Month: January 2022

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.

Rooted - for DAB

Seek - for DABC

Genesis 11:1-13:4, Matthew 5:1-26, Psalms 5:1-12, Proverbs 1:24-28

Today is the 5^th day of January, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is wonderful to be here with you today as we reach the center of our first full calendar week of this brand-new year. So, our journey is underway, we have left the harbor we are sailing out into the deep. We’re not so far that we can’t turn around and see land, but before long we’ll be out in the deep together sailing across this year. And we’ve been getting moved into all the different books that we’re reading and just kinda getting locked into the rhythm a few more days. Getting through this week we will have established the rhythm for the year. And, so, let’s take the next step forward together. We’re reading from the New International Version this week. Today Genesis chapter 11 verse 1 through 13 verse 4.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the Gospel of Matthew in our reading today we have reached the beginning of a very central, if not the central teaching of Jesus. This is known as the sermon on the Mount and its in this message that Jesus is laying out His central message, the lay of the land as it were. Here’s how things are. And we are in the section known as the…well…we read through the section known as the Beatitudes. And, so, think about it for a second, blessed are the poor in spirit? Blessed are those who mourn? out. How could that be true? So, if Jesus is laying this out as a central message then one of the things that He’s saying is, things have gotten backward. Things have gotten twisted. They’re upside down. The things that you are going after that you think are the things that you should pursue will not keep you from mourning, will not keep you from being poor in spirit. The pathway in that direction is what Jesus said, “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” So, at face value, if you’re being actually persecuted it’s hard to think that’s a blessing. The things that Jesus says are blessings or the postures that don’t like their blessed are actually blessed. How could a person even perceive it to be that way? The person who has open hands and has let go of all the striving, all of the competition, all of the trying to leach an identity off of each other by being better and one…one upping each other, all of the kind of human things that we do and interact. What we find out here in these statements from Jesus is this is the result of what we read in Genesis 3. And we saw some of those repercussions in our reading today from the Tower of Babel, people getting together without God deciding to elevate themselves and build a tower to heaven, become their own God. That is absolutely backward to the way humanity was intended to be, according to the Bible. We were created in the image of God, image bearers of God upon the earth. The breath of life was breathed into humanity from the breath of God. We are not made to be separated. And all of our attempts…attempts to be our own sovereign Lord, our own self-sufficiency, all we gotta do is look out into the world today, look deep into our own hearts today. We can see what our self-sufficiency and our own sovereignty brings us. This is what we get. But no matter what we accumulate, no matter what we dominate, no matter what we control it can’t keep us from morning, it can keep us from being poor in spirit. That kind of comfort comes from knowing there is no others source of hope but God. That everything else we try to put our hope in or everything else we try to arrange for so that we feel insulated, it can all go away. What cannot go away, what will not go away is the persistent love of God for us. We begin to realize how blessed we are to just freefall into the love of God. We begin to realize that that’s the only safe place there is. But that requires us to come to the end of ourselves and let go and complete faith and trust, that when we wake up in the morning we are on assignment to reveal God’s kingdom in this world, to be what Jesus said, to be the light of the world, the salt of the earth. So, often we aspire to those things, but we have so many obligations and pressures that, you know you, we have to work so hard at our responsibilities that getting around to being the salt of the earth, is just hard in the world to be among people doing our job or accomplishing tasks while being aware and cognizant of the fact that we are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. And that’s something we’ve gotta get our minds around. And that begins to happen as we begin to work ourselves out of the ruts and holes that we’ve dug for ourselves systematically day by day step-by-step moving forward in the right direction consistently making right decisions because we’re seeking wisdom consistently so that we can get a steady ground and then begin to just release, understanding and becoming more aware that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world than we are people hustling and bustling accumulating things and moving things around. Because if we just look at our lives outside God, we’re like busy little ants moving things from here. Like it’s moving the furniture around in our lives all the time so that we can keep think…thinking that all things are being made new. When if we would truly surrender and let go all things are being made new within us, And, so, we begin here in Matthew as Jesus is beginning to lay out His ministry with the sermon on the Mount to get glimpses at what is so compelling about Jesus, what is so compelling about the gospel.

And to begin to drive this home all we have to do is turn over into our reading from Proverbs today, “but since she refused to listen when I call and no one pays attention when I stretch out my hand, since you disregard all my advice and do not accept my rebuke I in turn will laugh when disaster strikes you.” The voice that is speaking here is the voice that introduced itself as the voice of wisdom. If we listen and heed the voice of wisdom, if we slow down enough to seek the counsel of wisdom, then she will protect us. But if we disregard…if we just below the by her at every crossroads because we’re moving so fast that we have to make decisions so reactionary that we don’t even think about wisdom as a category and just blow right by and crash into the ditch or into one wall, well then it’s like wisdom is there saying, “I was right here trying to tell you which way to go and once again you’re not where you want to be but you are right where you were going. And, so, our job is to listen to wisdom, listen to Jesus speak about an upside-down world and wonder what true and complete freedom might look like for us. Because true and complete freedom won’t be several million dollars. True and complete freedom will come as we realize our utter dependence on God and the total safety in that place of complete vulnerability, naked and unashamed before God, holding on to nothing, having nothing between us and any other person. True freedom comes from within. We can’t arrange our exterior…our exterior world in such a way that we have inner peace. And we begin to realize that what Jesus is talking about is what’s going on in the truest part of who we are at the level of our identity within us.

