Genesis 8:1-10:32, Matthew 4:12-25, Psalms 4:1-8, Proverbs 1:20-23
Today is January 4th. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it’s great to be here with you today as we move through our first week together this year. And as you can probably see, the Bible launches us like a rocket, like, we just take off, and there’s so many interesting things going on. And, so I’m excited. I’m excited about today, I’m excited about this first week, and I’m excited about this year. So, we’ll pick up where we left off yesterday and read Genesis chapters 8 through 10. And we’re reading from the New International Version this week.
Proverbs:
Okay. So, we’ve come to our reading from Proverbs today. And, true to what we been doing the last couple of days, we’ve been just doing a little bit of an overview of what the book is that we’re reading and where it comes from. And so, we did that with Genesis, we did that with Matthew, we did that with Psalms yesterday. And, so, today, Proverbs. And I’ve mentioned this, Proverbs is an invaluable book of practical wisdom. In the structure of the Old Testament, Proverbs is the main book in what is called the collection of wisdom literature. The others being, Ecclesiastes, the book of Job, and part of the Psalms. And these portions of Scripture are called wisdom literature because they’re more intended to speak a direct lesson, rather than to be a narrative where the reader follows a story and then gleans meaning from it. The wisdom literature, or the books of wisdom, speak directly what they are trying to teach. So, most of the Proverbs are attributed to the great wise man, King 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 weren’t really put into a collection until the time of around King Hezekiah. And most biblical 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 and, finally, placed into the collection of Proverbs. And the Proverbs all address the human experience and transfer wisdom that has stood the test of time to what we, as people, experience both with each other, and with God, and inside of ourselves. And it gives us the ultimate roadmap to life. It’s the ultimate book of wisdom, the greatest collection of wisdom that mankind has. Proverbs tells us, whatever you do, get wisdom because wisdom is more valuable than anything else. If you have wisdom everything else can be achieved. And the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And, so, our reading from Proverbs today will be from the first chapter, versus 20 through 23.
Prayer:
Thank You Father for Your word and all of its facets and nuances and for the way it speaks so relevantly into our lives and our stories. And, even though we’re only four days into this year, Your word feels so safe and so familiar, and we grant it access to our hearts and invite Your Holy Spirit to speak through Your word into our lives as we take a step forward every day through the scriptures. Come, Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, its where you find out what’s going on around here. Let me tell you what’s been going on around here.
We have been experiencing some growing pains and you’ve probably been experiencing them too. So, yesterday I got up to find that we had a complete systemwide outage that was affecting all of the Daily Audio Bible programs. And that’s very unusual. And it’s kind of a big deal. Oh, but guys, we have such a good team. Chet’s team up in Indiana figured it out, isolated it, and worked on getting everything restored, while Daniels team in Kansas City found workarounds and got us back up and running. This isn’t the first time that we’ve experienced growing pains, but it was definitely the first time in 12 years we’ve experienced something like that. So, we were back up and running pretty quickly. And, so thanks to the dedicated people who work so hard to make this happen every day. When we launch our app or go to our web player and push play and hear the Daily Audio Bible every day, it takes…I mean…there’s just a lot of things that happen to make that happen, including nearly 20 servers, simply to handle the data. So, it’s no small feat. And I appreciate…appreciate what we have here as a team and as a community.
Now, you also may have experienced inability to register an account or getting errors on the website or that kind of thing. That’s just a result of system overload. We’re getting 5 to 10 requests per second on the system. So, we’ve been experiencing some overloads, which is, you know, giving you errors. And that should be going away. We’ve put some measures in place and are putting some additional measures in place to kind of handle all that’s going on. So, things should be starting to smooth out there. The downside is that the upgrades that we’ve had to make is going to increase our monthly costs to support of platform by 30 fold. So, 30 times as much, which is a little scary, but the upside is that the Lord invited us to do this, to create all of this and to give it away. So, I don’t think the Lord spilled His coffee when he realized we had some growing pains, like I just about did. And he has provided every single step of the way for the 12 years that we’ve been at this. So, I have no doubt that this is no problem for Him. But over the next couple of days everything should smooth out and work more like it is intended to. So, like I say a lot, where in this together. Thank you for your prayers. Things should be smoothing out and will continue to smooth out over the next couple of days.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There’s a link that’s on the homepage. If you’re using the new Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.
And as always, we are a community and we are in this together. If you’re shouldering burdens that are best not carried alone, there’s a number you can call and a community, all of us together behind that number, and we are praying people, and we are a loving people. So, there are some numbers that you can call. If you are in the Americas, 877-942-4253 is the number. If you are in the UK or Europe you can call 44-20-3608-8078 and if you’re in Australia are not part of the world. Call 61-3-8820-5459.
