For Such a Time as This
The ripple effect of obedience
The Purim holiday is upon us—the celebration of God’s deliverance recounted in the Book of Esther in the Old (original) Testament. Purim is a story of the heroic choice of a young woman that impacted not only a nation but has reverberated across centuries and multiple peoples. At the heart of the story is the message that what the enemy intended for evil, God turned around for the redemption and blessing of his people, so that through them blessing could come to all nations.
Yet for this to take place someone had to respond to God’s call at great personal risk. Blessing and redemption for a whole people were contingent upon the faithful responses of an individual. Esther, an orphan, felt small and powerless, yet God seems to delight in working through the weak and otherwise insignificant to reveal His glory.
“For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to the kingdom position for such a time as this?”
–Esther 4:14
This famous verse from Mordechai’s words to Esther communicated that if she did not take steps of obedience, not only would she miss fulfilling her own destiny, but God would bypass her and bring deliverance for His people through someone else.
Each one of us is called to the Kingdom “for such a time as this”. What is the God-sized challenge He may be calling you to embrace for the sake of others? Does it feel overwhelming or impossible? For Whole Word Institute it is believing God to use us as catalysts and instruments in accelerating full Bible access from source language to every language for all people. We believe that the story of Esther and the entire Old Testament are fundamental to discipling nations. That’s a big task—the whole Word for the whole world! But in our current world, never has there been a greater need for God’s whole story.
This Purim season I invite you to join us in reading the Book of Esther once again. I encourage you to read the story with the divine author looking over your shoulder ready to show you the next step which will launch you into a great adventure of obedience.
!חג פורים שמח
Hag Purim Same’ah! (Happy Purim!)
David Swarr, PhD
President/CEO
Institute for Biblical Languages & Translation
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