Prayer:

Jesus, we thank You for the Scriptures and we thank You for what we’re learning from the Gospel of Matthew as we enter the sermon on the mountain. And we invite Your Holy Spirit to come, snap us awake, shake us awake. We’ve come here to…to engage in a rhythm where we’re interacting with the Scriptures each and every day looking to them for what they say, what they actually say but looking into them and applying them into our own lives, so that it’s not just a thick book that we hear a couple verses from when we attend church, that we are actually being shaped and we’re learning how to live. Come Holy Spirit into this, we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com, that’s homebase, that’s where you find out what’s going on around here of course, unless you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, which is free from wherever you get apps. Just look for Daily Audio Bible and you’ll find it.

And in the Daily Audio Bible app there’s a Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner that allows you to access things like the Daily Audio Bible Shop. Check that out. There are resources available there that are for this community around the Global Campfire all intended to enhance the experience of moving through the Bible in a year. So, for example, there is a relatively new resource, Promised Land photographs from the land of the Bible. When had been sold out of those for a bit, just supply chain issues, but we have them back in stock and it’s a beautiful coffee table book just by itself it’s beautiful, but within its pages is a glimpse, an open window into some of the places that we’ve been talking about. So this wilderness that we are in with the children of Israel, we can see what that looks like. Or the Galilee region where Jesus did His ministry that we’ve been kind of traveling along with Him around the countryside, you can see what that looks like. And that really really kind of snaps some things into place, So, check out that resource. You’ll find it in the books and audiobooks category. Or the daily Bible Journal. This is our 3.0 version of the journal and it’s beautiful, a beautiful size, beautiful to carry around, it’s beautiful to write in. And yeah, you can get a journal anywhere but journaling your way through the Bible…like when God speaks something to you, and it awakens something in you, we should probably take notes. Like it’s a good idea. And journaling our way through the Bible in a year, kind of being consistent in that, it commits us to telling our story in our own hand with our own pen or pencil. And I…I use a pencil. I didn’t…I mean…it’s been like five years that I’ve done that. I found these pencils, I love them, best pencils you can get and rediscovered what I had lost since elementary school. Like the joy of sharpening a really good pencil and writing in my own hand. And, so, all those resources are available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop. And when we journal our way through the Bible in a year we are writing a testament, something that can be, something that can be read a hundred years from now, something that can be read in the future by our grandchildren or great-grandchildren or great-great-grandchildren, some that we may not be able to me about but we can still leave a testimony about God’s faithfulness in our lives and remembering, remembering what God did here in this place. We see that all throughout the Bible. And, so, check out the resources in the Daily…the Daily Audio Bible Shop.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, then thank you. Thank you, humbly and deeply. This is a community experience, and if we weren’t in this together. this wouldn’t be happening and it wouldn’t have happened. So, thank you. If you find what we’re doing as a community around the Global Campfire to be life-giving thank you for your partnership. There’s a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you are using the 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, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement you can hit the Hotline button in the app or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that’s it for today. I’m Brian and I love you not be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hello Daily Audio Bible family this is Bhankier from India. I just want to send this prayer request for me because lately I feel…I’ve been feeling so down, and I’ve been battling suicidal thoughts. I try…I try to focus more on God but…and on Jesus, but sometimes it’s really hard to. I pray a lot. I’ve been praying a lot more lately, but I guess I need a lot more prayers. So, I’d really appreciate if you pray for me. Thank you family. In Jesus’ name.

Good morning DAB family it’s 2:20 on December 31^st and I just listened to the Bible reading. I finished the Old Testament and the New Testament then the Psalms and then the Proverbs and then Brian talked about the end of the year and how there’s a feeling of emptiness and it reminded me of how far I’ve come. I started about five or six years ago kind of hit and miss listening to some days and some not and then about four years ago I got consistent with it. And I remember getting to the end of the year and hearing him finish every section and feeling like I was saying goodbye to it old friend. So, I understand that…that emptiness and finality of the last day. But when I started, I started just reading or listening to the Bible reading and then I added the commentary and then eventually added all the prayers and everything at the end. And this past year I started writing down all the prayer requests and going back over them and praying over one. And I just wanted to tell you guys how…how grateful I am for this community. It’s been a blessing to me, and I’ve called in requests but…or encouragement but not many requests. But today I have a request. My dad is 83 and he has COVID and some other health issues and I talked to him last night and he was not doing well. So, I’m asking you to pray for Howard. Thank you. Love…

Hello Daily Audio Bible my name is People on the Water from Indiana and I’m calling in today to ask for prayer. At the coming of this new year and as we’re going into this next year, which is just a few hours away I’m not in a good spot. And it's…it’s hard for me to talk about it because I often don’t express this part of me. I go to therapy, and we are talking about this and that. And it’s hard for me even in therapy to discuss this stuff because right now I am so entrenched with viewing X rated material and it’s taken a toll on me. And then even in that it’s just it’s just hurting me. So, I pray that you would pray for me, and I ask that humbly that in…that…that through the blood of Jesus Christ that I might recognize that I am healed, and I can stand healed, echoing that message to the brothers and sisters around me. So, thank you. I love you. And it’s in Jesus name that I pray, and I ask.

