Reference links:

Old Testament

Habakkuk is fun to say. Try it: Habakkuk! Here is the description from Understanding The Bible:

Composed when Babylon was about to devastate Judah, Habakkuk contains a miniature theodicy, reflecting the prophets effort to find a worthy purpose in Yahweh’s permitting the destruction of his people by unbelieving foreigners.

Like Micah, it is believed that Habakkuk was modified by later editors. In this case, the modifications may include the whole third chapter.

Habakkuk’s vision consists of two questions to God each followed by an answer. The second answer is followed by a prayer.

The first question can be summarized as: Why does God not seem to listen when his people are surrounded by violence and wickedness and cry out for help?

To this, the Lord replies that he is raising up the Babylonians to conquer other people even though the Babylonians are guilty of pride and cruelty. In conjunction with Habakkuk’s answer, it seems as if God is saying that his answer to the wickedness of his chosen people is destruction by the hands of the cruel and proud Babylonians.

Habakkuk’s section question is: Will the Lord really let the evil Babylonians get away with killing off God’s chosen people? Will he let them get away with killing everyone, even those who are more righteous than the Babylonians?

The Lord’s reply to this question is no. The Babylonians will not remain in power forever. The proud, the wealthy, the greedy, the corrupted will have the tide turn on them, while the righteous will live. Yet this response is general enough that it seems to apply not only to the Babylonians but to the Israelites too: the righteous will live, but those who oppress others will be turned upon by those they oppress.

The book ends with a prayer from Habakkuk. The prayer praises God’s power and splendor, sometimes in rather violent terms (pestilence, plagues, earthquakes). Habukkuk then goes on to imply that when God destroys, it aids in the bringing of eventual salvation:

Was it in anger, Lord, that you struck the rivers
and parted the sea?
Were you displeased with them?
No, you were sending your chariots of salvation!

Reference links:

Old Testament

Harris‘ description of the book of Nahum is short and sweet:

The prophet rejoices over Nineveh’s deserved fall.

Further commentary gives a bit more detail:

Of Nahum’s personal life or theological beliefs,w e know nothing except that his message was unlike that of any other known Hebrew prophet. He neither decried his people’s sins nor prophesied their retribution; instead, his entire book is composed of three poems rejoicing over the ruin of Nineveh, capital of the Assyrian Empire. His gloating, unmitigated by compassion, contrasts markedly with the merciful attitude found in Jonah.

Nahum probably wrote about 612 BCE, either while the combined Medes and Babylonians were besieging Nineveh or shortly after the city’s capture.  

On to the reading! The reading starts with a general overview of Nahum’s version of God. Nahum’s God is jealous, powerful, vengeful, and angry (although slow to anger). He is an absolutist who never lets guilt go unpunished. He is also good and a refuge to those who trust him.

After this, Nahum gets more specific and starts discussing the Assyrians. The Lord will rescue his people from their oppression (and will not punish them again apparently; that part is not so accurate a prediction). The Assyrians in Nineveh will be punished and fall; Nahum spends a fair amount of time on the details of their defeat and punishment. Those descriptions, the details of which are not particularly interesting, make up the rest of the book.

Not much to say about that one except that Nahum’s version of God is not particularly attractive or worthy of worship for anything other than his shear power.
New Testament

The seventh and last seal is broken. At which point,

here was silence throughout heaven for about half an hour.

Psalms and Proverbs

These proverbs are much less fragmented than earlier proverbs and, therefore, much more annoying to read a few verses at a time. In any case, Agur asks two favors of God: he wants to never tell a lie and he wants to be neither too rich nor too poor. If he is too rich, he may become self reliant, and if he is too poor, he may resort to crime.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Today we finish Micah. We learn that a ruler of Israel will come from Bethlehem. This verse is popular among Christians for the obvious reasons.

After that, I am not quite sure how the various declarations, but my guess is that the statements about being rescued from Assyria and the purification of the remaining Israelites apply to the time during which the new ruler is ruling. In this time, the restored Israel will be a powerful nation and wipe out their enemies. So it most certainly won’t be a time of peace.

This description of the future is followed by the Lord’s declaration of his case against Israel. Because the case still stands that however much prosperity will come to a restored Israel, they still need to be destroyed in the first place. The Lord lays out the good things he has done for Israel and then states that all he wants is for them to do what is good and right. But the people have not done this, and so they must be destroyed.

