Deuteronomy 21:1-22:30 ~ Luke 9:51-10:12 ~ Psalm 74:1-23 ~ Proverbs 12:11
Today is April 2nd. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It’s great to be here with you today. Now we can kind of fully immerse ourselves into the month of April, I guess, since we’re fully immersed in it, and the only way to go forward is forward. So it is a bright new shiny month. It is a brand new shiny week and off we go on our adventure. We’ll read from the New International version this week, Deuteronomy chapter 21, verse 1, through 22, verse 30.
Commentary
Moses is retelling the law and we’ve kind of come past this territory before as the law was being revealed to Moses, but this is Moses saying once again, making sure in his final statements that this is clear. In today’s reading we get to some behaviors and ethics in situations that for a long time rubbed me the wrong way because I’m always thinking of the other person. We can have a tendency to read these laws very harshly and look at them as very harsh things. For example, if a man takes a wife and then he sleeps with her and he doesn’t want her anymore and then he gives her a bad name, there is a remedy for that. So if he is giving her a bad name by claiming that she’s been a promiscuous woman and misled him and everyone else about this marriage and he is lying, well then he will certainly be fined quite a bit of money and pay that to the woman’s father but he must stay married to this woman. So like I’m always reading it going like, ‘what if the woman doesn’t want to go back into a marriage like that?’ But the point of this law isn’t that the woman must stay in a marriage like that. The law is there so that this kind of thing never happens. It’s not actually a law against the woman in any way. It’s totally about the guy. You’re not going to just take a wife, have sex with her, and then use the marriage as a sham just so you could have sex with her and then throw her away. If you try to do that, you have no way away from her for your whole life. That is a deterrent. That is there so that the marriage is not a sham. On the other hand, if the woman really was a lie and she turned the whole thing into a sham, then there are repercussions for her too and they are very dire.
These matters of sexual ethics, they get unpacked even more to clarify, but if we’ll look into the situation not as a harsh reading of a law, but what that would practically look like and mean, we can see that this is a patriarchal world that exists. Like this is how it is in that world and these laws are actually moving things to equality in significant ways, in ways the world hadn’t seen up until that point. Right? So like if a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he has just made a life-long commitment that he can never leave. Right? So if something like that happens today, it would be like you’re going to go to jail and you’re going to be rehabilitated and you’re going to be on a list. Those are the consequences that the law has now, the deterrent of the law now. But that would not have resonated in this culture the way that the law as it is written in the Bible would have to them. You’re not going to just go around raping people or seducing people. If you’re going to act like that, then you’re going to man-up and be a husband for the rest of your life not so that this will happen but so that this will never happen.
The law in its practical implications is like any law we have today. It is there so that it will not be transgressed, so that it will not be broken. So as we review the law, because we’ll be moving from this territory away from that, but the law is sort of the foundational document of how this society will be held together, it is important that we just understand what is going on here. These laws, they may be nuanced differently now, but they are addressing issues of the human heart and behaviors that come from the human heart and how to manage them the same way we do now. So anytime we brush up against something where we’re like, “I don’t know,” it’s important to stop and actually go there, to actually look at what practically these things would look like.
For example, in today’s reading, if there is a son who is basically an outlaw and the parents can’t manage it in any way, we have to remember that families depended on each other for survival. This wasn’t the same kind of culture that we live in that we kind of go off and set up our own family units and then our children are to then go off and establish their own individual family units. This was all intertwined and the families survived together. So a drunkard, sluggard, lazy, disrespectful outlaw son in the family affects the entire family clan and unit. So if there is nothing else to be done, he’s to be brought to the elders and he is going to lose his life.
Now let’s think about that practically. We don’t have that law, but let’s say we did. What would it take for you to do that to your child? Right? Can you think of anything? Well, why do we imagine that they could think of anything either? But all children coming up in the culture would know of this and it would continually push them forward to mature, to be responsible, to be productive, to be respectful. It is simply laying down what is out of bounds, what will eventually destroy the society from within. So obviously context is very, very important, but thankfully we’re reading the Bible in context day after day.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for your word and we’re thankful for the things that it picks out and prods in us and continually brings up, because that is what it is supposed to do. It is continually orienting our convictions and feelings to you. And we submit those things to you and invite you, Holy Spirit, to apply your word into our lives each and every day. Come Holy Spirit, we pray. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Announcements
Www.DailyAudioBible.com is the website. It’s home base. It’s where you find out what is going on around here, and I made a big reveal, a big announcement yesterday about what is coming up next year. Our next journey, pilgrimage to the land of the Bible will take place February 19th through March 4th and you are invited to go along. It is going to be amazing. It has never not been, but it is going to be amazing.
