Genesis 11:1-13:4, Matthew 5:1-26, Psalms 5:1-12, Proverbs 1:24-28
Today is the 5th day of January. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is wonderful to be here with you today as we close in on our first week of the year together. I’m excited to take the next step forward. We’ve been reading from the New International Version this week. And the next up forward in the book of Genesis will take us through chapter 11 verse 1 through 13 verse 4 today.
Commentary:
Okay. So, in the book of Matthew we’re hearing for the first time from Jesus. We’re not hearing about Jesus, we’re hearing from Jesus. And what we began today and what we’ll continue with for the next several days in the book of Matthew is known as the Sermon on the Mount. And this is where Jesus lays out his worldview. This isn’t the only thing Jesus teaches, but most would agree this is his central message. And, as I mentioned about the book of Matthew when we began it, way back at the beginning of the year, like two days ago, the writer of Matthew seeks to root Jesus in His Hebrew context because Jesus was Jewish. Now the Sermon on the Mount occurred very near ground zero for Jesus ministry, which was the city of Capernaum, where he made his adult home. And Capernaum sits right on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, about 90 miles north of Jerusalem. And there is a lovely sloping hill that has commemorated this spot for about 1700 years called the Mount of Beatitudes. But we see right from the get go in the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus is flipping the paradigm. And part of that flipping is in who He’s ministering to, who He’s choosing to talk to. He’s not down in Jerusalem trying to cozy up to people in power. Rather, He’s up in Galilee among common people who are having a difficult time making life work, people who were struggling, people who felt the oppressive weight of a system that was pushing them to the margins, people who were trying to find a more modern context for their ancient religious views. And the Galilee area was known for its zealotry. A century and half before Jesus was born was fraught with uprisings. So, these people had experienced loss. They had experienced what they certainly perceived as injustice. They were struggling to survive and they didn’t see any way out. So, we should at least point out, this is who God came to. This is where everything that we know of as the Christian faith started and this is who it started among. And Jesus didn’t stroll up a nice little rise overlooking the lake and give little platitudes, little pats on the back, little ‘God will come through for you, don’t worry, he has plans to prosper you.’ He didn’t do that and make it easy on them. He simply told them, you don’t have to live like this. Your circumstances may not change, but your heart can. And if you change from the inside, then the way that you look at the outside will be different. And when we understand that and hear the words of Jesus. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth. Jesus was showing them how backward things had become, how the sense of God’s peace and order in their lives that they were seeking wasn’t going to come through their rage and their flailing attempts to reorder their circumstances. It was actually going to begin to come when they could pry their hands-off control and surrender, not to the injustice or the oppression, but to God. And those things are no less true this very moment than they were when they were uttered from Jesus mouth. We feel it. Right? It’s all over the world, this bubbling tension. It’s in everything. It’s woven into our cultures because the idea of dissatisfaction is really good marketing. You’re dissatisfied, but if you will buy this, then you will be satisfied. We get hammered all day, every day, with this kind of messaging. But it’s still true today, we cannot find the peace and order inside of ourselves by moving things around outside of ourselves. It begins with our hearts. And if we’ll keep that in mind, then the Sermon on the Mount will open up to us.
Prayer:
Jesus, that’s our prayer, that’s our prayer right now. Things can get pretty crazy in life and we can find ourselves sideways or off the road. And then we start making lists of all the things we’re going to change and were just moving pieces around in our lives, rather than understanding this whole thing originates from our hearts. So, come Holy Spirit into our hearts, into our identities, into the places that have been wounded, into the places that are most true of us. Come Holy Spirit and speak through Your word. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, its where you find out what’s going on around here. Couple things are going on around here.
We’ll be back out on the road the 14th of January. And we’ll be in Louisville Kentucky at New Song Christian Fellowship Louisville. So, if you are in the area, love to meet you, love to shake your hand, hug your neck. Come and say hello. You get all the details for that at dailyaudiobible.com in the events section - times, phone numbers, websites, all that kind of stuff, maps. So, check that out. Hope to see you.
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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, my name is Stan Sr. and this is Stanley Jr. and we have a praise report. Yesterday, we had a Daily Audio Bible party and we celebrated the last day of the year that we listened to the Daily Audio Bible together and it has been such a blessing in our lives. And Brian, I just want to say you really brought me to tears that day you had China on interviewing her about the chronological version. China is my new hero and I’m looking forward to trying to share that with some other young people that I work with, that they might be inspired that a young woman will be so committed to the Daily Audio Bible. And I’ve called in two or three times. This is Stanley from Maryland. But I just want to say thank you for a great year and all the prayers that have been prayed. And it’s really nice to have his community be a part of. 2018 will be my third year listening to the DAB. So, healthier than ever taking my vitamin DAB every day and thank God for you Brian. Thank God for you and I love the music that lays in the background all of the time.
