December 8-12
[M] Neh 10-13; Revelation 8
[T] Malachi 1; Psalm 2; Revelation 9
[W] Job 1-3; Psalm 29; Revelation 10
[T] Job 4-7; Psalm 99; Revelation 11
[F] Job 8-11; Revelation 12
Dwell Plan Day 246-250 | CSB | Digital PDF | Printable PDF
Notes from Jon & Chris
Monday
Nehemiah 13:1–3 | When we read a passage like this, it can sound harsh to modern ears, as if God were banning people because of their ethnicity. But that’s not what’s happening. In the ancient world, religion, nation, and identity were tightly interwoven. To be an “Ammonite” or “Moabite” didn’t simply mean you were from a different ethnicity; it meant you belonged to a people whose worship revolved around gods that opposed Yahweh and whose values actively pulled Israel away from the covenant. This text is about faith and allegiance, not skin tone or ancestry. The Old Testament is full of beautiful counterexamples that make this clear—Ruth the Moabite becomes part of God’s people and even part of the line of Christ because she turned to the Lord. Rahab the Canaanite does the same. Foreigners who embraced Israel’s God were always welcomed.
A modern parallel would be something like church membership today. Churches aren’t making ethnic distinctions when they say, “You need to profess faith in Christ to be a member here.” They’re recognizing that the spiritual life of a community depends on shared belief and shared worship. Nehemiah 13 is doing something similar. Israel was called to be a people centered on God’s covenant. The concern here isn’t nationality but faithfulness—protecting the community’s spiritual integrity so that they could continue to be a light to the nations, welcoming anyone who truly wanted to follow the Lord.
Revelation 8:1 | An interpreter of this chapter noted this: if more folks stopped right here for thirty minutes while reading, meditating silently for a half hour, like they did right here smack dab in the middle of John’s vision, then maybe a lot less weird interpretive nonsense would happen over the next few chapters. That’s meant to be a bit tongue and cheek, but it’s still quite startling that there’s silence in heaven. And this isn’t like one of our modern “moments of silence” we can barely keep past a count of ten. This is long enough to make you think and reflect. This is enough time for the shock and awe of all of the heavenly worship to set in. This is enough of a stretch to start unpacking the drama of finding someone worthy to open the scroll. After all of this singing and thundering it seems right there should be an intermission. But somehow that doesn’t quite explain it either. This isn’t entertainment and the Bible doesn’t describe a bunch of folks loitering around. This isn’t a break. This is intentional reverent silence.
We aren’t told what it means. Perhaps it’s simply applying something repeated in the poems of God: be silent and know that I am God. That would make some sense. God commands silence as a kind of worship in His Presence. Perhaps it’s simply the silence of awestruck wonder. Flashing “BE QUIET” signs or a general announcement aren’t mentioned. The immediate setup is the Lamb opening the seventh seal. That’s a bit heavy, and perhaps the silence itself is a universal acknowledgement of that in the moment. Perhaps it’s like Job’s silence, the “Wow, God is so awesome, and I really have nothing to say about anything I thought I would” kind of silence?
Perhaps it’s even more. Perhaps it’s ultimately a statement of how we get to the end of all language, that describing our God and praising our God are all inadequate. He’s so much greater than language can convey. And how can the finite have any real perspective on the infinite? And the silence of heaven says all of that, emphasizing our contemplation of Jesus. Praise Him!
Revelation 8–9 | The trumpet judgments aren’t random catastrophes. They’re a symbolic retelling of the Exodus plagues, showing how God repeatedly confronts the powers of Babylon in every age. Just as the plagues exposed the emptiness of Egypt’s gods and revealed God as the true King, the trumpets reveal the same pattern throughout history: whenever empires build themselves on violence, idolatry, and self-exaltation, God allows their false foundations to crack. These aren’t literal predictions of specific future disasters but visionary portraits of what happens when human kingdoms reject God’s rule. The trumpets pull back the curtain and show that the clash between Babylon and the Kingdom of Christ isn’t novel; it’s the same story told again and again until Jesus finally makes all things new.
