Month: January 2017

Genesis 16:1-18:15 ~ Matthew 6:1-24 ~ Psalm 7:1-17 ~ Proverbs 2:1-5

Today is the 7^th day of January.  Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible.  I’m Brian and it’s a pleasure to be here with you today. Congratulations.  This will complete our first week of the year as we settle into this rhythm that is our daily journey through the scriptures this year and 51 weeks from now, which may seem like a long time but it goes by so fast, we’ll be completing this journey, a revolution around the sun in more than one way.  

We’ve been reading from the New Living Translation this week and that is what we’ll do today.  We’ll switch to something else tomorrow.  For today, Genesis chapter 16, verse 1 through 18, verse 15.  

Commentary

In the life of Abram and Sarai a lot of stuff happens today.  They get a name change,  As God enters into this covenant with Abraham, he changes his name and that of his wife from Sarai to Sarah.  God, the Lord, will become known as the God of Abraham.  As these descendants that the Lord has promised come into the world, he’ll be known as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, people that we haven’t gotten to meet yet but we will.  

It is an interesting story because God had promised Abram that his coming family would be vast and would have the land that he was in.  The promise was given, except there were no offspring, there were no kids, so it is hard to imagine that your descendants will have this land and will be a multitude of people including kings when you don’t have any kids.  So in Sarai’s misery and also in this attempt to sort of force the promise since it wasn’t fast coming, Sarai came up with this plan to give her servant Hagar to Abram and have kids that way.  Of course, Abram was favorable to this idea, but once Hagar was pregnant, then it all became Abram’s fault.   You can imagine the tensions in an arrangement like that, so Hagar had to flee.  But God was talking about Abram and Sarai, Abraham and Sarah.  

God came for a visit and this meal is prepared and this promise is given. “About this time next year I’ll be back and your wife Sarah will have a son.”  

Abraham and Sarah, neither one of them believed this was explicitly true. Sarah laughs in the tent.  Abraham says, “may you bless Ishmael.”  

And God clarifies.  “No, Sarah will have a son about this time next year.”

So here we are, the beginning of the year.  What about you?  What is it for you?  What are you carrying inside that has been a promise?  What might God be saying about this time next year for you that you have kind of laughed at or kind of looked for the alternative or found other ways to kind of reason it out?  

Or what have you been kind of carrying for a while and you’ve done a number of things to make it happen and it hasn’t worked out right?  It could be a dream.  It could be some goals.  It could be some health things.  It could be anything that you’ve been walking with and carrying around inside of you. It could be a baby that you’ve longed for that hasn’t come yet.  

The thing about dreams and goals, aspirations and desires and children for that matter is that it is always a process, always.  A couple doesn’t sit down and decide to have a baby.  I’ve been through this a few times in my life. You don’t just sit down and decide to have a baby.  You sit down and decide to do the requisite things that would bring about a child and that may not be instantaneous, but even once the child is conceived, there is a process involved in all of this.  We don’t decide to have a baby.  The baby decides when to be had.  But we certainly had to participate and collaborate in making that happen and be involved in the process of the whole.  

And that is all necessary.  Because when a baby comes or when you finally achieve or reach that thing, that dream, that God-given word, that has to incubate.  That has to grow. That has to move into our lives rather than being dumped on our heads.  Because when God gives a dream, well then we have to expand to be able to steward what he’s inviting us into.  And that is going to take some time, love, and tenderness.  I know, that’s my Michael Bolton reference for the day. Actually, I don’t think I’ve referenced Michael Bolton ever on the Daily Audio Bible, so welcome to a first.  

Nevertheless, it is going to take the time for our hearts, our minds, our bodies, our wills to align themselves with exactly what it is God is saying. Abraham and Sarah, they were looking for this to be fulfilled some other way because they couldn’t imagine that it could be filled the way God was actually saying.  God’s response to that for Abraham and Sarah was simply this: Is anything too hard for the Lord? That is a big question.  I know that the right answer is ‘of course not. God can do anything.’  Do we actually believe that nothing is impossible with God, though?  Seriously? Probably if we’re being really honest about this, our knee jerk reaction to a question like ‘is anything too hard for the Lord?’ is ‘of course not,’ but the truth would be somewhere back from that. It would be something like ‘of course not, God can do whatever he wants.  He is sovereign.  He is the Lord.  He is all powerful, but maybe not for me.’  Right?

We get restless in the waiting.  We want the baby without all of the expansion necessary to steward that thing that God has placed in our hearts.  Maybe we’ve had this kind of Hagar situation where we tried to bring things about that haven’t worked out right and so the dream has gotten faded and we’ve started thinking ‘I didn’t really hear this.’  And ‘this isn’t really true.’  ‘Something has changed.  God has changed his mind.’  ‘This has been withdrawn.’  ‘I’ve screwed up.’  And we just talk ourselves right out of all of this.  But there is a space of time that we have to carry this thing.  There is a margin of time that we have to expand into.  

This is all over the Bible.  There is this huge promise for this guy named Abram that somehow he, a desert dweller, a Bedouin who is from good fortune and has a good reputation but isn’t exactly king material, it’s not like he is a royal line here, is going to have so many offspring that they are going to be like the sands on the seashore.  This promise is going to take centuries before it is fulfilled.  Believe it or not, we are participating right now in the future.  How we handle our lives, how we steward what we have now is actually going to affect our grandchildren and great grandchildren and generations that we will never get to know but will exist on this planet because of what we do today and now.

So what about you?  About this time next year?  Invite the Holy Spirit into that.  

Then in the New Testament, we’re going through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. We come to this incredibly famous portion of scripture known as The Lord’s Prayer.  Probably most of you could recite that portion of scripture. Jesus is showing his disciples a posture of heart from which to communicate and collaborate with God.  He sets that all up by saying don’t do it like you’ve seen it done where it is done for show but it’s not real.  If you’re going to really, really try to commune with God, then that is between you and him.  This is an intimate collaboration, an intimate communication. This is not for show.  This is between you and God.

And then he shows them this posture of heart through The Lord’s Prayer. It’s what he says immediately after The Lord’s Prayer that is very important.  So let’s do this.  Say this with me.  

Our Father, who art in heaven,hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  And lead us not into temptation,but deliver us from the evil one.  For thine is the Kingdom, the power, the glory forever. Amen.

We can all say this.  What we just said is forgive us of our trespasses, our sins, as we forgive those who trespass against us.  And Jesus expands that.  If you forgive those who sin against you, your Heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.  

I can’t expand on that because it is very direct and clear.  What it should do, though, is disrupt us on a number of levels.  Forgiveness is not optional in the faith journey.  It is necessary and required in the faith journey. I realize that can touch some very, very soft and tender places inside of us where we’re like ‘I am not ready for that’ or ‘I cannot do that right now.’  It’s kind of one of these little subtle places where we can get a bit judgmental toward God because we can easily see the command that we have to release, that we have to forgive while also knowing just how deep that pain and injury was and we can look at God and go ‘you just don’t really understand what we’re talking about here.’  The irony is that he does.  This Jesus who is speaking these exact words modeled this.  

So we haven’t gotten to the first passion narrative, the last days of Jesus’ life, but I’m pretty sure most of you know this. He was nailed to a cross.  He was crucified.  And what did he say?  “Father, forgive them.”  He said to forgive the people who were in the process at the moment of killing him.  He said forgive them for this.  Okay, so he does know what he is talking about and has modeled and lived it.  

This year the word that we’re kind of exploring, this margin, is sort of like the space between where we are and the edge, the edge of anything.  The space between us and collapse in some sort of way, whether that is a relationship, whether that is a job, whether that is a dream or goal.  It doesn’t matter.  The space between where we are and the edge.  The truth is we live far closer to the edge than we should because there is no margin.  One wrong step sends us over the edge to plummet.  

Jesus saying what he said about forgiveness is not just a command.  It is a gift because it gives us margin in our lives.  We are not carrying things that are poison next to our soul anymore. When we forgive, that’s not that we forget the things that have happened.  It is that we release the person or the incident or whatever, we release it to God because frankly it is too hot to handle.  It is burning us down.  It is bringing us toward the edge and that is not shalom.  That is not the order and peace and wholeness of God in our lives in all facets.  Forgiveness may be a difficult act but it is a huge step toward freedom and spaciousness and shalom.

So there is plenty here on the last day of the first week of the new year for us to consider.  Maybe we’ve considered it before, but maybe now it is time to do something about it and finally rid ourselves of the things that we don’t need in our lives anymore and forgiveness is one of those ways.  

Prayer

Father, you haven’t asked us to do something just because it is hard or just because you want to mess with us.  Everything that you do is aimed toward our redemption.  This whole story that we’ve just begun of taking this journey through the Bible this year is going to reveal nothing but that – that you redeem what you touch and you always redeem.  So we invite you into all of this, these dreams that we are carrying around, these things that we’ve kind of laughed off or tried to make happen other ways, these offenses and sins against us that we keep holding onto as if we can be the judge in the situation, we release all of this to you, all of it, all of it.  We invite your Holy Spirit to continue to bring up places in us that maybe we’ve even forgotten about that we’re holding onto.  We need to rid ourselves of these things and release them to you. So come, Holy Spirit.  We ask in Jesus’ name.  Amen.  

Announcements

Www.DailyAudioBible.com is the website.  It’s where you find out what is going on around here, so be sure to check that out.  We’ve kind of gone through all the Daily Audio Bible 101 stuff this week, so I think we’re all on the same page about how to do what.  We can buckle in and settle in for the journey of a lifetime through the Bible this year.  But www.DailyAudioBible.com, the website is kind of the hub.  It is where you find out what is going on, so be sure to check it out and see what people are praying about and maybe even send words of encouragement that way.  

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can also do that at www.DailyAudioBible.com.  There is a link on the home page.  And thank you. The Daily Audio Bible is a community and what we do, we do as a community and when we all do a little bit, then we have this community.  So thank you for your partnership.  So the link is on the home page.  If you use the app, you can push the More button in the lower right-hand corner.  Or the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996, Spring Hill, TN 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, (877) 942-4253 is the number to dial.  

And that is it for today.  I’m Brian. Well done on the first week.  I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.  

Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports

Hi Dabbers.  This is Jack from Sac.  Every New Year’s when we make our resolutions, reading the entire Bible is often on the list and we get busy, much too busy and the simple thing becomes harder and harder.  When we think about it, we begin to feel guilty and decide not to think about it and we don’t, until the year turns one more time.  We fall into two patterns.  The easy pattern:  We make it harder than it has to be followed by losing interest in it followed by convincing ourselves it doesn’t need doing.  The first step in the insight easy is often good and it is for a higher value to know God through his word.  The second pattern is the hard pattern.  Most people who don’t listen to the DAB don’t because they don’t like to listen to the Bible and the truth is there are things that are good for us that we just don’t like doing.  If we liked it, we would do it.  So there are two conclusions I would like to make.  First, don’t make it hard.  It’s easy. And second, set your goal to always do today’s DAB, not the entire Bible.  Don’t ever say I’m behind.  Do today’s DAB and let yesterday and tomorrow be.  Yes, it is noble to want to do the DAB every day, 365 days and no, you have not failed if you don’t.  if you miss a day, you’re not behind.  You are on today’s DAB just where God wants you.  I love you guys.  And stay on today’s DAB.  This is Jack from Sac.  Take care.

Hey DAB community.  It’s Cory up in Southeast Saskatchewan.  Here it is December 31^st, last day of the year and I’m finally caught up.  I started late…well, in about March this year and I was trying to go back from the start, and so just being caught up and live, it’s kind of exciting for me.  It’s a big deal for me.  So I’m looking forward to that and being in step with everybody now.  As I’m thinking here about 2017 and the word margin and how that looks in my life, I don’t want to forget about 2016 and healthy.  Man, Brian, the word healthy is very appropriate in my life.  I’m a guy that has suffered from severe depression.  I was probably close to 400 pounds a couple times in my life.  I’ve had chronic weight swings.  I’ve had suicidal thoughts in my life.  I’ve been in dark places and right now my life is so, so much better.  So just unpacking the Bible and figuring out how that looks in my life.  I just turned 40 years old yesterday on the 30^th of December and so it’s kind of a big deal in a guy’s life.  I’ve given a lot of thought to the word healthy in the past year and I’m trying to make that stick.  So even as we look forward to margin, I want to make sure that the discipline and everything that goes into being healthy stays and hopefully takes root in my life going forward here.  I appreciate those themes and I’m trying to work them into my life.  Yeah, I appreciate all you guys as well. Looking forward to 2017. Thanks guys. Bye.  

Hi everyone.  Happy New Year.  This is Dawn from New York calling to say Happy New Year to my beautiful sisters and brothers around the world and welcome, welcome to the new listeners. We’re all so happy you decided to join us this year.  Yay! Welcome.  You made a great decision to join the Daily Audio Bible community.  It is great to listen to scripture together every day and there will be lots of other precious, fun, joyful surprises along the year as you stick with it and listen to the prayer requests and the other special events that happen through the year. Such a blessing.  So, so happy you’re joining us.  Welcome, welcome new listeners.  I want to thank everybody who stood together to pray for the word healthy in our lives this year.  It took about five months for me to take some action steps to really have that percolate through my life this past year, but thank God I’m ending the year healthier than I began and I’m really looking forward to margin.  That was wonderful to hear that word for this year.  Thank you so much.  Anyway, I just wish everyone a beautiful new year.  Yes, it is spiritual nutrition for us.  I loved the Family Christmas program.  Thank you, everybody who called in.  And the one sister at the end who said that we take our vitamins D, A, B every day, oh, that was great!  I loved it. It is so true.  So its spiritual nutrition, good for our souls.  His mercies are new every morning.  Great is his faithfulness.  God bless you all.  God bless all of us in this new year and may we be encouraged by God and hope and encourage one another.  God bless you all.  Happy New Year!  