We then move back to what appears to be Micah’s voice. He describes the despair that arises from everyone being evil. He declares the day of judgment is near and tells people not to trust anyone, not even friends or spouses.

Micah then reiterates the larger theme of the prophecy more personally and talks about how he will trust in the Lord, be punished for his sins, and then be restored.

The book ends with Micah asking the Lord to protect his people (using rather rural imagery), the Lord responding that he will, and Micah praising the Lord.

New Testament

To recap, yesterday, a lot of seals were unsealed. Today, four angels are waiting to destroy the earth and everything in it (these are, I believe, the disasters caused by the breaking of the sixth seal). Before they do so, the followers of God have a seal placed on their forehead. 12,000 people from each of the tribes of Israel are sealed. 12,000 people from 12 tribes is obviously symbolic, and the author probably didn’t actually mean the twelve tribes given that this is an apocalypse of the New Testament. I am sure the details have some relevance, but I’ll just take away the high level point that the author thinks the faithful will be somewhat shielded from the disasters.

After that, some people appear, and everyone starts praising God. The people who appeared are apparently those who died in tribulation. Revelation sure seems to imply that those who died in tribulation are better than those who didn’t. It is those who die in tribulation that get to serve God and live a life death free from physical discomfort. But given that dying in tribulation is at least partially an accident of history, that seems rather arbitrary.

Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s proverb declares that

Every word of God proves true

From that and the obviously factually false statements in the Bible, we can conclude, therefore, that either not all of the Bible is the word of God or factual truth is not what the author is getting at. Although I wonder how one can get away with calling something factually false that was presented as fact as true. (Presented as fact as opposed to symbol or story.)

I also wonder if the various redactors of the Bible paid attention to this one:

Do not add to his words,
or he may rebuke you and expose you as a liar.

Reference links:

Old Testament

As we zoom through all of these minor prophets, I am kind of annoyed that Understanding The Bible orders its OT commentary by (approximately) the order of the books in the Hebrew scripture. Such an order is educational but somewhat annoying from a practical perspective.

In any case, let’s see what the book of Micah is all about:

Sharply critical of Jerusalem’s ruling classes, including Davidic monarchs and priests, the rural prophet Micah prophesies doom upon Israel and Judah. Expanded by later interpolations, Micah’s oracles are edited to include predictions of Yahweh’s future universal reign, additional denunciations of social abuses, and hopes for restoration.

… Micah, fourth and last of the eight-century BCE prophets, was a younger contemporary of Isaiah of Jerusalem. Active between 740 and 700 BCE, he directed his earliest prophecies against Israel’s idolatries, predicting the fall of the northern kingdom. 

In today’s reading, Micah spreads the message of guilt and judgment to both Samaria and Jerusalem, Israel and Judah.

I find this part of Samaria’s punishment to be noteworthy:

Her streets will be plowed up
for planting vineyards.

Generally, Biblical judgment against cities seems to come in the form of complete destruction. However, it makes sense that a rural prophet would see turning the city back into the countryside as fitting punishment. A similar passage is mentioned later in reference to Jerusalem:

Because of you, Mount Zion will be plowed like an open field;
Jerusalem will be reduced to ruins!
A thicket will grow on the heights
where the Temple now stands.

Continuing on, the people of various cities are told to prepare for punishment. The powerful people who oppress others will be marked out for punishment because of their evil. A similar theme is picked up later when Micah declares the guilt of the oppressive leaders (using cannibalistic imagery).
Micah then goes on to rant a bit about how the people do not listen to true prophets like himself. Instead, they only listen to comforting false prophets. Later, there is another rant against false prophets which ends with Micah’s declaration of his own power as a prophet. I wonder if the author of Jonah had Micah in mind when thinking about the prophets who were a bit too full of themselves.

Micah also includes the standard message that Israel will someday be restored in the days when the Lord will rule all the world’s people from his mountain and weapons of war will be repurposed. But until then, there will be suffering and exile.

New Testament

Today, the lamb starts breaking the seals. This brings forth a white horse with an armed and crowned rider; the rider wins many battles. The breaking of the second seal brings a red horse with an armed rider; the rider takes peace from the earth. The third seal brings a black horse whose rider holds scales; he will make food scarce and expensive. The forth reveals a pale green horse whose rider was Death; he is given authority to kill 1/4 of the earth’s population.

