Genesis 5:1-7:24, Matthew 3:7-4:11, Psalms 3:1-8, Proverbs 1:10-19
Today is January 3rd welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is a joy and an honor to be here with you as we greet a brand-new week and step into it together. This will…well…this is the beginning of the first full week of this brand-new year that we are in. So, we’re kinda…other than New Year’s Day we’re kinda crossing into a new threshold. And it’s interesting, day by day step-by-step as we move through the Bible and this becomes the rhythm of our lives we look for these marks in time. We begin to realize that there’s a rhythm to the year, a rhythm to our lives, a rhythm to the seasons and we are constantly reminded that we can start over. So, here we are beginning our first full week of the Bible, which means we will…we’ll read from a new translation. This week we’ll read from the Christian Standard Bible. I should probably explain that. We change translations each beginning of each new week as we move through the Scriptures. And, you know, if you’ve been around the Bible you might have a favorite translation or you may like an older translation or there may be a favorite one because you believe it’s more accurate. But here’s the thing. The Bible was written in Hebrew, it was written in Greek, and some…some parts of it were written in Aramaic. So, those would be the native tongues, the native languages that these texts originally found themselves in in their originals. But if you speak more than one language, you know, like how you would communicate something in one language may not be how you would communicate it in another. And you may have one word and one language that has a smaller vocabulary that could have many different kinds of corollaries in a language that it’s being interpreted into or brought into. Therefore, any Bible that we read in English is therefore an interpretation on the original language. And Bible scholars and linguists and historians, like entire teams of people over thousands of years, for that matter, have done this work, teams of people trying to get it exactly right, which brings up all kinds of different interpretation, problems. Like maybe something is said in one language and if you interpret that as closely as possible, word for word you could read it and it wouldn’t make sense, or it…the…the language is incorrect. It doesn’t read in the new language the way that it does in the old language. So, then you have to rearrange the words so that it reads with like appropriate English. Or sometimes there’s a concept and that concept doesn’t really work in the new language of the culture and the language doesn’t really have room or doesn’t make any sense. So, then you have to wrestle through, like this is the concept…like this is what’s being communicated, but what is the best way to say that accurately in this new language, like English for example. And, so, some translation teams are trying to word for word very very meticulously try to get this right. Other teams would look at…at the overarching themes - like what is being said here, how do you say that in English? So, rather than us just going, “well, this is where we’re going to plant our flag, the English has the most translations of any other language available, the most scholarship, the most teams that have worked over decades and centuries. Why not take advantage of all of it and bring the most comprehensive context that we can to our journey? And, so, that’s why we do what we do in rotating each week and just picking up where we left off. It’s not like we’re reading one book from this translation and this book from the next. It's…it’s just part of the flow each week. We pick up right where we left off. We already know the story that we’re in and we just pick it up in another translation. And, so, this week will read from the Christian Standard Bible and pick up where we left off yesterday. Genesis chapters 5, 6, and 7.
Introduction to the book of Psalms:
Okay. So, we’re at our Psalms portion of our reading today. And this is all part of this kind of moving in, moving into this year, finding our rhythm, unpacking our stuff, getting settled. And since we began January 1st with four new books, rather than making that superlong when there’s so much other ground to cover we’re just kinda taking the first four days to move into the books that we are reading. So, January 1st we talked about Genesis yesterday we talked about Matthew. So, let’s talk about, Psalms. Psalms or the Hebrew word Tehillim means praises. And what we find in the Psalms is a collection of 150 songs and hymns and congregational singing’s and individual poems of worship and call and response liturgical worship. It's…it’s basically five books in one. And we know this because like when we come to the different sections of Psalms it tells us, this is book 1, this is book 2. And they…they’re basically classified by who wrote them or they’re classified by theme or their purpose, their use. And some of them praise God and speak words of praise, others speak about God, His character or His might or His actions. Some of these psalms are very sad, like really really bring out, give language to lament, regret, repentance, and there are others that are songs of thanksgiving. So, these…this collection of beautiful poetry and songs and worship are definitely meant…meant to lead people in the worship of God but in all different aspects - praise, giving glory, adoration, reverence, honor, any circumstance of life - because that’s what we’ll see kind of being baked into this ancient culture that will form right before our eyes in the Old Testament, that everything, everything they do, everything they say, every motivation of their heart is to turn them back to God reminding them of who they are and who God is and where they’re going. And, so, Psalms is this beautiful book containing some of the most beautiful literature ever written in humanity. And a primary composer of many of the Psalms is an ancient king of Israel. His name is David. And we have certainly not gotten to know David and it will be a little while before we are introduced to David, but once we get there, we will get to know David well. There’s just a lot of material in the Bible about David’s life. And we learn an awful lot about ourselves in David’s life, but we haven’t met him yet. And we do meet him in the Scriptures we’ll be, you know, we’ll be being told the story of his life. But in the Psalms, we really get to know the heart of this king, this musician that loved to communicate through music and poetry. And then other writers of the Psalms would be David’s son Solomon who we’ll also get to know in detail. Then there are the sons of Korah and there is a man named Asaph and Ethan and then there are several of the Psalms that…they’re anonymous, the…the author is unknown. But the purpose of the Psalms is to bring the people together, bring them together in worship to the God of Israel, to their God as they came together formally and congregationally but also as they would go home and sing these songs as it would be a part of their daily life. And that’s still a tradition until this very day. And, so, today, Psalms 3.
Prayer:
Father we thank You for Your word and we thank You for bringing us into this brand-new week. Right here at the beginning of this brand-new year all things are new, and all things are waiting for us to live into them. And we acknowledge here as we will so many times when we mark time, it’s all in front of us. It has not yet happened. How we choose the choices that we make are going to write the story of our future. And we get to choose. And we are grateful for Your word to inform our choices and challenge our motivations before they turn into destructive actions. So, here we are beginning of a new week. We humble ourselves before You and ask, Holy Spirit come, lead us into all truth we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.