I recently got a visit from an old friend who has just been released from jail.  He said he wanted to walk in the newness of life, but he had a mindset predestined to fail. He was shocked when he saw that I was now blind, but he was even more shocked when he saw that I really didn’t mind. And then when I told him that I also now have cancer, he was so stunned with unbelief that he couldn’t even answer.  I told him that I had taken my old ways and my old life humbly before God and asked him if he would be willing to forgive. And God gave me such a powerful reassurance of his love that I now have a profound contentment  while I live.   Profound contentment, powerful peace, joy and blessings that continually increase. A life built on giving and service to others.  A life in which all men of all races can live life as brothers.  The more that I give, the more I receive.  The more I read God’s word, the more I believe.  And those of you who know me, know I don’t need any validation. My resume has been written across this whole entire nation and if God can change me, he can definitely change you. In fact, God is the only one I know who has the power to make a life new.  I guess the question is do you really want change?  Do you really want new?  Or are you just looking for some new way to make it do what it do?  I’m going to tell you, just like I told my friend too. If God can change me, he can most definitely change you too.  BlindTony1016@gmail.com.  Happy New Year, everybody.  I’d like to give a shout-out to Delta Alpha Foxtrot, haven’t heard from you in a while, Brother.  Hope you’re still hanging in there.  Yeah, David F.  And Michelle, it was nice hearing from you.  Haven’t heard your voice in a while.  Anyway, as usual…

Happy New Year everybody.  This is Alicia from Kansas.  I called to say welcome to all the new listeners who have just found the Daily Audio Bible.  You have found a wonderful, wonderful family of believers who will listen to your prayers. They will pray with you, pray for you. I encourage you to check out the website.  I encourage you to check out the Facebook page and the Prayer Wall.  It is hard sometimes.  I get very uncomfortable calling in, but if you have a prayer need, please call. Please let us know.  Please share with us.  Do not be frightened.  Do not let pride or fear or shame stand in the way.  To everybody else who has been listening for the past 11 years, as we go into our 12^th year, which is a fantastic number, I just say to everybody shalom.  Thank you. Have a blessed year and great day. Bye-bye.  

Hello family.  Today is January 1^st and I’m on my way to find my daughter who is raging. She suffers from borderline personality disorder and she is threatening to kill herself and I know that this will be played long after my crisis is over, but God knows what I need and he knows reaching out is the most important thing I could do.  So I just ask, please, that you would help give me the strength to show tough love and please just cover my daughter, Raegan, in your prayers and ask God to come for her because I know that is the only thing that is going to heal her. Thank you, family.  I love you.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.  

Genesis 13:5-15:21 ~ Matthew 5:27-48 ~ Psalm 6:1-10 ~ Proverbs 1:29-33

Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible.  Today is January the 6^th.  I’m Brian. It’s great to be here with you today around this global campfire that we have created together called the Daily Audio Bible.  Here we are, well into our first week of this year and this adventure through the Bible and excited to take the next step, which is what we’ll do now.  

We’re reading from the New Living Translation this week and picking back up in the story of Abram who we met yesterday and who is going to be quite an important figure throughout the rest of our journey this year.  So today, Genesis chapter 13, verse 5 through 15, verse 21.  

Commentary

Let’s jump into the book of Genesis real quick.  We have this story of Lot and Abram and we see this covenant struck between God and Abram today.  It is kind of a grizzly scene, but the way that a covenant was ratified at that particular time was to divide animals and then walk between those halves and recite the terms of the covenant, so the benefits of the covenant and then also to recite the consequences of a breach in the covenant. This custom exists until today. It just looks a little different in different parts of the world.  And there are other ways that this will be ratified as we go through the Bible, different customs, like giving the person you are going into an agreement with your sandal, that kind of stuff.  It might seem archaic or strange, but believe it or not, we have some strange customs in the world today that we do and we just do them because we know what they mean. So now we would draw up a contract. It would be this short or lengthy document, depending on what the agreement is about and how much detail needs to be covered.  Those are the terms, those are the benefit and those are the consequences.  

God enters into a covenant with humanity, with Abram in today’s reading. And then Lot, who has separated from Abram, gets captured down in the plain and carried off.  Abram has to go in pursuit once he finds out and he chases him all the way back through Dan and on to Damascus.  These places are real places.  Obviously Damascus is still a major city on the earth.  Dan, though, is also still a place.  The ruins of ancient Dan exist, the walls, the gate, remnants of the city and all that happened there.  It’s fascinating to read this particular territory in the Bible because I can see this so clearly in my mind, the ancient gate, the Canaanite gate of Dan. It exists today.  It’s one of the two oldest city gates, domed city gates in all of Israel and oldest in the world, and that can be seen.  You look at this ancient gate and realize Abram came through this gate, passing through in pursuit of his nephew Lot.  That is pretty striking.  Which, I guess, gives me opportunity to tell you about one of the resources in the Daily Audio Bible.  

If you’re in the Daily Audio Bible Shop, you can find this double DVD set that we have called Promised Land.  It takes two to three minute looks, little views, video views of all of the places that we’ll encounter in the Bible.  We spent five different years filming all of these places and put this all together.  It is a great resource for those going through the Bible because you can just kind of dive in and just look at these places.  So you can see what I’m talking about today with your own eyes.  When you get Promised Land from Daily Audio Bible, we’ll send you the double DVD package.  It’s awesome.  But you’ll instantly get the high definition download links as well.  So you get the physical version on DVD, but you get the digital version as well in high definition.  You can just kind of dip in as we come to places.  You can just kind of dip in and see them with your own eyes in beautifully done cinematography.  So you may want to check that out.  

But let’s move into the book of Matthew.  Jesus is giving his Sermon on the Mount and this is really a central and core teaching of Jesus and the way that he looks at human life.  We should take this to heart not just because Jesus is speaking it, but we should take this to heart because it is being spoken by the voice of a person as they were intended to be.  

We began our journey at the beginning of this week and met Adam and Eve and we got this glimpse into a time which was as it was intended and rather than going back through the story, because we’ve covered it a number of times as we moved through this week, after that, humanity fell, slid backwards, was separated from the Divine, from God.  But that is not the case with Jesus.  Jesus came as the perfect, sinless person, God in the flesh with us and among us.  So when Jesus is speaking, we’re hearing the voice of a person, a human being as it was intended to be.  This is what we were created to look like.  This is how it was supposed to be for us.  So when Jesus talks, he is speaking through that perfection, at that place where he is seeing things as they are supposed to be and seeing the contrast between how things are supposed to be and how they are. When he gives this Sermon on the Mount, he is juxtaposing how things are supposed to be against how things are and essentially speaking into humanity “you are living backward to the way things are supposed to be for you.”  And then he just begins to unpack all of these things and it touches all of the soft places in our lives.  

You can read the Sermon on the Mount and go ‘who could do this?  Who could achieve this, all of these rules?’ In the Old Testament we haven’t gotten to the Mosaic Law yet, but we will, and we look at the Law or even Jesus’ teachings and go these are the parameters, these are the rules, this is what you’re supposed to do, but is that the point?  Is the point the rules or are the rules just simply there as the boundaries to life itself?  We can read the Sermon on the Mount and say ‘well, I can never live up to that’ or we could look at it as the contrast between the way things are supposed to be for humanity versus the way things are for humanity and then we bring that real close and go look in the mirror and see how it overlays our own lives.  That becomes a very powerful realization because we at once can see how far we have fallen ourselves.  But the beautiful thing is there is a way back to our humanity as it was intended and that way is through this man Jesus that we’re getting to know right now.  So watch him. Watch him as we move our way through the gospels.  Watch him closely because you are not only looking at a person as they were meant to be, but you are also looking at the way to get there.  

Prayer

Father, we thank you once again for your word.  Jesus, your life is beautiful beyond description and we often say in the faith we want to be like you.  We want to be Christ-like.  But usually we’re saying that as some sort of aspirational thought, some sort of goal that we have in mind that is esoteric and sort of distant and we all kind of acknowledge we can’t really do that.  Yet, that is not what you were teaching.  That is not what you were modeling with your humanity.  And that is not what your sacrifice offers to us. You have offered us an eternal life and a full humanity.  So come, Holy Spirit.  Plant these words in our lives.  Reshape and reframe the way we think we understand things.  Disrupt us in whatever way you need to in order to shake us free and awaken us to what is available and what we must step into to participate and collaborate in your redemptive work in this world, the work of sanctifying not only our hearts, but everything.  Come, Holy Spirit, we pray.  In Jesus’ name, amen.  

Announcements

Www.DailyAudioBible.com is home base.  It’s the website.  It’s where you find out what is going on around here and what resources are available and all of that.  So check that out.  I talked about the Promised Land Films just a second ago because that is a great companion. Like I was saying the other day, in the Daily Audio Bible Shop we’ve tried to create resources, no matter what they are, to be partners in the journey through the Bible, things that go along with your life in the Bible and Promised Land is certainly that.  It gives you an in-depth and deeper look at the places where the Bible happened, so certainly, absolutely check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at the website as well.  There is a link on the home page.  And thank you. Thank you for your partnership.  If you use the Daily Audio Bible App, just push the More button in the lower right-hand corner.  Or if you prefer, the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996, Spring Hill, TN 37174.  

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, (877) 942-4253 is the number to dial.  

And that is it for today.  I’m Brian. I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.  

Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports

Hi Daily Audio Bible family members.  This is Sarah from Nebraska.  I just finished listening to today’s, the 29^th podcast and I just want to pray for that little boy who called in who is going to be moving and starting at a new school and worried about making friends.  I just want him to know that I will be praying for him.  I just hate when children have that anxiety and fear.  I just want him to give it to the Lord.  And then I would like prayer.  I am getting married tomorrow on the 30^th.  I’m not anxious about getting married.  I’m anxious because we’ve both been married before and we don’t want to screw this up and our four adult children will all be there and will stand up with us as well as our families, extended family.  I want to be focused on my new husband and not on my children and grandchildren.  I just worry that I’ve poured my life and soul into each one of my children and I know they are adults and live their own lives and truly have little time for me and so when they are around, I just pounce.  So I know this will get played later, but I know God is outside of all time realms, so please just lift up my marriage.  I would love just to have you all praying for us.  Thank you and when you hear this it will be Happy New Year, so Happy New Year family and friends of the Daily Audio Bible.  I love you all.  

Hi everybody.  This is Laura from Fort Myers.  I wanted to call especially for the new listeners and say Happy New Year to all of you, returning listeners, too, in my family.  So new listeners, especially if you are new to the Bible itself, I challenge you to listen for two months because you’re going to hear some strange things going on in the beginning.  Just listen to Brian’s commentary after and hopefully that will help you understand what is going on.  Also feel free to call the prayer line.  It doesn’t matter how small you think your prayer request is, God is concerned about every aspect of our lives.  Also reach out to us online.  We have a Facebook group.  Search for DAB Friends.  I think that’s right.  One more thing I want to say, if you really are enjoying this community, I also challenge you to give because this is a free service, the podcasts are free or how you listen is free, but it is not free to run.  This is pretty much the Hardins full-time gig here.  So please give what you can to continue this ministry, continue getting the word of God around the world to anyone who has Internet access pretty much.  I love you all and Happy New Year again.  Bye.  

Hello, this is Steve from Salt Lake City, the other half of Judy from Utah. Anyway, I just had an urge to call. I want to thank everybody.  I want to especially thank Brian and Jill, their whole family.  I can’t imagine the deal that they go through in order to make all of this possible.  I mean, they are just devoted.  I can’t believe it.  I think we all ought to kick out an extra $10 for them to keep the DAB up and running well.  Anyway, I just wanted to thank everybody for calling in.  I want to thank the people that don’t call in, that just pray.  That would be mostly me.  My wife calls in from time to time, but it amazes me. I’ve only been listening for about three years, but I can’t get away from it.  There is no possible way.  It is like a major magnet in my life.  Anyway, I’m probably running out of time.  I just want to thank everybody and keep up the good work and those that feel lonely, you’re in the right place.  Just keep listening.  Keep calling in.  Keep praying. Happy New Year!  [Judy] Happy New Year!  From Salt Lake, we love you.  

Hi, this is Victorious Soldier, just calling tonight to pray for some of the Dabbers.  I want to pray for Brian who is having some brain surgery.  I want to also pray for Curtis, his son Cameron, having to do with the thyroid nodules.  I want to also pray for I think it’s Ron from Southern Cal.  He has a friend with a heart infection.  I wanted to pray for him also.  Gracious Father, we come before your throne of grace.  Father, in the name of Jesus, Lord, we’re someone today that needs a healing.  O Lord, we want to go to a doctor that never lost a case.  We want to go to a doctor that knows all.  He knows because he made us, Lord.  We ask you in, the name of Jesus, to stretch out your hands, Lord. O Lord, in the name of Jesus, you were wounded by our transgressions, bruised by our iniquities, and the chastisement of our peace was upon you and by your stripes we are healed.  Lord, I’m claiming healing for these people, Lord. O Lord, and all of your people that need a healing from you, O Father, with just the touch of your Spirit, just the touch of your hands, just the touch of your breath, Lord, we know that you can do all things.  O Father, we ask you to touch Pastor Gene.  O Lord, we know that you have a tremendous victory for her that she has already won.  Lord, you continue to bless her and you continue to strengthen her and you continue to show her your love every day, that you are with her, that you are closer than she ever thought you could be.  O Lord, you touch Blind Tony and you touch Brian and Jill and little Ezekiel, Lord. O Lord, in the mighty and…

Hello my Daily Audio Bible family.  My name is Angela and I’ve been listening only for a few months, but I have been so blessed.  And I’ve heard the prayers and I pray for you.  This is for everybody.  I have a word for everybody that is struggling with mental illness or has a family member struggling with mental illness.  I just want to use an analogy from creation and that is the eagle’s nest and eagle’s eggs.  Now when an egg is beginning to hatch it looks cracked.  A child might look at it and say, “oh, the egg is broken.”  But us parents know better.  We say, “no, it’s not broken.  This is the sign that life is coming.  There is something that is going to happen.  A new thing will be born.”  Let us not be deceived, brothers and sisters.  Mental illness is a description used in therapeutic terms and among psychiatrists and the psychiatric professionals just as a description of what is happening so that they can treat it effectively.  Let us not be discouraged if we or someone we love is different than the norm.  We want to be different, do we not?  We are in this world and not of it.  So do not lose heart.  Avail yourself of every medical resource you can avail yourself of, but do not forget that God is sovereign over all.    

