The seven stars in Jesus’ hand are the angels of the churches, the seven lampstands are the churches (Revelation 1:20). In the temple imagery that John is drawing on, the lamps on the lampstand are the lamps themselves, the lights that make the lampstand luminous. The lampstand of the temple is set in the firmament of the holy place, seven lamps representing the seven known planets. For Jesus, lampstand and star are dependent on one another. The star, as a... Read more
Jesus addresses seven letters to seven “angels” of the churches (Revelation 2-3). Commentators differ on whether the angels are spiritual beings, ecclesial guardian angels, or human beings, “messengers.” The letter to Ephesus seems decisive. There, Jesus charges that the angel has left his first love (Revelation 2:4), “fallen” from his earlier position (v. 5), and needs to repent (2x in v. 5). Many Christians have held the Miltonesque view that angels fell before or at the beginning of creation. Few... Read more
Jesus addresses seven letters to seven “angels” of the churches (Revelation 2-3). Commentators differ on whether the angels are spiritual beings, ecclesial guardian angels, or human beings, “messengers.” The letter to Ephesus seems decisive. There, Jesus charges that the angel has left his first love (Revelation 2:4), “fallen” from his earlier position (v. 5), and needs to repent (2x in v. 5). Many Christians have held the Miltonesque view that angels fell before or at the beginning of creation. Few... Read more
Andrew Wilson thinks that the Ukrainian protesters have won. But the battle for a free Ukraine is just beginning. Russian won’t make it easy. “the new government in Ukraine, however it’s made up, will be given the briefest of ritualistic honeymoons before Russia uses every instrument at its disposal to try to make it fail.” When Russia bailed out Ukraine in December, its aim “was to provide just enough money to support the old semi-authoritarian system (helping Viktor Yanukovych pay the... Read more
In his study of the sacramental shape of Eberhard Jungel’s theology, The Interruptive Word, R. David Nelson suggests that “in many types of ecclesiology, Jesus Christ and the church . . . are conceived as identical” (167). He offers several examples, mostly Catholic: “Lumen gentium . . . declares that the hierarchically structured church and the body of Christ form ‘one complex reality comprising a human and a divine element.’ Similarly, Tillard comments that the ‘flesh of the church’ and the... Read more
What’s new about New Institutional Economics (NIE)? In their editorial introduction to Handbook of New Institutional Economics, Claude Menard and Mary Shirley explain that NIE abandons certain assumptions of neoclassical economics, specifically the assumptions that actors possess “perfect information and unbounded rationality and that transactions are costless and instantaneous.” Rather, “NIE assumes instead that individuals have incomplete information and limited mental capacity and because of this they face uncertainty about unforeseen events and outcomes and incur transaction costs to acquire information”... Read more
Policy debates today are often framed as debates over state intervention, pro or con. It’s assumed that we know what a state intervention is. Ha-Joon Chang questions this assumption in a contribution to Institutions and the Role of the State. Whether child labor laws, environmental standards, or immigration laws count as “interventions” depends on where you look. Of the last, Chang writes, “many neoclassical economists who criticize minimum wages and ‘excessively’ high labour standards in the advanced countries as unwarranted state... Read more
The church at Smyrna will suffer “ten days” (Revelation 2:10). That suggests a brief tribulation, but why ten days? There are various speculations, but James Jordan’s suggestion seems the most fruitful: The ten day tribulation refers to the period between the feast of trumpets (Day 1 of Month 7) and the day of atonement (Day 10 of Month 7). To see how this works, it’s necessary to note that Revelation follows the calendar of Israel as laid out in Leviticus... Read more
The Balaamites of Pergamum and Jezebel in Thyatira have the same teaching. Both entice the saints to fornication, which much be a spiritual form of adultery, and to each things sacrificed to idols. These twin sins link back to the apostolic decree after the Council of Jerusalem, which forbade Gentile believers from eating things sacrificed to idols and from fornication. Here the connection is reinforced by Jesus’ statement that he lays “no other burden” on the Thyatirans (v. 24; cf. Acts... Read more
Douglas Rushkoff (Program or Be Programmed) argues that we don’t think enough about how our new technologies run, or how they are biased. Most of us know how to use software; few know how to make it, and we don’t think about how those who do make it are making their decisions, how their decisions shape our use of their programs. Google searches provide an illustration: “Every Google search is—at least for most of us—a Hail Mary pass into the... Read more
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