Are you looking for a good “pick me up” story? Something to read to the kids after dinner time that’s intriguing, colorful, encouraging to their faith, as well as true?

Then open up your Bible and read the book of Esther! It’ll do you good and it will fascinate the kids.

How so? For starters, it’s a well-crafted story of the deliverance of God’s people, even in spite of their sin and weaknesses. Mordecai not only tells Esther not to witness to others concerning her people or the God she worships, but he goes out and refuses to honor the king’s instructions to honor Haman. One man’s sin brings condemnation upon the whole people.

But that condemnation of the whole nation humbles him, and he repents by wearing sackcloth to demonstrate it publicly, as well as commanding Esther to witness to the king or perish with the rest of the Jews.

You know the story. But read it slowly and appreciate the craftsmanship of laying out facts and events and symbols early and then seeing those details used in the reversal of the plot. It’s exhilarating to read and unpack the threads as they unravel for Haman but are woven tightly for the Jews deliverance. Talk about “in the nick of time” excitement!

Which, of course, all points to Jesus and how he turns the darkness of Israel in his day to light and joy and deliverance for us his people. As the kingdom prospered under Mordecai and Esther, so the world today prospers under the Lord Jesus. There are no obstacles too great to keep him and the Spirit from fulfilling the Great Commission!

I highlighted last week the teaching of a Methodist minister running for office in Kansas. This week, let’s look at James Talarico, a PCUSA seminary student running for Senate in Texas. John Nolte of Breitbart News summarizes: “Talarico…poses as a pious, God-fearing Christian and deliberately leads people astray by preaching a heresy that twists naked sin (transsexualism, transvestitism, homosexuality, abortion, child mutilation) into something sacred, Christian, and beautiful.” (8/13 article: “Poll Shows Ken Paxton Ahead of James ‘God Is Nonbinary’ Talarico”). Talarico’s positions are well-documented in the media.

Again, these are subjects to bring up around the dinner table or at family worship. Jesus clearly taught in Matthew 19:4 that men are men and women are women: “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female…?” Notice Jesus relies on the Creation account: this is the way God made the world, even 4,000 years later. As for cross-dressing, Moses clearly said a woman should not put on a man’s clothes, or uniform, for battle. Homosexuality is clearly a Sodomite story, as Paul clearly states in 1 Cor 6:9–11.

Abortion, the killing of an unborn baby, is ruled out by Psalm 139, since God is the one weaving the child in the womb; it’s His creation. Exodus 21:22–25 clearly values the life of the unborn baby as equal to an adult.

Child mutilation? Since the purpose of those surgeries is to attempt to change the sex of the child, those would be forbidden by Jesus in Matthew 19.

So we listen to the word of Jesus, which is good, beautiful, and truthful; not the word of men twisting God’s word to hopefully receive a few more votes, or pervert our understanding of God’s word.

It’s the political season, and as usual, there is a mix of unbiblical teaching going around that should be addressed around the dinner table, especially since a lot of it is being said by ministers of one sort of another.

Methodist Pastor Adam Hamilton, Democrat candidate in Kansas’s Senate race, has taught and preached that all faiths end up in heaven: “When it comes to other faiths, I believe as a Christian that…–when they get to heaven, they’re going to see Jesus and they’re going to say, ‘Ah, it was you all along that I was searching for,’ but I don’t fear that those folks will spend eternity in Hell,” (2022 sermon titled “Is the Bible True? Is Jesus the Only Way?”). Hamilton has stated that he does not believe that an individual must know or follow Jesus Christ in their lifetime in order to be saved and spend eternity with God.

This unbiblical position raises a lot of questions: “Why be a Christian minister?”, “Why evangelize people in the first place?”, “Why even be a Christian?”

This position is clearly against the Great Commission in Matthew 28, where Jesus commands his followers to teach all the nations about “him,” and not just leave them in darkness. It is directly against John 14:6: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus clearly says he is the only way to the Father in heaven. This positions is against this very Father’s command at his Transfiguration in Matthew 17, where the Father says from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” Not Buddha or Allah.

Finally, the Apostle Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in Acts 4:8, says clearly in verse 12, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”