Genesis 39:1-41:16, Matthew 12:46-13:23, Psalms 17:1-15, Proverbs 3:33-35
Today is the 19th day of January welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is a joy as it is every day to be here with you as we come in out of whatever’s going on and come around the warmth of the Global Campfire as a community to take the next step forward. We’re reading from the New International Version this week. And just as a reminder we’ve been working through Abraham, right, Isaac, and then Jacob. And then Jacobs children because those are the children of Israel. And now we are focused and on one of those children, the story of Joseph who has been sold into slavery by his own brothers and he’s making his way to Egypt. That’s where we left him and we’ll pick up with that story. Genesis chapter 39 verse 1 through 41 verse 16 today.
Commentary:
Okay. A couple of things for us to look at. First in the book of Genesis, we are working our way into and through the story of Joseph, like I’ve said we’ve zoomed in on this one son of Israel, this one child of Israel, Joseph. So, let’s just look at the turns the story has taken at this point. Joseph is 17 years old. He is the favorite child of his father. He has these dreams that one day his family, especially his brothers will bow down before him. His older brothers hate him, and they eventually decide to kill him but instead they traffic him. They sell him to some Ishmaelites who take him to Egypt and sell him. I mean we could just stop there and go, “that is a sudden dramatic turn for the worse in your life if you are like still high school age and your family traffics you and you are taken to another country.” Yeah, that’s bad news. We hear of those kinds of stories in the world today. So, we have some context for what Joseph is going through. Can you imagine the fear, the uncertainty, the loneliness for your father for your family, but then the knowledge that you had been betrayed by your brothers, your family, and that’s what landed you in Egypt up for sale? So, then Joseph is fortunately bought, if you want to call it fortunate, by Potiphar, the captain of the guard for the king of Egypt. So, that’s a high ranking official. And Joseph proves that he is resourceful, that he is able to manage things. And the Bible tells us that he’s well-built and good-looking. So, maybe Joseph is in pretty decent position if he has to have been sold into slavery because eventually, he is in charge of the household. But we know how the story goes. Potter’s wife sees all of the attributes of Joseph and wants those attributes to accompany her into the bedroom. And he will not do it. And he will not do it until the point…like she’s pressing in on him like on…on a regular basis until he finally has to flee, leaving his cloak, leaving evidence. She lies about him. This is guy, a 17, 18-year-old guy that is good-looking and has all of the hormones of an 18-year-old guy and he does the right thing. And, in exchange for his loyalty and fealty to his master he ends up in a dungeon. He’s eventually in charge of the dungeon. Eventually there are other officials in the dungeon, and he interprets dreams. The dreams come true and Joseph is forgotten for another two years. The thing that’s going on here that we should pay attention to is that Joseph has been trying to do everything right and only bad things are happening. He’s doing the right thing and only worse is happening. So, we could commiserate with Joseph on some level in…in at least affirming that he has a right to feel bitter. Like, he has a right to feel like he’s been betrayed and that he’s not loved or cared for and that even God is not looking down upon him favorably in any sort of way because every time he tries to be honorable something worse happens. So, you would almost believe the Joseph has a right to sit in that dungeon rotting away in bitterness and depression and loneliness. He could shake his fists up at the sky and say, “this is not fair.” That’s probably how we would behave. It’s…it would be understandable. It’s just not in the story. That’s just not how Joseph conducted himself. Somehow despite it all, and he’s been betrayed on so many levels, despite it all he doesn’t think this is God’s fault. He thinks God is his only hope. And we should remember that. We should remember that today and every day and we should remember that as we press forward tomorrow into the continuation of the story.