These are the famous horsemen of the apocalypse, although they appear to be conquest, war, famine, and death rather than the more familiar war, famine, pestilence, and death. In this telling, Death gets to take charge of pestilence.

But more to the point, if you have read Terry Pratchett’s discworld novels, you are probably giggling. Death is a pretty prominent character in some of those such as Thief of Time, and a very amusing one at best. The Bible’s version, not so cheery.

Continuing on to the fifth seal. This seal reveals the martyred faithful souls. They are waiting to judge the world and avenge their blood. No loving judgment from that crowd. They get white roles and are told that their time is near, but they have to wait for some other martyrs. Now, given that the whole history of Christian and Jewish martyrdom could not have lasted much longer than history since Revelation is written, we once again see how wrong the Biblical authors were with there conception of soon.

The breaking of the sixth seal causes an earthquake and darkness. Various other disasters occur (many of which would be downright impossible if you took them literally). These disasters cause everyone on earth to hide and ask to be saved from the coming wrath.

That ends today’s reading.

Psalms and Proverbs

Apparently we start the sayings of Agur today. All I know about Agur is that is the son of Jakeh. In the first three verses of Agur’s saying, he declares himself to be lacking wisdom and worthiness. The forth praises the superiority of God. In short, classic techniques for trying to impress people. Set the bar low, bring to mind the higher standard, and then implicitly be compared favorably to that higher standard when you exceed the expectations you set.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Today’s book, Jonah, should ring a bell. It contains the famous story about Jonah getting trapped in the belly of a sea creature. Understanding The Bible has this to say about the book:

A narrative about the vast difference between a God of infinite compassion and a prophet of painfully limited understanding, Jonah provides both a critique of some Israelite prophecy and an illustration of God’s universality. Utilizing folklore, humor, and hyperbole to make his point, an unknown postexilic author sets his fictional tale in the eight century BCE, when Assyria dominated the ancient Near east. 

Jonah is chosen as a prophet to tell the city of Nineveh of their sin and their doom. He did not want this assignment and fled. The ship he ended up on was caught in a storm. By drawing lots, the passengers identified Jonah as the cause. Jonah tells them to cast him into the sea. They try to avoid doing so, but it becomes their only choice. Throwing Jonah overboard immediately stops the storm, and so the sailors decide to worship his god.

In the meantime, Jonah is swallowed by a fish and spends three days and nights there. Johan prays to God and is released. And that’s the whole fish incident.

Jonah is commanded, once again, to go to Nineveh, and this time he goes. He delivers his message of destruction and the people repent (which is how you can tell this is fiction; the Israelites never repented because of the words of a prophet =P ).

Because of this change of ways, God changed his mind and did not destroy them. This makes Jonah angry. Jonah, like many a modern religious fundamentalist, does not actually want people to be good. He  would rather be right than see people saved.

God teaches Jonah a lesson by providing a shade tree and then taking it away. When Jonah feels anger over the loss of that tree, God tells him that even more sorrow should be filled for a city living in spiritual darkness.

And that ends the book. It’s a good story. I also think that the lesson of not taking prophets too seriously is a good one. Someone doing God’s will, this story tells us, does not necessarily understand God’s ways. When the prophets show anger and hatred, that anger and hatred should be seen as theirs, not their God’s. I think that can certainly be applied to some of the angry rants of the prophets we have read.

New Testament

A scroll is sealed with seven seals. No one is worthy of unsealing it except

the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the heir to David’s throne

This being is also described as

Then I saw a Lamb that looked as if it had been slaughtered

Most of the imagery in Revelation is pretty dense, but the surface imagery of this one is pretty clear. The lamb/lion == Jesus.

Today’s reading ends with the 24 elders, the four winged beings, and all the angels praising the lamb.

Psalms and Proverbs

One proverb about justice and another which tries to simplistically divide the world into the righteous and the wicked.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Today we read Obadiah, the shortest of the prophetic OT books, which Harris describes it as a book where

The prophet blasts Edom for benefiting from Judah’s destruction.

Given that this theme seems to be covered in other places (e.g., in the beginning of Amos), there does not seem to be much point to including this book.

On to the content. Actually, there’s not much more to add. Edom sucks. They did wrong by Israel and did not come to help when Israel needed it. They then plundered the land and killed the survivors. For this, they will be wiped out by their enemies. They will suffer as Israel suffered. And, to add insult to injury, Israel will be restored and come to occupy Edom. The end.

