Genesis 1:1-2:25, Matthew 1:1-2:12, Psalms 1:1-6, Proverbs 1:1-6
Today is January 1st welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian and it is great to be here with you today as we begin a journey, a journey that’s going take us a year, a year-long journey. That’s up pretty long journey, but by the time we finish this journey, we will have spent a year together in community around what we know around here as the Global Campfire and we will have read every sentence, every paragraph, every word in the Bible, which in so many ways is the adventure of a lifetime. It is incredible, what is in this book. It is amazing how it touches every aspect of life and shows us how to live. I mean, by the time we finish our journey the one that we are boarding and setting sail on right now as we speak, by the time we conclude this journey the Bible will have touched nearly every aspect of the way we live, and it will do it in profoundly enriching ways. And, so, it is fantastic to be here with you on day one of 365 days. And this begins year number 17. So, 17 years ago today this story began, not the story of the Bible, but the story of the Daily Audio Bible, and every day since that day, we haven’t missed a day. We’ve been here around the Global Campfire taking the next step forward together every single day. And, so, it is in honor and a privilege and a joy to be here with you today as we embark on our journey through the Scriptures. So, if you took the journey last year, or maybe the last decade or whatever welcome back. I cannot wait to see how this year shapes up and what we learn and glean from each day, day by day in the Scriptures. If this is day one for you, welcome aboard. We’ll have so much fun as we take this journey. And basically, what we’ll do each and every day is read a portion in the Old Testament, read a portion in the New Testament and read a little bit from the Psalms and a little bit from the book of wisdom, the book of Proverbs each day. And since this is day one of the year, that means we’re like starting from scratch, so we will be beginning four different books - the book of Genesis, the book of Matthew and then obviously Psalms and Proverbs. And typically, when we…when conclude a book and then move into some new territory, the next book, we’ll talk about it, kinda do a little fly over, get a little bit of orientation to what it is we’re going to be spending time reading. But since we’re starting four different books today, that’s a lot…that’s a lot to do on day one. So, we’ll orient ourselves to these four books over the next four days. It’s just kinda moving in, moving into the rhythm that we will have as we go through this year. It’s like we’ve boarded this big vessel. We have our own room, our own space, and we gotta kinda move into it because we’ll be journeying for a year.
Introduction to the book of Genesis:
So, most of us probably know that the first book of the Bible is the book of Genesis. But the book of Genesis is a part of a grouping of books known as the Torah or the Pentateuch, and this grouping comprises the first five books in the Bible - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And often we think of the book of Genesis we consider the…the story of creation and the origin, the beginning of the story, the origin of man. And that’s obviously a very important story but it’s not the entire story of the book of Genesis. It actually encompasses the first few chapters. Genesis actually covers more history than any of the other books in the Bible. About 2500 years are covered in the book of Genesis. Genesis actually covers more time in history than the rest of the Old Testament combined. So, we’ll start at the beginning, the beginning of the story, the creation story and go all the way until the children of Israel, who we’ll meet, we’ll follow them all the way until they end up in the land of Egypt and become a numerous population. So, basically the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis will be covering a couple thousand years. And we’ll also travel a couple thousand miles. And then things will slow down, and we’ll have a couple centuries to deal with as we get to the end of the book of Genesis. And the children of Israel that we just mentioned, the Old Testament of the Bible is largely centered around these people and their story and how God revealed himself to them and through them. And they have an awful lot to teach us because they’re not so different than we are. And, so, let’s begin. We’ll read from the New International Version today and then through next week as we get moved in on our journey. But today Genesis chapters 1 and 2.
Commentary:
Okay. So, we have taken an important first step. Obviously, the first step in our year and we’ll keep stepping forward all the way through the year, but a first step in the Bible, one that gives us important information and important context for where this journey is gonna take us. And, so, we begin in the beginning, right? In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. That’s important to know. And all the things that were created in the following days were on purpose by design. So, that gives us a sense of understanding that we’re not all accidents upon this earth by some sort of random chance. We’re here because we’re supposed to be here. It was intentional that we would be here. According to what we read today we bear the image of God, created in his image, to be image bearers upon this earth. And it is the breath of God that breathed life into humanity. And we’re getting the briefest of glimpses in the book of Genesis right now to a time when everything was as it was supposed to be. It was perfect. Something went wrong somewhere along the way, right? Because we can look at the world that we’re in right now and say that it is less than perfect. It is beautiful and lovely and sustains our lives, but less than perfect. And we look around at each other as human beings and know that we are far from perfect. Although we may be created in the image of God something happened somewhere and we’ll be getting to that story as we continue forward.