Good morning DAB family this is Shirl in southeastern Washington, Princess Warrior of God. It is December 31^st 2021, very last day of this year and I am so grateful to have completed the Bible once again. This is my…oh…12^th year, or is it 13^th year, 14th year of doing this and I am so grateful. And I just want to say thank you to the Hardin family, every one of you for putting this together for us to come and join with each and every person in this family to read the Bible through in one year. Thank you, Jesus for everyone here. And I pray that 2022 will be an awesome year for many of us. Many have lost family and friends. And I’m quite emotional right now. I’m like Brian, thinking about feeling a little empty but yet very grateful. I love you all. God bless you all. And happy new year to my DAB family. Signing out for the last time in 2021. Shirl in southeastern Washington Princess Warrior of God. Bye.

Hello dab family this is God’s Rree for I have many branches, but I’m rooted in every word of God. Praise God. We have made it through another year. I have a special praise because I’ve been with Daily Audio Bible for more than 10 years but I’ve got…honestly and ashamedly say this is my first year I’ve been able to go through the entire year and finish on time. Life happens sometimes and you get behind and you play catch up. Usually sometimes I don’t get caught up until February of the next year. But I praise God that I was determined to make it on time this year. And I praise God for that New Year’s last year because it was such a difficult year, every burden that I had, every trouble that I had, I wrote them down and I prayed over them. And my family had a bon fire and I burned every one of those last problems. And God was able to take them away this year. And then I wrote down every blessing that I needed from God this year and stuck it in my Bible and prayed over it. And praise God. God has met every one of them. I just want to admonish to each and every one of you to trust and believe in God as we go forward into this year. Let’s go in with this spirit of praise and a spirit of expectation that God’s gonna bless and He’s gonna keep us and He’s gonna cover us and He’s gonna show himself to be an awesome God. Love one another. And do kind things for one another. But most of all love your Lord and savior Jesus Christ. I love you DAB I love you Brian and the Hardin family. Continue to do what you are called to do. We’re gonna go into this year with victory. I praise God and I bless Him. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Happy new year Daily Audio Bible family. I am so excited. This is Rox from Greenville NC also go by Roxanne. I just wanted to say happy new year to everyone and so excited for what’s coming next year. I am going to be doing the chronological side. So, I’m still torn if I’m gonna do both and be a double DABber because I really just love this family. But whatever I choose I just wanted to let you all know it’s been exciting to complete this first year. I started on January 8^th and had to do a catch up and this year, this coming year I get to start with everyone on the first day of the new year and it’s just…it’s just wonderful. And yeah, I got super emotional too because one, it’s just so good how God is and that, you know, I have this app, you know, I always thought reading the Bible was gonna be so overwhelming but He has blessed Brian and Jill with this gift of ministry and this platform to make it easier and lighter for us but also heavy to convict us, to grow us, to have a better appreciation for God’s holiness and just how much He loves us. And I’m thankful. I love you all. Blessings in the new year. And I just look forward to seeing all of you or listening to all of you. Thank you. God bless. Bye.

Genesis 8:1-10:32, Matthew 4:12-25, Psalm 4:1-8, Proverbs 1:20-23

Today is the fourth day of January, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it is wonderful to be here with you on the fourth day of our journey and it takes a minute to get moved in, but we are establishing the rhythm that will carry us through the year, and part of that rhythm is apparent, we’re reading from the Old Testament and then the New Testament and then the Psalms and then the Proverbs each day. And since we began four different books on day one, we’ve been talking about the different books that we’re reading. So, we talked about Genesis and then Matthew. And yesterday, we talked about Psalms and so when we get to the Proverbs reading, we’ll talk about the Proverbs and then we’ll be moved in to the territory that we’re covering right now. So, let’s get started we’re reading from the New International Version this week. Today, Genesis chapters 8, 9 and 10.

Introduction to Proverbs:

Okay so, this brings us to our reading from Proverbs today, the last of the books that we’re moving into and so let’s talk about Proverbs. We have already talked about Proverbs being the voice of wisdom, the fact that it is practical and speaks practically to our human existence. The book of Proverbs is a part of a grouping of books that are found in the Old Testament, that are found in the Bible. So, when we talked about Genesis, we said they’re a part of, Genesis is a part of a grouping of books known as the Torah or the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. Proverbs is a part of a grouping of books known as wisdom literature. This is the genre of the book of Proverbs and the other books that are in the wisdom literature found in the Bible would be Ecclesiastes, Job, and part of Psalms. So, they’re called wisdom literature because, because of their style, because the genre. They’re intended to concisely speak a lesson that is valuable for shaping the way that we live our lives. So, for example, the Gospels, like the book of Matthew that we’re reading in the New Testament, this is in narrative style. So, it reads like a story, this happen and then next this happened and although I may skip around some, we’re kind of basically following a storyline. Wisdom literature, whether direct statement or in a parable type form, is trying to teach a specific lesson. It’s clear what it’s trying to teach and the book of Proverbs or the Proverbs that are found collected together in a book known as Proverbs are largely attributed to Solomon, who was known as the wisest man on earth, a person that we’ll get to know pretty well, as we continue the journey into the Bible. There are other voices in the book of Proverbs, including the voice of wisdom itself or herself I should say because that’s how the book of Proverbs introduces the voice of wisdom to us, in a feminine voice as we’ll see. Now were dealing with a lot of ancient books as we read the Bible. So, try to piece together how all of these books came to be and when they came to be and by whom, who was involved and what was going on, sometimes that’s difficult, in fact more than sometimes, it’s typically difficult. So, scholars look at these texts from all different kinds of angles trying to say what can be said and leaving conjecture and speculation to people who do that sort of thing. It seems that the Proverbs probably began as oral tradition. A lot of the sayings, probably, because it’s human wisdom of the ages, a lot of these sayings probably predate even Solomon but were eventually collected together and Solomon had a great hand in that, but it seems as if the collection that we now know as the book of Proverbs may not have been collected together in a collection like this until around the time of King Hezekiah, which is also somebody that we have the fortune of getting to know as we continue the Bible. Now, obviously the book of Proverbs is in the Bible and so, the spiritual and religious connotations are there, it’s included in the canon of Scripture. The Proverbs speaks very directly and very deeply to the human experience, the experience of our lives and offers the wisdom of the ages to us. Proverbs tells us whatever you do, get wisdom. And we just stop there, whatever you do, get wisdom because wisdom is a more valuable thing than anything else you could go after and the fear of the Lord is the beginning, the starting point of wisdom. And so today, Proverbs chapter 1 verses 20-23.

