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OK this one is a bit of a cheat. Its this weeks in my mug, but its still a new coffee. It also means you get a video (another cop out) but it has been very very tough to keep this pace up. I’ll be glad once the last one is done.

Its a special cup and I hope you get a chance to try it.

Another of our direct trade coffees, this time located in the North Yungas region of Bolivia in the colony of Bolinda. David Vilca (who owns the farm and named it after himself) migrated from La Paz to the farm 15 years ago.

He bought this 7 hectares farm as security for his family to make sure they could support himself and them. When he took over he only had 1 acres which was planted with coffee. But after 2 years he became comfortable with the farm and a new interest, he became passionate about coffee and decided to cultivate more. Now he has 5 acres of coffee (of which we have bought it all). He has very little outside help with the farm apart from direct family where his wife helps him greatly.

The varietals on the farm are Caturra , Catuai and Criolla. the farm is under constant improvement, David is now removing much of Criolla and focusing on Typica and Catuai for cup quality reasons.

This is a wonderfully sweet cup as you have come to expect from Bolivia, milk chocolate, with walnut hints to it, thats is so very familiar. Where this coffee opens up is in its acidity, think Pear and juniper berry mashed up in a pestle and mortar (with a little of that walnut and chocolate too) and you have the most delicious and complex coffee. Theres hints of spice and citrus in this taste mash up that makes every cup different, making it evolves and change through its temperature range.

Farm: Finca David Vilca
Founded: 2001
Province: Caranavi
Region:North Yungas
Altitude: 1,570-1,600 m.
Hectares total Farm: 7 hectares.
Hectares Coffee plantation: 5 hectares
Quantity Coffee plants : 20.000
Shade: Natural shade by Inga sp. (Sinquili) and others.
Coffee Varieties: Caturra, Criolla and Typical
Rainfall Period: Nov– February
Average Temperature: 8°C ≤ 19°≥ 30°C
Soil Type: Clay and shaly
Other Crops Grown: Citrus Fruits( orange, tangerine) advocate
Average Age Of Coffee Plants: 8 to 12 years old, Now renovating planta- tions with Caturra and Typical
Certification: Organic

You can buy it here

To point out that two women (or two men) can't have sex?

Or is it something which we have so forgotten as a culture that we need to be reminded that sex is a biological system, not a sociological construct?

I ask, because I am genuinely puzzling over this one.

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Day 5 and another huge coffee. We have seen Lagoa in the past, but not the icatu varietal from there. For more on this take a look here

Great to see the brazils rolling in again

This micro lot came as a really nice surprise and out of the blue. I got sent the sample blind and got really excited about it. You will see Lagoa at other roasters, but not this tiny micro lot.

Owned by the Vieira family this farm can be found in Sul de Minas the heart of Minas Gerais, the well known coffee growing region, with its rolling mountains, lakes and rich farmland.

In the slopes of Serra do Pau D’Alho, coffee is produced at altitudes ranging from 950 to 1200 meters. Fazenda Lagoa has 220 hectares in coffee, producing approximately 7000 bags a year, (which is huge in farm standards) and 600 hectares of preserved forest attracting conservationists from all over the world to study its hundreds of different bird species.

As I mentioned, lots of roasters have Lagoa (because of the size of the farm), so what makes this special? Well first it’s a pulped natural process and the varietal is yellow icatu. Icatu is an unusual varietal. With DNA in Iapar 59 and others, this relatively young varietal came to the forefront in 1985 in Brazil, but was officially released in 1993.

There are lots of sub varietals around icatu, most of them just sub variations. These hybrids are the result of repeated backcrossing of arabica with robusta hybrids to arabica cultivars with Mundo Novo and Caturra, and is by far the most complicated of the varietals I’ve looked at so far.

It has a strong resistance to leaf rust, and rootknot neratodes. A relatively young varietal its true potential as a specialty coffee has yet to be accessed but its pest resistance and it success in brazil’s COE competition show positive signs. In the cup too

So in the cup expect a super clean cup, buttery mouthfeel with nutmeg spice that lingures. But the big thing is its sweetness, like popcorn caramel thats delicious.

To buy click here

In a 2007 essay on leonine imagery in the Journal for the Study of Pseudepigrapha, Brent Strawn helpfully summarizes the associations of the lion in the Bible, Apocrypha, Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, and Gnostic texts.  It’s a fascinating survey, rich in colorful detail (like the story of the baptized lion in the Acts of Paul).