And then as we began the New Testament today in the book of Matthew, we…we read a lot of lineage, a lot of names. And the genealogies that are found in Scripture, so many people like refer to them as, “why is that in the Bible?” But these names that we read today, we’re gonna get to know these people. The story of the generations leading up to the birth of Jesus is a story of many generations of life, of laughter and tears, like everyone else in the world. And as we begin the book of Matthew we are also beginning a new story, a story of God made flesh, a story of God, this creator God that we’re reading about in Genesis, incarnating Himself, becoming human and living among us not only to rescue us but also to model for us what humanity is supposed to look like, which is what we, who are Christian believers in Jesus are trying to live into - like Christ, Christlike. And there will be so many opportunities for us to explore that as we take this journey.
So, there’s gonna be plenty for us to discuss and we can’t discuss it all in one day, but we will be able to talk about a lot of things step-by-step day by day, including where you’ve landed here, what this Daily Audio Bible is and how it works. In the coming days we’ll kind of unpack some of that. Like a said, it’s as if we boarded a large vessel and we’re unpacking and we’re getting settled in for a long journey, a journey that will take us through a year of our lives together with tens of thousands of brothers and sisters that are wrapped all the way around the globe. But this is day one and this is where we begin, in the beginning. We read the genealogies of Jesus but if we think about our own genealogy, just think about it. Your parents, your grandparents, your great-grandparents, your great-great-grandparents spanning way back into history, people that we don’t even know their names, we don’t know anything about their lives, but the choices that they made compounded until we existed in this world. And every single one of us have come here today because of billions of choices that were made over the generations that landed us here. And here we are, regardless of what continent we live on or what time zone we’re in. No matter our station in life, whether wealthy or impoverished, whether healthy or struggling with our health. Whether a long-term disciple of Jesus or cracking open the Bible just to find out what’s in it. We’ve all got here by the decisions of those who’ve gone before us and at some point, we made a decision to push play and now we’re in this together. So, no matter how you got here. Whether it was planned all along our whether you had all long New Year’s Eve night and have woken up super hung over and depressed and have decided to turn toward spirituality. No matter how we got here, we’re here and we’re in this together. No matter who you are or what you’ve done I’m so happy, I’m so happy we can take this journey. We’re all in this together and I cannot wait to see where this journey takes us.
Song:
Relate – For King and Country
Has life hit you so hard that you’ve been knocked down?
Have you gone too far to find the middle ground?
Did they raise you so high just to pull you back down?
Have you been so lost you could never be found?
‘Cause I’ve been real, I’ve been fake
Been a sinner, been a saint
I’ve been right, I’ve been so, so wrong
Yeah, I’ve made my mistakes
I don’t know what it’s like to be you
You don’t know what it’s like to be me
What if we’re all the same in different kinds of ways?
Can you, can you relate?
We both know what it’s like to be hurt
We both know what it’s like to feel pain
But I think it’s safe to say we’re on to better days
Can you, can you relate?
Can you relate?
Have you ever been left when you should’ve been loved?
Has there ever been a time when you stayed but you should’ve run?
'Cause I’ve been real, I’ve been fake
Been a sinner, been a saint
I’ve been right, I’ve been so, so wrong
Yeah, I’ve made my mistakes
Now, I don’t know what it’s like to be you
You don’t know what it’s like to be me
What if we’re all the same in different kinds of ways?
Can you, can you relate?
We both know what it’s like to be hurt
We both know what it’s like to feel pain
But I think it’s safe to say we’re on to better days
Can you, can you relate?
Can you relate?
Can you relate?
Can you relate?
I don’t know what it’s like to be you
You don’t know what it’s like to be me
But by the grace of God we’ll see each other’s heart
Can you, can you relate?