Commentary:

Okay, so in the book of Genesis we have experienced the flood and the end of the flood. In the book of Matthew, we are beginning to see the development of the ministry of Jesus, we are seeing that he is beginning to call together a band of brothers that are known as the disciples, but he’s calling them right away from their vocation. Most of these guys are around the Sea of Galilee and are fishermen by trade, He’s calling them and what we witness, that’s pretty extraordinary is, He’s calling to them and they’re leaving everything behind to follow after Him, which is an important distinction about being a disciple. It doesn’t mean that we need to get skilled in fishing and buy a boat and then wait for the call Jesus so that we can leave it all behind. It means that we’re not holding on to anything so tightly that it prohibits us from following Jesus, which is an important thing to think about and the Psalms tell us to think, tremble and do not sin, when you are on your beds search our hearts and be silent. One of the things for us to consider in our relationship with God is exactly what is it that’s in our lives that prohibits us from going all in, because we’re gonna see in great detail in the Scriptures that that’s what’s required, that we go all in and the Scriptures will show us that that’s exactly what God did on our behalf. He went all in on us and came in person, in the person of Jesus, which we’re beginning to learn about in the book of Matthew.

Prayer:

And so, Father, we thank You for Your word and we invite Your Holy Spirit into what we’ve read today and we ask again as we will ask over and over that You will plant the Scriptures in the soil of our hearts and that we may collaborate with You in weeding out the things that don’t belong there, so that we are good soil, so that the fruit of the Spirit is abundant and spilling out from us into the world. And so, we invite Your Holy Spirit here even at the beginning of the year to begin to reveal to us the things that would prohibit us, things that may be in our lives that are find, they’re not evil or anything like that, they’re just distractions. Give us perspective, give us a glimpse of what life could be like if we became openhanded and then there is nothing that we are clinging to too tightly that we are looking to, to bring us life. Nothing other than You, Holy Spirit, we invite You into that as we continue our journey forward and we pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com, that’s home base, it is the website and it is where you find out what’s going on around here and now, we’re moved into the different books so we talked about Psalms yesterday. We talked about Proverbs today. I just want to remind you that there are companions to the Daily Audio Bible. The Daily Audio Psalm, which is about five minutes a day. The Daily Audio Proverb, allowing us to go through the entire book of Proverbs each month just a couple of minutes a day, a chapter a day. So, these are kind of like, if the Daily Audio Bible is this Community that we’re coming together and we’re immersing ourselves in the Scriptures than Daily Audio Psalm and Daily Audio Proverb are like vitamins. One that we can take a lunch and one that we could take at dinner, depending on when it is that we’re engaging with the Scriptures in the rhythm of our lives, the resource is there and it makes a difference. If we start interacting with wisdom, for example, in the book of Proverbs and it becomes a rhythm and it’s something that we invest a couple of minutes a day toward but we keep pouring this unfiltered wisdom, wisdom that has stood the test of time, wisdom that is ancient and deep and very applicable to our lives. We start pouring that into our hearts, it’s gonna do something. We’re gonna start being able to recall things when we face sets of circumstances where we have, tried-and-true reactions, we begin to realize that we live reactionary so much of the time. So, much of our lives is spent reacting to something somebody has done toward us, or some set of circumstances that have materialized and are right in front of us, problems that we have to deal with. If we are wise though and if we are pouring wisdom into our lives, we don’t have to just react blindly, allowing emotion to take over, like maybe somebody says something to us at work or at home that we don’t like, and so our tried-and-true reaction is to get big and get strong and get loud and put it down and get into a big fight, when wisdom might tell us to handle this a completely different way. So, Daily Audio Proverb and Daily Audio Psalms are available in the Daily Audio Bible app, so check them out.

And speaking of the app, if you don’t have the Daily Audio Bible app, you can download it free from whatever app store is applicable to the device that you’re using. The Daily Audio Bible app was developed and continues to be developed over years with the intention that the Community around the Global Campfire here is in the palm of our hands. So, with the app, that’s where you find the Hotline button where we can share from anywhere in the world. The app allows you to track your progress as we move through the Scriptures. So, if there is a missed day, somewhere along the way, you can kind of find that and check off the days that you’ve listened to.