So if you’re taking the journey through the Bible and maybe you’ve taken several, maybe it’s been years that we’ve been together doing this day by day or maybe this your first year, there is something about seeing the stories come to life in the places that they actually happened. There is something about the atmosphere. There is something about just being able to turn in a full circle and take in the entire scene and feel the wind on your face coming out of the desert or off of the mountains of the Golan Heights, depending on where we are. There is something about walking in the footsteps of Jesus and seeing the hills that he saw.
I never thought about that. I mean, I had been a long time in my faith journey with no desire whatsoever to go and see any of these places. I thought it would be gimmicky. I just didn’t think it was going to help and it’s a long way to go and all of that, but then I did and then I got it. I never saw the Bible the same again after that.
So we’ve been taking a group of people and we’ll be doing that again early next year, a beautiful, beautiful time of year as the flowers are beginning to bloom and things are becoming just fertile and rich. It lets you see the promised land as it would have been seen, for what it is, especially for a people coming out of the desert. So like where we are in the book of Deuteronomy, we have a people that have only experienced the wilderness. That is what they know and so the promised land really was the land of milk and honey and you can see that. It’s pretty remarkable.
Anyway, if you want to come, you can now register. It will fill up. There will be a capacity. We have a capacity just because of the amount of things we’re trying to show. We’re really trying to cover the land of the Bible that exists in Israel in its entirety, north, south, east, and west in a way that systematically exposes us to the different parts of the Bible and the stories that we’ve been following all year. So www.DailyAudioBible.com is where you would go. Just look for Israel ’18, Daily Audio Bible Israel ’18 and you’ll find it in the Initiatives. It’s easy to find. You can get all the details there. Or you can just go to www.DailyAudioBibleIsreal.com and that will tell you what you need to know. Registration is open.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at www.DailyAudioBible.com. There is a link. It’s on the home page. Thank you for your partnership. If you use the Daily Audio Bible App, you can press 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’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
Hi everybody. This is Alicia from Kansas. I’ve not wanted to call in. I’ve been so blessed by listening to all the prayer requests and praying along with everybody as they’re praying, and I felt the urging of the Lord and listening to my sister talk about us not calling in, but I’m trying not to be in self-pity and I need prayer. After my traumatic car accident in February, my 24-year-old daughter in Colorado had a psychotic break, was in the hospital. I’ve been a psych RN for 25 years and I’m very familiar with the field and with the medications. She has been misdiagnosed and she is on medications that are totally inappropriate. I would ask that you all pray for my sweet, sweet daughter Keegan and I’m not sure. She needs covering. She is very naïve. She is not street wise like her mother. I was raised in foster care and a ward of the court at age 16. I was very street wise and able to take care of myself and she’s not. I beseech your prayers. I thank you and I just pray that the Lord would just comfort all and be with everybody as you call in and know that we’re hearing your prayer requests and we’re praying. I just thank God for this opportunity to reach out to thousands of my brothers and sisters and ask for prayer and ask that you pray for my faith, that it be strong and I maintain my firmness and groundedness in the Lord Jesus Christ and his promises to us. Thank you everybody. I love you all. Take care.
Good morning Dabbers. I’m a burning bush that will not be devoured for the glory of our God and King. Hello family. This morning I listened to a word – trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your understanding. And the first person that came to my mind was Gigi. Gigi, I love your faith in God. I love your testimony. I love your prayer request and I encourage you never to lose faith. I was just so encouraged by you and I continuously am encouraged by you. A few, probably a month ago my younger son started having some episodes and his doctor thinks he might be having seizures. Today we meet for a 24-hour EEG to be placed on him and I thought about you again, Gigi, and I thought about your faith. I believe God is still the God today that he was yesterday, so I’m actually asking you to pray for my son. His name is David. And the whole group, the whole family, please pray with me for David, that he will not be diagnosed with seizures and that the doctors will find the solution to what is going on with him. I love you all and talk to you soon. Bye.