New Testament

More glowy people! Today the author sees another vision of a a being who is brilliant like jasper and carnelian. This being is surrounded by 24 thrones with 24 elders seated on them. In front of them were seven burning torches representing the sevenfold spirit of God. In front of all that is a sea of glass, and there were four eye covered, winged, animal inspired beings praising the Lord.

When did God’s spirit become sevenfold? Why are there 24 elders? What does it all mean? I don’t know. But it’s late, and I don’t actually care enough to look it up. Unlike other books, where I felt I might get some value out of understanding them, I am choosing to read Revelation as one long drug induced vision.

So in that spirit… jasper and carnelian and fire. Pretty!

Moving right along now… the four winged beings and the 24 elders spend their days praising the Lord. I suppose this is one of those passages that makes people think that all one does in heaven is sit around praising God all day.

And that ends today’s reading.

Psalms and Proverbs

Assisting thieves will lead you into uncomfortable situations and fearing people is bad.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Today, Amos is shown visions of locusts and fire that the Lord was preparing for Israel. Fortunately for them, in both cases the Lord changed his mind when asked by Amos.

After that, we learn that Amos had traveled to Israel and was making public declarations that Jeroboam would die. Jeroboam, not surprisingly, was not fond of these ideas and told Amos to go back to Judah. Amos replied by saying that he just does what the Lord tells him to do.

The Lord then shows Amos a vision of ripe fruit to imply that Israel is ripe for punishment. The Lord then vows to punish Israel and describes that punishment. In addition to the normal language of punishment, we read this intriguing bit:

“The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign Lord,
“when I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread or water
but of hearing the words of the Lord.
People will stagger from sea to sea
and wander from border to border
searching for the word of the Lord,
but they will not find it.
Beautiful girls and strong young men
will grow faint in that day,
thirsting for the Lord’s word.

I find it interesting that this is given as a punishment when one of the primary sins of the people is neglecting the Lord for other gods.

Amos then receives a vision of God’s destroying punishment. That punishment includes another interesting bit that speaks to the prophet’s vision of his God’s universality:

“Are you Israelites more important to me
than the Ethiopians?” asks the Lord.
“I brought Israel out of Egypt,
but I also brought the Philistines from Crete
and led the Arameans out of Kir.

Israel, in both its blessings and punishments, is no more special than any other people. How different this is from the presentation of Israel as God’s especially chosen ones.

The book ends with a description of Israel’s promised restoration.

New Testament

The church in Philadelphia is praised for their obedience in spite of their small strength. Because of this, they will be protected in the terrible times to come (which, as is commonly the case, is described as soon). Those who make it victoriously through those times will becomes citizens of the new Jerusalem.

The church in Laodicea is lukewarm. This, declares the vision of Jesus, is worse than being either hot or cold. The people of the church are well off and complacent and do not realize their own misery. But if they let Jesus in, they still have a chance to join the side of victory.

That ends today’s reading the the letters to the churches.

Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s proverb encourages humility.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Today we get a detailed description of the punishments that God brought upon his people for their sins. He seems to have an expectation that these punishments would make people turn to him. However, I am guessing these droughts, famines, blights, and plagues may very well have had the opposite effect and turned people toward worshiping other gods.

From God’s perspective, he is punishing sinful behavior. From the people’s point of view, Yahweh is failing to provide for them and so they turn to another god. Given Yahweh’s early history as a God of battle and rescue, it would not be unnatural for famines and droughts to make the people think that he is not so effective as a god of farming.

God’s response to this is to promise even more punishments and disasters. This shows that the God of Amos’ vision lacks a fundamental understanding of human psychology. If a god chooses to rule by fear, people will only obey him on the surface. They will never truly internalize respect for what that god considers to be right living.

Thus, as the Lord continues to emphasize his power and the punishment he will bring, he is not helping his case any. He might end up winning back some obedience for now, but he is not winning any hearts in the long term. The God of Amos calls for justice and righteous living, but seems to have missed the message of inner transformation that later prophets realized their God must call for to encourage deep change.

Today’s reading also contains a description of the day of judgment. It will be a dark and terrible day. Now, this may not seem surprising, but you should remember that Amos is the earliest recorded Hebrew prophet. Thus, when he says that people think the day of judgment is something to look forward to, he probably was reflecting the popular opinion.