And then we get into the book of Matthew and Jesus is teaching in parables. And parables are like illustrations stories, stories that are told that have a deeper meaning. And if you can understand the parallel or the metaphors being used then you can unlock the deeper meaning and have greater understanding. And this is one of the reasons that Jesus was known as a wisdom teacher because parables are a staple of…of wisdom teaching. So, the parable that we read that Jesus taught today in the book of Matthew is a famous one. And, so, it’s likely that we’ve heard this story before about the seed being thrown on different kinds of ground and what happens to that seed. And then Jesus unpacking that the seed is the word of God that goes out and people hear it and then the ground is the metaphor for the people that receive that seed or that word and how it works out in their lives. And that’s clear enough that we could go back and examine our own lives to find out what kind of soil is in our heart. Like, we may need to get some rocky stuff out of our lives so that we can become fully good soil. And that’s the point of this teaching. But let’s look behind this because understanding this is a distinctive of Jesus style of communicating is important. He’s using these parables for a reason. When we watch Jesus walk into a room we don’t see him just adapt and kind of fade in and fit in. We see Jesus walk into a room and call out what is really happening there, the story behind the story. Like, what’s in any room…like if we go to a party…what’s in any room? All kinds of people who are catching up on all kinds of things who are mostly probably friends in some way. But we walk into these things with sort of a mask on. We’re bringing in what we believe to be the best presentation of our personality and the best curated stories of how our life is going. And behind all of that is the truth about everything. Everybody in this room that we’re talking about, everybody at this gathering or party that we’re talking about has a story behind the story. And the story behind the story is the true story, not the presented curated story. So. when we watch Jesus operate in the world, He only addresses the story behind the story. He is only calling out the truth of the matter, whether that be to the religious Pharisees or whether that be to the villagers. He is calling out the truth. But people don’t know how to see that way. We like our measure of darkness where we can hide plenty of stuff. And then when the light comes and shines into the darkness what’s in the dark starts squirming. What Jesus is offering, although it’s provocative and causes all kinds of problems, what Jesus is doing here and what we hear him say all the time is, “do you have eyes to see and ears to hear.” And what he’s saying is, “the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It is here now. Can you not perceive it? Can’t you see it? Can’t you hear it?” And then He models how we would begin to see it. Because isn’t this our prayer? Don’t we pray this, “God, let me see Your kingdom. Let me participate, let me see where you’re going, let me see what you’re doing so that I can fall in alignment.” Do we not pray these prayers? Jesus is showing us through His ministry how it’s done eyes to see, ears to hear. The story behind the story is the truth and if you can see the truth and if you can live true then you can see the kingdom and the kingdom comes crashing in and it is utter freedom because there is no reason to be false. There is no identity in curating our lives, our identity comes from our Father, we are children of the most-high God. There’s nothing to hide no matter what anybody might say. And yet we live hiding right? Back to Genesis 3 naked and ashamed and hiding all of our lives, when Jesus is simply saying, “that’s not how humanity was designed, that this wasn’t the way for you. You had and have perfect permission to be true. You can be true.” Which doesn’t mean you just run around telling everybody the truth, the hard truth, the truth in love and you just add everybody. It’s you inside yourself. You don’t have to be false. You can be true. And when you begin to see that inside yourself you are cultivating eyes to see and ears to hear all around you. The kingdom of heaven is at hand all around us. We will find it in the story behind the story, the true one. And let’s watch that. Like, let’s take it on board we need it. This needs to sink in. This is how to live. But watch how many times Jesus talks about eyes to see and ears to hear as we continue through the Gospels. Watch how much of a theme this is. Watch how He’s trying to open the eyes of humanity to show them there is a better way. You can lay down the darkness and walk away from what’s false and just be, be who you are. You don’t have to measure up. The culture is creating all of the demands on you but in the end, they don’t mean anything. We are already children of the most-high God. There’s nothing else to achieve here other than to live true and show others that there is freedom in the light when we walk away from what is false and dark.
Prayer:
Jesus this is so fundamental to…to Your teachings and to this faith and yet it is so seldom brought forward. And yet this changes everything, a new way to see, a new way to hear that will lead us into truth, into all truth. And, so, what else can we ask for but eyes to see and ears to hear? And, so, we’re asking. Help us to begin to see what’s going on behind what’s presented. Help us to look for the truth and may begin in our own hearts because it’s so easy to look into somebody else’s life and make assumptions about what’s going on in their world when that is like trying to get the speck out of our brother’s eye while we have a log in our own. Help us to begin to see the story behind the story inside of ourselves. Help us to live true from within 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.
Community Prayer and Praise:
Hey everyone it’s Margo from Australia soon to be leaving to go back to Liberia. And this parts the hard part. It’s very hard whenever I have to leave Australia. So, I’m asking for prayer for this transition. We’ve been in Australia for an extended period this time because of Covid and it’s also gonna be quite complicated to get back to Liberia the way things are. We have to get a negative Covid test here then we have to stop over in London and get another negative Covid test. Then we go to Uganda and we’ve got to have a couple weeks there for some more training for my husband. And then we have to have another negative test, Covid test to go to Liberia. And like everyone I really wish the world wasn’t a like this. But at the moment we are leaving on Saturday and it’s such a wrenching every time I have to go. Once I get there, I know I’ll settle in and I’ll…I’ll get back into the swing of things, but the leaving is so hard. I don’t want to leave my three sons, my mom, my sisters, all the comforts of Australia go back to a culture that I don’t understand yet. And a lot of the time I can’t understand the people. And I know it’s my calling and I love what I do. I love it I truly do but sometimes I’m just very aware of how hard it can be, and I would love your prayers. I just want to be able to really feel the presence of Jesus with me as we set off again and I want to be constantly reminded of why am doing this and the fact that it is an honor to suffer for Jesus in any way. Okay guys. Love you all heeps. Thanks for praying.