His main question, though, is why Revelation does the bait-and-switch of first introducing Jesus as Lion, then immediately, and permanently, shifting the imagery to Lamb.  Most of the commentary on this switch has been on the Lamb side of the question, but Strawn raises the question, Why even mention the lion to begin with if it is simply going to be abandoned?  His answer is that John is shown a Lion who instantly becomes a Lamb because of the negative associations of the lion:

“By introducing the lion, with its system of associated commonplaces, the author evokes a profoundly rich image-history, much of which is positive in tenor. But, by quickly shifting the image to the lamb, the author protects against the equally profound negative aspects that also inhere in the lion image, inviting in their place the host of commonplaces associated with the lamb image. This shift, with its rhetorical ‘safeguard’ in place, operates on a number of different semantic levels. There can be little doubt, for example, that much of the lion-to-lamb shift has to do with issues of power, dominance, and threat. Simply put, the lion has all these—indeed, its use as an image and metaphor is entirely predicated on such—but the lamb qua lamb does not have all these, at least not to the same degree. To be sure, this lamb is not the average, run-of-the-mill variety. This lamb, too, is capable of power, dominance, and threat (see Rev. 6.16; 17.14); this is, after all, a lamb that has seven horns and seven eyes, that is worthy to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing (5.6, 12, 13). But these powerful and potentially threatening qualities are rhetorically situated and literarily crafted within the Apocalypse. The lamb qualamb does not possess the negative system of associated commonplaces that obtain for the lion image.”

To support this, he points out that after the abrupt shift from lion to lamb in chapter 5, all the leonine imagery of the book is negative: “Leonine qualities recur later in Revelation in descriptions of (1) the locust horde with lion teeth that tortures those who lack God’s seal (Rev. 9.8); (2) the horses of the four angels, bound at the river Euphrates, whose plagues kill a third of humankind (9.17); and (3) the first beast from the sea, which has a lion’s mouth (13.2). After 5.5, that is, leonine qualities completely disappear from good entities in the Apocalypse, with the sole exception of the angel in 10.3; though even there the leonine image applies only to the angel’s shout.”  He concludes, “The point is clear: the ambivalence of the lion qua lion would permit too much ambiguity—even negative connotations—in light of traditional patterns of image-use; the lamb image resolves this conundrum.”

This is possible, and perhaps a part of the intention behind the lion-to-lamb shift, but I find it unsatisfying.  I suggest two further dimensions that might be at play.  First, Jesus is not the first lion figure introduced in the book; prior to Jesus’ appearance as lion, John has seen the four living creatures that constitute the throne of God, and one of them has a face like a lion.  When Jesus is introduced as lion, then immediately becomes a Lamb, he is being depicted as a Cherub, especially since He is a Lion-Lamb combination, combining the beast of the ark-throne with the beast of the altar.  Second, I wonder if we have a progression here, a hint of a process of maturation.  The elder says that the Worthy One is a Lion; but when the man John, the seer of the new creation, sees the Worthy One, it is a Lamb.  Perhaps there is a Old-New contrast here; what the ancient ones expect as a lion appears as a Lamb.  Perhaps this is one of the things that even angels long to peer into (1 Peter 1:12).

If you might be at Warbleton or Bodle Street Green churches tomorrow, look away now but otherwise here are some jottings on the feeding of the 5000 from Mark 6:30-44. If you are snowed in tomorrow morning, please feel free to preach my sermon notes to yourself:



