideful king, and a woman who dared to do what no other woman of her time dared do: tell the king no.

Now I understand that in Queen Vashti’s time and culture, women had no rights and that was accepted and actually enforced. Queen Vashti BELONGED to King Xerxes and as his property, she had certain responsibilities and obligations. As the story goes, she was named queen because she was the most favored of the King’s concubines. When Xerxes decided to parade his political and personal prowess as a powerful ruler, he sent for his queen. She was in the middle of her own celebrations and whether out of pride for her own stature in the palace, or indignation or fear of being mauled and fondled by hundreds of drunken men, she refused. She told Xerxes no.

Can you just see the look on the king’s face? I’m actually surprised that he decided to take counsel from others on the kind of punishment to levy on the queen. He didn’t have to. He was KING and she was simply one of his harem, a literal prisoner at his command. I think the key here is that no matter his position or his personal embarassment, he wanted to do the right thing. God will use this later in the story of Esther to bring about true change in His kingdom.

Enter Esther, Mordachai’s niece, raised under his roof after her parents died. She was brought to the king’s palace as a potential replacement for Queen Vashti who has been dethroned and sentenced to life as an unfavored mistress within the palace walls. The Bible describes Esther as beautiful in form and the way the words are formed, it almost reads as she was “lovely”. The word “lovely” to me implies grace as well as beauty; she was not impaired by her own beauty and the way others treated her because of it.

I’ve heard her described as quiet of spirit, accepting of her circumstances even when it meant leaving the only family she’d known. I wonder if God had prepared her for this years earlier as she mourned her parents death. Did she ever feel as though she belonged to anyone? Was it easier for her to accept her fate as a concubine to the king because she understood her place in the world was temporary, that her life depended on the gifts, graciousness, and mercy of those that did not have to love her?

I struggle with being “gentle and quiet in spirit”. I know what it means and yet I have not embraced it. I hope through the coming weeks in this chapter, I’ll begin to appreciate the phrase with new understanding to accept the things that come our way without feeling left behind or rejected.

In recent months, I’ve heard the story from the Bible of the woman who poured out perfume on the feet of Jesus to the tune of a year’s salary.

She was criticicized for doing so; Jesus was criticized for protecting her. And I’ve often heard it preached that the moral of the story is that she gave something precious without regard to cost to annoint Jesus whom she loved.

I can relate with this woman and the fact that she poured the equivalent of a year’s salary at the feet of Jesus makes perfect sense to me as a woman. She is described as a woman of the night, a prostitute. As a prostitute, the alabaster jar might be a symbol of wealth to those men in the room who toiled for that salary but to her, might be the symbol of her ill-reputed trade and therefore, a symbol of her shame.

What better way to ask for forgiveness and show committment to change than by pouring out the symbol of shame on the feet of Jesus in whom alone we are saved? And then to be able to physically wipe away the shame so that beauty and blessing is revealed. What a gift to have Jesus bend over me, touch me in my soul and tell me, in front of all of those who condemn me, that I am precious, loved and forgiven in His eyes.

I don’t have an alabaster jar or such a colorful past, but I can lay the source of MY shame at his feet in submission to His holiness and He will show mercy and love and forgiveness.