Announcements:
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what’s going on around here. It’s how you stay connected.
Reminding you of the other programs - Daily Audio Bible Kids. I talked about
that yesterday. We launched that with Ezekiel on the 1st. So, if you
have kids this is a great resource for going through the New Testament together
with your children. There’s Daily Audio Bible chronological, which my wife
leads that team, leads that effort going through the Bible chronologically. And
she…she took over from our daughter China who is taking this year to become a
mother and prepare for that. So, Jill is in the driver’s seat in the Chronological
community. And it is in good hands with her. So, check that out. Check out the
Daily Audio Bible Proverb. That moves us through the Proverbs, the entire book
of Proverbs in a month. Takes about five minutes a day. And you can also check
out the Daily Audio Bible Psalm which is about two minutes a day. And that just
kind of keeps us rooted. It’s like we have the Daily Audio Bible, and then we
have these little vitamins along the way, we can…little resources that we can
tune into just pour the Scriptures and wisdom into our lives. So, check that
out.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link on the homepage. I thank you profoundly and humbly for your partnership. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.
And if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, it’s the little red button up at the top that looks like a hotline button. So, just you can’t miss that. And just press that and share from wherever you are in the world, or you can dial 877-942-4253.
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:
This is Candace from Oregon please pray along with me. Lord thank you for this place where we can gather together in prayer. There are heroes among us, the nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists, physical therapists across the nation and the world who are dealing with heavy heavy pressures and many deaths to Covid. We pray Lord that you will protect and guard them, strengthen them, strengthen them emotionally, give them extra, extra help with their families, with their…with their…all of their other concerns as well. Surround them Lord, renew them, protect them from trauma themselves. Protect them especially of course from the Covid virus. Lord, I pray that this virus will back off very, very soon and that the vaccine efforts will go exceedingly well. Thank you, Lord for everything that you’re doing. In Jesus’ name we pray.
Hello, I’m calling from Arizona and I’m a long-time listener but this is my first time ever calling in and today I just feel very compelled, very overwhelmed. Like I know that I am just having a bad day doesn’t mean that I’m having a bad life. I just feel like I never ask for help and am always trying to keep it together, but I can’t always be strong. And sometimes I just feel like I just need somebody to just lift me up. And, so, that’s why I’m here to ask for prayer is. Please just lift me up and help me to keep walking. I just feel scared and overwhelmed and I’m just tired. I can’t always be strong. Thank you in advance for your prayers in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Happy New Year’s Eve family it’s Carla Jean from Nevada. I don’t know about the rest of you but when Brian says “this concludes the Bible for this year”. I cry every single year. I don’t know why. I just think it’s…I don’t know…I’m just so thankful for all of you. You are such a blessing. And Brian when you say that blessing over each of us on New Year’s Eve, I receive it. I receive it for myself and I receive it for all my brothers and sisters here. Thank you for being such a great pastor to us and shepherding us well. I think of the Daily Audio Bible as manna. It’s…every day it feeds me and I’m just so thankful for this family. Add welcome to the family, all of our new brothers and sisters that are joining us for 2021. You will not be disappointed. Please join us on social media, on the Facebook group so that we can get to know you better. My goal for this year is to call in and pray for you more. You guys know the year I’ve had, and you have lifted me in prayer and I…I pray back for all of you but I want you to know that I am praying. So, I’m gonna call in more and pray more. I love you all. I encourage everybody to donate to the Daily Audio Bible because we are being fed and this ministry must continue forever. I love you all and Happy New Year.
Hello DABs, hi Brian, my name is Karen Bentley-Green and I’m in New York. So, I started listening to DAB back in January of this year and O my gosh it has been such a wonderful experience. It has been such a journey. Thank you for inviting me to your campsite. It has been such an awesome experience just being able to go through the Bible with you. You have such inspiration. You have such wisdom, and you are not afraid to impart it. And for that my friend I say thank you. And for that my friend I say God bless you. My prayer is that God will continue to bestow wisdom upon you, to continue to pour fresh anointing, pour fresh oil upon you because this assignment, it’s…I know it’s not easy because I started, and I fell away many a times while I was doing this with you. So, I know it cannot be easy. But your tenacity and your faithfulness O my God…I so…I am so honored to be a part of this. I bless God for you and I thank God for you and I pray that He will bless you, bless your ministry, bless your family and everything that you put your hands to. I am so happy to have completed the Bible with you. Thank you so much. And for those who have fallen by the wayside. Hey, pick it up back again to just continue because at the end of the day you will finish, right? And finish strong to. So, everyone a happy new year a prosperous new year. God bless everyone and I’m looking forward to DAB next year. Thank you, Brian. God bless.
Happy new year DABbers and Brian along with your family. This is the Cross Carrier from the Bay Area. I’m a first-time caller but a long time listener. Has to have been over a decade since I’ve been listening to the DAB. Yeah, I might not call but I do give those silent prayers to everyone…for everyone that call in. I hear your word and am praying for you. Right now, I’m praying that you pray for me. This is my resolution, to call in because things aren’t working the right way. You know, I need help for my brothers and sisters through Christ to pray for me to get through alcoholism, cigarette smoking, pornography, you name it. I just want to get on a narrow path and do things right the way that God wants me to do. I…you know I tried everything else and it’s not working. And you know I can’t just continue this way trying to insert the Lord and to things like that afterwards. It just don’t mix. 2021 it got to be a change. Covid 19 has to go away and all of these things that I do has to go away as well. God bless you all. Happy new year. And I will be calling a lot more now.