My beautiful family, this is Pastor Gene from Bradenton, FL. I want to testify to the goodness of God and the reality of an adversary. I called a few days ago to testify and to pray for my boss, and to pray about why I __________ was complaining about it and to settle there and endure. Just yesterday had a very, very physical attack at work from my boss, whom I love, and I left the office and it was very hard and I started praying and said, “God, my boss belongs to you, and I have a vision __________ and that is to show her kindness, the kindness of Jesus. And please strengthen me and give me power.” If you guys knew the person that I’m talking about, you guys would know what a miracle this is. She called a few minutes later apologizing. This is somebody that doesn’t apologize. This is somebody that has quite a reputation in the organization and she called to apologize. And although the incident was huge and extremely embarrassing to me, just the fact that she called to apologize tells me that God is at work and that truly God’s kindness leads all of us to repentance. So I just want to glorify God for that and I want to continue to pray for this woman and declare that the light of Jesus is going to envelope her and that she one day will belong to __________ too. Father, I just want to pray for Jessica. She is a newlywed. She is having issues with her mother-in-law. I pray in the name of Jesus that invisible umbilical cord between her husband and his mother would be cut and they will be able to have a healthy relationship. Father, I rejoice with my sister Cheryl from Arizona. Thank you for healing her ears. I am so delighted to hear. Bless my sister. Bless all of you, my family. Pastor Gene from Bradenton, FL.
Hey Dabbers. This is Slave of Jesus in North Carolina. Alright, Holy Spirit, let’s roll. Amen to the prayers to turning off the news and looking up! Mark S., amen to all your prayers for those people out there who are lonely. You know, the lady who ran the fastest time on the Appalachian Trail, she did this 2000 miles in 40-some-odd days. I saw her speak last week. She said something along the lines of there is a difference between being lonely and being alone and that she never felt more alive when she was “alone” on the trail and all the people that she would eventually meet on the trail. Lord, we ask you to watch over Michael __________. Amen to your prayers that the color of your tulips come out and Lord, even if the tulips don’t come out, Lord, I ask you to bring him a vision, memory of what color those were and how beautiful they are in a dream or a memory and I ask that in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen to Paul from Ohio’s prayers for Stanley the teacher. And amen to someone who was praying for Jeff at Virginia Tech. Nick, amen to all your prayers for your family. I ask all those in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. If you guys can pray for my mom. She is getting ready to take her boot off in a few weeks. She also has a friend named Jeff who has cancer right now of the liver. If we can pray for that. And Lord, I ask you to watch over the people of North Korea, Lord. They don’t even have a chance to hear your word. Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, used to be considered the eastern capital of Christianity, Lord, and evil has soaked it’s way in there over the decade and we ask you to turn that back in. I ask you to finish what was started there in Pyongyang and literally make that the eastern capital of where your word is spoken and preached someday. I ask all this in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. Love you all. Have a great day.
Hi Daily Audio Bible family. This is Prophetic Intercessor Rising Up from North Carolina calling really to elicit your prayers. One of the things that Brian says is when you call into this line is that well done, you don’t have to carry it all by yourself and I really need your prayers. Going through a divorce and it’s by far the most painful thing that I’ve ever had to walk through in my life. I’ve never really been one to know how to lean on others and so I’m really calling to lean on you. I don’t quite know how to walk through this and I believe God will get me through it, but I need your help. I count you as my brothers and sisters in the community that I’ve grown to love so much and know there are others of you who have gone through this path and who are currently walking this path and so I welcome your prayers, your advice of how to get through it. There are so many emotions and different waves of emotion. There is loneliness and anger, frustration and shame and feeling like you’re isolated and you’re by yourself, so I just need your prayers. I thank you in advance for your prayers. I love you all.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible family. This is Jay calling from New Jersey. So last Sunday I was in church and I was handing out some information about the Daily Audio Bible and believe it or not a parishioner, a deacon was upset that I offered him some information on how to get through the Bible in a year. It blew my mind. He was actually upset in God’s house on one of God’s days, Sunday. You know, I almost got discouraged and didn’t want to spread the word anymore, but you know what? The Bible tells us that even when Jesus sent them out two by two, he told them that if they don’t receive it, shake the dust off your feet and move on. So when you’re spreading God’s word and someone doesn’t receive it, it’s not about you. It’s not about them really. It’s about the Holy Spirit using you and working through you to spread the good news of the gospel. So shake the dust off your feet when that person tells you no, I don’t want to hear it. Shake the dust off your feet when your family members look at you with a face of disdain because you’re talking to them about Jesus Christ. Shake the dust off your feet when your coworkers make fun of you or shun you because all you want to talk about is Jesus Christ. Shake the dust off your feet when your friends don’t want to hang out with you because you were talking about and spreading the word of God. Shake the dust off your feet when people next to you in church in the same pew look at you like you’re crazy because you are overwhelmed and excited about God. Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, we thank you for your gospel. We thank you for Jesus Christ. We thank you for the many ways to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ and we pray, God, that your Holy Spirit will come and strengthen us and encourage us. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray, amen.