Genesis 3:1-4:26, Matthew 2:13-3:6, Psalms 2:1-12, Proverbs 1:7-9
Today is the 2nd day of January welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is a great to be here with you today on the second day of our journey. We have just set sail in our new year. It’s like we left the docks yesterday and we’re just a little bit out in the harbor now moving toward the open sea, but we can still see the people on the shoreline waving. Like we’re just getting started and what joy it is to be on this voyage together as we move through the Bible and as we move through life together and as the Bible shapes that life together in community as…as we move forward. It is a privilege to be here with you today for day two. So, yesterday we started the book of Genesis and we talked about the book of Genesis and got some orientation there as the first book of the Old Testament. And I mentioned, you know, when we were starting Genesis and we were starting Matthew and we were starting the Psalms, and we were starting the Proverbs yesterday. So, it’s gonna take a couple of days for us to get moved into all of these books. But we talked about Genesis yesterday. So, we don’t need to do that today. But when we get to the book of Matthew we’ll talk about the Gospels and we’ll talk about what we’re reading in the New Testament. But first we’re reading from the New Living Translation this week, which is today. Genesis chapters 3 and 4.
Introduction to the book of Matthew:
Okay. So, we have reached our New Testament portion of Scripture today to read. And normally we would just move right into that, but we encountered a brand-new book because everything is new. We’re starting all the new territory of the Bible. And, so, we began yesterday the book of Matthew, which is the first book in the New Testament, but is also the first book in a subgrouping inside of the New Testament known as the Gospels. And the Gospels are the first four books of the New Testament - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And the Gospels, each of these books give us an account of…of Jesus life who is the Savior. So, the person Matthew was one of the 12 apostles of Jesus. One of his 12 disciples. We haven’t got to that part of the story yet, but one of his 12 disciples. And, so, he was there. He had first-hand knowledge. He witnessed what Jesus ministry looked like, and then some of these things were written down. And as it turns out, Matthew was not a liked person in his culture. He was a tax collector. But when Jesus called him, he left his lucrative business behind. He left everything behind to follow Him. So, this is a person writing this gospel who gave up a life that was a pretty decent lucrative life. He gave up everything that he knew in exchange for a leap of faith to follow this man who he believed was the Messiah, the son of the living God. Matthew’s writing is particularly aimed at Hebrew people. And it’s gonna to take a little bit of time for us to kind of unpack all of the metanarratives that are going on, all of the subplots and stories that are going on. But one thing that we should understand is that the Bible is written from a Hebrew perspective and that even the New Testament, Jesus was born into a Hebrew perspective and commented, and taught on the Hebrew Scriptures and was a Jewish rabbi. And, so, this context and the culture and the customs and the rituals, they are all Hebrew in nature, So, if you have never heard the story before, ever, then some of the customs, some of the stuff is gonna sound strange or different or unusual, or whatever, but it’s this context that is sort of like…like an atmosphere. The atmosphere of the Bible is within this context. And, so, as we go forward day by day step-by-step, it will all start to snap into place, all of the different things begin to snap into the place…into place. But Matthew was written to Hebrews so that they might understand the good news of Jesus coming and what it represented. And here’s why this matters now. We’ve begun the book of Genesis, we are working our way through the Torah, we are working our way through the Hebrew Scriptures. When Matthews being written there isn’t a New Testament. It's…it’s being written. So it doesn’t actually exist as the New Testament yet. And, so, when Matthew writes this all down he refers back to the Old Testament the Hebrew Scriptures more than any of the other Gospels do because he’s trying to show the connection. He’s trying to show that Jesus fulfills prophecies that are ancient and that were to be expected so that the Hebrew people wouldn’t just reject the good news outright as some kind of newfangled religion. The point is to try to say this is the ancient story that has been prophesied and has been calming and now it’s here, let’s not miss this. And what we’ll also see in the book of Matthew…well…we’ll get introduced to this Jesus. Who is this man? Like…maybe we’ve been walking with the Lord for very long time and we know Jesus, but we also might be here just wanting to know the Bible says. So, what’s the big deal about this Jesus guy. Well, we’re gonna be camping out with Jesus here for the next while as we move through the Gospels and we’re gonna get to know His personality and His character. And what we will ultimately realize is that this is God made flesh. This is God the Creator the one we’re reading about in Genesis who condescended Himself down into a body to become a human being so that he might relate directly with humanity and in the process He’s modeling for us what we are supposed to look like, what the intention was when God made everything very good. Well…things got very bad. And we don’t have to look around that much to know that. Jesus comes and models what humanity is supposed to look like, what humanity is supposed to be doing, how humanity is supposed to be behaving toward one another. We might say that Jesus shows us a new way to be human or even the original correct way to be human, the one that was intended all along. So, something to pay close attention to indeed. And one of the distinct characteristics that we will begin to observe about Jesus is that He’s always looking at what’s going on behind the story, what’s motivating the story that’s being told. He’s always like behind it all, where the truth is because we as human beings, we know we can say anything, we can say anything convincingly…convincingly but that doesn’t mean it’s completely true, or true at all. We keep a lot of things hidden. Jesus had a way of looking back behind it all into the darkness and calling the truth out. It made lots of people very, very angry because who wants to be exposed? And yet that’s the point that Jesus is trying to make, you don’t have to hide. Human beings weren’t made to live his duplicity where like nothing is ever real, it’s always in flux. Jesus calls out the truth because we were made to live true. And we will see that one of the ways that Jesus calls the truth now is He uses what’s known as parables. They’re illustration stories, they’re like rhetorical stories. They’re meant to teach something, to expose something, to creatively put us in a mindset where all the sudden we can finally see things as they are. And we’ll encounter more than 20 parables in the book of Matthew the Jesus taught and we will also begin to hear the rumblings of Jesus central message that permeates the Gospels and that is the message of the kingdom of heaven of the kingdom of God, and that it is coming, and that it is near, and that it is here now in us and among us. And, so our reading for today. Matthew chapter 2 verse 13 through 3 verse 6.