You don’t need me to tell you about the needs of theworld.And in our Gospel passage, the people have obvious, overwhelming,real and pressing needs (vv35-36).V44 – 5000 men, + women and children: a great needycrowd.The disciples must have felt surrounded and swamped.The needs of our world are great – physical, mental, social,political, economic, moral, spiritual.We can feel helpless in the face of such needs – and we’renot so wrong!
This passage, is, of course, first of all, all aboutJesus.But the disciples are mentioned at the beginning and theend and often in between.The disciples had a lot to learn, and so do we.There’s lots we can learn from this passage, not onlyabout Jesus but about being his disciples too.
Jesus’ disciples are completely unable to meet the needs ofthe crowd on their own (v37).“200 denarii” (v37) maybe £15000 – on lunch!
In fact, Jesus’ disciples have needs of their own.The disciples couldn’t even feed themselves (v31)!They need a meal and a rest.They can’t cope with the needs of all these others.
Food and rest and refreshment are real and legitimateneeds. Sometimes it’s right to seek a break (v31-32) – even whenthere are other good things you could be doing.Jesus had decided that his disciples needed some timealone with him, and we need time alone with Jesus too.
Jesus has compassion on people in their need (v34) – evenwhen it’s not convenient (vv31-33).How must the disciples have felt (vv33-34)?How might we have reacted?!
Jesus was graciously willing to overturn his perfectplans when met by pressing need / striking opportunity (v34).We need wisdom to respond to circumstances. We should make plans but we should also be ready tochange them sometimes.Serving Jesus won’t always be easy or convenient.We need wisdom to take sensible care of ourselves, but weneed to put others first.If we’re to follow Jesus, we can’t always look afternumber 1.We can’t always please ourselves.Sometimes Jesus calls us to do what seems impossible tous – in fact, what would be impossible on our own.Jesus serves the people, even when he’s tired and hungryand when he’d made other plans – and he calls his followers to do the same.
Jesus is not always what we might call “reasonable”!(v34, vv35-36, v37, v38, v39ff).What the disciples are saying (v35-36) is quite right andreasonable, it just doesn’t take account of Jesus!And, of course, Jesus makes all the difference.The disciples know what they think is best, but Jesus hasother plans.Jesus knows what he’s doing but he challenges hisdisciples and puts them to the test here (vv37-39).Jesus might stretch us too.Sometimes Jesus pushes us beyond our comfort zone.Sometimes we find ourselves doing things with Jesus thatwe never imagined we could do.
Jesus’ ways can sometimes seem very odd to his disciples.Sometimes he seems to ask the impossible (v37).Sometimes what he asks us to do doesn’t seem to result insuccess (v38).Sometimes we might not understand what Jesus is up to orwhat he gets us to do (v39).I wonder what the disciples made of all this.Perhaps they were worried they might have medicalemergencies or even a riot on their hands.Wouldn’t it have been much better to have legged it atthe first sight of the crowds, or to have sent them away at a reasonable hour?What was Jesus thinking?But the disciples know enough to know that Jesus is incharge!They manage to trust Jesus’ better judgement.Jesus is the Leader, the Master, the Teacher, the Lord, weare the disciples, the followers, the learners, the servants.We’re to do what Jesus says, even if we don’t completelyunderstand what he’s up to (v40). We’re not to challenge his orders.Jesus knows best.We can trust him.
The disciples know that the people need a meal – and they’reright, they do.But Jesus diagnoses people’s real deeper needs (v34): They need a Shepherd-King, they need to hear the Word ofGod taught, and they need to eat.Much of the Bible is about a search for a good king, aking after God’s own heart. The people need a king.That’s who the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one wouldbe.
Jesus had compassion on them, v34, “so he began to teachthem many things”.They needed Jesus’ teaching.Jesus said: “Man cannot live by bread alone but by everyword that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4). The Word of God is real bread – hearing it is ourgreatest need. The Bible is food for the soul.
Where the disciples’ priorities are physical (v35), Jesus’are spiritual (v34). Jesus prioritises preaching the gospel (1:38) and theforgiveness of sins (2:5), though he wonderfully meets all our real needs.
Jesus perfectly meets all his people’s real needs.“They all ate and were satisfied” (v42): Jesus can really satisfy and only Jesus can reallysatisfy.Jesus is the perfect Shepherd-King, the Messiah, a newMoses / Joshua (Num 27:15-18).Jesus is the perfect leader of God’s people.He will conquer all their enemies: the enemies of sin anddeath. Jesus (Joshua) is God to the rescue – that’s what thename “Jesus” means. He saves the people – provides, delivers, protects, keepsthem safe. He has the (new) creative power of God Himself. Only God could do this kind of amazing miracle.Jesus can give all God’s people their “daily bread” –physical and spiritual.Jesus is bread from heaven, Manna in the wilderness. 12 baskets (v43) recalls the OT people of God, 12 tribesof Israel.Here is a new people of God, a new Israel, organisedaround Jesus (vv39-40, Ex 18:17-26). Jesus is going to bring a new Exodus, a new deliverance,like the rescue from slavery in Egypt (wilderness, v32; v39, green grassimplies springtime, Passover time). Jesus is the true Bread of Life, he can bring them out ofslavery to sin and safely all the way to the Promised Land. Jesus can bring us safely through our earthly pilgrimageall the way to heaven and the New Creation.Jesus sustains us with the Bread of his Word and of theLord’s Supper and will bring us at last to the Heavenly Feast.(v41 recalls Last Supper / Lord’s Supper).Jesus was always talking about a heavenly party, a meal,that he invites us to.Jesus himself is the food we need.(We feed on his spiritually, by faith, in our hearts, aswe hear his Word and in the Supper).
We should look to Jesus to graciously feed us, trust inhim, listen to him, take him as our shepherd-king.That is no doubt the main burden of this section of Mark,which focusses on who Jesus is.And yet we learn here something of what it means tofollow Jesus too.
Jesus graciously chooses to use his disciples despitetheir weaknesses and inadequacies and lack of understanding and although, ofcourse, he doesn’t really need them.Jesus could have fed the people all on his own, or calledon an army of angels but he deliberately involves his disciples (v37, v38, v39,v41, v43). Even Jesus’ miraculous work requires organisation andteam work (v39).
We should offer whatever we have to Jesus, even if itseems pathetic and ridiculous (v38) and see what he can do with it. When we give to Jesus we can expect to get back so muchmore than we give. The left overs here are far more than they started with(v43)!
Will you join Jesus in what he’s doing?Will you offer him your service and all that you have,and see what he’ll do – perhaps to meet the needs of others in a more amazingway than you could possibly imagine?
* * *
Cf. 2 Kings 4:42-44 – Elisha feeds 100 men with 20 loavesand they eat and have some left over Numbers 11 – the people are in the desert and Moses isworried about where 6000 people are going to find food
Exodus 16:1-18
Ps 78
Is 55:10-11
Sheep without a shepherd – num 27:15-18; 1 k 22:17; ez34:5, (22-23); zech 10:2
Loaves = more like our rolls
Moses organised the people into 1000s, 100s, 50s and 10s– Ex 18:17-26

