Mike Cosper, the author of Faith Among the Faithless: Learning From Esther How to Live in a World Gone Mad, has revamped my interest in the book of Esther where God is mysteriously silent, Esther and Mordecai are quiet about their Jewish heritage and the god-king Xerxes has a second name, “King Headache,” that would earn him some old-fashioned ridicule in middle school.

This is a timely book. We truly live in a world gone mad—a cultural climate that makes it extremely difficult to have strong, faithful convictions rooted in the inerrant Word of God. We live in a culture where bold truth-claims are looked down upon and vehemently fought against on a grand scale. Ours is a world gone mad, and getting madder.

Cosper takes a few liberties with the story as he puts it into his own words, but the contextual and theological study he provides more than makes up for creative writing. He does a great job of bringing the reader into the story, providing connections from the world of the Persians to the world of today. The comparisons are surprising and comforting. Where we are currently is a place we’ve been before. God is not silent. God is at work.

I found this book to be encouraging because it helps the reader understand that our hope is not in earthly things and that we belong to a different world. We are strangers and aliens on Earth, and we must not forget that. We were not made to be comfortable, to fit in and to go along with something to simply get along. We were made to bring glory to our Creator and be faithfully obedient to His Word. 

As things seemingly become more difficult in our political, social and cultural climate, this book is a necessary read for every Christian leader.