Isaiah 39:1-41:16, Ephesians 1:1-23, Psalm 66:1-20, Proverbs 23:25-28
Today is the 22nd day of September, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible, I’m Brian. It is my joy and honor and privilege to be here in my seat around the Global Campfire and it is so good to be here with you around this Global Campfire that we call home. This little oasis in the thick of the world and the craziness of it all. This one place that we go and take deep breaths and let them go and allow God’s word to speak in a safe and serene place. And so, let’s dive in, we’re continuing our journey through the book of Isaiah. When we get to the New Testament, we have some new territory to move into; the letter to the Ephesians and we’ll talk about that when we get there, but first Isaiah chapter 39 verse 1 through 41 verse 16.
Introduction to the Book of Ephesians:
Okay, that brings us here to the beginning of the letter to the Ephesians, which is going to take us into some new territory and some new ways of thinking. Ephesians is different than any of the other letters that we’ve read so far, which leads and has led certain biblical scholars to wonder who wrote this, clearly, its Paul line, clearly, it comes from his theology and from his way of thinking, but some wonder like, is this his style or did this come later, or are there developments that are later? Did Paul actually write this? And that’s been up to…for debate for…for a long time. But then other Biblical scholars would be like, look, these letters were being passed around and copied and sent to each other all over the places, there would be nuances. There’s no way to nail this down and that’s equally fair. And Ephesians, well Ephesus is not a place that Paul wasn’t familiar with. So, the people receiving this letter knew Paul and he knew them, which could explain some of the differences in the ways that he speaks. I guess if you’re writing a letter to people you don’t know to introduce yourself or to a church, maybe that you’ve founded and you know the leadership but it has grown and there are new people involved. That’d be different than if you’re writing a personal letter to a group of people that you knew them all. Paul had spent about three years in Ephesus in the community that was established there, that he had established there. Ephesus was an important city in the Roman Empire. It was a port city. So, imports and exports are coming in and out of there as well as people from all over the place, arriving by ship, which would obviously make it a melting pot of different customs and different spiritual ideas. Ephesians is a little different, because Paul’s not writing to correct a bunch of stuff and we’ve seen that in the letters so far where he’s correcting things because of others who have come in and taught differently. He’s correcting things that he’s been asked directly about; he’s correcting things that he’s heard are going on. Rather, he’s writing to people he knows and he’s been arrested at this point. So, he’s writing this from prison. That’s really compelling, like, once we start reading this, to imagine that this was written from an incarcerated person that was up for capital punishment, like, a life-and-death case is pretty remarkable because Ephesians gives us a glimpse into who we are because of what Jesus has done and where this is all going and it gives us a glimpse of the good news that, if you really just stop and think about some of the things that are being said, it’s almost like, how can that, that is to good, that is so good that it makes you think how do I, that’s the world I want to live in, like that, yes how do I get there? So, for Paul to be in prison and sending along this encouragement is really compelling to read. And you can imagine, Paul gets arrested as a ringleader of those who are now following Jesus. Those who are now known as Christians. If you’re in the Roman Empire near a Gentile, and you’ve heard of Paul and you’ve kind of, you’re in the culture and you kind of know that there’s some things stirring around this, you’re not necessarily, I mean like, if he’s in jail and he could be executed. You probably not looking for how you can sign up to be part of this club and if you have found Jesus and now Paul’s in jail and could be killed. It’s hard to think about how you would navigate the marginalization and how you would navigate what you’re going to do, how you going to manage with the culture turning against you. So, for Paul to write such grand views of the faith. Such hopeful things to contemplate is really beautiful on a lot of levels. So, let’s dive in, it’s a letter, it’s not a superlong letter but let’s drink every drop and let it lift our spirits and lift our eyes to the horizon that we might see what’s really going on here instead of just trying to cope and survive. And with that we begin Ephesians chapter 1.
Prayer:
Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for this new territory that we are moving into in the letter to the Ephesians. Holy Spirit come, reset our vision, reset our attitude and our convictions as we contemplate what is in this letter over these next few days. Come, Holy Spirit, and lead us into all truth. This is a promise and we need the Spirit of truth to guide our steps, so come, Jesus we pray in your mighty name, we ask. 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.
