Inconspicuous Providence (GAOT Series): The Gospel according to Esther / January 01, 2014

Requires Accordance 11.2 or above.

Esther often seems like an anomaly—a book of the Bible that never mentions God or his direct intervention. Yet the book feels closest to many Christians’ own experience; few of us have experienced divine intervention, and our world seems just as secular as Esther’s. We are tempted to ask, of her world and ours—where is God in all this? If he is real, why doesn’t he show himself?

Bryan Gregory shows us how Esther’s literary techniques depict God’s “absent presence” and “hidden involvement,” encouraging us that while God appears uninvolved, he is at work under the surface to accomplish his purposes and deliver his people—ultimately revealing his hidden presence in Christ.

About the Series:
The Gospel According to the Old Testament series illuminates the good news of our Savior in the Old Testament books. Here you will find thoughtful, Christ-focused theology at an accessible level. This series aims to show, as Christ himself declared, that “all the Scriptures” speak of our Lord’s suffering and glorification.

From the Foreword:
“The Gospel According to the Old Testament Series is committed to the proposition that the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, is a unified revelation of God, and that its thematic unity is found in Christ. The individual books of the Old Testament exhibit diverse genres, styles, and individual theologies, but tying them all together is the constant foreshadowing of, and pointing forward to, Christ. Believing in the fundamentally Christocentric nature of the Old Testament, as well as the New Testament, we offer this series of studies in the Old Testament with the following aims:

• to lay out the pervasiveness of the revelation of Christ in the Old Testament
• to promote a Christ-centered reading of the Old Testament
• to encourage Christ-centered preaching and teaching from the Old Testament

To this end, the volumes in this series are written for pastors and laypeople, not scholars.”