Revelation 8-12 | Angelology (it’s a real thing these days) is the study of angels. These folks love to speculate about the functions and hierarchies and lives of angels, usually alongside a similar description of demons. It’s speculative religious fan fiction, and it’s been around since biblical times. Some folks get distracted and fascinated by it. To our modern scientific minds, any discussion of angels sounds quite fanciful, which only proves how blind and wrong our modern mindset can be. The biblical mindset isn’t superstitious, but it is supernatural. One of the Bible’s core claims, which we only rarely see, is how God administers His works in the world through the agency of angels. As you read through these chapters and the whole book, note how many things angels do and are involved in. The heavenly spiritual pattern is that God operates through secondary agents to perform His wonders, deliver His messages, and execute His judgments. These angels are involved everywhere, from causing the prayers of the saints to blaze and crash into the earth, to landing meteors on the ocean. What does this glimpse into the heavenly pattern mean for us? What’s true of God’s work through them is also true for His work through us—God operates heaven, the universe, and His kingdom through secondary causes and choices. Our status is greater (we’re called sons and daughters!) and our power is God’s direct work in and through us; we’re His agents with the same sort of vital importance.
Tuesday
Malachi 4 | Malachi closes the Old Testament by pointing Israel toward the coming Messiah and urging them to prepare their hearts for Him. After centuries of prophets, promises, and failures, God ends the storyline with both warning and hope: judgment will expose everything that is false, but for those who fear the Lord, a new dawn is coming—the “sun of righteousness” rising with healing in its wings. The people are called to remember God’s Word through Moses and to expect a final prophetic voice like Elijah who will ready them for the Lord’s arrival. It’s a cliffhanger ending meant to cultivate longing. The Old Testament shuts its door with anticipation, preparing God’s people for the moment when Jesus steps onto the stage as the fulfillment of every promise and the beginning of God’s new creation work.
Psalm 2 | This poem is another one of those who-the-heck-is-this-talking-about sort of poems. There’s a bunch of these mysterious psalms that delighted Jesus, like the whole “order of Melchizedek” thing. Under the direct power of the Holy Spirit, these poems take on a mystical life of their own. Trying to interpret them in their own context is especially hard, because context is rarely given. We don’t even know the name of the author of this one. What is described are the purposes and plans of the nations, and in response there is the LORD, but there’s also His anointed One, and His Son. In many ancient cultures it was not uncommon for the king to claim to have “divine” blood and to be directly descended from a god. It was a great way to claim lots of power. But that’s what makes this so remarkable of a text; that kind of idea or language is totally absent in all of the Old Testament. It’s nowhere. No divinely descended kingship is ever claimed in Israel or Judah. So what is this? This is figurative language that the ancient poet was using, as it described what he was experiencing, it also predicted and described who Jesus actually was—not just what He would experience. Jesus didn’t experience being the anointed son of God, that’s what He actually was. This ancient king (who may have been David) experienced a great intimacy with God that the Holy Spirit used to describe the mysteries of who Jesus is. The poet’s metaphor for intimacy and love ultimately became reality in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Wednesday
Job 3 | This chapter opens the poetic core of the book, and it’s crucial to understand that the speeches we’re reading are poetic retellings of real conversations. The Bible isn’t giving us a courtroom transcript or a word-for-word recording; it’s giving us Spirit-inspired poetry that captures the emotional and theological weight of what was said. In the ancient world, poetry was the natural way to express the deepest human experiences—grief, confusion, worship, lament. So Job’s curses, questions, and cries aren’t less true because they’re poetic. They’re actually more honest, because poetry lets us hear the heart behind the words.
The structure of Job reinforces this. After the prose prologue, the book shifts into a long dialogue cycle: Job speaks, then his friends respond (Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar) and this pattern repeats three times, though the final cycle breaks down as the friends run out of answers. Each friend represents a different flavor of the same theology: that suffering must be punishment and good people shouldn’t hurt this badly. Their speeches get harder, sharper, and more rigid as Job refuses to accept their formulas. The poetic form allows us to feel the emotional intensity and spiritual tension rising with each exchange, showing how inadequate their explanations really are.
