03/18/2020 DAB Transcript

Numbers 26:52-28:15, Luke 3:1-22, Psalms 61:1-8, Proverbs 11:16-17

Today is the 18th day of March, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you as we move ourselves through the center of a week. And I guess we’ve passed the center of the month, but not too far. So, we’re kind of in the middle of things right now. And it’s great to be here in the middle of it all with you. But we can’t stay here. We gotta take the next step forward. And, so, let’s do that. We’re continuing our journey through the book of numbers and today we will read chapter 26 verse 52 through 28 verse 15.

Commentary:

Okay. So, let's…so let’s keep filling in all the surrounding stories we’re moving through with…with some context because some interesting things happening in both Old and New Testaments today. So…so…so Moses, and we’ve been traveling with Moses for a while now, and he’s gone through a bunch…and we’re not done with him…but here in the book of Numbers God has told him, “this is your time, your time has come. Your leadership is coming to an end. It’s time for you to be gathered to your ancestors to die.” Moses won’t be leading the children of Israel into the Promise Land, and they just done this big census revealing that that generation that needed to wander passed. And, so, it looks like it might be time now to consider going into the Promise Land, but Moses won’t be leading them. A new leader will need to be appointed and that new leader was named today. His name is Joshua. And he’s kind of been Moses right hand for a while. So, what we see happening then is the consecration of Joshua as this new leader. Moses is preparing the way for Joshua so that Joshua can lead the people into freedom.

And then we flip over into the gospel of Luke for today and we see essentially the same thing happening. John has come out of the wilderness. Now he is baptizing people at the Jordan River, preparing the way of the Lord at a very similar place. According to the Old Testament they’re outside of Jericho on the other side of the Jordan River. So, in modern terms they would be across the Jordan River in the land of Jordan. John the Baptist came in out of the wilderness to the Jordan outside of Jericho, calling the people back to the very place that they had entered the Promise Land, calling them back to their story, calling them back to their identity. And then here comes Jesus down into that same water to be baptized and not to lead his people across the Jordan into a physical Promised Land, but to lead his people into complete and utter spiritual freedom in the kingdom of God, reuniting the promise with the land. Another thing interesting about these parallels is Joshua and Jesus because in Hebrew they’re essentially the same Yehoshua or Yeshua, which means God’s salvation. So, it’s a rare occasion that we find ourselves in the Old and the New Testaments in the same geographical area in the desert at the Jordan River outside of Jericho. So, that’s interesting and fascinating and gives us some depth for the journey that…that we can continue to be on as we walk the path of the Bible

But then,…then Proverbs, of course, offers us concise wisdom for today, as simple as it can possibly be, as true as it can possibly be, “when you’re kind to others you help yourself, when you’re cruel to others you hurt yourself.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit, we invite You into all that we’ve read today, into all we’re learning and have learned today, but we invite You into this proverb as we take it into our day. Help us to remember the simplicity of it, just the bald-faced truth of it. If we’re kind today, we will be helping our self. If we’re cruel today, while we may be hurting other people, but we will also be hurting our self. Help us to realize that. Help us to realize that we are in this together and kindness begets kindness and cruelty gives birth to cruelty. Help us choose the former rather than the latter today we ask by the power of Your Holy Spirit and in the name of Jesus our Savior. Amen.

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