Marc Lloyd

INTRODUCTION:
Considering the book of Ephesians a chapter at a time is a little bit like taking pictures of the Rocky Mountains from outer space. There is no hope of covering everything; there is perhaps some hope of stirring up a desire in you to give yourself to a lifetime of meditating on the themes of this book. As we learn later in this epistle, the Church is the bride of Christ. As she is gloriously adorned for her husband on her wedding day, she wears a golden crown, made up of all the Scriptures. If that image be allowed, the book of Ephesians should be understood as one of the central jewels in it.

THE TEXT:
“Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ . . .” (Eph. 1:1-23).

EPHESUS THE GREAT:
Ephesus was a harbor city on the west coast of modern Turkey It was the capital city for Proconsular Asia, and contained one of the seven wonders of the ancient world—the temple of Artemis (or Diana). It is a ruin today because the harbor silted up. But in Paul’s day, a street called the Arcadian Way ran about half a mile east from the harbor, where it connected with the cross street called Theater Street. The theater itself—where the riot occurred (Acts 19:29) was straight across the street at the intersection. The city had a population of roughly 250,000. The city was a center of great learning, as well as of great superstitions (Acts 19:19). Paul lived there from A.D. 52-54, and this letter is written about ten years later from prison in Rome.

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT:
Paul identifies himself as an apostle by the will of God, and salutes the Ephesian saints as being faithful in Christ Jesus (v. 1). He blesses them with grace and peace from the Father and the Son (v. 2). The Spirit is not mentioned by name because He is that grace and peace. A blessing is pronounced upon the Father of Jesus Christ, who is Himself the source of all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ (v. 3). The first mentioned blessing is the fact that we were chosen in Christ to be holy before the foundation of the world (v. 4). We were chosen to be holy, not because we were holy. He predestined us in love to be adopted by Jesus Christ and brought to God, and He did this because it was what He wanted (v. 5). The result of this is so that the glory of His grace would be praised, not vilified (v. 6). We have redemption through His blood, which means forgiveness for sin, according to His riches of grace (v. 7). This is a mountain of grace, but He did not just dump it on us; He showered with grace in all wisdom and prudence (v. 8). He lavishes with precision. God intended this within His own counsels for a long time past, from before when the world was made, but has now unveiled the mystery to us (v. 9). That mystery was that, when the time was finally right, God would gather everything in heaven and earth up into Christ (v. 10). In Christ, absolutely everything is recapitulated or summed up. God does everything as He wishes, and His wishes included making us His heirs (v. 11). Paul is describing himself here as inundated by the first wave of this grace (v. 12). But Gentile Ephesians not fear that this grace will run out—they also heard and believed and were sealed (v. 13). They were sealed by the Spirit, who is the earnest payment or first installment of their final inheritance (v. 14).