Hi family.  This is Biola from Maryland.  I hope you’re all doing well.  Ladies, I hope you took advantage of the discount and got your tickets for the More Conference, and even if you didn’t, I pray that God will still provide for you and you’ll be able to get tickets even in the new year, because the prices are still very reasonable even without the coupons.  Brian and Jill, God bless you.  God bless your ministry.  God continues to provide for you, your children, your grandchild, in the name of Jesus.  Kathy from Texas, I’m praying for Brian J., that God would touch him with his power and deliver him from this disease, in Jesus’ name.  I stand with you, Sister, and I declare over Brian J. that by the stripes of Jesus Christ he has been healed.  I __________ this word in his life and I say it is so, in the name of Jesus. Sherry from Colorado, I’m praying that God would touch your son and heal him and I pray for complete deliverance for him, that he will be set free, that he will be able to get into a treatment center quickly, in the name of Jesus.  Father, I pray that you will please orchestrate events and put people in this young man’s life.  Draw him to you, Dear Lord, in the name of Jesus.  Leonard from Canada, I’m praying that God would comfort you and heal your heart and body, in the name of Jesus.  Debbie from Orlando, I’m praying that (is it Debbie?).  Yeah, anyway, I’m praying that God would give you favor and you’ll be able to make your targets for the end of the year.  Reyna, praying for you, Sister, that God will heal you from this depression.  I pray that God would draw you so much closer to him, you will delight in him, you will talk to him, you will study his word, and that he will be your sole strength and support and help, in Jesus’ name.  I pray for deliverance from alcohol for you and your son and I break that power of addiction over both of you, that you will no longer find any solace and comfort from alcohol and that it will be disgusting to you.  You will no longer enjoy it, Sister.  Look, I remember.  It’s Becky, Becky from Orlando.  

Genesis 11:1-13:4 ~ Matthew 5:1-12 ~ Psalm 5:1-12 ~ Proverbs 1:24-28

Today is January 5th.  Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible.  I’m Brian. It is awesome to be here with you today from the rolling hills of Tennessee and I pray wherever you are on this big blue earth that God has given us to live in or on or both, that you are doing well and that you are kind of beginning to get into the rhythm of this fresh start known as the new year.  We are certainly getting off to a good start to this year in the scriptures and we’ll continue with that rhythm now.  We’re reading from the New Living Translation this week and picking up where we left off in the book of Genesis.  Yesterday we learned of this great flood and now we enter into the territory that happens after.  Genesis chapter 11, verse 1 through 13, verse 4 today.  

Commentary

Alright, so there are a number of things to point out in today’s reading to bring some context and to fill in the story that we’ve traveled so far in just the first few days of the year.  So we read about the Tower of Babel today.  That is a famous story.  I grew up in church so I’ve been hearing the story of the Tower of Babel since Sunday School and maybe you have too, or maybe this is the first time you’ve ever heard of it.  Either way, it’s  a famous story in the Bible.  

There are a couple of ways to read this story and one of them introduces this first uptight, angry, spiteful God, then there are other stories that we will come to that seem to indicate this judging, vengeful God and God gets this reputation, this Old Testament reputation that is fascinatingly and completely incorrect that has been perpetuated for a long, long time.  

We see in the story of Babel God comes down, sees what the people are going to do.  They are going to build this big tower.  It is going to go up into the sky.  And God says, ‘we can’t let this happen.  If we let this happen, then nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them.’ So it’s easy enough to go ‘what’s God so uptight about here?  What’s the big deal?’  The big deal is the ‘impossible for them’ part.  

Let’s go back a couple of days, back to Genesis chapter 3, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which we’ve already covered, the whole breach and breaking of trust that happened, the separation of divinity from humanity that happened, this chasm that was not bridgeable.  So we go through all that and the slide downward of man that becomes so evil that a flood overtakes the world and a reset is done.  Now we’re on the other side of that.  People are repopulating the earth and the same kind of thing is happening.  This tower can’t be built for the same reason that people can’t continue to eat from the tree of life.  Humanity and divinity have been separated from their ordinary, normal, natural created state, which is intertwined.  

So God banished humanity from the tree of life in the Garden of Eden because of this trade that was made.  This perfect intimacy with God was traded for the knowledge of good and evil.  Then mankind tried to use the knowledge to understand and control God and then to become his own god.  We see this playing out in Babel again. So when God says ‘the people are united and they speak the same language and after this nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them,’ it’s just echoes of Eden.  Echoes of the tree of life.  

We can look at God as this spiteful, jilted person who is vengeful and is on a power trip or we can see it for what it is, a counterintuitive rescue and saving of all things, because humanity separated from divinity altogether is not humanity as it was created to be.  Separated from divinity, separated from God, it will only do what it has always done, continue to slide into inhumanity, subhumanity and will only perpetuate its own total annihilation.  All you have to do is look around even today.  These thousands and thousands of years later all you have to do is look around and see that the possibility of complete annihilation is ever-present. 

What the Bible will teach us later is that nothing is impossible with God. Our attempts to make nothing impossible without God will not work.  We were not made that way.  That is not how life works.  So God confuses the whole mess and disperses people throughout the earth.  He has larger plans of redemption for a later time.

We could stop there because there is plenty to think about there because it begins to shift our own assumptions about God and his work or his counterintuitive work or his disruptive work in our lives and the places that we go in our heads, in our hearts, the assumptions that we make that ultimately estrange us from God.  So there is plenty to think about there, but we also meet a very, very important person in today’s reading and his name is Abram.  He is going to have a name change pretty soon and be a very central figure in the story of the Bible and in the story of the world we live in right now.

We went through some genealogical territory today and you can feel like that is tedious at times, but we’ll get to that later.  We read through some genealogical things today leading us to Abram and he is in Ur of the Chaldeans.  This is modern day Iraq.  He is a nomadic kind of person similar to the modern day Bedouins of the desert.  He is a desert person who ends up coming into the land of the Canaanites.  He comes to this place called Shechem which is a very ancient city and the city still exists today in modern day Israel.  It is now known as Nabulus.  But this city is going to keep recurring.  It is going to keep coming up.  Some of the most pivotal things in all of the Bible happened in and around Shechem and today is one of them because God comes to Abram and tells him near Shechem ‘all of this land I’m giving to you.  I will make a nation out of you and you will bless the people of the earth.’

Now Shechem is not desert country and Abram continues to move southward. You can easily Google a map of Israel and the Middle East and kind of see this whole trajectory, but he moves south to Bethel where he makes an altar.  Bethel will also become an important landmark as we move forward. And then he moves even further south toward the Negev, another desert, something a little more arid, something that he is accustomed to.  But famine is in the land and so he has to go to Egypt where this whole episode happens of Abram telling his wife Sarai to claim that she is his sister.  It’s amazing because she is obviously unspeakably beautiful, of biblical proportions because the Bible says so.  She is gorgeous.  She also happens to be 75 years old’ish which can feel like a little bit of a contradiction because you don’t usually think of a person 75 years old as being completely, unspeakably hot.  As we’re reading in the book of Genesis, people had longer lifespans closer to the beginning when there was less pollution and population, so we read of people not really beginning their families until after the first 100 years. So this is what we find with Abram and Sarai.  

Sarai is taken into the harem of the Pharaoh only to be given back to Abram and he is enriched with many things.  Many of the gifts that the Pharaoh gave him made him wealthy, rich, and fortified.  So when they leave Egypt, and I mean this is a pathway that the ancestors of Abram are going to follow, back toward Bethel, this man Abram has followed a God that he has just recently met, gotten a promise from this God, and has been fortified and enriched by partially plundering Egypt.  This will happen again by the ancestors of Abram.  This little trick of Sarai posing as Abram’s sister, this trick will happen again as well, but we’ll save that for another day.  

Then in the New Testament we move into Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which is really his central teaching, but we’ll be covering this territory, so we’ll save that for another day.  

Prayer

Father, thank you for your word.  What a gift.  Our hearts come alive within us as we hear the stories of our spiritual ancestry, how it is that we got from there to here and things begin to fill in and all of a sudden we see ourselves in these stories and we realize every fork in the road is a choice that is leading somewhere, even the small decisions that we make are choices that are going somewhere.  Your word helps us to be awake and aware of those decisions and it makes us awake and aware of your presence in all of it.  So come, Holy Spirit.  Plant these words deep in our lives, in our souls.  May our hearts be fertile soil that the fruit of the Spirit may grow in us.  Come, Jesus, we pray.  In your name we ask.  Amen.  

Announcements

Www.DailyAudioBible.com is the website.  It’s home base.  It’s where you find out what is going on around here.  So be sure to check it out.  You’ll find all the ways to connect with Daily Audio Bible and with each other and all the resources that are available at www.DailyAudioBible.com.  

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at www.DailyAudioBible.com as well.  There is a link on the home page.  If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible App, you can push the More button in the lower right-hand corner.  Or if you prefer, the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996, Spring Hill, TN 37174.  

And, as always, we are a community here and we pray for each other really well around here.  If you have a prayer request or comment, there are a number of numbers that you can use, depending on where you are in the world and really I think you can use these numbers no matter where you are in the world if you just happen to not want to call the number closest to you.  Either way, if you’re in the Americas, (877) 942-4253 is the number to call. If you are in the UK or Europe: 44, 20-3608-8078 is the number.  And if you are in Australia or the lands down under:  61, 3-8820-5459 is the number to call.

And that is it for today.  I’m Brian. I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here, right here tomorrow.  

Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports

Hey Dabbers, this is Slave of Jesus.  Alright, Holy Spirit, let’s roll.  This is for all of us but this is really focusing on the new Dabbers that are joining us probably after the first of the year and those that came in the middle of last year.  They’re psyched.  They’re ready to do this thing and do it every year.  So I’m in military intelligence and it’s my job to tell the commander what the enemy is going to do, so I’m going to tell you all what the enemy is going to do in your lives if you try to get through a year with the DAB. You need to have a plan.  You need to have a plan.  You can have a great plan, but you need to have what they call a Plan B.  Because you might be saying ‘okay, I’m going to go ahead and do this every single night right before I go to bed.’  After a few months the enemy is not going to like you listening to the Bible every day. He’s going to do something to mess up your night, whether it’s you have a new class you have to take or something like that.  You gotta have a Plan B.  Maybe that Plan B is you have to set your alarm a half hour earlier than you normally get up to do that.  I don’t know what it is, but you’ve got to start thinking about this.  You have to start thinking about if you call into the DAB and you don’t hear your call and the enemy gets in your head to tries to say ‘hey, you don’t need this community anymore.’  You need to have a plan that you’re going to fight through that. You’re going to post something to Facebook, maybe somebody is going to say something that offends you, you need to get a plan out there right now so that you can fight your way through this. Be prepared.  The Bible says that the enemy prowls like a lion.  That is what he’s doing.  He’s going to go out there for all of us who lightly planted seeds that just don’t have big roots and you’re all excited, but as soon as that storm comes it rips it all out.  That is what he wants to do.  If you fight through that, if you get through a year, you get through two years, you start to say the Daily Prayer out loud, start learning scripture, you become a powerful warrior, but you gotta have a plan to fight through that so when that enemy comes at you, you’re ready.  So that’s just a little warning for all of you out there.  Don’t be afraid.  The enemy is defeated.  Scripture beats him every single time just like Jesus did, but start to have a plan now so you can get through it when you face it in real life.  Love you all.  Have a great day.  

Hey there DAB family.  This is Julie from Louisiana.  Many of you have called in over the holidays because you’re lonely and so I just wanted to say a prayer for you.  Lord, I just lift up every person who is heartbroken right now, who is struggling through the holidays, who feels alone.  Lord, I just pray you’d wrap your arms around them right now and I pray that they would feel your peace and they would feel your love and they would feel your joy and, Lord, they would know that you became one of us so that you could be with us.  So we’re thankful, Father, for you touching them right now.  I just wanted to challenge everybody and especially if you’re lonely, I want to challenge you to do something I did last year.  You know in 2015 I found the DAB and I listened to it all year by myself and it was so awesome that I just wanted everybody I knew to go through it with me.  And so last January, my husband and I started a small group at our church for anybody who wanted to go through the Bible in a year.  And we had about 15 people that signed up.  And so what we would do is each of us would listen on our own every day and we might take notes on what we heard or we might write down any questions that we had and then one night a week we would get together and we would discuss what we had heard and what we learned and talk about questions that we had. It had to be the best small group that I’ve ever been part of in my life.  In fact, this New Year’s Eve we’re all going to get together and we’re going to listen to the very last podcast of the year together as a group and then we’re going to have a party to celebrate that we’ve gone through the whole Bible together with each other.  I want to encourage you to begin your own small group in 2017 and go through the Bible with your friends.  If you have any questions about how to launch a small group, you can shoot me an email.  I’d love to hear from you.  My email address is info@RiverValleyChurch.net.  I’m praying that lots of groups spring up in 2017.  Love and blessings from Louisiana.  

