My Revelation commentary had a baby: Revelation in Brief, all fingers and toes in place, a precis of my long and very expensive commentary. Available for pre-order at Baker. bakerpublishinggroup.com/pro…

In his commentary on Rom 4:7, Luther illustrates justification with the image of a mortally sick man and his doctor. The doctor is so certain that he is going to heal the patient that he declares him well already, and tells the patient to consider himself well. The patient trusts the doctor so thoroughly that he considers himself well now, takes all the medicine prescribed, and looks eagerly to the time when he’s finally healed. A few glosses: *The patient is, in the present, simultaneously sick and well. Sick in that he is not wholly healed, well in the judgment and promise of the doctor. *The patient’s “status” is that of “well.” The patient accepts this judgment because he trusts the doctor, not because of the condition of his own body. *The present judgment of health in this parable is grounded in the future state of the patient. The doctor saying “you are well” depends on his confident “I will heal you.” But the future state of the patient is not the product of the patient’s own doing at all. It’s all the doctor’s doing. The physician pronounces the patient well because of the doctor’s confidence in his own healing powers. *The doctor’s “verdict” on the patient is also a commitment to see the patient through to complete healing. In saying “You are right in Christ,” the Father also says “And I have given my Spirit to make you righteous in fact.” Justification is God’s pronouncement that things are right; and that pronouncement is based on His utter commitment that He will not rest until things are set right.

"Thomas Jefferson developed a taste for vanilla during his years in Paris, and returned to the states with a handwritten recipe for vanilla ice cream." -Steven Johnson

Judah fails to extend Sabbath to strangers, orphans, and widows. Therefore, Yahweh closes the door of His Sabbath house to Judah (Jer 7). -thanks to Theopolis Fellows for a discussion of the passage

"Tabernacle" comes from tabernaculum (tent), diminutive of taberna (hut, inn; root of "tavern"). Tabernacle = God's little tavern.

"Music was among the first activities to be encoded, the first to be automated, the first to be programmed. the first to be digitized as a commercial product, the first to be distributed via peer-to-peer networks ... The standard story is that computers - and the Internet - descend from military technology ... But inventing a computer also required other building blocks: music boxes, automated flautists, harpsichord keyboards, player pianos ... "Yes, the Department of Defense helped build the Internet. But the pinned cylinders of the music boxes gave us software." -Steven Johnson, Wonderland

"Joe Rainey had a habit of staring straight ahead. Though Call assumed he had a neck joint like other men, he had never seen him use it. If you happened to be directly in front of him, Joe would look you in the eye; but if you were positioned a little to the side, his look went floating on by." -Larry McMurtry

Jael : Sisera :: Delilah : Samson. Both women disable a man using a "pin/peg" (yater). Yet very different outcomes: Sisera perishes, Samson rises again to win his greatest victory. Deborah's song anticipates this: "So may all your enemies perish, but let those who love you be like the rising of the warrior sun (shemesh, root of shamshon)."

The song of Deborah is merciless to Sisera's mother, who's waiting at home for her little Coriolanus to return victorious (Judg 5:28-30). Her wise women reassure her that he's delayed because he paused to rape an Israelite "womb" or two. Well, Sisera found a woman, Jael, but he never penetrated her. Quite the opposite. (Sisera asks Jael to stand by the tent doorway and tell anyone who asks, "There is no man here." Indeed there isn't: Only a corpse, and an unmanned one at that. In the Heb, the wise women say there's "a womb, two wombs, for the head (ro'sh) of every warrior." Whether or not ro'sh has phallic connotations, it's clear Sisera's not going to be doing anything with his shattered head.

The women who serve at the tabernacle, who donate their mirrors to the laver, form a "host" (tzavot; Exod 38:8). It's often a military term. The serving women at the tabernacle are Eves, battlemates alongside the priests.

I see there's a discussion of Christian horror afoot. Check out this Theopolis Conversation on the subject. theopolisinstitute.com/conve…

"Christ entered history as a community, a society, not simply as a message, and the form taken by the community is Christ within society. The Church is a culture in its own right. Christ does not simply infiltrate a culture; Christ creates culture by forming anther city, another sovereignty within its own social and political life." -the late, great Robert Louis Wilken

Don’t let the sun go down on your anger, Paul says. If you don’t, you give room for the devil to move in. The devil is a slanderer and accuser, and the more anger and resentment you bottle up, the more satanic you become. Eventually, you lose every ability except the ability to accuse. Any pastor who has tried to untangle a broken marriage has encountered this hell.

Law and punishment play an "essentially moralizing, community-strengthening" role in society, reinforcing the accepted norms of society. Criminal law, as Clarence Thomas says, "serves a signaling function" that expresses "society's resolve that certain behavior will not be tolerated." Without punishment, the law sanctions crimes. On this basis, public punishment makes sense: It treats "law violators as moral agents, exhibiting the expressive and hortatory functions of the law," and "activates and reinforces the connection between the law and the community, channeling shame rather than merely physical punishment." -@ben_2_long

"The Church has a large field for social activity before touching legislation. It cannot make laws, but it can make customs." -Rauschenbusch

"In your concord and harmonious love, Jesus Christ is sung. And man by man, become a choir, that being harmonious in love, and taking up the song of God in unison, you may with one voice sing to the Father through Jesus Christ, so that He may hear you, and perceive by your works that you are indeed the members of His Son. It is profitable, therefore, that you should live in an unblameable unity, that thus you may always enjoy communion with God." -Ignatius to the Ephesians

The church is inherently political. She bears the destiny, and manifests the destination, of all nations.

"Is fashion in fact such a trifling thing? ... Can it have been mere coincidence that the future was to belong to the societies fickle enough to care about changing the colors, materials and shapes of costume, as well as the social order and the map of the world - societies, that is, which were ready to break with their traditions?" -Fernand Braudel