Later, a new voice appears (Elihu) who claims to offer wisdom but still can’t grasp the mystery of what God is doing. And finally, God Himself speaks from the whirlwind, reframing the entire conversation with overwhelming majesty and surprising tenderness. All of this happens in Hebrew poetry, not because the events are fictional, but because poetry is the best medium for truth this deep. Job invites us into the real wrestling that happens when suffering meets faith, and it does so in language strong enough and beautiful enough to carry the weight of that struggle.
Psalm 29:3–4 | In the ancient world, the sea wasn’t a peaceful image; it was the great symbol of chaos, danger, and forces far beyond human control. Water represented everything unpredictable and overwhelming. So when David says that the Lord’s voice thunders over the waters, he’s making a claim of absolute supremacy: God rules the very thing people feared most. The sea may roar, but it is not sovereign. Chaos does not have the final word, God does. His voice carries more power than the wildest storm and more weight than the deepest waters. The psalm gives us a picture of a God whose authority extends over every threat we face—external or internal, physical or spiritual.
This is why the story of Jesus calming the Sea of Galilee is so stunning. It’s not just a miracle; it’s a direct echo of Psalm 29. When Jesus stands up in the boat, speaks a word, and the storm drops to silence, the disciples aren’t just shocked by the weather—they’re realizing who is in the boat with them. The God whose voice thundered over the chaotic waters in Psalm 29 is now speaking with human breath.
Revelation 10 | It’s right at this chapter that the visions get harder to interpret, not that they haven’t been weird and wooly already. But that’s a feature of the prophetic witness, it’s intentionally obscure. This is not saying that the prophet is trying to be difficult, but it’s also not denying that God Himself may be being intentionally difficult. Jesus gave us a heads up about this when He told His disciples about His teaching methods using parables. He’s blunt about it: I’m intentionally being unclear. Why would Jesus do that? He tells us, to show us how His truth can only be spiritually understood. It’s a lesson we must learn, and Jesus is sharply intentional about it. So that means these chapters can only be spiritually discerned and understood. That is not saying there is a secret code in them. It’s teaching us the Spirit and the word can guide us into interpretively unlocking much of what is in Revelation—but did you notice the “thunders” that John heard in verse 4? Those don’t get written down. So there’s stuff that he heard that we haven’t heard. And we intentionally don’t know about it. Which means that that’s the point: God’s telling us we’re dealing with “known unknowns” in the future. That’s what they are to us, but not to Him. These chapters are a tour of “known unknowns” to read through. The images and storyline are extraordinary and allegorical at times, wild and fantastical at others. Many interpretive theories are out there. Don’t waste time on them. For a first time reader, just read it all imaginatively and creatively. Understanding it isn’t the goal, just follow the thread of God’s glory and triumph. That’s what it’s all about. For the more seasoned reader, learn to read like a novice.
Thursday
Job 6–7 | In Job’s response, we hear a man crushed by suffering yet still refusing to turn away from God, and his honesty points us forward to a deeper hope. Job cries out for someone who could plead for him, someone who could bridge the gap between human anguish and God’s holiness. He longs for a mediator who understands his pain and can speak for him before God. That longing is fulfilled in Jesus. Christ enters our suffering, bears our weakness, and stands before the Father on our behalf with compassion that Job could only imagine. Where Job felt abandoned, Jesus has promised never to leave us. Where Job searched for someone who could understand, Jesus took on flesh and walked through sorrow Himself. Job’s honest cries prepare our hearts to see the Savior who meets us in our darkest moments—not with condemnation, but with intercession, mercy, and a love that refuses to let go.
Revelation 11 | The two witnesses are not meant to be read as two individual end-times prophets, but as a symbolic picture of the faithful church in the world—God’s people bearing witness to Christ in word, life, and endurance. The imagery draws from Moses and Elijah because the church carries forward their mission: speaking God’s truth, calling the world to repentance, and confronting the idols of every age. Their fire, plagues, and prophetic authority are apocalyptic symbols of the power of the gospel—powerful enough to expose false kingdoms, challenge corruption, and shine light into darkness. The beast’s attack and their temporary defeat reflect what Jesus promised: that the church’s witness will be costly, resisted, and will sometimes appear crushed. Yet the breath of God raising them to life is a picture of the church’s ultimate vindication—nothing can silence the testimony of God’s people. The pattern is: suffering, witness, apparent defeat, and then resurrection power.