Hello Daily Audio Bible family, Brian, Jill, it’s Katherine M. from __. Happy New Year everybody. We’re in for another year. How wonderful. Thank You Father and blessings to You for giving us Brian to read this to us. I’m just ringing to say hello to everybody and I wrote to myself here ___ your ringing and ___ and to let them know how wonderful it is that I play the Daily Audio Bible when I’m going to sleep at night. I do it in the morning and play it at night. And if I’m ever wrestles and can’t sleep, I put this on, and if the enemies harassing me, he never hangs around. He can’t stand listening to the Bible. So, anyway I thought I’d just give you that praise. Hope…that’s all I’ve got to say. Bye. Bye- for now. Bye.
Hello DAB family. I hope you all had a blessed Christmas season and cheers and blessings as we bring in 2018. My name is Jill and I am calling from Des Moines Iowa. I am a long-time listener but first-time caller. I’ve always thought about calling in and never did. So, I decided to start the new year and call. So, here I am. I wanted to share a big praise to God and gratitude I have for Brian, Jill, and the DAB team for all that you do. It’s such a blessing to have you all in my life. I’ve been to the More conference twice in the last three years, which has been so phenomenal and I’m so excited to go back in April. I also wanted to share a couple of other things. I was in a three-year relationship. I was an alcoholic and that journey recently ended, early December. Although there were good times, tough times and a lot of grief. I am thankful to God for the growth I’ve had these last three years and thankful for the wonderful people and support that God has placed in my life, including the DAB family, Al-Anon, celibate recovery, and other friends and family. Also, I’m excited to share, I have found a few ladies to join me in a support life group to read the Bible with the new DAB mobile app. We are going to get together and pray for one another. If anyone has suggestions on discussion guides, please let me know. I have been praying for you family and I hope that 2018 will be a great year. I love you. Jill in Des Moines.
Good morning or afternoon or evening Daily Audio Bible. Happy New Year. We are in 2018 and it’s so exciting. Oh my gosh, I can’t believe that I’m going into my 6th year. I’ve been listening to the Daily Audio Bible, it will be 6 years in July and I cannot even believe it. I am so excited. And with that being said, I just wanted to welcome all the new members. Oh my gosh, you guys are in for a ride of your lifetime. Just wanted to encourage to stay on course. Do not discouraged. You will notice that some days you will miss. Don’t get discouraged. You can always play back and, you know, get caught up. Just go with the flow and eventually you will see that this will become part of your life. I usually do this when I’m getting ready for work, when I’m driving to work. I have a 30 minute drive to work and I get…there’s lots of time to get caught up. So, you are going to be just fine and we are so excited that you joined us. You’re going to meet allot of our members here. We have a lot of dedicated members that call in to pray for you and we encourage you to call in. One of my New Year resolutions is to try and call in and participate in just praying for everybody. So, hopefully I’ll do a lot better this year. So, yeah, I just wanted to let the new members…because I know when I first started listening it was very encouraging to hear like people calling in and encouraging us and just giving us tips on really how to stay on course. And wanted to thank Brian and Jill for the commitment. And, yeah, let’s do this guys.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible community. This is Diane Olive B. from Newburgh Indiana and it is 6:20 AM, January 2nd. Happy, happy New Year to everybody. I wanted to go over this again, First Peter 3:4-5 in the Modern English Version. ‘I do not let my adorning be the outward adorning of braiding my hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine clothing, but I let my adorning be the hidden nature of my heart that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a gentle and quiet Spirit, which is very precious in the sight of my heavenly Father.’ Think about that. Sela, pause, and calmly think about that. Did you hear where it said, ‘the adornment of a gentle and quiet spirit.’ That is my goal in life, to have a gentle and a quiet spirit, to be something that is precious in the sight of my Father. Oh, I’ve got a little bit of work to do on that though. Just yesterday we were all in the car and I wasn’t gentile and I wasn’t quiet, but, I shall overcome. I shall succeed in my goal because I am Christian and Jesus lives in me. Shalom, Shalom everybody. Nothing is missing. Nothing is broken.