And I’ve been mentioning over the last couple days the different groupings that are in the Bible. The Bible is broken down for, for ease of understanding the genres and the material that we’re going through. So, as we complete different sections of the Bible and as we’re kind of checking off the days that were listened to, listening to, when we reach a threshold where we’ve completed a section, then the app gives us an achievement, a little badge that shows us, we have completed that section of the Bible and it helps, it helps us engage and it helps us to kind of understand and interact with what we’re reading. So, if you’re not already, this is a great time right here at the beginning of the year to look at the Daily Audio Bible app and it’s free. There are no gimmicks about it. Its mission is to help us on the journey through the Bible and to connect us together in Community, while we’re doing it. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link on the homepage. If you are 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 if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button that we were just talking about in the app, the little red Hotline button up at the top 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.

Genesis 5:1-7:24, Matthew 3:7-4:11, Psalms 3:1-8, Proverbs 1:10-19

Today is the 3^rd day of January welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian, and it is wonderful to be here with you on our third day of our adventure, our first week of the year, kind of our move in week as we establish the rhythms of our lives for the coming year. And one of those rhythms will be to incorporate the Scriptures into our lives each and every day of the journey through this year. And we’re two days in and the Scriptures have told us an awful lot in just two days. And we have also been acclimating ourselves to the books that we’re reading. And, so, we talked about Genesis on day one, the first of January and we talked about Matthew yesterday. And, so, when we get to the Psalms portion of our reading today, we’ll talk about the Psalms. But first we’re reading from the New International Version this week and our next step forward in the book of Genesis will be chapters 5, 6, and 7 today.

Introduction to the book of Psalms:

Okay. So, this brings us to our Psalms reading. And as we continue to move into this year we’re moving into the books. We’re about to read the third chapter of Psalms. So, we have a couple days behind us. And we’re reading book 1 of Psalms. And that might sound funny but Psalms is actually made up of five different books and we’ll notice when we move into another book because it’s announced in the Psalms. Psalms is a collection of poetry and song, song lyrics. And the Psalms, they basically touch every kind of circumstance that we encounter in our lives. These were the songs of the Hebrew people. These were the songs that they saying to reorient themselves to God. This…these were the songs that reminded them of who they were and where they came from and who God is. We may not have a songbook like this Psalms in this day and age, but we certainly have the songs that we keep writing to do that very thing, orient us to God, remind us of who we are, remind us of who God is, remind us of the story that we are telling. And, so, we can find hymns and congregational singings, and individual songs, and cries of the heart, and poems of worship. And we may notice that the books, the five different books, they’re kind of separated by author or by theme or by the purpose for the poetry or for the song. And these works have been revered for thousands of years. They speak the depths of the human soul, even by those who may not believe in the Bible or in the gospel. The psalms are still known to be some of the…some of the greatest collection of literature the world has ever known. And although there are several authors that contribute to the Psalms, one voice that we will get to know is the voice of King David. He’s responsible for many of these Psalms. Some of the most true, heartfelt cries of the heart come from the…the pen and the lips of King David. And David, you know, David and Goliath, this David who grows to be the king of Israel, he’s a very very popular biblical figure. And, so, we may have heard of, or be aware of David, but whether we are or not we will be. The Bible gives a very detailed, intimate portrait of King David and we’ll begin to enter that story once we reach the book of first Samuel. So, we’ve got a little ways to go before we meet David in the Bible, but we are becoming familiar with his voice and we are becoming familiar with his work in the Psalms. So, whereas we’ll get this pretty detailed biographical sketch in first Samuel, the Psalms reveal King David’s creative heart. And through his art he reveals his heart. And so many of the things that he felt in his heart and memorialized them, wrote them down, are things that we can deeply identify with. And, so, Psalms is a very very valuable resource for us in our spiritual journey. And, so, let’s dive in today and read the third chapter of Psalms.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the book of Genesis today we encounter, obviously the next step forward in the story that’s being told but some weird twists and turns today. A number of people are named. These are the first people, and we notice that they live for centuries near a thousand years even. And what the book of Genesis is beginning to unpack for us is that progressively people became more and more wicked as time went on, which ultimately introduces us to a man named Noah who built an ark. Another very famous story in the Scriptures. But let’s look at this for a second. I quote from Genesis. “When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.” And it also says, “the Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.” Who are these people? Are they people? Passages like this inspire tremendous mythology and conjecture and speculation. Theologically basically what we’re looking at here is the fact that God had a divine family of created beings that predate humanity. Beings, and often we’ll sub classify these beings into the angelic realm, beings that were to watch over humankind, but desired relations with human women. And we just get…just a handful of glimpses of this along the way when we talk about the Nephilim or Rephaim. And a lot of times these get boiled down into a subcategory, the Giants. And these giants survive the flood because they are still seen after the flood. For example, once the children of Israel are a great people, and we haven’t got to the story of how that comes to be, but once the people are a great people and they leave slavery and they go to spy out the land of promise, what are they afraid of? The Giants are there. We look like grasshoppers to them. Or who is it that David before he’s a king is so incensed by when he goes to visit his brothers at battle with the Philistines? The giant, Goliath defying the most-high God of Israel. And, so, there will be points along the way that we will notice these references and we’ll probably talk about it along the way. If this is something that you’re intrigued by and want to take a deep dive into there is a written resource called The Unseen Realm. This is written by Dr. Michael Heiser. That is probably the only book recommendation that I’ll give this whole year…like it’s so rare, but for me it’s pretty much at the top of the list because it’s an academic work simply trying to answer the question, what do the Scriptures, what does the Bible actually say from cover to cover about the unseen realm or the spiritual realm? And the implications are profound. And, so, there is a way to take a deep academic dive that is sort of devoid of conjecture and speculation. All of this leads us to Noah and the state of the world at that time. And the state of the world at that time, and I quote from Genesis. “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time and the Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.” And this is another good thing for us to look at right at the beginning. Was God so mad at people that he regretted making them? Was it people that he had the problem with or was it the fact that humankind made a decision to rebel against God in the garden, and a thousand years later because we’re jumping about a thousand years to get to Noah, it’d only devolved, it’d only gotten worse as mankind tried to grapple with the knowledge of good and evil in order to make his own standards and become his own God until the point that God looked upon the human race and realized, this is only evil all the time. It’s not the people. It’s the evil. Evil exists in this world. We all know that. We can call it whatever we want, but the forces of evil exist in this world and people can give their lives over to evil, and if they completely give their lives over to evil, then all that they think in all they do becomes evil. Evil is out of sync with shalom. Evil is out of sync with the order that God intended humanity to live in. The deception in the garden led to evil everywhere all the time. God will fight against evil all the way through the Bible all the way to the last page of the book of Revelation, where we witness the end of evil. Evil destroys people. And the world had become completely evil. And it’s here that we begin to see the first glimpses of a redemptive thread that will wind its way all the way through the Bible. There was one righteous man, Noah. He and his family survived the flood, and the story of humanity continues.

