1 Chronicles 7:1-8:40, Acts 27:1-20, Psalms 7:1-17, Proverbs 18:22
Today is the 9th day of July welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is a joy and an honor to be here with you today as we move ever deeper into the summer and the summer heat. And I know those of you in the southern hemisphere are experiencing winter and moving into winter, which is always so odd to think about, but it’s the world we live in and it’s the one we’ve got, and it’s such a beautiful gift from God. So, it’s great to be here with you wherever you are on this big beautiful blue planet we call home for now. And let’s take the next step forward in the Scriptures on the adventure of a lifetime that we find ourselves in this year. So, we’re reading from the English Standard Version this week. Today first Chronicles chapters 7 and 8. And yeah, as we began Chronicles, we’ve been working through genealogies, lots and lots of names, fathers who fathered who fathered who fathered and how the people came to be. But within the next couple of days we will kind of come…come to a conclusion of the genealogies and move into the narrative, but today we’ll continue with what we’ve been doing. First Chronicles chapter 7 and 8.
Commentary:
Okay. So, we can talk about, you know, the genealogies and the movement forward. We could talk about Paul.
Now Paul’s on his way to Rome to stand trial before the Emperor and is having a rough go. They’re being tossed around the ocean, the Mediterranean Sea trying to get to Rome.
But let’s focus on one solitary verse today and perhaps this is the thing to meditate upon all day long and it’s from the book of Psalms. “Behold the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies.” So, you know, probably everybody who’s listening to me understands the nature of things, where babies come from and how long it takes to incubate a baby before birth can be given to the baby and that’s called pregnancy. And then birth is given and then there’s the new child. And, so, this happens over a period of time and it’s all very intimate, right? Conception is about as intimate as two people can get. And pregnancy, I’ve obviously never been pregnant, but I’ve been through pregnancies and watched my wife and watched the changes in her and the way that she is getting to know the baby and the way we’re thinking and dreaming about the baby and feeling that baby kicking. And, so, this is pregnancy leading way to birth. “The wicked person conceives evil.” This is very intimate. “And is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies.” So, if we become intimate with evil, right, allowing it within us…I don’t want to get overly graphic here, allowing it within us, we can be impregnated with mischief that will give birth to lies, which should tell us that we should be very careful about what we are letting inside of us. This is just a different way of discussing the law of sowing and reaping, right? You reap what you sow. You give birth to lies after you have been pregnant with mischief because you have been intimate and conceived from evil. Now understand what we’re reading here. This is poetic language. So, those of us who are like, “give me the literal way to just kind of…just tell me what to do. I don’t want esoteric thinking or meditating.” Just…then you’re not gonna get that out of poetry. It’s hard to get that out of songs because what art does is open us up to deeper, wider, higher truths, a larger awareness because talking about certain things, where do you…how do you get there? Like, how do you describe love with…without getting into any kind of poetic language whatsoever because you are talking about something that is bigger than the word itself or bigger than a phrase. So, we have poetry here and in poetic language. So…so, the Bible isn’t telling us, “if you think an evil thought it’s like you are having sex with evil and you’ve gotten yourself pregnant and you’re gonna do bad things.” It's…it’s a poem and it’s here for us to meditate upon and consider what we are allowing within us, what we are allowing to be conceived within us and it’s using this language to help us understand that this is very intimate what we’re doing and it can lead us into deep darkness.
Prayer:
Father, we invite You into that. And as we think it over today, we invite Your Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit come and show us the places that we are getting too intimate with evil. We need none of that. We need intimacy and oneness in union with You and You alone and we want nothing else. So, come Holy Spirit. Indwell us, fill us, lead us in the way that we should think. Lead us into the things that we should say, lead us in our actions today we pray. In the name of Jesus, 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.