Prayer and Encouragements:
Hello Daily Audio Bible family, this is Asia from the City of Angels. And I just had to call in and pray for our sister Vicki from Northern California. Vicki, we hear, we hear the fragility in your voice as you tell your DAB family what happened to your son but yet we hear the strength of your faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and in the glory of God, even in your child and you’re suffering. I just want to give it up to you and my heart goes out to you, our arms are lifted to hold you during this time, our sister, and to give you the love of Jesus right now, through your fellow DAB family for what you’re going through with the loss of your son. And, I do pray right now also Father God, please protect all of our medical care workers, our caregivers and workers in these environments Lord, in these current COVID times we’re living through. We just pray for them. We pray for their protection. We pray for their courage and we pray for their own health in this season, Father God. And, I just wanted you say thank you to the DAB Family for just your love, just showing everyone the love of Jesus Christ. Thank you.
I just want to praise God. And I want to thank you all for your prayers. Today, is September 18th and I am a little behind on my, on my, on listening to the Daily Audio Bible. I just…just finished listening to September 14 and at the end Cam in California had requested prayer for rain out here in the West. And I just want to tell you, I am driving on Highway 58 through the mountains in Oregon and it is raining. It started raining yesterday. We haven’t had rain for a long time and it has been so smoky and so dry, there’s been so many fires out here. It’s just been really, really, really a rough summer. But it is raining and everything is wet. Everything is crisp and the air is clean and I just want to tell you that God is so awesome. And He’s heard your prayers. The prayers that have been prayed since Cam’s request aired on September 14th, four days before it started raining. God has heard your prayers and He has answered. And I just wanted to praise Him and I just want to thank you all for praying for us out here. We are so grateful for this rain, praise You God. You are so awesome, praise You.
Hello, Jermain here, new to the DAB community. And, I’ve been pretty moved by the different prayer requests and praise reports at the end of these talks and I wanted to request some prayer for a good friend of mine, his name is Bill. He has…he has done a lot of work for the Lord and he’s brought a lot of, exposed a lot of people to Jesus since I’ve met him. A very strong soldier for the Lord. And, he, in the past couple years, he…he got schizophrenia and his relationship has been very, very rocky with God since then. At times, it appears he’s an enemy of God. And I know it’s has a lot to do with his mind, but I want to pray, I want to ask that we could, if you would pray for his healing. But in addition to that, pray also for everyone who is…who his around him, and help us to, pray that we would receive divine assistance in loving him the way that he should be loved cause it has been very hard since…since he’s changed in this way, it’s like he’s a, almost like a completely different person. But that is my, that is my prayer request and I appreciate the existence of this community and I’m looking forward to getting more involved. Hopefully meeting…meeting some of you. Bye bye.
Hey Daily Audio Bible family. It’s James no longer the teacher in LA after 11 years with our fine school district. I actually moved to a school district north of Los Angeles and been there for little over a month now and honestly spent a lot of those first weeks questioning the wisdom of my decision, finding out that benefits weren’t gonna be as good, a lot of things weren’t gonna be as good but you know what, I met another teacher there who was just reminding me that working for the students like this can be ministry and that’s the word they used was ministry. And boy if that didn’t re-light a fire that’s been inside me for a long time that made my last few months really crushed. So, in the last week, seven days, I’ve had the opportunity to reach out to four students already, but the good news, in one form or another, like one a day. And I went over to thank this teacher for just their kind words and they said this past Friday, they shared the news with three students in a day and this is not normal for either of us so please be lifting up our high school. Also, my therapist is really sick actually worried for his well-being so you can lift up my therapist John too. So, thanks family love you guys and I don’t know if I could do this without you guys. Bye.
Dear sister, I hope I get your name right I think it was Vicki from California. That’s the lady whose son passed away on, I believe August 18, he took his own life. As soon as I heard this story that you told I texted my own son and told him I love him and we talked briefly on the phone. He had PTSD for other reasons but never been in the heroic position that your son has been in for such a long time. And we are so grateful to him and to all the medical people who’ve been right there on the front line, struggling in this battle. Lord, would you uphold this dear mom, thank You for her testimony of faith in You Lord. And, thank You for her son, who ministered really to all of us, day-in and day-out as we fight in this battle against the COVID virus. I pray it would go away soon. That we would find even more and new ways to cooperate to get this to just not be part of our lives anymore. Bless this dear mom in Jesus name I pray.