Genesis 13:5-15:21, Matthew 5:27-48, Psalm 6:1-10, Proverbs 1:29-33
Today is the sixth day of January, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian, how are you today? How is your first full week of the year going? We are definitely getting established in the rhythm that we’ll follow here in the Scriptures, but chances are being the first week of the year, we are establishing a lot of different rhythms that are aimed at making us lead a more healthy life and tending the garden of our hearts, our inner life is key to that, at least according to the Bible. So, we’re well on our way. This is day six of our journey, we’re moved in to all the books that we will be reading and so let’s, let’s dive in, we’re reading from the New International Version this week, Genesis chapter 13 verse 5 through 15 verse 21 today.
Commentary:
Okay so, in the book of Genesis today, we, we are traveling alongside this man named Abram. God has called him to go into a land that he didn’t know, and for that matter God called him and Abram didn’t know God. So, this is a God Abram didn’t know telling him to go to a land he doesn’t know, and Abram does it. And so, we’ve been watching that happen. And we know that Abram’s nephew Lot is along for the journey. And they both have a lot of stuff. So much so that they can’t wander together, they can’t be, they’re like nomadic tent dwelling people and they have a tun of livestock and people. And so, the land just can’t support that much. So, they got a go their separate ways, which we watched happen today, with Lot looking around and choosing what he thought was the best land and Abraham taking what was left over and then we read this account of five kings versus four kings fighting it out in the Dead Sea area. Two of those kings are the king of Sodom and the king of Gomorrah and those cities are famous in the Bible. In the end though, Lot gets captured in the battle and he is taken off as plunder, his family is taken off and word arrives with Abram and he goes in pursuit. And according to the book of Genesis he passes through Dan and follows them all the way till, till near Damascus. What’s interesting is that the ancient city of Dan exists. What’s even more interesting is that in more recent years some ruins have been found that have been excavated and what they revealed was a city gate, one of the oldest city gates that have been found. There are two that are similar in age in Israel, but some of the oldest ancient city gates that are known. They’re Canaanite gates. So, being able to visit there and look upon that gate and then reflect back to this story in the book of Genesis you realize this, it’s like not super far of a stretch to think Abram, Abraham went through here, pursuing Lot, after he had been captured. Now, obviously they didn’t have any security cameras on the gates at that time and there was no YouTube or anything like that to stream evidence to so, nobody knows who went through those gates, we just know that Abram went this way in pursuit of Lot to get his family back, which he did, but it’s deeply fascinating to stand there look at those ancient gates and they’re really, really old and crumbling and falling apart, but to realize you’re looking back all the way as far as the book of Genesis, it’s pretty profound. And during all of this, once the battles are over and the people have been recaptured and the families have been reunited and plunder is about to be divvied up, we meet a person with an interesting name, Melchizedek. We’ll actually talk a little bit more about Melchizedek a little later on our journey through the Bible. We’re going to hear this guy two other times, once in the Psalms and once in the book of Hebrews and by the time that we get to the book of Hebrews we will have gained a significant amount of context for the journey that we are on and it’ll make a lot more sense. But for where we are right now, Melchizedek is the first priest of the most high God that we encounter in the Bible. So, as we continue our reading, God came to Abram, who is also known as Abraham, I don’t think that’s too much of a spoiler, Abraham will become Abram’s name once God changes it. And God is telling Abraham, Abram that he’s going to have so many offspring that they, like if you could count the sand on the seashore then you could count his offspring. The problem is that Abram doesn’t have any offspring and he’s pushing 100 years old and his wife, she’s in her 90s. So, you can see there’s a little bit of a disconnect and how this is going to happen. Abraham he probably has his mind plenty well around how these things do happen, like where babies come from. But to say that getting pregnant in your 90s would be a risky pregnancy, that would be an understatement. Here’s the thing, because Abram’s response in this moment affects the rest of the Bible and formulates a central, like one of the most important understandings of the Christian faith. The apostle Paul’s centers so much of his theology around the action that we read today and again context will begin to unfold before us as we continue to take the journey and by the time, we get into the letters of Paul we’ll be able to reflect back on this very moment at the very beginning of the year, at the very beginning of our journey. What Abram did was believe God, despite the natural impossibility of Abram and Sarai having a child together. He believed God, and God counted Abram righteous because of this, of this belief. Another way of saying this, may be a little more modern and understandable way of saying this is that Abram had faith in God despite what the circumstances were and God counted that as righteousness on Abram’s behalf. It’s so important for us to understand that righteousness before God is like the chief goal here in the Bible. The Bible is gonna touch every little part of our lives, but being in good standing before God is the core objective. And Abram achieved this objective without jumping through a single hoop, lighting a candle, reciting a prayer, observing rituals or even obeying God’s law that we will see come, come into being in the Scriptures. Once we meet this man named Moses a little while from now. Abram didn’t have a lot of obey. He didn’t have a book of customs or rituals. There was no Bible. He simply believed and I cannot understate how important that is to the biblical narrative out in front of us. So, let’s remember this day, let’s remember what we’ve read this day in the book of Genesis because these things will flesh themselves out into context for us, but they are monumental.
Prayer:
Father, we thank You for the opportunity to start at the beginning and work our way forward and let the whole story unfold before us. It’s our goal to be in Your presence and to be in each other’s presence every day as we take this journey, as we listen to what the Scriptures have to say so that we can finally see contextually everything, we’re reading every word, every sentence, every paragraph, every book and we thank You that as we’re diligent and faithful to the journey You will reveal Yourself to us. So, we believe You, we believe You Lord. We take this example from the beginning of the book with this foundational character, Abraham, the patriarch of the Hebrew people and we choose to follow and then example, we believe You. So, come Holy Spirit, plant what we have read today into our hearts and we look forward to the fact that if we cultivate these seeds that are being planted there will be a harvest in our lives and we believe that, we believe You. So, come Holy Spirit into all of this we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com that is home base, it is the website, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here. And you do that within the Daily Audio Bible app as well, of course, with the drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner and so check, check out what’s going on, get plugged in in any way that you can, in any way that you want to. Check out the Community section, that is where the Prayer Wall lives and the Prayer Wall is an always on, never off resource available to the Community here. We can always reach out for prayer and we can always reach back in prayer to each other there and that is one of the distinctives about the Community here, we pray for one another, we love one another through all of the things we face together in a year. We get to know each other by story and by voice and so definitely be aware of the Daily Audio Bible Prayer Wall, that is in the Community section. Also, in the Community section are different links to different places to get connected so check that out in the Community section.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com or if you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996 Springhill, Tennessee 37174. And I thank you. I thank you, humbly and profoundly, if the mission to bring the spoken word of God read fresh every day and given freely to anyone who will listen, any time of day or night, anywhere on this planet and to build community around that rhythm so that we’re not alone, not in life and not on our journey through the Bible, if that is life-giving to you then thank you for your partnership.
And of course, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app or there are a number of numbers that you can dial depending on where you are in the world; in the Americas 877-942-4253 is the number, if you are in the UK or Europe 44 2036 088078 is the number call and if you are in Australia or that part of the world 61 3 8820 5459 is the number to call.
And that’s it for today, I’m Brian, I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.