Ever since Paul heard of their faith in Jesus and love for the saints (v. 15), he has not stopped giving thanks for them (v. 16). His prayer for them included some remarkable requests—that the Father of glory would give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in their knowledge of Christ (v. 17). He asks further that the eyes of their understanding would be enlightened to the extent that they would  really “get” the hope of His calling, and the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints (v. 18)—a real down-is-up truth. Another thing was the greatness of His power for believers (v. 19), the kind of power that was evidenced in the resurrection and ascension (v. 20). That ascension placed Christ far above all current and future authorities (v. 21). Everything was placed under His feet (v. 22), and He was made head over everything for the Church. That Church is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything (v. 23).

THE TRUE NATURE OF PAUL’S PRAYER:
We are told here that Jesus was exalted to the highest imaginable place—it says that He was raised far above every other authority in the cosmos (v. 21). But this is not why Paul asks for the eyes of their hearts to be enlightened. That is not the thing that staggers us; everyone expects God to be “far above” everything. The thing that would require a special anointing from the Spirit to “get” is the coupling of this exaltation of Christ with the honoring of His bride. Consider what Paul is actually saying here. First, before the foundation of the world, God chose us (v. 4), loved us (vv. 4-5), predestined us (v. 5), blessed us (v. 6), lavished grace upon us (v. 8), and so on. Second, Paul specifically says that he is asking that the Spirit would open their eyes so that they might understand how great and glorious Christ’s inheritance is in the saints (v. 18). And third, we are told that Christ fills absolutely everything (v. 23), but in the same breath we are told that we in the Church are His fullness (v. 23). So the issue is not the exaltation of Christ; the issue is the corresponding exaltation of the Church in Christ. If we get just a portion of what Paul is talking about here, we will buckle at the knees. If we are to learn this without collapsing, God will have to do it. Your condition before conversion and your condition now can only be compared to Christ in the tomb and Christ at the right hand of Almighty God.

There are two great themes in Ephesians—the reconciliation of all things in creation to Christ, and the reconciliation of all nations in Christ. All the practical teaching is simply learning how to live as if these two great themes are true.

 

 

When we think of manna, we tend to think of daily provision, or the fact that manna was the Lord Jesus in a type. This is all good, but there is a good deal more. Recall also that when the manna was gathered, it was to be gathered for that day—sufficient unto the day is the grace thereof.

But there was one place where the manna would last, where it would not rot the same way it would in the tents of the Israelites. That place was inside the ark of the covenant, under the mercy seat. There, in that place, the bowl of manna was a bowl of mercy (Ex. 16:33). And it was not a small bowl either; it was not a small museum piece morsel, kept for sentimental reasons. God had them store up about 3/5 of a bushel within the ark of the covenant. His grace is sufficient.

God’s provision comes to you where you are, and the grace He provides is to be used by you as it comes. But never forget that there is a store of it, a plentiful store of it, inside the ark of the covenant. Never forget that God can keep what You need, and you cannot—even if you got it from God originally. In this life, grace comes on the fly and you may use it as it comes. But in your inheritance, grace is stored up, and it does not diminish.

 

When you pray on Tuesday afternoon for grace, that is your daily manna. Here, at this Table, we are at the mercy seat, and our provision does not and cannot fail. So come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.

As we watch the global economy, we are often dismayed or shocked. We are not dismayed or shocked at the fact of disaster—we live in a fallen world, and we know that disasters happen from time to time. But we are watching a slow-motion, self-inflicted, suicidal disaster. God has struck our leaders with a judicial blindness.

And this makes us wonder how we should live, what we can do. If we have been forgiven, chosen by Him in love before the world was made, what should we be doing? What does wisdom at the individual level look like?

There are a number of things you can and should do—organize your affairs, pay down your debt, and so on. But these really are common grace activities that you can read about elsewhere. I urge you to acquaint yourselves with the state of our financial crisis, and not to believe any financial promises that any politician makes. Conduct your affairs with prudence. That’s all good.

 

But there is another set of preparations I would urge you to think about. As you arrange your affairs, think about setting aside some money for loving your brothers. If we hit genuine hard times, we will be called to love each other and that will take resources. Our church has a deacons’ fund to help those in need; why not start a similar fund family by family?