Good morning DAB.  This is Sandy in New Hampshire.  I wanted to say Brian, thank you so much, and actually China and Jill and everyone else. I love the way Brian says ‘I love you. I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.’ You know sometimes when we’re going through hard times, just knowing that somebody else is going to be there is awesome, so I want to thank you for that.  I want to thank you for the sacrifices that you guys make personally, professionally and with your family, so I pray that God will bless you for that. Thank you for your faithfulness in serving God through serving others, selflessly serving and encouraging every day, loving through serving.  I would like to pray for our family this year, for the whole DAB family, to have abundance, restoration, strength, resilience, depth, healing in relationships, health, marriages, families, siblings, serving opportunities.  I ask that we would see Jesus’ reflection and feel his arms holding us, that we would see his smile through others smiling.  I pray that we would see others beside us and that we would love through serving alongside others that are serving the Lord, that we would join hands with those who are serving, that God would use us to be a light in dark places. I just want to thank you and I pray that God will bless you.  In Jesus’ name.  

Hi brothers and sisters from the Daily Audio Bible family.  This is Washed in the Blood of the Lamb from Perth, Western Australia.  Today’s date is the 29^th of December, 2016, and it’s not really a prayer today, but this is more just a word.  This is called Anchors for Our Souls.  In Hebrew 6:19 it talks about an anchor of hope, having our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ as an anchor of hope.  Sometimes in life we have tempestuous storms.  We have trials and tribulations and we can wax cold and grow cold and be hot and cold in this Christian relationship.  So sometimes we need anchors for our souls.  So in Hebrews 6:19 it talks of an anchor of hope and it also says in Romans 15:13 that God is our hope.  He is the hope.  Psalm 42:5 is to hope in God.  Sometimes we need to have an anchor of duty to a church or a duty in which we’re doing things that God has asked us to do, whether that is to be street preaching, evangelizing, doing outreach programs, feeding the homeless, just things that will anchor our souls to the duty of working for God.  Another one is an anchor of prayer which is what we do here.  We pray and we bring our prayers and supplications to the throne room of grace.  And last but not least is the anchor of love, to know that God loved his creation that he gave his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, that whosoever shall believe upon him shall not perish but have everlasting life.  I love you all, my god brothers and sisters.  I guess you would all be my god brothers and sisters.  I love you all and peace and safety to you.  God bless.  Amen.  

Hey family, it’s Arjen from Florida.  By the time this message gets played, it is probably going to be the new year, so it is awesome just to be in 2017 with you guys.  I look forward to walking through all of our struggles and supports and just continuing in that love together.  Brian, thank you so much, Brother.  I don’t say that, but I just want to know how grateful I am.  I’m calling to pray for Reyna who is struggling with alcoholism and who is having confrontation with her sons and is just going through depression. Reyna, I know what depression is like. I know what isolation, feeling isolated is like.  I pray for the company and unconditional love of Jesus, Reyna, to be so unbelievably strong in your life, so unbelievably powerful and unshakeable and present that all of the other worldly issues that come in your life will grow so dim that you forget that they even exist, that these enemies of yours will be extinguished, that though you look for them, you will not be able to find them, that you walk and live and love in the fellowship of Jesus and are at so much peace that you can comfort all of us, Reyna.  I pray this in Jesus’ mighty name.  I pray this with Jesus’ mighty heart.  I pray with the Spirit of God, our creator, sustainer, and principle mover of all things. Reyna, we love you and we thank you for how open you are being because that openness gives us a window to be open.  I love all of you guys.  God bless.  

Hey everybody.  This is Pelham from Birmingham with Molly and now baby Andy whose name is Gerald Anderson Hart.  I’m just calling in today because if I don’t call some time I’m not going to call because it’s pretty busy here in the hospital room.  I’m standing here with my wife, with Molly.  Say hi.  [Molly] Hey everybody!  Thank you all so much for your prayers.  That was Molly and then we’re looking down here on Grandma who is holding Andy with the WubbaNub and he’s just as happy as he can be.  I’m blown away by how good God has been through this whole process, the miracle of him giving us this baby.  The fact that the baby was born on the day that we lost our first child is not lost on me. The health of this baby, everything has just been checking out just right.  He’s amazed us at every turn.  Let me see if I can get him to make a noise.  Can you make a noise buddy?  Only got a couple of seconds.  [Molly] Say hey to your DAB family, baby Andy.  [Pelham] You want to say something Andy?  Nope, Andy doesn’t want to say anything.  He wanted his WubbaNub back.  Alright, well, I just wanted to call and thank everyone all over the world for praying for me and Molly through all these years.  My father who passed away, he was here and is here and it just means so much to me, everyone out there.  I’ll keep you updated as to how the child is doing.  Everything is wonderful and I hope everyone is well.  

Genesis 8:1-10:32 ~ Matthew 4:12-25 ~ Psalm 4:1-8 ~ Proverbs 1:20-23

Today is January 4th.  Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible.  I’m Brian. It’s great to be here with you today as we kind of move our way past the halfway point of week #1.  We have covered some serious ground already in just a few days of being in the Bible each day, and today will be no different. No day will be any different.  But today we’ll pick up the story of Noah and the flood of the earth in the book of Genesis chapter 8, verse 1 through 10, verse 32 and we’re reading from the New Living Translation this week.  

Introduction of a New Book (Proverbs)

This brings us to our Proverbs reading for the day and like I’ve been saying for the last three days, we introduced one of the books we’ve begun at the beginning of the year so when we launch into a new year, we are starting four books simultaneously – Genesis, Matthew, Psalms and Proverbs, so we spend the first four days just kind of flying over them and then every time we come to a new book it will be the same.  It will just be a little bit more spread out.

Proverbs is an invaluable book of practical, applicable wisdom to our lives now. It’s not esoteric or conceptual in any way.  It’s not allegorical.  It’s actual and it applies to the human heart.  It exposes the motivations.  It makes us think.  This is the wisdom that has stood the test of time.  

In the structure of the Old Testament, Proverbs is the main book of in what is called the collection of wisdom literature, so the other books in the wisdom literature would be the book of Ecclesiastes, the book of Job and then part of the Psalms.  These portions of scripture are called wisdom literature because they are more intended to speak a direct lesson rather than be narrative where the reader follows a story and then gleans meaning from it.  The wisdom literature speaks directly to what it is trying to teach.  

Most of the proverbs are attributed to the great wise man Solomon although there are a couple of other characters involved that lend their wisdom to the Proverbs.  It seems that the Proverbs may have been collected all along, but were not really put into a collection until the time of around King Hezekiah.  And most scholars think that some of the proverbs could predate Solomon and were a series of oral traditions and oral wisdom that had been handed down from generation to generation, family to family and finally placed into the collection of Proverbs.  

So Proverbs obviously is in the Bible, so it has obviously religious connotations in everything that it says.  The first part of the book is the wisdom of God speaking in first person directly to the reader.  So wisdom is speaking and the Proverbs all address the human experience and it transfers direct wisdom to what we as people as experience, both interpersonally, with God, inside ourselves, and it gives us the ultimate road map to life.  It is the ultimate quintessential book of wisdom, the greatest collection of wisdom that mankind has, and it encourages us. Whatever you do, get wisdom because wisdom is more valuable than anything else.  If you have wisdom, everything else can be achieved.  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This is why we spend some time in the Proverbs every day, which is what we’ll do now.  Proverbs chapter 1, verses 20 through 23.  

Commentary

Okay, so every year that we go through the Bible we have kind of a word that we’re focusing on that becomes kind of like a North Star, a way to approach life and find it in the scriptures.  This year the word is margin.  Those of you who were here last year will remember the word was healthy, and we were looking at health, spiritual, physical, emotional in the scriptures.  This year the word is margin, that space that insulates us where we can stay balanced and whole because when we live our lives basically stressed out and turned all the way up all the time, well, there is no room to live in that.  There is no margin in that and we end up living reactionary.  Everything is a reaction to something that happens to us rather than that we have the margin in our lives to process and adapt and live into what is happening and invite Jesus into what is happening.  

We see some glimpses of that in the book of Psalms today:

Don’t sin by letting anger control you. Think about it overnight and remain silent.  

There is some good wisdom from the Psalms in one sentence that says create that margin.  Don’t react in anger.  Build the margin by remaining silent, thinking about it overnight, which gives us the space to invite Jesus into it all, allow our emotions to not run away with us, consider the paths that we may choose and what their outcomes may be rather than just blasting into the heat of the moment and causing harm, whether that be emotional harm or physical harm or spiritual harm.

So may we heed this and understand that you don’t just have to go to war every time something gets said to you that seems sideways.  There are times for just silence, to move away from the situation, allow the night to pass, invite God into it, have a fresh perspective, have some margin in the reaction so that it is appropriate.  

Prayer

Father, we invite you into this.  Oh, this is a big one.  We need this because if we’re honest and we’re examining our lives, we begin to realize that we live reactionary a lot of the time.  We immediately want to go after something when, if we don’t walk with you, we’re just walking blind.  We have plenty of examples in our own lives of messes that we’ve made because we didn’t have any margin, we didn’t take the beat to invite your Holy Spirit into the situation and here you are encouraging us from your word to do exactly that.  So come, Holy Spirit, into this day, into the readings that we’ve just read.  Plant these words deep in our lives, changing our habits, changing our motivations and the postures of our heart.  Come, Holy Spirit, we pray.  In the name of Jesus we ask.  Amen.  

Announcements

Www.DailyAudioBible.com is the website.  That is home base.  It’s where you find out what is going on around here.  And we spend the first few days of every year just unpacking how it all works.  So we’ve talked about the different programs.  We’ve talked about how to stay connected through the website, through social media.  How to connect with each other as we move through this year.  We’ve talked about the Daily Audio Bible website.  That is where you find out what is going on around here.  The Daily Audio Bible Shop is there.  We don’t just have a shop for the sake of selling stuff.  We’ve tried to find things that are complimentary to the journey through the year, like journaling your way through the scriptures.  

Another thing that is kind of like that is coffee and tea.  That might sound odd, but I am a minor league coffee snob, maybe even a little more than minor league, so several years ago, all the way back to the first few years of the Daily Audio Bible, we started roasting our own coffee under our own brand called Windfarm.  When you hear the Windfarm name or hear me saying that, that just comes from Ezekiel chapter 37, when the Lord invites the prophet Ezekiel to call to the four winds the breath of life.  That is one of the things we feel like we’re doing here every day – calling the breath of life from the four winds of the earth, that that which has died might live again inside of us.

So anyway, coffee and tea, these are things that most people, not everybody, but most people consume either first thing in the morning or throughout the day or at tea time if you’re in a part of the world that has that tradition. Here in America, it is usually coffee and we’re usually kind of going through some drive-thru to get a cup of good coffee.  Several years ago, just being really a coffee connoisseur, loving coffee, I went in search for how we could do this, how we could bring fresher coffee, because that’s the trick with coffee.  Coffee actually kind of gets old and gets stale like other food products.  How can we roast fresh and deliver fresh a product that is going to be consumed anyway and use the margin, which is our word for the year, to help with the Daily Audio Bible?  Thus, Windfarm Coffee and Tea was born.  You can see that at the Daily Audio Bible Shop as well.  But we also have a coffee club and you can try out all of the different varietals of coffee and tea that we have.  We send however much you want per month, however much you consume per month shows up fresh roasted.  We roast this at altitude in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and then send it directly to you each month.  

So when you sign up for the coffee club, we ship at the beginning of every month.  So if you were to sign up say today, it would be the first of February that we would ship. We roast right at the end of every month and ship right at the first of every month so that it arrives fresh and when you open it up and that aroma comes out fresh roasted, it’s quite different than say like a chain coffee shop that you might go through the drive-thru or whatever.  That is a little bit older coffee.  And tea is no different.  We have sourced in the best teas we can find and there is a great selection there as well. Or you can have it sent every month and just kind of rotate through.  So check that all out at www.DailyAudioBible.com in the Initiatives.  It’s easy to find.  You’ll find it.  So check that out.  

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible in the mission that we share commonly here to bring the spoken word of God to whoever will listen, wherever you may be on this planet, whatever time it may be, day or night, that is what we do.  We bring God’s spoken word to anyone who will listen and build community around it so that no one has to shoulder all of the weight and burden of life alone.  If that is life-giving to you, then thank you for your partnership.  There is a link on the home page of www.DailyAudioBible.com.  If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible App, you can push the More button in the lower right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996, Spring Hill, TN 37174.

And, as always, we are a community and we pray for each other.  If you are shouldering something that you shouldn’t carry alone, well then there is a number you can call.  (877) 942-4253 is the number to dial.  

And that is it for today.  I’m Brian. I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.  

Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports

Hi there.  This is __________.  My heart goes out to James from Atlanta who has been a 10-year listener of DAB.  He was asking for reconciliation with his ex-wife. I wish that when I had left my ex-husband back a decade and a half ago, that he would have had the desire that you have, James, in wanting her back.  I myself was shrouded in the dark and evil lies of deception, unforgiveness and hurt.  I was led to believe that I would be better off if I was out of this marriage, while leaving my children confused, hurt and with the feeling of abandonment.  I wish I could tell your ex-wife what it does to her heart even this many years after a divorce.  James, I pray against any of these evil lies that your ex-wife might be feeling and I ask that the Lord would restore her heart with the love and passion that she once had for you.  I ask that whatever the circumstances for this divorce, that you both would be made new in mind, will, emotion and spirit.  James, I believe in miracles and I hear of them every day through Daily Audio Bible.  I am grateful that my brothers and sisters in this community of believers will do the same and believe and pray with me, that they will be able to see this miracle come to pass.  We love you, James, and look forward to the good news that the Lord will give us about your restoration.  I pray through the blood of my Savior, Jesus Christ.  I love you guys.  Thank you.

Hey Daily Audio Bible community.  I just wanted to ask you to pray for my granddad.  He’s 102.  He hardened his heart to God at a young age and he’s got pneumonia and I know all things are possible for God.  I pray that he would soften his heart and __________ to God before he dies.  Thanks guys.  

Hello Daily Audio Bible family.  This is Stanley from Maryland.  This is my first year listening to the Daily Audio Bible almost every day.  It fills my life with so much wisdom and like you say, Brian, it has given me the rhythm of the scriptures.  Even if I don’t understand everything all the way, just listening and just praying along and just hearing the rhythm of the scriptures has helped in my walk with Christ and it’s been able to give me a thankful heart and ultimately helped me to grow closer to God.  I just want to thank you for everything, Brian and all the team. Thank you for all the prayer requests that have been sent in.  I appreciate all you guys’ love and all you guys’ prayers and I’m looking forward to next year, 2017 being an amazing experience as well, just like this year. Thank you and have a great new year. Bye.  

Hey, good morning.  This message is for a young man named Brian.  I believe it is in Nacogdochas, TX.  My sister, Brian’s mother called in and said there was some problem.  You know, I didn’t really listen a whole lot to the sickness because that doesn’t matter as much because we know the healer. As I began to pray for your son, Brian, in my spirit I saw some tissue in the brain that was too long.  I don’t know what all this means, but Dr. Jesus does and I believe today is the day for your son’s miracle.  So let’s pray over that.  In Jesus’ name, I command every cell in this brain to be the way God designed it.  Father, we agree and we release divine healing over this young man, Brian.  His name means strong and powerful and he will stand strong and powerful for the glory of Christ.  He has a promise.  He has a purpose, a great purpose and we tell every principality and power that would try to derail that purpose, in Jesus’ name you have to get your hands off him and he is going to completely fulfill that purpose.  He is going to walk in health, strength, and life.  He will be filled with healing.  And Father, I ask that you fill his mother’s heart with a shout of hope for the glory of Christ and we thank you for the testimony of this healing, in Jesus’ name.  

Good morning Dabbers.  I am a burning bush that will not be devoured for the glory of our Lord and King.  What better word than what I heard Brian speak today.  He said invest your hope in God’s unfailing love.  Today is the 28^th of December.  This is my prayer for myself.  This year is about to end.  In one year I have lost my father.  My mom has been diagnosed with cancer.  My aunt is in hospice.  I got a divorce.  I am currently battling for custody of my younger son.  My older son relapsed and went back into a life of addiction and finally is trying to find his way back out.  All these things sound so, so negative but I believe that whatever we focus on we empower to have complete control of our lives.  At the same time, I praise God that my mom was able to be here with us in the United States during this time that she is ill, that I was able to say goodbye to my aunt, that my children are healthy and alive, that I got a promotion this year, that God has blessed me with an awesome church family and an awesome Daily Audio Bible family, that I personally have very good health and that there are just so many great things that God is doing in my life.  Father God, today I pray you help me to invest by helping you.  I also pray for those who owe me.  I currently have a list of over 12,500 US dollars that is owed to me in 2016.  I believe that the Lord will replenish everything that the devil has taken. God, I thank you for the family and that you, Lord Jesus, your testimony is the Spirit of prophesy and I speak that over my life and the lives of those listening.  Thank you, Jesus, that we will not be devoured.  In Jesus’ name, amen.

Hey family.  It’s Jordan from Michigan.  One of the things that I’m thankful for today is the gift of writing and poetry, so I’m going to read to you my latest poem called To Teach.  Listen to me, my son.  You are called to teach.  Basically I’m asking you to crawl in deep.  But first, we don’t have to overhaul your speech to teach kids how to dwell in the halls of the meek.  What you give the youth will be transcendental, all that wisdom you’ll attain, man, it’s mental.  Plus it’s the true purpose that you’re meant for.  Even the principalities of darkness can’t stop this, Bro.  Oh, by the way, you’re going to have to do this blindfolded and you’re going to get all of the time scolded.  I’ll give you no mentors, with a wide path assigned, posted. Administration will fight your light. Walk on a tightrope, Kid.  Out of 100 first-year teachers, 99 times folded. You’re too nice, too kind and you know your kind is roasted.  Detroit don’t want you cuz your light’s voltage is too turned up for this dark city. Hope you like growing.  What are you saying, God?  Are you talking to me?  Do you want me to spend on the children because the doctrine is free? Are you aware that my depression which is toxic won’t flee?  Are you prepared to do the impossible thing?  Do you know that I’m scared, angry and obnoxious to teens?  It feels like I just have too many problems to bring, too many.  In a sea of demons will I drown and then sink?  And if I’m sinking, screaming, will you pull me out from the brink?  I hear you saying, God, I’m a child of little faith, that with the belief the size of a seed, lies would really break. The war in your head would stop. It would be forever great.  You can bring the kingdom, shalom that was never placed.  But I’m on the brink of the end of myself, I’ll call it suicide.  Living for God, there really is no choice cuz it’s do or die.  We will find out who cuts themselves and then who can fly.  If you can free yourself from death, you will teach truth and light.  Is this my fault or yours, Jordan?  You can be too complacent.  We even need to get new help for you.  You need a new arrangement.  Don’t try to suppress the love of Christ kept in a true containment.  So your call to being a blessing should be more than two occasions.  Halfway through the year, I know I failed you, Lord.  Perceptions of love and truth have been impaled and torched.  I smell like smoke.  I’m dying in quick.  __________ toward the middle of the crazy storm.  What you made me for?  Am I going to make it, Lord?  Or is it simply too late to score?  Jordan, you know that you are poor in spirit.  You’ll be in heaven one day.  Ignore the fear, kid.  Chillin’ with you man to man, but before the cheer, it’s going to be hard times.  Your Lord is nearest…

Genesis 5:1-7:24 ~ Matthew 3:7-4:11 ~ Psalm 3:1-8 ~ Proverbs 1:10-19

Today is January 3rd.  Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible.  I’m Brian. It is a pleasure and an honor to be here with you today for the third day in a row of the year 2017.  So we’re kind of off to a big start.  We’ve covered a lot of ground in just two days and we will continue with the journey that will prove to be the adventure of a lifetime, making the scriptures part of the rhythm of our lives as we go through the entire Bible this year.

So that rhythm of the Daily Audio Bible is to read some Old Testament, some New Testament, some Psalms and some Proverb each and every day and every time we come to a new book, kind of fly over it, circle around it, get a little bit of context for it, so we’ve been doing that.  We did Genesis at the beginning of the week, which was the beginning of the year and we did Matthew yesterday and we’ll do Psalms when we get there, but first, reading from the New Living Translation this week, Genesis chapter 5 verse 1 through 7 verse 24 today.  

Introduction of a New Book (Psalms)

This brings us to our Psalms reading today.  We haven’t talked about the book of Psalms yet, so let’s do a little overview.  The Hebrew word for Psalms is tehillim or praises.  It is a collection of 150 songs, hymns, congregational singings, call and answer responses, individual songs and poems of worship.  It is basically five books in one and they are classified by who wrote them or their theme or their purpose.  Some of them give praises to God.  Others speak of his character or actions.  Some are songs of lament or repentance, while others are songs of thanksgiving.  No matter the circumstance, the book of Psalms is meant to bring praise, glory, adoration, reverence and honor to God in all the circumstances of human life and for all purposes.  

Psalms is a beautiful book containing some of the most heartfelt musical poetry ever written.  Every conceivable emotion is explored in the Psalms.  There are the heart’s cries that are so passionate and broken that you can feel them across the boundaries of time.  And yet there are also some that are so exalted, they are mountaintop experiences where the glory of the Lord is tangible and present.  

David, the King of Israel who was a master musician himself composed most of the psalms.  Although we have a large amount of information about David throughout the rest of the Bible, the Psalms reveal his inner heart.  What we find is that he is utterly human and the ebb and flow of his humanity is ever-present in his compositions.  

Other writers include Solomon, the sons of Korah, Asaph, Ethan, and then there are a number of them whose author is unknown or anonymously written. But ultimately the purpose of the Psalms was to rally the people and to enrich the worship experience of Israel.  The songs would have been sung in public and in private homes as people went about their daily lives.  These have stood the test of time because we sing and quote them now.  Their power and enduring beauty is unmatched.  They are absolutely unrivaled.  

Scholars believe that the Psalms were written over a long period of time, between about 950 BC until about 165, 170 BC.  Three major periods in Israel are covered.  The first would be during the reign of David and Solomon.  And the second one contains songs written when the children of Israel were taken into exile in Babylon, and then the third would contain writings from when they were freed to go back and re-create their land after the exile.  So we have a long time span, various culture points that are represented here, but the Psalms are very cohesive in their purpose of bringing glory and honor to God in a very authentic and beautiful way.  

So today we read Psalm chapter 3, a psalm of David regarding the time David fled from his son, Absalom.  

Commentary

Alright, so we’re a mere three days into this year and we are already covering so much ground and there is so much to pay attention to because it informs the rest of the year.  So if we go back to the book of Genesis, we’re just 7 chapters in, but we have covered some significant ground, our origin story, a glimpse at shalom, a glimpse of a time when everything was as it was intended to be, how things were supposed to be for us on this planet.  We see the fall of man and this is what is important to remember.  In the Garden of Eden there was a tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the one thing in all of humanity that was forbidden.  So there was perfection and complete intimacy with God and one another and with nature and everything was in harmony, but there was this one thing that was off-limits. You begin to wonder why put the one thing that is off-limits in the Garden of Eden, the one thing that can mess up the harmony?  But there is something really, really, really beautiful there.  When God made mankind in his own image, he gave us the ability to make the choices of our lives.  We can choose to walk intimately with God or we can choose whatever way it is that we want to choose.  That’s because love can’t really be love if there is no way out.  

If you’re in a relationship and you can’t get out of it, you’re trapped in it for some reason, whether it’s physical abuse or fear or whatever set of circumstances, if there is no way out, well then it’s not completely by choice. It’s not really true love.  God had made mankind in his own image and breathed his own life, his own breath into them, that we as a species may have life. And he gave us the ability to choose and those choices matter and they stick and that is what happened.  We traded God for the knowledge of good and evil. Then we’ve been trying to filter God through our knowledge of good and evil to get back to him, to understand him, to make it all make sense again on our own terms and that is not how it works.

So we’ve been able to spend some time.  We see in today’s reading people lived a very long time after the fall, close to 1000 years.  Much different and closer to when things were perfect than they are now, but we also see over those generations and over those millennia even that mankind continued to slide backward and downward away from the way they were created.  So when this breach happened in the Garden of Eden, we were separated from God.  Divinity and humanity that had been perfectly intertwined in a harmonious and seamless transition, that was broken apart.  So mankind left to its own devices began to try to make life work and, as we read the accounts in the book of Genesis, it didn’t work, which brings us to meet a man named Noah, the one righteous person left on this planet.  

God even commented that everybody had become like animals.  Everybody was living however they wanted to live and it was just utter destruction.  From the heart of man only evil comes and that is a pretty good description of the reality that sometimes we don’t pay attention to.  When this happened and we were separated from God we became devolved. We fell.  It was an actual thing.  We became something we were not created to be.  We became separated from God.  It was never meant to be that way.  In many ways, in many very, very important ways, we became subhuman.  We will track that story as we continue through the Old Testament.  

When we moved into the gospel narrative in the book of Matthew today, we are seeing something very remarkable.  We’re skipping thousands of years in time to see that the Father, the Creator of all things would not abandon his own image that he created upon this earth.  He would not abandon us to the darkness we were creating.  He came for us.  And we see many, many times where he does come for us, both in the Old and New Testament. Today we come to Noah and we come to a flood and we come to a complete reset.  But it all will slide into inhumanity again and we’ll watch this over the next months.  Then as we move our way through the gospels, we’ll see that God came in human form as a perfect person.  Theologically Jesus is called the second Adam which in its own way is kind of weird, but the theological point is that he was sinless like the first man and woman before they fell, that he came as mankind was intended to be and lived a human life in a fallen world as mankind was intended to be and you see the way that a perfect person disrupts everything.  So we watch Jesus, a perfect person and the way that humanity responds to him, even to the point of killing him, and right there we see how far the backward and downward spiral went away from the way things were supposed to be for us.

So we get a good glimpse of how things got to where they are and then we can look in the world and see all of this all around us.  It may be wearing different clothes, but the heart that drives things forward in mankind is the same as it has always been.  So we can see this in the world and then we can look at Jesus and realize how humanity responded to the way things were supposed to be.  But then we also see the offer of Jesus, the invitation back to the way things are supposed to be for us.  So just in a few short days we laid the groundwork for everything that comes next.

Prayer

Father, we thank you for this.  It blasts like a cannon out of the gate on the first day and then you start just laying it all out before us.  All of a sudden this big thick book full of theology and old customs isn’t so hard to approach anymore.  All of a sudden we’re finding our own lives and our own stories in this gift that you’ve given us known as the scriptures.  So we invite your Holy Spirit today and every day to continue to speak to us, rearranging things inside of us, shifting things inside of us, changing our thoughts, our words, our deeds as we move forward and as you continue to sanctify and set us apart as holy, the way we were supposed to be all along.  Come Holy Spirit, we pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen.  

