All Articles For Esther

As the saying goes, “An apple does not fall far from the tree.” You can, therefore, find the tree without traveling a great distance and without putting forth a great deal of effort. Or, to use the words of Scripture and apply them, as Scripture does, to man, “Train up a child in the way that he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). The behavior of a young man will reveal how his parents did or did not bring him up from childhood.

After Esther had been chosen to replace Vashti as the wife of king Ahasuerus—and thus also to become the queen of that vast empire of Persia with its 127 provinces—and even after the king had made a great feast in her honour, the king’s servants still brought a new group of virgins for his sinful gratification. That must be the meaning of the statement in Esther 2:19 that “when the virgins were gathered together the second time, then Mordecai sat in the king’s gate.” 

With Reverence and Awe: Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship, by D. J. Hart and John R. Muether. Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishers, 2002. 203 pp. $12.99. (paper). [Reviewed by Prof. Robert D. Decker.]   The fact that a Protestant Reformed believer will not agree with every detail in this book does in no way detract from the book’s valuable contribution to the whole subject of distinctively Reformed worship. This is a good book, which ought to be read by every believer who wishes to engage in worship that is pleasing to God because it is worship that...

Of the Canons of Dordt, it is true, as of the prophet inZechariah 13:6, that its wounds are “those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.” In those houses of God where there is such effusive profession of love and esteem for the Canons that all rulers and teachers in the house are made to swear an oath in the Name of the Lord, that they “heartily believe and are persuaded that all the articles and points of doctrine, contained in the Confession and Catechism of the Reformed C