Now the deception and opportunity to fall away that Adam and Eve that we witnessed in the Genesis chapter 3 with Adam and Eve is also being visited upon Jesus in the book of Matthew where he is being tempted, right? Where a deception is being floated by Him to see if He’ll take the bait. Once again, it’s the evil one trying to offer a distorted version of reality that will continue to distort humanity. And let’s remember, Jesus was the first sinless, perfect person, a person as people were intended to be. He was the first one to walk upon the earth since Adam and Eve. We saw a different response from Jesus. He rebuked the evil and the sent it away, which sets up for us right here on day three, this incredible contrast, something that the Bible does often. Each one of us faces deception. Each one of us faces the choice to do good or evil. We might call that temptation. We have an example in the book of Genesis about what it looks like if we take the bait. It will only continue to devolve us like until the point that we become animals. And we can see that in the world today. That’s where the road will go if we give ourselves over to deception and evil. By contrast, we have Jesus’ modeling humanity for us, knowing that what was being offered to Him, even though he was being offered everything. To achieve it by becoming evil is only perpetuating the problem. Instead, we have the example of Jesus using Scripture and casting it away. We each have these choices to make on a daily basis and we’ve been given a big picture of where these roads lead.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for day three. We thank You for helping us get moved into this rhythm. We thank You for all that is coming up already in this year, just three days in. And, so, we open ourselves to You. Come Holy Spirit into all that we read this year from the Scriptures, into all that we discuss throughout this year about the Scriptures. We open our hearts to You and ask that You begin to plant seeds into the soil of our lives. And as we learn to tend the soil, the field of our own hearts, just begin to understand our own hearts may the fruit of the Spirit abound in us. Help us to see clearly the decisions that we are making. Help us to see evil clearly and avoid it we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi this is Man of Wrath in the US and I’m calling in for the first time. I had actually was going to call in before the holidays and ask for coverage over my family and just pray for good interaction. And I didn’t get around to it and I’m feeling…feeling that I really should have because once again I’ve ruined a holiday. And…and I just would ask that you would cover my family, my wife, and my children because of my emotional abusiveness and verbal abusiveness, and the havoc that it’s wreaked over my family. And I just pray that…that I can be forgiven. I know that my God Forgives me but, just that I could forgive myself and be forgiven by my family and the damage that I have done again can somehow be rectified. I pray that I can control myself, which I don’t, a clear definition of a fool. I obviously don’t fear God because I don’t do what He wills and I do exactly the opposite, what I know is wrong. So, I just ask for your…your prayers over my family, that they would…they would be resilient and be able to not be affected. But I know I’ve broken their hearts again.

Hi, my name is Eleanor this is my first time listening to the Daily Audio Bible and I was really moved by the community of prayer that you guys apparently have after the podcast. I started to hear prayer requests roll in and I hope that someone can pray for me. I have two young children and I have thoughts of taking my life often because I feel like I’m not a good mom, I’m not a good enough parent. And I feel so disappointed in myself all the time. And I know that the Bible says that…that God is bigger than these problems and that He’s big enough to sustain me and I try to lean into that. And…and it’s hard. So, I would really like prayers for…for that, to be able to lean on the Lord and to do so for my mental health…for my mental health and for my children as well and for God to just make me the person that he needs to be. And I hope that on the other side of this it can be a testimony it can be my testimony that I could share with other women and other moms that probably go through the same thing. But thank you. Happy new year.

Hello family it’s Sean 3:16. Have you ever made a mistake and the fear of that you feel for the possible consequences of a mistake is crippling? That’s where I am right now. Only God can do it for me. And I’m praying. I hope you will pray along with me that God will deliver me from the consequences of a mistake and that He will make everything alright. Thank you for your prayers. Sean 316.

