Julie Anne Smith

When Queen Vashti refused to be paraded before a party of drunken men for her husband, the Persian pagan King Xerxes, he effectively divorced her, banished her, and took her crown. Then he declared that every man should be the ruler of his own household to keep the women of the empire in line. Then, Xerxes married Esther, and when Haman tricked him into signing a decree to annihilate all the Jews, he unwittingly sentenced his beloved new queen, Esther, to death. Ironically, Xerxes ultimately loses total control over the decisions made under his own roof. Queen Esther completely managed and outmaneuvered the king through her banquets without him realizing it. She broke the law by approaching him unsummoned (risking execution), dictated the timeline of events, and ultimately chose who was executed (Haman) and who was promoted (Mordecai). By the end of the story, it's Esther and Mordecai who are writing royal decrees and commanding the empire, while Xerxes merely signs off on their choices. God doesn't command men to be rulers over their wives; the tyrannical rulers of this world do. But in the case of King Xerxes, the very law that was meant to guarantee total male dominance resulted in a household where his wife directed the course of the empire. And she saved hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives in doing so. The Esthers and Mordecais of the Body of Christ today do the same when they refuse to stay silent while God's sheep are devoured by wolves in shepherd's clothing. "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 your royal position for such a time as this?" - Esther 4:14