Announcements

Www.DailyAudioBible.com is the website.  That is where you find out what is going on around here.  And we’re just kind of unpacking some of the different things. So we talked about ways to connect yesterday with social media, with the Prayer Wall that is at www.DailyAudioBible.com, that sort of thing.  And while you’re at www.DailyAudioBible.com, you’ll find the Daily Audio Bible Shop.  So you’ll find resources there that you can wear, that you can drink from, that can just be a companion on this journey as you go through the Bible this year.  You can kind of set yourself up.  Daily Audio Bible journals are there and we deeply encourage journaling around here because we forget things.  When you’re kind of journaling a little bit a day, as you journal your way through the Bible, you’re able to look back over your year and see God’s hand in it all.  It helps us.  Actually being able to reflect back helps us to see God at work in our lives when things seem disconnected at times.  So I guess our motto around here about journaling is if God speaks, take notes. You’ll need them at some point. So Daily Audio Bible journals are available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop as well as a number other resources, so check that out.

Then from time to time on the Daily Audio Bible we’ll play a song. Sometimes a song speaks to what we’ve read more intimately and more immediately than anything else we could do. Sometimes music is the thing that doesn’t run around our intellect and plants truth in our hearts.  So we do that from time to time and then we’ll get a ton of emails about what was that song?  You can always find out what songs get played on the Daily Audio Bible by just going to any of the social media channels.  We post it on Facebook every time we play a song.  We tweet it every time we play a song with links so you get the song and make it part of your collection.  So that is how you find out what song may have gotten played on the Daily Audio Bible.  

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, we are a community. That is what the Daily Audio Bible is, a community of people who have committed to going through the Bible in a year and it becomes quite a beautiful community over the space of a year, but we are also pumping out terabyte after terabyte of data through the pipe known as the Internet which is how it arrives to you every day, how you are listening to me now.  And yeah, that is a very, very, very expensive proposition.  Thank you for your partnership in allowing the Daily Audio Bible to be here every single day.  There is a link on the home page of www.DailyAudioBible.com.  If you’re using the app, you can push the More button and that is in the lower right-hand corner of the app screen or, if you prefer, the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996, Spring Hill, TN 37174.

And, of course, as always, we are a community.  If you have a prayer request or comment, (877) 942-4253 is the number to dial.  

And that’s it for today.  I’m Brian. I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.  

Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports

Hello Daily Audio Bible family.  This is Margie in Oregon and I missed the Christmas party, but I did want to send a message for glad tidings into the new year.  I am just praying that 2017 is a blessing to all of us, we’ll be walking together in faith and in love and growing day by day in the spirit of our Lord who blesses us.  I really appreciate the new word for the new year – margin.  I think that is a really important concept that we all need to incorporate into our lives.  And I wanted to share with you some words that came to me.  I didn’t get just one word for 2017.  I got three.  They are forgiveness.  Some things have been happening in my work that have been really, really tense and hurtful and I need to forgive.  And then I need to be obedient.  Even though crappy crap is happening at work and in my personal life, if I’m obedient to God, then we’ll overcome those things together.  And then finally, light.  I need to remember that what I do, what I say, how I act is a way of shining light to those around me who don’t know the love of our Lord.  And so that’s it for 2017 for me.  Remember, even if you don’t hear your name, somebody out there is praying for you.  I for one will be praying for those needs that are spoken and those that aren’t spoken and I just want you to know it is an amazing family of love that we’re a part of. I’ll be going into my fourth year this year, so be blessed, be loved.  Margie in Oregon, a pearl of the Lord.  

You’re a good, good Father.  It’s who you are.  That’s who you are and we are loved by you.  It’s who we are.  We’re loved by you.  This is Candace from Oregon, agreeing with you in prayer, all of you, especially the calls for humanitarian help for the children of Aleppo.  Lord, we bring these people to you.  We bring them to you, Lord, and we cry out to you for your miraculous intervention one by one in the life of these children.  Please bring food, water, even spiritual sustenance, hope. I thank you, Lord, for Salvation is Mine who’s been calling so faithfully and praying with us and leading us in prayer.  Thank you for James in Atlanta and his first call after 10 years for reconciliation with his ex-wife.  He knows this would be a miracle and will give you all the praise, so Lord, we just stand with him in the cry of his heart.  We know, Lord, that you’re bringing to each and every one of us the restoration of all things.  It is something we don’t really and can’t even begin to conceive of, but you’ve got our hearts.  You’ve got our hearts and you have gone all the way to buy us back, to bring us back into total and beautiful fellowship with you, my Lord, our strength, our redeemer and in the satisfaction and the aching of this, of our hearts, Lord, we look to you and we thank you and praise you and we look forward to everything you’re going to bring.  In Jesus’ name.  

Merry Christmas family.  This is Biola from Maryland.  I hope you’re all doing well.  Brian and Jill, God bless you.  Bonnie from Virginia, my heart goes out to you.  I did pray for favor for your son and I want to implore you to call back in and let us know the outcome of his hearing with the judge.  I pray for wisdom and strength for you in dealing with your ex and above all, Sister, I pray that you will have the heart to forgive your ex and just release him and let him go.  That is the power in forgiveness.  Alicia from Kansas, I so much love your passion.  God bless you, Sister.  I love your compassion.  Shout-out to you.  May God continue to lift you up and greatly favor you in everything that you do, in the name of Jesus.  Dawn in Tennessee, I’m praying for your son, that God would step into his situation, in the name of Jesus, God would touch him, God would deliver him and turn his life around.  Sister, when God stepped into Hannah’s situation, he not only gave her Samuel, he gave her several kids after and I pray that God would step into your son’s situation and turn his life totally around, in the name of Jesus.  Dennis from the Washington area, I’m praying for comfort for your wife and for you, that God would wrap his arms around your wife as she grieves the death of her brother.  I’m praying that God would open doors for you and you will get an even better job, in the name of Jesus.  This is long overdue.  I want to give a special shout-out to my Sisters in Maryland – Leika and Andrea, God bless you so much, my Sisters, for taking the time to come out to my dad’s memorial service and not only doing that, but also giving me a gift.  And to think I met you through Daily Audio Bible. This is a powerful forum, people. God bless you, my Sisters, and a special blessing to you this new year.  Special shout-out to my Sister, Sidney.  Sidney, you’ve never called and I know Sam always calls and Sam, we haven’t heard from you.  Sisters, I want to encourage you to go register for the More Conference.  God bless you.  

Hi, this is Irma from Missouri.  I’ve called before and left a couple of prayer requests, but I really feel the Lord telling me I need to make this call now.  I just feel like our families are being attacked so bad on both sides.  I know that my walk with the Lord hasn’t been as well as it should.  I’m working on it.  I have a praise that two of my kids have actually come back to Lord and want to walk with me and with him.  I’m grateful for that, but as this happens, it just feels like more attacks keep coming. I just need prayer.  We just need prayer.  Please pray for the families.  I’m asking personally for myself, for my marriage.  I know that the devil knows that I’m a very stubborn and here lately bitter woman and I want God to take that away.  Please take it away and change my attitude towards my marriage, towards my husband. Please, I ask that you pray for him, that his eyes would be opened, that his heart would be more open to understand the need for us to communicate.  I just lift our whole family up.  I know that Satan is hitting everywhere.  Praise the Lord that he is still with us.  Today is the 27^th of December and New Year’s is coming.  I love all of you guys and I thank you for your prayers.  Amen.

Hi DAB family.  This is Joyce from California.  Thank you so much for praying for me and for being my family.  I listened to the Community Prayer and the Christmas Party and it was the perfect way to spend Christmas with you all.  It brought joy to my heart to hear your voices, especially the voices of your children and the pets who joined in on the greeting.  I just wanted to thank Ann in Northern California, Justin S. from Sacramento, John C. from Guntersville, AL, Victorious Soldier, your prayer just brought me to tears, and Arjen from Florida, you are such a beautiful soul.  Arjen, you’re such a wonderful Brother and I love you.  Kathy, thank you for sharing about your mom, Darla from Salt Lake City, Amy from Arkansas, and everyone else who prayed for me.  I felt your heart with me and felt Jesus’ arms around me. Arjen was right.  The blood that binds us together is stronger than the blood that binds us to our biological family.  O Lord God, we praise you for this beautiful family, the body of Christ.  Thank you that we don’t have to bear our burdens alone.  We praise you for working your good and perfect will in each of our lives, regardless of our circumstances.  I lift up each and every one of our family members to you.  O Lord, be the Lord of everything we do.  O Lord, pour out your highest blessings and healing on each of us and our loved ones.  Your kingdom come, your will be done, Lord God.  In Jesus’ name we pray.  Amen.  I love you, family.  This is Joyce from California.  

Hi DAB family.  This is Will from beautiful Bozeman, MT.  Brian and Jill, again, thank you for this wonderful ministry and thank you all who participate in calling in, those who do not call in and just pray, and those who participate in other ways.  Thank you so much for your influence in my life, encouragement for challenges I face when I listen to your testimony and your prayer and your prayer requests.  I just want to pray now.  Father, thank you so much for this ministry and the blessing it has been in my life.  My prayer is to be able to pass that blessing on to others as I come in contact with them. And I just pray, Father, that as I share my testimony about the DAB with my friends and people I come in contact with, that they would hear you, that they would be moved by your Spirit and not by the fact that we have a friendship, but by the fact that you are real and what they hear appeals to their heart.  And then I pray, Lord, about the things that are so earnest in our hearts and minds that we grip so hard that we can’t see a different way.  So I pray a prayer of indifference and the reason why I pray that, Father, is so that your Spirit would come into that neutral spot and take us to the direction you want us to go.  So often we clamp so hard to what we want that we don’t allow you to move us in the way you want.  So I pray a prayer of indifference.  Lord, thank you again for your goodness, your mercy, and your grace and for the upcoming year of what you are going to do.  In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.  

Genesis 3:1-4:26 ~ Matthew 2:13-3:6 ~ Psalm 2:1-12 ~ Proverbs 1:7-9

Today is January 2nd.  Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible.  I’m Brian. It’s great to be here with you today for this, the second day of the year.  And like we were saying yesterday, we’ll kind of unpack all of the different aspects of the Daily Audio Bible as we go through this first week.  So we began the book of Genesis yesterday and we talked about that.  Every time we begin a new book, we’ll talk about it, give a little bit of an overview of where it sits in the grand scheme of the scriptures and in time and history. So when we get to the New Testament reading today, we’ll discuss the book of Matthew that we began yesterday. But first we’ll read from the book of Genesis and this week we’re reading from the New Living Translation. Today Genesis chapter 3 verse 1 through 4:26.  

Introduction of a New Book (New Testament)

Since we’ve come to the book of Matthew, let’s talk about the gospel of Matthew.  So Matthew is one of a grouping of books known as the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and each give us the account of Jesus’ life, who is the Savior.

Matthew was one of the 12 apostles and so he had first-hand knowledge, was a first-hand witness to the events that he recorded.  Matthew was a tax collector so he was not the most liked person socially, but when Jesus called him, he left everything.  So from that point forward he wasn’t a tax collector anymore.  He became something else, a follower of Jesus, and so from that perspective this is a man writing who gave up a life that he knew in exchange for a great leap of faith to follow a man he believed was the Son of God.

This book was written, most scholars believe, somewhere between 50 and 60 AD and that it is really aimed at Jewish believers.  It quotes the Old Testament more than any of the other gospels do and it seems to come from a slant where it is attempting to show Christ as the fulfillment of the Old Testament Mosaic Law.  

Of course, we get to know Jesus pretty well in this book.  We get to know his style, his temperament, his personality. There are over 20 parables that we’ll encounter.  Jesus teaches in these symbolic picture stories that are so rich and have such deep meaning and the way he uses his words to craft a sense of feeling and emotion beyond just words is actually quite beautiful.  

If there is one thing that we’ll encounter in the book of Matthew, it is the first rumblings of the kingdom of heaven coming and that it is near.  It is now.  It is something we’ll be able to contemplate throughout all of the gospels.

So we continue with the book of Matthew today, chapter 2 verse 13 through 3:6.

Commentary

We are only two days into this year and only two days into the Bible and we have read of our origin as a species, we have learned who Jesus is and have begun to walk the path of that story.  And today we have learned some important information about how we got to where we are.  

There are portions of scripture that are heartbreaking, really, really heartbreaking in their humanity.  Today is one of them, perhaps one of the most saddest portions of the scripture.  To recap, there was a garden.  We read of God’s creation of this earth, artistically masterful, creative beyond our human comprehension.  That God would use the elements to craft and fashion such exquisite beauty on this planet and then to bequeath it to his own creation, something created in his own image, people.  So we’re looking back across time, as we were saying yesterday, into a time when things were perfect, but this is a time before the concept of perfect was even invented.  There was nothing to contrast.  So perfect was all there was. This is a time when things were as they were meant to be, as they were supposed to be.  And we read of a couple of trees in this garden.  One, the tree of life and one the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  This tree is sitting in the middle of the garden and God has forbidden his creation, what was created in his own image, he has forbidden them from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  But God had also blessed his creation with all the attributes that would be God-like.  They are in his image.  They are made in his image after his fashion.  One of those things, of course, is the ability to recreate life in God’s image. We see that in the scriptures today as children are born.  But another one of those attributes is volition, so a will, the ability to make a choice and the ability for that choice to stick.  