And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayer and Praise:
Hi family. This is His little Cherri from Canada and I’m really enjoying Brian read the last of Revelations. Finally, the happily ever after that is coming for us. But as I’ve been thinking about how wonderful it would be to finally experience complete shalom, it occurs to me that this life here and now is my only chance to love God in the middle of a mess. Because when I’m in heaven, I’ll see Him as He is. I’ll love Him as He loves me. But it will be too late then to offer Him what I can give Him now, which is to worship Him, thwarts and all, to trust Him before I’m healed, to come to Him even in the middle of my addictions. And I know that we’re in the process of being saved. We do experience redemption hear and now, but none of us are perfect yet. I know I’m not. And so many times I feel that my feeble attempts to love and obey God must just be a joke to Him. But, actually, I think it’s the exact opposite. I think He must treasure every offering that I bring, weak and broken as it is, because it’s a rare and precious thing to Him. So, family I just wanted to remind us that we don’t have to wait to come to God until we get our act together. Let’s run to Him now in the middle of our mess because this is our chance to give Him something we can only give Him now, our brokenness. God bless you family.
Hey family. This is Jordan from Michigan. December 31st, __ the end of another year. This is the second time I’m finishing the Daily Audio Bible and the second time that I’ve read the Bible because of the Holy Spirit and by God’s providence finding the Daily Audio Bible. And, so, I’m just so grateful for all of you and all your prayers that you’ve been praying for me over the past couple of years. And it’s really made such a huge difference. And, if I could, I would like to request that you would just pray for me for the next year that God would transform my teaching. This is the first year that I’m ever going to be in the same job for a whole year. And I’m a teacher. And I really just need…I really need the guidance of God because I am really struggling with that. So, thank you and happy New Year. Love you guys. Bye.
Hello Daily Audio Bible family. This is John calling from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It is the 31st day of December 2017, the final day of December 2017, and I just got through listening to the 31st of December program and finishing up the last transcript for the program of the year. And I couldn’t make the call here right away because I was just crying…just tears of absolute joy over being able to get here…not that though…but it was just being here with all of you and getting to know you. So, Brian, thank you, thank you, thank you so much for your dedication and commitment and loyalty and integrity and truth and for everything you do in your ministry here in sharing the word of God. Thank you to the family, the Daily Audio Bible family and your family, Brian. You folks are amazing. This community has changed my life forever and I know it’s doing work in your hearts as well as it’s done in mine. So, I can’t thank you all enough. You’ve been such an inspiration and a blessing to me. I’ve cried with you, I’ve laughed with you. And I just want to leave Brian with the same words that he left us this morning. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May He make his face to shine upon you, Brian, and be gracious to you. May He lift up his countenance on you and give you peace. May the strength of God go with you. May the wisdom of God instruct you. May the hand of God protect you. May the word of God direct you. May you be sealed in Christ this day and forevermore. Amen. And God bless you. We’ll see you next year guys.
Hi family. This is Purely Pampered of Maine. I’m calling in for prayer requests for a few of you that I continue to pray for regularly but haven’t heard from in a long time, some of you, years. If you’re still listening, will you call in and give us an update as we continue to pray for you? Marie with your daughter, Elizabeth Joy, and your now toddler, how are you doing? I’m praying for you. Valerie, you used to call in regularly for you and your husbands physical health and for the situation where you were being taken advantage of by your grandchildren. You’re in my prayers. Nana Jones, I’m still prying for you, for your daughter Tiffany, who was an exotic dancer and your now, must be, eight-year old grandchild. Crystal, you had seven children and you contemplated abortion or adoption for your eighth. But you decided to keep that baby who now must be a preschooler. You’re in my prayers. And Kevin of California and your three sons, Levi, Moses, and Takoa that you hadn’t seen in two years. Now it might be close to three. I’m praying for you all. Oh, Creator and Sustainer of all, I lift up each of these brothers and sisters in their situations to You. I pray for healing, for restoration, and for Your supernatural peace that goes deeper than their painful situations. Fill each of them with hope Lord. I lift them up to You. Amen. Love you family. Bye for now.
Good evening. It’s Beloved for Him from Gloucester in the UK and it is Sunday the 31st of December 2017. Just going to read a couple of words from Hebrews that I got read at my church today. Keep your life free from love of money and be content with what you have. For He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So, we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper, I will not fear. What can man do to me? Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. And that’s from Hebrews 13. Yes, you know, the old year is done. The new year is coming. And I just wanted to take a few to say thank you for all of your prayers, love, and support this year and bring on the next year. And just a reminder for us to pray for our leaders. Pray for Brian and those involved behind the scenes in the Daily Audio Bible. But also pray for our local churches as well, that they’ll be encouraged. So, I’m just going to pray now. Father God, thank You so much for what You’ve done for our lives in 2017. Thank You so much for placing this burden on Brian to read the word…and it’s like 12 years that he’s finished Lord and that is amazing. Father God, but we’re not focusing on what’s happened Lord. We’re looking ahead. Lord, thank You so much for 2018 and this new app that we have and I Pray Lord that You be bringing people to find the app and find the podcast and to get through the Bible and join us. Lord, help us spread the message of Daily Audio Bible and how important it is to be reading Your word, but also help people find it Lord. Bless this coming year Lord. In Jesus name. Amen.