Good morning this is little Carol 1960 calling from Lancaster County Pennsylvania and I just want to say this place is my oxygen. I just can’t even express…I cannot even express how this has been a blanket and also solid ground for me through very difficult times. And those of you who call in my heart both goes out to you and I have compassion and empathy for you. I pray for you. You also are such an encouragement to me. And I just want to share a little bit. My life has been like a novel. I won’t go into it now. I will perhaps later. But been…going…went…lived through some almost death experiences -violent home, runaway etc. And the Lord carried me through. He…He knew me before I was even born. And I just see signs of that all through my life but there’s something that happened recently that just knocked my feet out from under me and it was due to my own sin and my own choice. And now I am alone, my church has asked me to leave. I had an affair with someone within the church. I was in a lonely, lonely marriage for so long and I fell. My children have left me. I only have this one person in my life who loves me. And I just want to say shame is very real and conviction is very real and pain is very real, but I hope that this really helps us to __ …
Hello this is Wonderfully Made in Albuquerque. I have a prayer request. But before I share the prayer request, I need to share something about myself. I haven’t explained why I’ve called myself Wonderfully Made. So, I’m going to. So, I have a distinct mark on my face, and it’s been there since I was about a month old because of a…a tumor that was removed from my face. It was a malignant tumor and the doctors had to remove it or else I would’ve died. So, it’s been there ever since and I’ve learned at a very very young age that…well…God looks at the inward appearance, at the heart, man looks at the outward appearance. And also, one of my life versus is from Psalm 139, I praise you. Your works are wonderful I know that full well. I praise you for I’m fearfully and wonderfully made. And I probably got that mixed up but it’s from Psalm 139. So, I thought when I started calling into DAB that that would be the name I’d give myself. And, so, that’s what I am wonderfully made. But there are times when I don’t feel wonderfully made and today is of those and I’m running out of time to go deeper into it. So, I’ll just ask for prayers that I will look to the Lord and trust that what He has made is wonderful. So, thank you. Goodbye.
Hello DAB family this is Sunset Cindy on January 15th and I just listened to Jeremy Neff from Southern Oregon and I was deeply moved that he’s invited us all into his journey. He’s talking about hospice is coming up for him and he can see the end of his timeline. He can see that his journey might be ending unless the Lord intervenes with a miracle which I pray for. And also, I pray for strength for him and his family. There is such a deep compassion I can hear in his voice for the word of the Lord and how deeply grateful he is that he got to read through the Bible. I too read through the Bible for the first time with you all last year and I’m deeply grateful. His love for the word and his love for the Lord are sustaining him and I want to tell him I’ll be lifting him up in prayer as well. Whenever he comes to mind, I pray the Lord brings him to mind when he’s needing some encouragement, I’ll be offering that up to the Lord for him. Thank you, Jeremy for including us in your journey and Lord bless you and keep you and Lord bless and keep your family safe. Amen. God bless you all. I love you.
Hi this is Radiant Rachel I’d like to lift up Jeremy Neff and his family to you Lord today. I’m just praying that you will comfort them and that you will walk with them through…through the year and I pray healing over Jeremy. I pray that he does not have chemo or radiation backlash and I pray that his body begins to heal. And Lord I just pray that your will will be done and that you will bring healing and restoration to the family and…and peace and joy in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Hello Daily Audio Bible this is Janelle living in China. I hope it’s OK that I’m calling again in the same month. I am currently on December 19th. So, I’m a little less than a month behind at this point. Hoping to catch up soon. Still haven’t been completely as consistently listening everyday as I would like but I had heard a prayer that I think played on December 16th or 17th. The caller was Quiet Confidence. And quiet confidence you were talking about how you wanted to go home. And, oh sister I can relate to that. About three years ago I was in a severely depressed state and I was never suicidal, but I had that same phrase running through my mind. And I know that my situation and your situation are not the same, but I’ve been through something similar and I’ve come through the other side and I hope that by this point on January 19th you are doing much better and if you’re not I hope you can hang in there and that you can pray this prayer that I found helped me and I hope will help you as well. Holy Spirit give me peace. It’s a prayer that I found actually eases tension in my muscles. Even if it’s just for 30 seconds it’s enough to get through that 30 seconds. And sometimes that’s all you need. Just keep praying that. Thank you. Bye.