Hello DAB family I’m calling anonymously today because I have something on my heart, and I’m concerned, and I really need your prayer. I’ve been working for almost two decades for a Christian organization that I love but a number of months ago I was pushed out of my role in one area of the organization, and I’ve never felt so devalued and demoralized in my life. At the same time, I was rescued by the director of another department who saw my value and didn’t wanna lose me in what he saw as my worth in my history with the organization. And, so, I’ve assumed a new role learning it from scratch while I’ve still had to cover in my former role because they didn’t get my replacement until just recently. But now I’m training this person in all the things that I used to do. And I know that his salary is much much higher than mine. This is really humbling but I’m asking you to pray for me for my heart to be grateful for what I have and to be able to honor my new boss who’s been so kind to me and that I forgive those in leadership who made me feel so devalued. And I’m gonna take on that challenge that Brian gave to read the full chapter of proverbs each day in 2022 in addition to the daily reading because I really need wisdom and I want the Lord to set a watch over my lips that I might speak wise words and not grumble about my circumstances. I really want to spread the fragrance of Christ where I am. So, thank you so much for your prayers. I love you all.

Father God thank You so much for this time we’ve had together. Thank You for the opportunity we’ve had to celebrate Christmas and to remember the birth of our savior Jesus Christ. Thank You, Lord for all that represents. Thank You for the hope we have because of what You have done and what Jesus has done. Father God thank You for our friends and our families. And we pray that You would be watching over them and that You would be healing them and that You would be at work in their hearts and minds, that they may come to know You more or they may come to know You first off. Father God as we look back on this year, we thank You for how You have blessed us, and we pray that You’d help us to learn from what we need to learn from and help us to move forward into the new year. Thank You for all that this new year entails. Thank You for all the new opportunities. And I pray Lord that You would be inspiring us and helping us to be the best version of ourselves. Lord You know what is concerning us at this time. You know what is worrying us and we just commit that to You and ask You to be at work. Thank You that we can trust and rely on You. Help us to walk with You each day. In Jesus’ holy and precious name. Amen.

Genesis 3:1-4:26, Matthew 2:13-3:6, Psalm 2:1-12, Proverbs 1:7-9

Today is the second day of January, which makes it day number two on our journey through the Bible this year. Step two of the 365 steps, welcome back. It is fantastic to be here with you today as we take the next step forward together, which is what we will repeatedly do all the way through this journey. And so, as we were talking about yesterday, we’re just moving in, we’re just getting into the rhythm and it takes a week to kind of get into this rhythm and get everything unpacked and get ourselves situated with what’s going on and get comfortable for the journey. And one of the things that we went through yesterday was the fact that the way that the Daily Audio Bible works is a little Old Testament a little bit from the New Testament a little bit from the Psalms and a little bit from the Proverbs each day and when we encounter a new book, when we finish one book and go into the next book, we always kind of fly over and give ourselves a little bit of orientation, a little bit of a overview of the territory that we’re heading into. And so, as we began the year yesterday, we began four different books so we’ll take four different days to kind of move into the rhythm that we’re in, we talked about the book of Genesis yesterday. When we get to our New Testament portion in the book of Matthew today, we’ll talk about Matthew and it won’t be long before we are acclimated but one thing, we do is to keep the main thing before us, which is the next step forward in the Scriptures. And so, let’s dive in. We began the book of Genesis yesterday by reading chapters 1 and two. Today, Genesis chapters three and four.

Introduction to Matthew:

