Jeremiah 51:54-52:34, Titus 3:1-15, Psalms 100:1-5, Proverbs 26:18-19
Today is the 28th day of October welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian as I have been every day since we started this. So, if this is your first day then…good to meet you, welcome aboard. We are on this journey and we’re well on this journey as we continue our journey through the Bible this year. So, let’s get to that. We’re reading from the English Standard Version this week. Jeremiah chapter 51 verse 54 through 52 verse 34 today.
Commentary:
Okay. So, in the letter to Titus today we find these words, they’re characteristics, they’re like descriptors of the life of faith. “Be submissive to rulers and authorities. Be obedient. Be ready for every good work. Speak evil of no one. Avoid quarreling. Be gentle. Show perfect courtesy toward all people.” Okay are you seeing that all around you right now? Like if you turn on the news are you seeing that? If you just look around, are you seeing that? If you go online onto social media are you seeing that? The answer would be no, that you’re probably not. And I’m not. I’m kind of…kind of witnessing the opposite of that most of the time. Maybe the better question though is, “am I being this way I? Am I speaking evil of no one? Am I avoiding quarreling? Am I being gentle? Am I showing perfect courtesy toward everyone? Am I ready to do every good work? Or am I just participating in adding to the chaos and the noise that is deafening?” These characteristics, this little list in the letter to Titus, these things are supposed to be an outgrowth of the fact that Christ has come and redeemed us. I just continue to quote from the letter. “We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another”, which is pretty much what we see all around us a lot of the time. But the letter goes on. “When the goodness and the loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of things we did, but because He was merciful”, right? And that is the basic hope of the gospel. And once again we see these contrasts, where it’s like, “that’s supposed to do something.” Lile when you believe, when you enter into the journey of faith, when the intimacy of God draws near, that’s supposed to irreversibly change us. And when we are irreversibly changed, then the things that we once did are…well…they’re changed and we reflect this gratitude that goes so deep that it permeates everything about us so that we walk around in a state of grace, a state of gratitude that spills out from us and affects the way that we interact and behave toward other people because we realize how lucky we are, like how fortunate that the intimacy of God has drawn near, that God has come near and rescued us transforming us the by day step-by-step. We are not who we once were. And, so, our lives should reflect that. These are such good words for the times that we are in right now when divisiveness seems to be like the game we’re playing.
And then we’ve got the Proverb. I mean yesterday the proverb gives us this one sentence about meddling and about dog ears and today like we get this other visual, this one sentence, “like a madman.” So, let’s just picture that, a crazy person “who throws firebrands, arrows and death.” Okay, so a crazy person with lethal intent. Are we on the same page? The kind of person we don’t exactly want to encounter unaware. That kind of person is the man who deceives his neighbor and then says, “I was joking.” In other words, “I said it, but I didn’t mean. It was a joke. What’s the big deal? What’s wrong with you? Can’t you take a joke? In other words, the person who actually who really wanted to hurt you with the words like firebrands and arrows, and then when confronted is just like, “oh that was just a joke. I didn’t mean that.” You may know people like that. You may be a person like that. If you know, people like that or if you’re on the receiving end of that it really can…it can make you question whether your all their, like are you going crazy? Because it’s like you have thin skin and you just keep getting wounded and hurt and you keep thinking, “you're…but you’re trying to hurt me. Like I know that you’re trying…you’re using these words to hurt me but then you’re saying like it’s just a joke and it’s not just a joke.” But there’s no way to like, confront that. It’s like he said she said. And, so, you’re in your head going crazy like, “I know that was meant…I know that was meant to hurt me.” And we’re seeing all kinds of name-calling and all kinds of sidestep little joking things…like all kinds of stuff going on in the world around us. We’re seeing this kind of stuff. It’s like a crazy person with lethal intent. Those are…that’s a good ancient description that feels very, very accurate. So, you know, if you’ve been on the receiving end of that, then it’s being called out in the Bible. It’s being named for what it is in the Bible and you should take heart that you’re not actually going crazy here. You…you have the behavior of an arrow toting firebrand wielding vicious crazy person and that’s what’s going on. But this could also be a mirror and you could realize, “I do that. Why do I do that? Like, why am I like that? What is going on here?” Well then you…you’ve got a visual that might make it stark, what’s actually happening. It’s like a crazy person with lethal intent who just wants to sidestep, like wants to do the damage then step away and go like, “I don’t know what…I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why you’re all bloody. I was just…I was…it was just a joke. I don’t know why you’re crying here. It was just…I was just kidding.” Yeah, we’ve examined some things today. These are kind of deep things from Titus and Proverbs because these are connected to deep motivations and deep brokenness and wounding. Like, this is bringing up a lot if we’ll take the time to examine it and explains a lot when we look around us and kind of see the same thing going on in the world. And, so, let’s heed the Scriptures and come into alignment with what things are supposed to look like because we are so grateful to even be here at all. The fact that we’re gonna draw the next breath is the evidence of God’s life-giving force within us. We’re gonna exhale and it’s gonna be a step of faith, believing that the next breath is coming. We should be grateful to be breathing. If we could just start there and realize “I’m alive!” And maybe life is looking like I want it to look but if I stop comparing my life, if I stop listening to the noise and chaos and fighting and divisiveness, of I just got to the baseline, “grateful to be here” place well then some things could change. We could start spreading the evidence of our transformation into the world, which is the point. We’re the body. We’re the city on a hill. We’re the salt of the earth. We have a role to play in preserving the whole thing, which is what salt does. So, I guess fundamentally from our reading today we can examine ourselves and look at the repercussions of our lives, the implications of us being here. Are we filled with gratitude and want to bring good channeling the kingdom of heaven into this world on earth as it is in heaven or are we just adding to the annoyance?
Prayer:
Holy Spirit, well up from within us. These are deep things. And the answer is that we…we try…we don’t do it on purpose, but we…we try to live in both of those spaces sometimes being so deeply grateful that Your love just pours out of us, but the next day it could be the opposite of that and we’re walking in the darkness and we’re perpetuating the darkness. And that shouldn’t be. That’s a divided heart, that’s a double mind. And the Scriptures tell us that’s basically not going to end well or go anywhere. And, so, we need an undivided heart and we need the renewal of our minds. In fact, we need more than that. We need the mind of Christ to navigate this world. And it’s available. It’s not hidden It’s everywhere. We’re just not paying attention. We’re not slowing down and observing ourselves to any degree and seeing the implications of our lives. But we’re here at this moment kind of examining, “what am I bringing? What am I birthing? What am I giving? What is happening in this world because I’m here? Is it good or is it evil? Holy Spirit, we want it to be good…good. We want to be mature representatives and ambassadors for Your kingdom upon this earth and we’re gonna need Your help. And we’re gonna need Your help a lot right now. So, come. We become aware of You. We surrender to You. We humble ourselves and ask for Your guidance and we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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