In this episode, the scene opens at Queen Esther’s second banquet, where she courageously reveals to King Ahasuerus that she and her Jewish people have been “sold” to be slain and destroyed (echoing Haman’s own decree), pleading for their lives, … Continue reading →

This episode opens as a sleepless King Ahasuerus has the royal chronicles read and discovers that Mordecai had exposed an assassination plot five years earlier yet received no reward; at that exact moment, Haman arrives to request Mordecai’s execution. The … Continue reading →

In this episode, we see how Queen Esther courageously stands uninvited in the inner court of the palace; when King Ahasuerus sees her, he extends the golden scepter, which spares her life. Esther calmly invites him and Haman to a … Continue reading →

This episode details Mordecai’s public mourning, after learning of Haman’s irreversible decree to annihilate every Jew throughout the provinces. Queen Esther becomes alarmed at Mordecai’s grief and later learns of Haman’s evil plot. Mordecai urges Esther to approach the king … Continue reading →

Following Queen Esther’s coronation and Mordecai’s saving of King Ahasuerus, in this episode we discover the unexpected promotion of Haman to the highest office in Persia, which brings about the command for all officials to bow and give him divine-level … Continue reading →

Three years after Queen Vashti’s removal, the Persian king Ahasuerus accepts his servants’ plan to gather beautiful young virgins to select a new queen. In Shushan, the Jewish exile Mordecai had raised his orphaned cousin Esther as his own daughter; … Continue reading →

Esther is one of two books of the Bible named after women, with Ruth being the other. It’s fascinating to note that Esther is the only book in Scripture in which there is no explicit reference to God. But while … Continue reading →

This lesson describes the betrayal and arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Judas leads a large force of Roman soldiers and temple officers to seize Jesus, whom Judas identifies with a kiss. Jesus, the great “I AM” who spoke … Continue reading →

The second part of this series contrasts the Garden of Eden—where the first Adam disobeyed God, choosing his own will and bringing sin and death to all humanity—with the Garden of Gethsemane, where the last Adam (Jesus) submitted to the … Continue reading →

This episode presents John 17 as the true “Lord’s Prayer,” prayed by Jesus the night before His crucifixion in the upper room, contrasting it with the model prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 that was given as a pattern for Israel during … Continue reading →