So God had forbidden his children from this one tree, that’s it.  The only thing in the whole world off limits is this one tree.  But although he has forbidden it, he hasn’t circumnavigated their will, their volition, their ability to make a choice and so they can choose otherwise and that is what we see, this deception happening in a conversation at the tree where our human mother and father of old are being told this great deception:  You will not die if you eat this.  Are you kidding me?  If you eat this, God knows that you’ll become like him.  

And that is one of the great cosmic ironies of all time.  Somehow they had forgotten that they already were, so they ate and as the juice poured into their body, trust was broken, rebellion was introduced into the human story, and the people realized with their knowledge of good and evil that they were naked and they became ashamed and they started to hide.  

There is so much loaded into that because isn’t that still the human story? We feel exposed.  We feel naked.  We run and hide.  So often the one we’re hiding from is our creator Father.   I mean, we can make it look a lot of different ways, the way that we conduct ourselves, but if we’ll be honest, if we’ll do another look in the mirror, if we’ll be honest with ourselves, and that is an important piece of going through the Bible in a year, just approaching everything honestly. Rather than trying to dissect this whole book, we need to allow it to dissect us, force things out in our lives that we need to look at, full faced and examined with a true heart.  If we look at ourselves, we’ll see all of the places we run and hide, all of the secrets, all of the façade that we put out there in the world known as our personality juxtaposed starkly with our inner life.  We can see the places that we still hide.  This is where this began.  

We’re getting so much context and texture for our own lives in just the first couple of days, but I think what is so deeply, deeply sad is what God says in his response.  What have you done?  What have you done?  

We’ve probably all said that to someone in our lives, maybe to one of our kids or to our spouse when something is exposed.  What have you done?  It is so pregnant, that phrase is so full of what comes next.  What have you done?  It speaks of a specific action that will have long term effects.  God asks this question twice, once as the fruit has been eaten and once as murder is introduced into the human story.  What have you done?  And there is such melancholy in that.  If we begin to move away from this idea that God is this hovering mist cloud that is aloof and indifferent and not really involved and understand no, he was involved enough to exquisitely craft a planet and create a species in his own image, he is invested, he is involved.  For him to even have the emotion to say ‘what did you do?’ lets us know how deeply from the beginning he was invested in our story. May we begin to see the repercussions. Mankind is now armed with the knowledge of good and evil, but they have broken trust and are separated from the intimacy, the intertwining with the Spirit of God that was in them.  Things have changed and everyone knows it.  We begin to see it play out and we’ll continue to see it play out as we continue forward in the scriptures.  

So may we consider some of these fundamental things that are coming up in the Bible right away.  May we consider the ways in which we are hiding, the ways in which we are not being true because as we look back across time and see true humanity in all of its glory, we can look at our lives and see the slide, see how far we have fallen and as we continue through the book of Matthew, we’re going to see just what great lengths this Creator Father of ours was willing to go to in order to not allow the image he created to fall into the darkness.  

Prayer

Father, here we are, day two, and in 363 days, 363 steps forward through the scriptures we will be completing the story, but as we are here at the beginning of the story, we see so much of ourselves already.  So we invite your Holy Spirit to come into all of this. Shake us.  Disrupt us.  Comfort us. Move us forward and help us to face ourselves honestly.  We choose for this time that we spend each and every day in the scriptures to be a safe and brutally honest place inside of ourselves.  And we invite your Holy Spirit into all of that.  Anything that you want to bring up at any stage, we welcome you.  We greet you. We need you.  We ask for this.  Fill us, indwell us, well up within us that which is true and only that which is true.  Come Holy Spirit, we pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen.  

Announcements

Www.DailyAudioBible.com is the website.  It is home base.  It’s where you’ll find out what is going on around here.  I laugh because I say it’s home base just about 365 days out of the year, but that is for a reason.  It is home base and it is where you find out what is going on around here.  

So as we’re here just on the second day of the year, we’re kind of unpacking how everything works.  So one thing that you’ll notice is that you hear people rejoicing and praying for each other and asking for prayer at the end of the Daily Audio Bible.  That happens every day because it is a community. It is not just an app or some kind of program where you can hear the Bible, although you can.  That is totally what this is about.  But a community has grown over the years all around the rhythm of the Bible every day, read fresh every day, always happening.  Yeah, these prayer requests and encouragements happen every day as well.  

You can enter into community.  It makes it a very, very much richer experience.  Maybe you’re even carrying some things that you shouldn’t carry by yourself.  So there are a number of ways to reach out.  Social media is, of course, one of those and we’ll get to that in a second, but there are some numbers that you can call, depending on where you are in the world.  I’ll give you those.  If you are in the Americas, (877) 942-4253 is the number to call.  If you’re in the UK or in Europe, you can call 44, 20-3608-8078. And if you are in Australia or the lands down under, you can call 61, 3-8820-5459.  Hey, you may want to put that number, the number that is closest to where you are, in speed dial.  Just have it handy throughout the year.  

Then at www.DailyAudioBible.com you’ll find the Prayer Wall where people are posting things that they don’t necessarily want to call in or are a little intimated to call in, but you can post your prayer requests there and people are responding continually.  Maybe you just want to pray for people, you want to be deeper involved in that.  You can come and read through and pray along and post words of encouragement on the prayer wall.  So check that out as well.  

Then, as I was mentioning just a minute ago, social media.  Most people in one way or another are involved somehow in social media.  Not everyone and that is totally fine, but if you are, then we are as well.  There are a couple of ways to find out because we’re kind of wherever social media is.  We have a presence there as well.  So you can go to www.DailyAudioBible.com and then using the navigation at the top or by pushing the navigation button, if you’re using a mobile device, find the community section and then you’ll find social media which will list for you all of the different social media channels that Daily Audio Bible has.  You can stay connected that way.  I guess Facebook and Twitter are the most used social media networks.  We use them a lot.  So you can find Daily Audio Bible at www.Facebook.com/DailyAudioBible.  Or you can find us @DailyAudioBible on Twitter.  And then there is also a Facebook Friends group at DAB Friends where conversation is always happening.  So just search for DAB Friends on Facebook and you’ll find that community, then some of the voices you hear throughout the year, you begin to put faces with names and voices and conversations and friendships happen.  That is what community is about.  That is something that is one of the rich and beautiful distinctives of the Daily Audio Bible.  

So yeah, don’t take the journey alone.  Take the journey among friends.  A year among friends through the entire adventure that is the Bible is life-changing.  I mean, come on.  It’s easy to over blow things.  That is how our culture is, way over the top, over state, under deliver.  That is not really the style of the DAB.  The thing about community is it is actually a real true thing.  So yeah, definitely wherever you are on social media, we are probably there too. Check it out.  Just search for Daily Audio Bible.  You’ve got the numbers now for your speed dial and you know about the Prayer Wall where things are constantly being prayed over.  There are always ways to begin to reach out as the Bible continues to reach into our lives.  

Yesterday we talked about the different channels, the different programs, the different languages of the Daily Audio Bible.  Today we talked about how to get connected.  I can tell you for a fact you getting connected to the Daily Audio Bible does not mean you have just landed yourself on every spam list in the world.  That is just not how we’ve ever worked.  I mean, you hear from us once in a while, but we do not overload you with anything. Basically the attitude that we have is would I send this to my family?  Would I let my family know about this?  Then we just let you know some stuff, but we don’t deal in live email addresses and stuff like that.  We don’t pedal that sort of thing.  It is kind of like would I give my wife’s email address to this person?  Would I give my wife’s phone number to this person so they could contact her?  That is basically how we treat community here.  So if you’re like yeah, this is kind of cool.  I don’t know.  I don’t want to get on everybody’s list.  You won’t. So you can get as connected or as not connected as you like, as you feel comfortable, but you’re never going to get bothered from other people.  We don’t share that kind of stuff ever.  Our mission is pretty clear.  It is to bring God’s spoken word to whoever will listen, anywhere on this planet, anytime of day or night and to build community around that rhythm so that no one has to ever feel alone again.  That’s what we do.  So there are a few ways to get connected here at the beginning of the year.  

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible in the mission that I was just saying, to bring God’s spoken word throughout the earth, always available, servers always spinning, it takes 17 different servers to spin out the data required for a day in the Daily Audio Bible, so if Daily Audio Bible is something that is life-giving to you or has been life-giving to you, then thank you for your partnership and being life-giving to it so it continues.  There is a link.  It is on the home page at www.DailyAudioBible.com.  It is also in the app.  If you use the Daily Audio Bible App, you can push the More button that is in the lower right-hand corner or the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996, Spring Hill, TN 37174.  

And like I was saying, it’s a community.  If you have a prayer request or comment, (877) 942-4253 is the number to call.  

And that’s it for today.  I’m Brian. We are off to a great start to a great year and we’ve covered a lot of ground in two days and we have just barely scratched the surface, but that is it for today.  I’m Brian.  I love you. I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports

Hello family.  I’m a first-time caller.  My name is Natalie.  Please pray with me.  Dear Heavenly Father, we’re praying for restoration for family relationship. God, heal hearts and minds and bind Satan’s lies.  May we all turn to you in everything we do.  May we all be touched with a heart full of forgiveness and full of thankfulness each and every day, thankfulness for our blessings and even for the trial. Thank you, Lord, for your precious gift, the gift that you’ve given all of us, the gift of salvation.  In Jesus’ precious name, amen.  Family, please raise up and pray for my son Bill and my daughter-in-law Ashley.  The reason I’m praying for restoration, it seems like we’re all being attacked and families are being broken, Father God.  I just appreciate everyone’s prayers and thank you for this family and the gift that it is to be a part of it.  In Jesus’ name, amen.  God bless and Merry Christmas.  

I know the plans that I have for you, plans not to harm but to prosper you, the whole time making all things new.  Return to me and I’ll return to you.  What an awesome promise from our Lord, that I, even I could be restored, things forgiven, past ignored, blessings in and on me poured.  God, I’m so glad that you’re not like man because you’re more patient with me than my most patient patient friends, because I return to you again and again, and again and again I return to my sin, and not just in some mistaken erring way, but blatantly disobedient day after day. Forgive me, Father.  Please forgive me now because I do want to serve you, but show me how.  I read your word.  I fast. I pray.  And I still fall short every single day.  That is why I thank you for your mercy and your grace and for your open arms and your smiling face, for letting me know that even though I fail, victory is mine and I will prevail.  And I thank you for telling me every day, Father, the battle is not yours because I still need help staying out of the revolving doors.  Because even though I’m out of Egypt, Egypt is still in me and even though there are no bars, walls or chains, I know I’m still not free.  Father, give me more of your Holy Spirit.  I love your voice and I long to hear it.  And one more thing, Father, grant me please, open broken hearts on bended knees.  Merry Christmas to everybody.  Bill B., it was so good to hear your voice again, Brother.  Yes, very good.  And Bart, I love it when you get pumped up, Brother.  Keep it flowin’ y’all.  And thanks once again to the Hardin family for this wonderful podcast.  Hope you all have a very happy and prosperous New Year. Alright bye-bye.  Love you.  

Hello brothers and sisters from the Daily Audio Bible family.  This is Sam, aka Washed in the Blood of the Lamb from Perth, Western Australia.  So Merry Christmas to all and Happy Hanukkah to those that believe in the Jewish faith. I just want to ask, while everyone is having a festive day today, boxing day and enjoying themselves with food, being merry, I just want to ask if the brothers and sisters of the Daily Audio Bible will come together in fasting and prayer one day this week to remember those that are in Aleppo, those that are in Syria, those that are in Mosul and Iraq, those that are in Yemen where malnutrition is being used as a weapon of warfare.  And to remember those that are less fortunate than us, those that are starving today, those that don’t have a place of residence, those that don’t have anywhere to lay their head at night on a warm bed on a blanket with a pillow, those that don’t have a roof over their head.  So I’m just wondering if people can fast and pray one day this week, just be led by the Holy Spirit and to lift up every prayer that you hear in fasting and in prayer.  I love you all, my brothers and sisters, and may the glory of Jesus Christ come upon each and every one of us.  I just say all these things in the name of Jesus.

Hey Dabbers, it’s Becky from Philadelphia, except for right now I’m calling you from Orlando where I have been spending the holidays with my family. Just to be to the point here, today is my birthday, it’s Christmas Eve and I have turned a beautiful age of 32 years and I’m super thrilled about it and I’m very blessed and I’m very lucky and I have many wonderful people in my life.  The Lord has been nothing but good to me even through the hard times, but today was an especially hard day and I’m still not sure why.  My birthday is always a really hard day for me.  It is just one of those full of a lot of chaos and too much coordinating and not…  I don’t know. I don’t know what it is supposed to be. I don’t know.  But today has just been a really hard day and it’s hard because you can’t call anybody on Christmas Eve, so I thought I would call you guys.  I love you all and Merry Christmas.  I’m not even sure what to ask for.  I’m not sure. But I want to see God’s goodness and I want to be reminded of it and you guys do that for me.  So that is why I called.  Merry Christmas you guys.  I love you so much.  Have a Happy New Year too.  

Good morning Daily Audio Bible.  May name is Flora and I’m calling from California.  I’m sending in this prayer request this morning for all mothers who have children dealing with autism.  My heart bleeds for these children.  I pray that Daily Audio Bible family members would lift all these mothers and these innocent children up to the Lord.  Is there anything too difficult for our God?  Is there nothing he cannot do?  Is there any disease he cannot heal?  We trust in the Most High God, the one that is able to heal and to save, and so please, I enjoin you this morning to lift up all children all over the world that are dealing with the spectrum.  I am also pleading, praying for mothers who have no clue about how to handle these children.  Let’s pray that Jesus, the healer will visit every situation in a divine way.  Please pray that the Most High Healer would __________ of those children and that they would have an abundant life.  Let’s pray for mothers whose hearts are bleeding, for grandparents who too are so confused but do not know exactly what to do and pray that these children would not live without hope but would trust the Master, Jesus who heals.  Thank you Brian and Jill for putting this together.  God bless you.