I do not want to be (or to sound) alarmist here because hard money conservatives have been catching the last train out for my entire adult life. You can only cry wolf so many times. But, as in the story, there really are wolves out there. Being prepared for them is not the same thing as having a paranoid belief in them.

Giffiths speaks of the “complex admixture of regret and lament for unworthiness . . . and delight in lovability” that marks human love, and adds: “The presence of the one without the other makes it impossible to receive the offer of love and therefore impossible to be a beloved.  Were you to respond to the gift of love with an unruffled sense of your own beauty and worthiness to be given that give, you would not be a beloved – one who can return love – but rather a demigod receiving homage.  And were you to respond to the lover’s gift to you of your new condition as a beloved with nothing but a sense of your own unworthiness and ugliness and filthiness, then too, you could not be a beloved but only a mirrored wall of self-hatred from which all offered love would be reflected directly back to its offerer.”

Some profound meditations about sex, time, life, the universe and everything from Paul Griffiths’s Song of Songs (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible):

The first six verses of the Song “point the hearer first to what everyone knows about [human love and sexual desire], which is that the memory of lovemaking and the imagination of its repetition are at least as important for us as its performance.  We are constituted as beings in time and as beings who are capable of being aware of ourselves as such.  This is what makes memory and anticipation important for us, and it is remarkable that in the Song lovemaking is depicted almost entirely through their lens and not in terms of how the kiss and the caress seem as they are being given and taken. Hearing the Song as a depiction of human desire can intensify an awareness of this interesting fact about ourselves as lovers and beloveds.  It reminds us of what we want when we want to be loved and to give love is not fully available to us in the performance of those acts.  The intensity and complexity of human romantic and sexual need cannot find its fulfillment in the circumincession of two  . . . human bodies and minds.  If that circumincession were limited to its performance it would not be human lovemaking.  In order to be that it needs to be placed in the order of time as an object of memory and anticipation and in the order of narrative as an event about which the right story can be told.  Even when attention is restricted to the Song’s surface, therefore, the horizon it points to is open.  The human desire to love and be loved, to caress and be caressed, exceeds its own fulfillment and indicates its own insufficiency.  It begs for a story and for the memories and hopes that enframe stories.  Every act of human physical love is therefore already and inevitable figural.  The only question is: what does it figure?”

Among other things, Griffiths highlights how inhuman casual sex is.  Sex that has no background story, sex that has no anticipation of future union or encounter, sex that seeks its fulfillment in the sheer performance of the act, sex that is isolated from a story that is a collection of memories and hopes – this memory-less and hope-less sex is nothing but animal sex.  It is sex extracted from human existence.  Everyone who indulges it, whether with a series of real partners or a series of digital partners, becomes bestial.

This is part of the diocesan 'Transforming Presence' project.



Evangelical bishops please note -- just give an evangelistic lead to your diocese!

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“Bowl” (phiale) is used twelve times in the New Testament, all in Revelation.  This is obviously the number of Israel.  Israel’s twelve tribes are the twelve golden vessels of God, molded by God, fired in the furnace of affliction, shined up for service in God’s house.  Once in Revelation, in 5:8, the bowls contain incense that is the prayer of the saints.  The other eleven vials are filled with the wrath of God, the wine that is squeezed from the harvested grapes, which is the blood of saintly martyrs (Revelation 15:7; 16:1-4, 8, 10, 12, 17; 17:1; 21:9).

The two uses of bowls are connected: The prayers of the saints are prayers for vengeance for blood that has been shed (cf. 6:9-11), and when the prayers ascend and the blood descends, the Lord brings an end to the harlot-city that drinks holy blood.

There is a neat little anthropology here:

We are vessels of God’s service, designed for two purposes: To give off aromas that ascend to God and to spill blood.  We are vessels of sacrifice, aromatic blood-bags created for prayer and martyrdom.

And there’s a neat political theology too: Tyrants are destroyed, harlots burned, when the vessels of the new Israel offer the incense of prayer and confess Jesus to the shedding of blood.  Smoke and blood are the two mechanisms of Christian revolution.  Neither can be stopped.  Prayer is harder for tyrants to control than Twitter.   Killing Christians just makes more blood, and quickens the tyrant’s collapse.  Not killing Christians doesn’t work so well either, because they multiply and create a bigger incense cloud, more of the aroma that ascends to the Father and more of the fragrance of Christ that is for life and death.

