Finding Favor with the King
(The Story of Esther)
The story of Esther, the Jewish pauper who became a princess in the Old Testament narrative found in the Book of Esther, truly came alive in Tommy Tenney’s Finding Favor with the King. The author does a superb job of bringing to life the “mundane” or “hidden” facts in the narrative as he flavors the chapters with very notable quotes, and as is his style, repeats the quotes numerous times to reinforce his points.
These quotes aren’t just quips, they are quotes which powerfully point out not only the simplicity of the book of Esther, but the importance of three key points: preparation, intimacy, and timing. The first, and I believe the major, point that Tenney proposes is “it only took one night with the king to turn a peasant into a princess.” (p.16) However, the preparation leading up to that one night is staggering - twelve months.
In relating to his readers about this most important year, Tenney posed the question, “how long do we spend in ‘beauty preparations’ for our encounter with our King? Do you really understand that Esther spent twelve months (that is twelve months) of intense efforts to prepare for one night? Remember one year preparing for one night?” (p.19) Even though I have been in full-time ministry for over twenty five years I was intrigued with the thought of the year’s preparation, so I put down the book and opened the Book.
When I opened the book of Esther (2:13) and began reading the passage regarding the twelve months, “six months with oil of myrrh and six months with spices and the cosmetics for women,” it seemed to be a rather innocuous verse. In fact Tenney noted, “Most of us want to skip past the minor details of these passages,” and, at first glance, he would be correct - not very interesting or stimulating reading. However, that’s why I love to read other sources, such as Finding Favor with the King where the author presents historical information that helps us to truly...