Jeremiah 42:1-44:23, 2 Timothy 2:1-21, Psalms 92:1-93:5, Proverbs 26:3-5
Today is the 23rd day of October. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is an honor and a pleasure to be here with you today as we buckle up, buckle in and take the next step forward in this adventure that we’re on together through the Bible this year. And, man, we are getting down to it on October already. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but how did we get so far into this month so quickly? Well, no matter how we got here, we are here, and our next step forward is gonna take us back into the book of Jeremiah. We’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. Jeremiah 42:1-44:23.
Commentary:
Okay. So, as we talked about yesterday, 2 Timothy is known to be the last letter of the Apostle Paul’s life. And contained in it are many personal thoughts. But it also contains instructions for Timothy as a spiritual leader. And these instructions were of great importance to Paul because even though he was hoping he could see his son in the faith, Timothy, one more time face to face, the chances weren’t good. And that gives an urgency to what’s being said, and we should pay attention to that urgency. In our reading today, Paul encouraged Timothy to endure, which… man, that’s a theme we are going to see over and over and over all the way until the very end of the year. In fact, it’s like one of the defining characteristics of the early church and one of the defining characteristics of the Christian faith. But what Paul’s talking about with Timothy is that this endurance isn’t a passive thing. This is an active thing. You actively participate in enduring. So, Timothy had proven himself to be a trustworthy disciple of Jesus. And Paul had passed the faith on to Timothy, and to many other people as well, but this was going to likely cost him his life. And, so, what he’s writing down, these are things that Paul needed them to matter to Timothy. Timothy was expected to endure, and he was expected to pass on the faith to other trustworthy people like himself who could carry it forward because Paul was probably not gonna be there. And, so, for Timothy to pick up the mantle and carry it on, he was going to need the focus of a soldier or of an athlete, which is why Paul brought up both of those examples in our reading today. I mean, for Paul, in prison, in a dungeon awaiting sentencing that had almost no chance of anything other than execution, endurance was pretty much all there was left for Paul to do. The empire had begun to systematically persecute Christians, and Paul was known as a ringleader, so he was likely going to die. And, so, with all that in front of him, Paul could see what the entire church might be facing, all of the churches that he had spent so much time and suffered so much to plant. He could see the writing on the wall. They might all endure, they might all face what he was facing. And, so, endurance was gonna be essential. So, to drive that point home in such a dangerous time, Paul quoted an ancient declaration. It was possibly an early worship song that they sang in the early church. We have to take a little bunny trail for this to reveal itself and give us some context. When Paul wrote this letter, there was nothing known as the New Testament, right? All Timothy could have referred to would have been the Torah as well as any of Paul’s letters- any his communications with Ephesus or any of the letters that had been copied and passed around from the other churches. And, of course, Timothy would have had personal letters from Paul. And most scholars agree that the first gospel, the gospel of Mark, was written around the time that Paul was executed, which is right around the time of this letter. So, we’re reading this letter, and this is right around the time that the first gospel is being written. And even if this letter were an earlier document, the New Testament as authoritative Scripture, this wasn’t formed yet. So, when Paul inserted a piece of creed or a song into this letter, he gave us a glimpse of what our brothers and sisters were declaring before any of the books of the New Testament had become a collection. So, it lets us see a little bit about what Christians in a church established by Paul felt was important before anyone could preach a sermon out of the New Testament. So, this little snippet, this little creed or song allows us to hear what the church was declaring before we had the New Testament, which is pretty cool. If we die with him, we will also live with him. If we endure hardship, we will reign with him. If we deny him, he will deny us. If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny who he is. So, as I mentioned just a minute ago, we’ll see throughout the remainder of the New Testament that Paul wasn’t the only one talking about endurance and revealing that it was gonna be a key component of the faith. Our earliest brothers and sisters felt the same. And they were saying this or singing this to each other before there was a New Testament. Enduring until the end is a theme that will take us all the way to the end of the Bible. And, so, we need to get to know it. We need to get to know this concept and we need to apply this concept to our lives because we’re gonna see it a lot. And as we can see from Paul’s letter, Paul hoped that Timothy would understand that this needs to matter.
Prayer:
Father, we invite You into that because endurance…ah, that’s not a word that we put at the top of our to-do list on just about any given day, to endure. And yet it is required of us every day. But we spend a lot of our energy trying to not have to do it, right? To not have to endure anything. We arrange for our lives to be as comfortable as possible. And yet endurance is such a central theme throughout all of the early church and the early letters. So, Holy Spirit, come. This is a concept that we need to understand. We need to be aware that it is not purposeless, that it has…That it is not just hard times, but that it is strengthening us for what comes next. And we need to be strong. So, come Holy Spirit we pray. In Jesus name we ask. Amen.