John sees the Lamb “in the midst of the throne” (Revelation 5:6), precisely where he had seen the living creatures (4:6).  Before the Lamb’s arrival, the four creatures make up the seat of the throne – they are in its midst; and they are also surrounding the throne, forming the outer structure.  The Lord is enthroned on the beasts, and He is surrounded by the beasts as if they were guardians of the throne.

Now, however, the Lamb is in the midst of the throne, and also in the midst of the four living creatures.  That means He is located where the Enthronement is located.  He appears already in the middle of the creatures.  He is also in the middle of the twenty-four elders.  The Lamb has taken center stage, and has in a sense replaced the four living creatures as the throne of God.   We never again see the beasts “in the midst of the throne.”  A voice comes from the midst of the four beasts (6:6), but that is the voice of the Father or the Son, and in 7:17 we read again that the Lamb is in the midst of the throne.

The Lamb is a Cherubic creature.  He is introduced as a Lion, but also as a Lamb.   He is a strange Lamb or Lion, with far too many horns and eyes.  He is a composite being that sums up all creation, and He is now the throne of His Father, the new cherubic chariot of God.

The Lamb is as if slain, but stands in heaven (Revelation 5:6).  That might appear odd, John knows his sacrificial system.  This is precisely what happened to all lambs that were slain on Israel’s altars.

The sacrificial procedure was not completed when the Lamb was killed.  The Lamb was killed, dismembered, and then turned to smoke that ascended to God.  The sacrificial sequence moved from presenting and slaying of a Lamb to its appearance in the presence of Yahweh.  Standing is a priestly posture, and so the Lamb is slain and turned to smoke so that He can enter the smoky cloud of God’s presence and stand before the Lord to minister as priest.

Lambs also ascended to Yahweh’s throne to share it.  No human being was qualified to share Yahweh’s throne, but what the worshiper could not do, a lamb-turned-to-smoke does.  The Lamb, again, does what all sacrificial lambs do – ascends to the throne as Priest-King.

Apologies for the glitch in the recent Forum talk on The State – the wrong talk somehow got uploaded to the server. The problem has now been fixed, and you can listen to the whole thing right here. (HT: BP)

So were over half way through, and its starting to take its toll on me here, sorry for yesterdays no audioboo, will find time over the weekend to round them all up.

Todays is offered for you to digest and again the boo will follow over the weekend

Bolivia Copacabana

This coffee was produced by various smallholders farmers from the small town of Copacabana, which lies about 180km from La Paz in the heart of the Caranavi coffee-producing region. This is lush, fertile region whose steep slopes and valleys provide excellent conditions for growing specialty coffee, as well as supporting a diverse range of native flora and fauna.

The small farms that produced this lot average around 5 hectares each, and range over an altitude of 1,300 to 1,600 metres – benefiting from an average annual temperature of between 15 and 26°C. They are planted out with Caturra, as well as Red and Yellow Catuai varietals, grown in the shade of native trees. These traditional farms use no chemicals or pesticides and are certified organic.

The main harvest runs from May to September, peaking in June and July). The cherries are handpicked only when fully ripe, then fully washed either on the farms themselves or at the Buena Vista wet mill in Caranavi.

In the cup this is yellow. Now I know yellow is a strange descriptor but think yellow, think peaches and oranges (not stricly yellow) mangos and star fruit. Sunshine in a cup maybe one descriptor too far, but you get the idea. A delicious brewed coffee

Coffee: Copacabana ORGANIC
Farm: Various small producers
Varietal(s): Caturra, Red and Yellow Catuai
Processing: Full washed and sun dried on patios or in guardiola dryers
Altitude: 1,300 to 1,600 metres above sea level
Owner: Various small producers
Town: Copacabana
Region: Caranavi
Country: Bolivia

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"A return to heathen midmight is an impossibility. Those who walk in darkness now are doing so in a world suffused with light. This is hard to do -- you have to remain blind or hide in root cellars. There are ways to stay out of the sunlight, but they are difficult to accomplish . . . The task of evangelism, now that Christ has risen, is not so much to run around at night, poking our flashlights into corners and cellars. Rather, the task of evangelism is more like pulling back curtains" (Heaven Misplaced, pp. 70-71).

"A preacher must have a systematic plan of regularly reading through the whole Bible, with a portion from both the Old and New Testaments being read each day" (Murray, How Sermons Work,  p. 17).

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