New Testament

Today we read the message to the church in Thyatira. They receive some encouraging praise, but they  are tolerating one whom Jesus considers intolerable. They put up with the presence of Jezebel, a woman who encourages sexual sin and the eating of food offered to idols. She is specially picked out for punishment. Part of that punishment is the rather unjust striking of her children dead. Even if they are children of adultery, they should not be used as nothing more than tools to punish their mother.

The church in Sardis is told that they are dead and do not meet God’s requirements. But those few who have not sullied themselves will someday walk with Jesus.

That’s all the letters for today.

Psalms and Proverbs

Nothing strikes me as noteworthy today.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Today we start the Book of Amos. We’ll be sticking with this one for a few days. As usual, background,

Beginning with a series of oracles condemning Israel’s neighbors, Amos also threatens the northern kingdom with destruction, delivering three warnings of judgment followed by five vision of disaster. Ah epilogue, promising restoration and peace, was added by a Judean editor.

Sounds cheery. We also learn that

Amos was the first biblical prophet whose words scribes compiled in book form. He also introduced major themes that would thereafter become staples of Israelite prophecy. Active in about 750 BCE during the reign of Jeroboam II, Amos was an older contemporary of Hosea and Isaiah of Jerusalem.

On to today’s reading! The first half to two-thirds of today’s reading is declaration of the sins of various nations and the punishments they will receive. The sins are varied: defeating God’s people in battle, taking others as slaves or selling others into slavery, exiling people, breaking treaties, excessive violence in war, desecration of corpses, and disobeying the Lord’s instructions. The punishment is generally some combination of destruction or exile.

This catalog of sinful nations is followed by a detailing of the sins of Israel. Their sins are particularly worthy of punishment because they had a closer relationship with the Lord. This includes a declaration that the Lord never brings punishment without first announcing it to the prophets and a declaration that disaster comes to cities because the Lord plans it.

New Testament

In today’s reading, the glowing Jesus vision dictates letters to three of the seven churches.

The church in Ephesus is told that they have done much well: they have been patient but don’t tolerate evil. They, along with Jesus, hate the Nicolaitans, whoever they are (little is definitively known about them). However, they disappoint Jesus because they do not love each other or Jesus as much as they did in the beginning.

The church in Smyrna gets less praise and less advice. Instead, they are offered encouragement and sympathy to help them face their upcoming suffering.

The church in Pergamum is told that it is doing well, especially given that Pergamum is where Satan has his throne. This seems like a good candidate for a coded reference to current events. However, the church fails to live up the Jesus’ standard because they show some tolerance for heretics.

I am guessing that tomorrow we will read letters to more of the seven churches.

Psalms and Proverbs

Given the positive attitude toward physical punishment elsewhere in the psalms, I am guessing the implication of this proverb is that since words alone are not enough, sometimes physical punishment is necessary.

Words alone will not discipline a servant;
the words may be understood, but they are not heeded.

There is more hope for a fool

than for someone who speaks without thinking.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Let’s see what Understanding The Bible has to say about the Book of Joel:

After comparing a plague of locusts then devastating Judah to Yahweh’s imminent day of wrath, Joel predicts an outpouring of the divine spirit on all humanity and proclaims judgment on foreign nations.

… Although it gives no conclusive evidence of the time it was written, the conditions it describes — locust invasions, drought, and crop failure — suggest that the prophet was active during the fifth century BCE, a period of severe economic hardship for the postexilic community of  Judah.

It sounds like things are going to be a bit confusing at time:

The second part of Joel presents some difficulties because in the manuscript text, many passages seem to be out of order.

Harris also tells us that this book, with it’s signs of the end times, cosmic battles, outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and claims of divine presence among the faithful, had a large influence on later writers such as the author of Acts.

Joel, the author, seems to live in a time when the lands were plagued by many types of locusts. He interprets these as a warning.

I have been reading Guns, Germs, and Steel so I find the crop descriptions fascinating. That book makes me realize how much farming and crops are technologies; they were developed fairly recently. By the time the Joel was written, many staples, including the difficult to domesticate apple, were being grown as the staples of the food supply in Judah. Yet so many things that we consider staples, such as all the foods developed in the new world and anything domesticated in the last couple thousand years, was not yet domesticated. How odd it would be to be transported to a world where the food was both so familiar and so different.