Commentary:
Okay, so I know we’ve already talked about the book of Matthew and spent some time and conversation today but I just want to point out what we read in…in Genesis today because it’s really deeply important, It shapes the rest of everything. It shapes even today. And that is what happened?? Like what happened to us? If what God made was good, even very good and it was pleasing and it was right, and things were as they were intended to be, and all was working appropriately then what happened? And we read that in the third chapter of Genesis today. There’s these two trees in the garden. One is the tree of life, and one is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And we witnessed a conversation, the deceiver, the serpent, the deceiver is there having a conversation Eve, “you’re not supposed to eat from this?” And she’s like, “no. No…we can’t. we can’t even touch it. If…if we touch it…if we eat it God says we’ll die.” And then we see really the first spin on reality coming from the voice of the deceiver. What we see is that it was deception that began things to go wrong. Deception led to an action that led on a destructive path. Could we just stop there and look at our own lives? Deception is the thing that takes us down. It leads us into actions that lead us into destructive behaviors that ultimately lead us to destruction. So, the deceiver’s there and is like, “you can’t eat from this?” And she’s like, “no we’ll die.” And then the…the serpent is like, “you’re not gonna die.” And then there’s this spin, this invitation to consider an alternate reality. “You’re not gonna die. God knows that if you eat this fruit your eyes will be open and you will be like God.” And that was an effective spin on reality, an effective presentation of an alternative reality, one in which they could become like God. And the deception was so convincing that they forgot that they were created in the image of God. They already were like God. And, so, they ate, and they made a trade and it’s been a devastating trade. They had God perfectly in a perfect union, in a perfect relationship as things were intended to be from the beginning. They traded that in exchange for knowledge. Knowledge. And that’s been the story ever since. We’ve been trying to find our way into a relationship with God through the knowledge of good and evil when God was always beyond that and will never be bound by any human category. This is the most-high God we’re talking about. And we begin to get some clues here right at the beginning in this very, very early story in the Bible about the heart of God because we can very, very easily, like we were talking about yesterday, just feel like God is perpetually angry with us because we are perpetual failures in some way or another, as though He is only ever upset with us. He was upset. He was upset when He found the man and woman hiding from Him, because as soon as their eyes were opened what did they experience? Shame. How much as shame shaped our lives? And it was never the original intention. So, mankind makes this trade and then their eyes are opened and they have this knowledge and they realize their naked and they feel shame and they hide and God comes looking for them. Where are you? And Adams like, “I heard you coming, and I hid because I was naked.” That my friends is…that’s the plight. We run, we hide because we’re afraid to be exposed. We’re ashamed. That’s the cloud that fell down over humanity. Remember when were talking about Jesus looking behind the story to find the truth, looking behind the disguise to find the truth? That’s where this redemptive story begins. An invitation to be true, an invitation to stop with the shame and the hiding. And when we think about it, does it not explain so much of our lives. And, so, once again, the Bible…we’re just at day two…is speaking loud and clear as we continue to move out into the deeps together this year.
Prayer:
Father we thank You for Your word. We thank You for what it does, the way that it exposes all of the games that we play and the motives for it - our fear our shame. And You have come to redeem us. Make us righteous before You. Do away with the need for all of that so that we might be true. So, come Holy Spirit into what we’ve read today and plant it in our hearts that we might consider and meditate upon it. Let it be a part of the thoughts of this day as we continue this journey forward. And we thank You for this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Announcements:
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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.