The book of Esther doesn’t belong in the Bible. At least, not a first glance. In Esther, no one prays. No one praises. No one predicts the coming Messiah. Most surprising of all, God is never mentioned. That’s right. Esther is the one book in the Bible that never brings up the idea of God.

Why is that?

This December, I will be turning 41 years old, and I feel my midlife crisis lurking. In some ways, its fangs have already injected its poison. In the past, I felt like a deep well of fresh ideas to lead God's people and reach the unreached. But now, I sit blankly as younger leaders are ten steps ahead of me.

In our modern world, we might say, “You are what you eat.” But Jesus would say, “You are what you look at.” Whereas we might compare our eyes to cameras that face outward, taking snapshots and videos of what we see; Jesus says our eyes are more like lamps that shine on our inner being. What we look at saturates our souls.

The religious rug was pulled out from under my feet. In the middle of my studies to become a pastor, I somehow stumbled onto a video of a militant atheist named Richard Dawkins. He was speaking to a packed auditorium at the University of Berkley. Although he was a well-known scientist, his presentation style was more like a stand-up comedian than a biologist. He equated believing in God to believing in the spaghetti monster. And the crowd that was listening to him roared with laughter.

It is the kind of verse that makes children snicker. Or it makes groomsmen giggle. Maturity doesn’t always accompany age.

“Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Genesis 2:25).

This seems like a strange and unnecessary detail, especially at the beginning and most fundamental section of Scripture.

So what’s going on here?