In any case, that is all rather beside the point. The point is that the locusts ate all of these crops. Also, there’s drought and fire. Joel takes these disasters as a sign that the day of the Lord is near.

The day of the Lord is near,
the day when destruction comes from the Almighty.

and later

Let everyone tremble in fear
because the day of the Lord is upon us.

He was as wrong about that as the New Testament authors were. Like with the NT books, it is difficult to make a case that Joel meant that the day of judgment was near in cosmic rather than human terms. If the day was only near in cosmic terms, why would one plague of locusts be a sign of it? The locusts would be no more noteworthy than any other natural disaster.

The locusts come in crowds, vast and unstoppable like an invading army. The Lord leads them in their destruction. Because Joel believes that this attack comes from the Lord, he tells the people to repent. Joel,  continuing the fine tradition started by Moses, advises that the people pray that God saves them so as to save God’s reputation:

Let them pray, “Spare your people, Lord!
Don’t let your special possession become an object of mockery.
Don’t let them become a joke for unbelieving foreigners who say,
‘Has the God of Israel left them?’”

Reminding God that he will be mocked for killing off his people is, I suppose, a tried and true strategy.

In any case, Joel promises that if the people repent, the Lord will end their troubles and bless them. After this, the Lord will pour out his spirit upon his people. All will see prophetic visions and there will be wonders to behold. Those who call on the Lord will be saved and those who do not will be judged for harming his people.

As punishment, for taking the Israelites in slavery, God will give the people of these offending nations in slavery to the people of Judah. That, I think, is a rather questionable judgment for a so called good and moral God to give out.

Once the divine judgment has been given, the people of Judah will live in peace and prosperity forever, but the lands of their enemies will become desolate.

And that’s the end of that book.

New Testament

We start our last New Testament book today: the Book of the Revelation of John. Like Daniel, this is an apocalyptic work. According to Harris,

Revelation affirms Christianity’s original hope for an immediate transformation of the world and assures the faithful that God’s prearranged plan, including the destruction of evil and the advent of Christ’s universal reign, is about to be accomplished. The book presents an apokalysis (unveiling) of unseen realities, both in heaven as it is now and on earth as it will be in the future. Placing a government oppression and Christian suffering in a cosmic perspective, Revelation conveys its message of hope for believers in the cryptic language of metaphor and symbol.

… Although Revelation was not the last New Testament book written,  its position at the end of the canon is thematically appropriate. The first Christians believed that their generation would witness the end of the present wicked age and the beginning of God’s direct rule over the earth. Revelation expresses that apocalyptic hope more powerfully than any other Christian writing. … Although the Gospels and Paul’s letters contain strongly apocalyptic passages, Revelation is the only New Testament document composed entirely in the form of a literary apocalypse. 

… Although one tradition states that Revelation is the work of John the Apostle, son of Zebedee, and that he is the same person who wrote John’s Gospel, this assertion was questioned even in the early church. … 

 Eusebius suggests that another John, known as “the Elder,” who lived at Ephesus about 100 CE, may have been the author. A few critics accept this view, although the majority believe that we can know little about the writer except for his name and his assertion that he had been exiled to Patmos, a tiny Aegean island off the western coast of Asia Minor (western Turkey). 

… Writing about 180 CE, the churchman Irenaeus stated that Revelation was composed late in the reign of Domitian, who was emperor from 81 to 96 CE. Internal references to government hostilities toward Christians, policies then associated with Domitian’s administration, support Irenaeus’ assessment. Most scholars date the work about 95 or 96 CE. 

On to today’s reading! The author starts out by declaring that he, John, is sharing a message that was given to Jesus to show his servants. The author then declares that “the time is near”, continuing in the tradition of authors who thought the end times would be soon.

The letter opens with greetings to seven churches; the choice of seven is probably symbolic given the numbers prominence in the rest of today’s reading. After the greetings, John gives a brief bit of personal background on how he came to write this book.

As part of this background, John tells of a vision of seven lamp stands which surround “someone like the Son of Man” who holds seven stars and has a sword coming out of his mouth. This vision seems rather terrifying, and John, based on his falling at the vision’s feet, seems to agree. The vision reveals himself to be Jesus and explains that the lamps represent the seven churches and the stars represent their angels. The idea of groups of individuals having a protecting angel reminds me of Daniel with it’s vision of the archangel Michael defending the Israelites.

That’s all for today.

Psalms and Proverbs

Nothing of particular note.