Greetings to the Daily Audio Bible family.  My name is Sherlock from Matawan, NJ, and I’m calling to wish each and every one a very, very happy, healthy, and a prosperous New Year.  We just finished celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and I know that he has some amazing and wonderful things planned for each and every one of us for this new coming year.  I just felt a need to call in and just say the Lord’s Prayer.  So if you know it, perhaps just say it with me so we can all be unified of the great things that the Lord has for us in store to come.  Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name.  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.  For thine is the kingdom, the power, the glory forever.  Amen.  All the best. And thank you Brian and Jill and all of the staff for this awesome, awesome ministry that I always feel so infused every morning when I get up so that I can start my day.  God bless and be well.  

Genesis 1:1-2:25 ~ Matthew 1:1-2:12 ~ Psalm 1:1-6 ~ Proverbs 1:1-6

Today is January 1st.  Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible.  I’m Brian. It’s great to be here with you, beginning a brand new year.  So we have stepped across the threshold and here we are, the year 2017 all sparkly and shiny and waiting for us to live into.  One of the ways we’ll do that is set a rhythm for ourselves, the rhythm of the scripture every day in our lives for the next year.  So to many of you, welcome back.  Here we go again.  Here we are at this amazing new beginning called a new year.  And then to many of you, welcome.  Welcome!  Glad that a friend or, I don’t know, an Internet search or whatever it was in your life that brought you to this place.  Welcome!  Over the next few days I’ll just begin unpacking little things about the Daily Audio Bible.  It takes kind of a week to kind of understand everything that is going on.  But the one thing that is centrally going on, no matter what, is this rhythm of the scripture each and every day.

So let’s dive in.  Since this is the first day of the year, we’re beginning everything new and we’ll read from some of the Old Testament, some of the New, some Psalms, some Proverbs each day as this rhythm continues taking us through the entire Bible in a year. Every time we start a new book, we’ll kind of do a little fly-over about what it is, where it is going, how it fits into the biblical narrative, but since we’re starting four books today, we’ll just kind of unpack those over time too.  So we’ll begin with the book of Genesis.  

Introduction of a New Book (Old Testament)

Genesis is not only the first book of the Bible, it is also the first book in a series of books known as the Pentateuch.  The Pentateuch is comprised of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  Genesis doesn’t specifically reveal its author, but it has traditionally been attributed to Moses.  Obviously, Moses wasn’t alive in the beginning to be an eyewitness writer of this, so it is believed that Moses, as a new society was being formed, a people coming out of slavery and being reformed by God in the wilderness (we’ll get to all of that), collected all of the oral tradition, all of it together, as well as the law that was being given by God.  He collected it together as the Torah or the Pentateuch.  Even Jesus believed these were the books of Moses.  

Now when we consider the book of Genesis, we consider it to be the beginning of the creation story, the origin of man.  All of this is a key part of Genesis.  Genesis covers more history than any other book in the whole Bible. About 2500 years are covered in the book of Genesis alone.  Actually, Genesis covers more time than the rest of the Old Testament put together. So we’ll start at the creation and go all the way until the children of Israel arrive in Egypt and grow into a mass of people that are becoming a nation.  So inside the first 11 chapters of Genesis, we’ll cover a couple thousand years and a couple thousand miles and then we’ll slow things down and cover a couple hundred years to the end of the book.

So we begin for this brand new year reading from the New Living Translation this week, Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 through 2:25.  

Commentary

Alright, so right here at the beginning, the first day of the year we come out of the gate quickly and cover some serious ground that lays the groundwork for everywhere we will go this entire year.  So we begin in the beginning, God created, a Creator Father hovered over this world and crafted it.  And at the end of this unparalleled act of artistry, this masterpiece of creating an entire world that is in perfect harmony, every nuance balanced and pleasing, he did something remarkable.  He created a species of being that was made after his own image.  And he breathed his own life into this being that was created after his own image and it became humanity.

What we get a glimpse of right here on the first day is how we got here, but also a look into what a perfect world looked like before anything bad ever happened.  So we get to look back across time at the way things were supposed to be for us.  That is an important juxtaposition based on all the things that will happen next in the Bible, but all we have to do is spin in a 360-degree circle and see the world as it is and compare that with the perfection of the world as it was created and we can see the contrast.  We’ll learn all about how we got here and our role in the redemption of this place that we live in as we go through the Bible.  But the book of Genesis gives us a glimpse, a glimpse not only of our origin, but a glimpse into a time of perfection.  This perfection would later be given a word, a term: Shalom, which means wholeness, the peace and order of God in all things, at all times, in all places.  This is a glimpse into that.

Then we move into the book of Matthew and begin the New Testament and yes, we begin with these genealogies.  These are people that we are going to get to know.  The genealogy of Jesus also gives us this very, very quick glimpse into some storylines that we’re going to be following and some people that we’re going to be meeting and seeing how this whole story is a story of God coming to earth in person to redeem something that was broken but something that he would not abandon, humanity.  This image of God that was created by God and his breath was given to it, he would not abandon that to its fallenness.  He came for us.  So this is where we begin in the New Testament.  

Prayer

Father, we thank you for bringing us to this day, this day that no matter how long we’ve had a relationship with the scriptures, is this day a brand new day, a brand new beginning.  So we invite your Holy Spirit to speak through your word into the deepest places of our lives, informing how we are to live and shaping us from the inside out as we learn of our own story.  Because that is what we will learn this year, our own story.  It will become much more apparent and vivid as we see it in the lives of our forbearers.  As we see the choices that they make and where those roads lead, you will offer us the choice, the fork in the road at every turn in our own lives.  So come Holy Spirit, we invite you into this year. We thank you for bringing us safely to this year and we place our trust and our hope in you for this year.  Come Jesus, we ask in your precious name, amen.

Announcements

Www.DailyAudioBible.com – that is the website.  That is where you find out what is going on around here.  If you’ve been here for a while, you know a lot of this stuff, but to the thousands of you who are tuning in for the first time today, welcome!  What you have found is definitely a way to get through the Bible in a year, but a whole community, hundreds of thousands of people wrapped around the world in every culture, on every spot of the globe is here.  We affectionately call this the Global Campfire.  It’s just always burning because there is always someone listening to the spoken word of God here at the Daily Audio Bible.  As we go through the next week or so, we’ll just start unpacking the different things, ways to connect, what everything is about, how everything works.  So over the course of a week, we’ll kind of find the rhythm where you know everything that is going on, how it works, and how to engage.

Probably the first thing that I should talk about, at least today, is what the Daily Audio Bible family of programs contains.  So you’re listening to the Daily Audio Bible.  This is going through the entire Bible in a year in community read fresh every single day, and we’ll take this journey together every day this year.  But if you have the Daily Audio Bible App or you’re listening on the online player, you’ll notice there are other programs.  

The Daily Audio Proverb is one chapter of the book of Proverbs every day, going through the entire book of Proverbs in a month and you can go through the book of Proverbs 12 times in a year if you want.  The thing about the Proverbs and what makes that an important choice is that this is the wisdom of the ages that has stood the test of time.  The book of Proverbs is revered as one of the most beautiful pieces of literature, whether you’re religious or not, of all time.  It has stood the test of time.  So when you are listening to a chapter of Proverbs, you are pouring unfiltered wisdom, the wisdom of the ages into your life in practical ways.  If you do that every day, and it’s about five minutes a day, yeah, you will be becoming wise.

Then there is the Daily Audio Bible Psalm – a psalm a day.  That just takes a few minutes as well.  A lot of people go to Proverbs for wisdom and they go to Psalms for comfort, to put words to things they are feeling inside. Psalms is like Proverbs, one of the most respected pieces of literature, whether you are religious or not, in all of the world.  But it speaks to the human condition.  It faces humanity in all of its nuance and fallenness and struggle, but also all of its joy and transcendence as well.  So that is Daily Audio Bible Psalm.  

There is Daily Audio Bible for Kids.  If you’ve got kids in your family or in your life, this is going through the New Testament in a year for kids.  

There is Daily Audio Bible Teen, which my daughter China has been reading almost as long as I have, just three years short of me, and she is going through the Bible chronologically this year at Daily Audio Bible Teen, so you can check that out.

There is Daily Audio Bible in Espanol – so a whole team, both in Nicaragua and in Texas moving through the entire Bible just like the Daily Audio Bible only in Spanish.  So if Spanish is your native tongue, you may want to check that out.  There is Daily Audio Bible Proverbios, which is the Spanish version of the Proverb a day.  There is Daily Audio Bible Salmos, which is the Psalms in Spanish per day.  

Then there is Daily Audio Bible Japanese, Daily Audio Bible Arabic, Daily Audio Bible in French, and the French team also has the Proverbs per day and the Psalms per day.  There is also Daily Audio Bible in Portuguese and Daily Audio Bible Chinese.  

So these teams and communities are beginning today in their languages just like we are here in English, so you can check those out.  

Now, I mentioned the website and I said this is where you find out what is going on around here.  It is. Check it out.  Look around.  You’ll find out everything you want to know about the Daily Audio Bible and all kinds of ways to connect and everything that is going on, things that I’ll kind of be going over the next few days.  I’m just going to take it a little piece at a time, get us moved into the year without taking a lot of time every day.  So yeah, check it out.

Now, friends, welcome back.  Those of you who were here for last year or have been here for years, I know it was just yesterday, but when we step over into a new year, it is this incredible feeling of newness, this refresh, this restart, and in so many of the areas that can be a struggle in life, it is this fresh start.  

Those of you who are brand new today, who are like yeah, I was moving between Christmas and New Year thinking about the things you wanted to change in your life and spirituality was one of those things and kind of found this through a Facebook post from a friend or just looking around and saw this and thought, ‘oh, I’ll check this out,’ welcome.  Really, we’ve been waiting for you.  We’ve been praying for you.  I mean, that might sound odd, but it is true.  We’ve been waiting and praying for you and what you’re going to find here is just a community of people.  You can dive in as much or as little as you want.  We’re just here.  There is a beautiful community here that shoulders each other’s burdens and that has just grown up over the last 11 years that we’ve been doing this.  The Daily Audio Bible has been read fresh every day for 11 years, seven days a week all over the world, so we welcome you.  

Here’s the deal.  I encourage you to take a look in the mirror today.  At some point today just take a long look in the mirror.  Look into your own eyes.  Look at your countenance.  Look at your face.  Consider your life right now.  Consider where it is.  Consider the struggles, the challenges, the things that you’ve overcome, the things that you were victorious in.  Just think about where your life is and you may be here gasping.  Life can be nothing like you thought it was going to be and it could have been a really hard year.  2016 was a really hard year for a lot of people around the world, myself included.  So you could have come crawling here and it has just been a mess and you’re just trying to find some little strand of hope that tomorrow could possibly be better than today.  You have come to the right place.  But it is not going to look like you think, because transformation that begins to happen from the inside out actually begins to happen from the inside first before it spills outward.  

So often we’re looking for the exterior changes, thinking that is going to fix what is inside.  The Bible works in the reverse.  The Bible works from the inside out.  If you stick with this for a week, you will start feeling that change.  You stick with it for a month, and you will know what I’m saying.  If you go through the entire year and work your way through the entire Bible in community, well then go back and look in the mirror again.  Go back and look in the mirror again on December 31^st of this year, 2017, and you will see a different person.  The way you look at the world, the way you look at your life and the circumstances that are in your life will be different.  There will be a different kind of alignment.  The things that are the most important and critical will have been moved to the top and all of those things that were kind of pulling you apart and tearing you down, they will be put into proper alignment in your life.  

So look in the mirror today.  Maybe even take a selfie and do the same at the end of this year and look at the change in you.  It really doesn’t matter how you got here, it is just important that you did.  Someday you’ll look back and see that you were on a collision course with God’s word for a long time, that God had been there all along, pulling you forward.  Things will change.  Things are about to change.  You cannot keep the scriptures, the word of God, something that is alive and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword that can pierce to the level of where soul and spirit are divided, what sword could you hold in your hand that can do that? What we’re talking about here is something that speaks to our identity at the deepest level.  Having that in your life every day changes you.  

So welcome!  It doesn’t matter what happened yesterday.  This is today.  It doesn’t matter what happened last week or last month or any of last year, no matter how the road twisted and turned.  It doesn’t matter how you got here.  You’re here. It’s a fresh start.  It’s a brand new year.  Everything is wiped clean, shiny, sparkly and we get to choose what it is going to look like.  We do that with the choices we make each day, moment by moment, day by day.  The choices that we make create the life that we live in the world around us.  We have a role to play in that.  Life isn’t something that is happening to us.  We are happening to it and we get to choose what that looks like.

So it doesn’t matter how you got here, you did.  Well done.  Welcome. It is going to be an amazing journey. It will be the journey of a lifetime to take the trip through the Bible in a year.  So welcome back or welcome home.  Either way, may the rhythm of the scriptures become the rhythm of our lives and may the rhythm of our lives be the beating of our hearts as we move intentionally toward wholeness and shalom, toward that glimpse that we got in the book of Genesis today to a time that was as it should be, a life in collaboration with God.  This is the offer of the gospel – that we are reunited and what has been irreversibly broken can be made whole again.  

SONG played on today’s DAB “Heartbeat” The Waiting Kind http://apple.co/2hjXmqm