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…

"Where it is most apparent that the multitude of coffee houses of late years ... and the great resort of idle and disaffected persons to them have produced very evil and dangerous effects, as well for that many tradesmen and others do herein mis-spend much of their time which might and probably would be employed in and about their lawful calling and affairs, and also that in such houses diverse false, malitious, and scandalous reports are devised and spread to the defamation of his Majestie's Government ... His Majesty hath thought it fit and necessary that the said coffee houses be (for the future) put down and suppressed." -Charles II, "Proclamation for the Suppression of Coffee Houses," 1675

Diseased and wounded Zion (Isaiah 1:5-6) finally the makeover she has wanted (Isaiah 54:11-12). She is a bride, adorned with jewels, a city whose foundations, gates, and border fences sparkle. She's dressed as a priest, gem stones on her breastplate, adorned like the firmament, a foundation of sapphire (cf. Exod 24:10) and a “sun” (shemesh) like agate.

At the table, we receive the incarnate Son, who makes His home in us. Jesus makes us capacious enough to receive Him, along the way stretching us to receive our neighbor.

We rightly have a lot of detailed questions about Paul’s teaching on marriage. We should. But don't miss the big picture. Paul’s discussion of headship and submission occurs in Ephesians 5. He’s already been talking about Christ and the church for four chapters. Jesus is exalted above all authority and power. He doesn’t trample the church, or keep His Bride far beneath Him. He ascends to take His bride with Him, to enthrone her with Him in heavenly places. He’s Lord, but He exercises His sovereign authority to elevate, glorify, deify the Bride who is one body with Him. Marriage is not the union of a man with a scullery maid, but a union of king and queen. A wife’s submission is a queenly, lordly submission. -thanks to Gerald Hiestand

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.