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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:
Good morning Daily Audio Bible family, this is Leonora, I’m calling from the panhandle of Florida. It’s been quite some time since I’ve called. I’m prompted to call because of the people…so many people, that are in such need right now. I was blessed not to have been in the path of Huricane Michael. I’m on the west side of where it hit, just east of Panama City or right at Panama City and the area to the east of it got the absolute worst. And I know so many people who live there or know family or have family that live there. The Air Force Base is leveled. The hospitals are gone. People have lost not only their homes and all their possessions but their livelihoods. They are depending on food and water and any help from a stranger. God be with them. Give them Your hope. Give them their hope to keep the faith that they will be taken care of Father. We ask that You provide for them and give them strength in their hour of need. We ask that everyone who can help will reach out in any form or way or fashion Lord. If not money, by prayer. The prayer alone will be so supportive and strengthening to them. Please give them strength to continue Lord in this difficult journey they have ahead. And I ask this in Jesus’ name. And I love all of you family. I do not call often but I do love all of you so much, Brian, family, Jill and support team. Thank you.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible family, this is Wrapped in His Unfailing Love, Dorothy from Dustin, and I just want to thank you all for who you are and for this community and thank you Brian and Jill. I’m calling today about hurricane Michael. And it missed…it missed the Dustin area but, you know, it just reeked devastation about 50 miles to the east of us and so many people have been affected. And my heart is just breaking for them. I’m asking you to please pray for all the people that have lost their homes and just everything that they have. Please, please join me in prayer. Heavenly Father, blessed Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit, please be with the people that have been rocked by this devastating storm. We lift them up to You right now. Please comfort them. Bring the supplies and the help that they need Lord Jesus. Thank You for Your comfort and Your care for those who have nothing. Keep them wrapped in Your unfailing love the Lord Jesus. Thank You for each one. Thank You for the first responders, thank You for the people who are giving, people that are making sandwiches and delivering meals. Thank You Jesus. Thank You, thank You, so much for Your love and Your support and thank You everyone for praying. Have a blessed day. Amen.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible family, this is Treasured Possession. I haven’t called in a really long time. I get my name from first Peter 2:9, that you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s treasured possession that you may declare the praises of him called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. And my story is a lot like Gee’s. Praise God, I too was overcome with guilt and shame that the enemy put on me because I was raped at 17 as a virgin on a date that my mother set up for me. And very odd circumstances but it caused me to see my identity in that circumstance and I filtered everything I did through that circumstance and God has blessed me and shown me and revealed to me that that is not who I am. It’s a circumstance that I overcame and by the blood of Christ I can no longer be trussed up in the enemy’s lies and self-pity but I can have compassion, which means co-suffering. And I can share my story and help other women that have gone through the same thing and give them courage and strength and let them know that through Christ we can be overcomers, we can be stronger so that our lives are not what has happened to us but our lives consist of what He has done for us. And I pray for you Gee. I pray for all the other men and women that have gone through this experience of trauma that the enemy has come against your will. He has come against your lives to try to destroy you and to try to get you entrapped in guilt and shame. Jesus despised the guilt and shame and through him we can look at our enemy…
Hi family, this is Chenal in Arizona. I was calling to give you all a quick update and just say a quick prayer for pastor Gene. The last few times that pastor Gene has called in I can just tell she has this resounded desire to honor God in the midst of trials and yet she continues to call in and cover us all in prayer. So, I wanted to let Pastor Gene know I am covering her in prayer. I wanted to give an update. I am still taking classes and in this season, I’ve felt like…I keep getting the Scripture hard pressed on every side. And, so, I finally looked it up and I looked it up in the Message and I wanted to read it as an encouragement for all of us followers of Christ because He will never leave us and He is faithful. And, so, 2 Corinthians 4:7-12 says in the Message says, if you only look at us you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious, precious message around in this unadorned clay pots of our and individual lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized. We’re not sure what to do. We know that God knows what to do. We’ve been spiritually terrorized but God hasn’t left our side. We’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken. What they did to us, Jesus is faithful. And, so, I just want you guys to remember that God is faithful. He will never leave us. We may feel like we’re hard pressed on every side but Jesus lives. He lives in us, and he is faithful. I hope you all have a blessed day and I will call back soon.
Hello Daily Audio Bible family. I’m calling…this is Dorothy from Dustin…I’m calling about the commentary today from Timothy and about pastors and deacons and things like that. And this month, October is pastor appreciation month, if you didn’t know. Some of us do. But anyway, I just wanted to encourage you all if you would recognize your pastor because they do so much and they carry so much for us. So, join me in prayer please. Father God, thank You so much for our pastors and the people that You call into the ministry. We are so grateful. Thank You for each one. I ask that You would bless them richly today and always and surround them with Your angels within a hedge of protection for them in their family. Give them strength and encouragement. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. Thank you everybody. Have a great day. Bye-bye.