This vision is meant to steady the church. We are living in a world where the dragon rages and Babylon flexes its strength, but Revelation reminds us that our calling is not to retreat, it is to bear faithful witness. We fight not with violence or fear but with perseverance, holiness, love, and the courageous proclamation of Jesus. The world may mock, oppose, or even wound the church, but it cannot stop the mission. The two witnesses show us who we are: a Spirit-empowered people whose testimony cannot be extinguished, whose hope cannot be stolen, and whose victory is guaranteed by the risen Christ. So stand firm. Speak boldly. Live faithfully. The dragon may roar, but the Lamb reigns.
Revelation 11:14 | This is the central verse in the Hallelujah Chorus in Handel's Messiah. Have fun.
Friday
Job 8:1–7 | Bildad is absolutely convinced he understands how the world works. In his mind, the universe runs on a simple formula: good things happen to good people, and suffering means you must have done something wrong. So he insists that Job’s pain must be his own fault, because that’s the only category his theology has room for. But his confidence is tragically misplaced. Bildad’s worldview is tidy, predictable, and utterly incapable of accounting for innocent suffering or the mystery of God’s purposes. His certainty leads him to wound his friend and misrepresent God, because he assumes that his limited understanding equals divine wisdom.
This sets the stage for the deepest truth of all: the cross exposes how wrong Bildad really was. Jesus suffered—not for His own sins, but for ours. The only truly innocent person endured the greatest suffering in history. The cross shatters the idea that pain always equals punishment. It shows that God’s ways are far bigger and more merciful than the simplistic formulas we try to impose on Him. Where Bildad assumes a moral math equation, the gospel reveals sacrificial love. And when we face our own pain, we cling not to Bildad’s certainty but to the Savior who entered suffering to redeem it.
Job 9:32–35 | This is one of the clearest passages in the entire Old Testament that shows our need for Christ—and it comes from the oldest book in the Bible. Job looks at God’s greatness and his own helplessness and realizes there’s no way he can stand before God on his own. He says, in effect, “God isn’t like me. I can’t argue with Him. I can’t reach Him. I need someone who can stand in the middle—someone who can put a hand on God and a hand on me.” It’s such an honest, human moment. Job isn’t being dramatic; he’s naming the problem every one of us has felt at some point. If God is holy and we’re not, who in the world is going to bring us together?
And that’s exactly where Jesus steps in. He is the Mediator Job was longing for—fully God, fully man, able to bridge the distance no one else could. Jesus doesn’t just understand our weakness; He lived it. And He doesn’t just speak on our behalf; He took our place at the cross so we could be welcomed without fear. The thing Job could only dream of—standing before God with peace and confidence—is now our everyday reality because Jesus stands between us and the Father with nail-scarred hands. Job’s ancient cry finds its answer in Christ, and it’s an answer that brings us home.
Revelation 12:11 | This chapter gives us the big-picture story behind all of history. The woman represents God’s people and the dragon is the Satanic power that has opposed God’s purposes from the beginning. The child she gives birth to is Christ Himself, and His ascension is portrayed as His rescue and enthronement. The whole scene is a symbolic retelling of the gospel story from heaven’s perspective: the dragon tried to stop the Messiah, failed, and now wages war on those who belong to Him. This isn’t a future crisis, it’s the spiritual conflict the church has always lived in.
But verse 11 shows us something surprising: God’s people don’t fight the dragon the way the world fights. There’s no brute force, political takeover, or coercive power on display. The victory comes through the blood of the Lamb—through Jesus’ sacrificial death that disarmed the powers of darkness. When the church clings to Christ’s finished work, they are already standing on conquered ground. The dragon’s accusations fall flat because the blood speaks louder. The Lamb’s victory becomes theirs.
And because of that, the church bears witness with courage. Their testimony isn’t backed by swords or influence but by faithfulness—holding fast to Jesus even when it costs them. “They loved not their lives even unto death” doesn’t mean they sought suffering; it means they believed Jesus was worth more than safety, comfort, or approval. This is how the church wages war: by trusting the Lamb’s victory, speaking His truth with love, and refusing to bow to the powers of Babylon—in suffering and sacrifice. In a world obsessed with force, Revelation calls us to conquer through the way of the cross.