Esther is a complicated story in any context, let alone the theme of God's mission. 

This complication arises from the implicit role of God in numerous surprising coincidences, and yet the complete absence of explicit mention of God. It is also difficult to find much helpful contemporary mission relevance for the bloodthirsty conclusion to the story. Fear seems to be a substantial element of the "mission activity" described in this story, and we ponder a few responses to the challenging aspects of this book.