Okay so, this brings us to our New Testament portion of our reading today and back into the book of Matthew, so, let’s talk about Matthew a little bit. If you remember yesterday when we started Genesis I said, Genesis is a part of a grouping of books known as the Torah or the Pentateuch, the first five books in the Old Testament. Matthew is similar, it is a part of a grouping of books, the first four books of the New Testament, known as the Gospels: Matthew Mark Luke and John. These are the four Gospels in the New Testament, Matthew is also part of kind of a sub group of the Gospels known as the synoptic Gospels, those being: Matthew, Mark and Luke. And by the way, all of these groupings they been made over time for reference sake, for consolidating the material, like the Gospels being, Matthew, Mark and Luke aren’t self-authenticated in the Bible that these are known as the Gospels or that the Torah is known as the Torah, but these groupings of been around a very, very long time so, they were just invented last night either. So, back to the synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke they are known as the Synoptics because they are very, very similar they you have differences, but they’re very, very similar. They have a lot of the same stories, although they tell them and nuanced ways, some having more detail than others and the vast majority of biblical scholars would say that the original, the first gospel written was likely the gospel of Mark and then the gospel of Matthew and Luke following about a decade-ish later maybe 15 years, give or take. We…we have no have knowing like precise dates unless they’re given in the Scriptures and so most scholars believe that the…the writers of Matthew and Luke had the oral traditions that were going around the stories that were being told all over the place about Jesus, but also the gospel of Mark as the basis for the text. The gospel of Matthew is aimed at a Hebrew audience, Jewish people. And as we take our journey through the Bible, we’re gonna get really clear on biblical texts that are aimed specifically at Hebrew readers. For example, we understand that Matthew’s primary audience is Hebrew people because it quotes from the Hebrew Scriptures. What we know as the Old Testament, more than any of the other Gospels do and one of the primary things that the gospel of Matthew does is reveal the way in which Jesus fulfills prophecies of long ago, prophecies found in the Hebrew Scriptures or the Old Testament. In fact, if you watch it’s really hard to not find Jesus fulfilling some sort of prophecy in the gospel of Matthew because it’s very repetitive but even beyond Jesus fulfilling ancient prophecies, we get our first chance to get to know Jesus in the first gospel, we begin to get an understanding or a sense of personality and the communication style of Jesus and his demeanor. There are over 20 parables that we encounter in the gospel of Matthew and a parable is sort of like an illustration story and it’s really beautiful. I mean, think about it, if you are presented with a page full of facts you can read those facts and that will be the data that you might need. But if you read those facts written into a narrative form that tells you a story and that connects to your heart and give you emotion and you can kind of see it in your mind, well then those facts actually might stick and cause change or growth in our lives. And we also need to remember that Jesus primarily was ministering to people who were illiterate, they weren’t scholars, they were disenfranchised, marginalized people who were trying to survive. So, Jesus using parables to communicate is beautiful but this teaching style of unpacking things through parable is also the style of a wisdom teacher, which is one of the things Jesus was known as. We as believers now, it’s easy enough for us to say now Jesus is the son of God, He’s the Savior of the world. But when Jesus came people didn’t understand all this and that’s part of what the New Testament unpacks for us is how we got here, how this came to be. So, Jesus was known as a lot of things, a wisdom teacher, a prophet, a apocalyptic profit, the Messiah and then of course, the son of God. The other thing to observe in Matthew as well as the rest of the Gospels, are the words that Jesus uses to describe and discuss the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, and the fact that it is near and the people hearing Jesus as he spoke these messages from village to village would’ve found such comfort because they were poor, marginalized, crushed people. So, to be told that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, tremendous encouragement there and that encouragement can come into our own lives and souls, maybe we’re feeling crushed by life and maybe it’s time for us to hear those words, the kingdom of heaven is among you. And so, with that, let’s dive into the New Testament for today, which will be Matthew chapter 2 verse 13 through 3 verse 6.

Commentary:

Okay so, we have just accomplished the second day’s reading. And from the book of Genesis, we were told profound things about what happened to us. So, we’re just on day two the context for the Scriptures are laid out as well as the context for life, human life on planet Earth until this very day is laid out. So, in the third chapter of Genesis we read the story that we, more popularly, know as the fall of man. Mankind’s willing decision to disobey God, which sets up our understanding for why we would read the Gospels and the story of the son of God made flesh in the person of Jesus. So, mankind, Adam and Eve, are made perfect, they are perfect people, sin is not a part of the story. They have perfect intimacy in union with one another and with God and with the creation that God had made and placed them in the middle of. And so, although it’s so short, we’re just getting started, we have a small glimpse into how it was supposed to be, shalom, this is a Hebrew word that we mostly know means peace, but shalom is this really encompassing thing, like the harmony and order of the world and the way that it was supposed to be, which certainly includes peace. So, the Lord had told Adam and Eve that they could eat from the tree of life like to be sustained forever, eternally but they were not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And whether you’re a biblical scholar or not, it’s not hard to wonder about those trees. Why put that tree, like why make, why create this tree that nobody can eat from, why is that a part of the story at all. Why not just have it gone from the get-go, that is a question that has been attempted to be answered many, many times over many, many thousands of years. For me, it kind of boils down to this, think about love, think about relationship, think about your spouse that you love, or the person that you’re in love with, you can say to them, I love you. You can even say it super convincingly, I love you and that could be a lie. You can say something that isn’t true or we know from human history a person could be captured, enslaved, beaten down to the point that they would be willing to kiss your feet and tell you that they love you every time that they see you, even though they would do anything to escape you. People will conform their behavior and say anything depending on how dire the circumstances or the threats is. So actual, true, honest, real love is not something that somebody can beat you into doing and is not something that that can only be said, true love has to be given, it can’t even be bought right, people can sell their bodies and people can buy other people’s bodies or rent them for their own personal use. That’s not love. Love is given freely and it makes us vulnerable to the person that we love. We trust each other with each other’s hearts. Love, true love, true love, I’m seeing that scene from the Princess bride in my mind, but true love can’t be true if there’s no way out, if there’s no way out then we are enslaved in some sort of way. And this tree very well may have been the way out and they took it. And if we look at our own lives, we realize we have done the same thing over and over. They were deceived in the garden by the serpent, the serpent was offering a narrative to them that was a different reality than the one that they had lived in, they were living in perfection. The serpent came and said this God, you seem to love so much, He doesn’t want you eating from that tree because he knows that if you do, you will become like God, which is devastating deception because they already were. They were created in the image of God and were experiencing humanity as it was intended to be, perfect shalom. And the repercussions become very evident, very quickly. God comes in the cool of the evening looking for them. Where are you? And what was the response? I heard you coming, I was naked and so I hid. Does that not reflect our own lives, naked and ashamed, exposed and hiding? We’ve gotten so good at it over this, over the millennia that curating our lives and presenting only our best as our normal is sort of the way of things. We look at social media, we find that this is the place where we hide almost the most, but we are always curating and hiding something, naked, ashamed, hiding. And so, as the stories begin to come together and as we continue the stories in the New Testament, in the Gospels, we realize that Jesus, God made flesh came to restore us, we don’t have to hide anymore. We can be naked and unashamed before God. And isn’t that how true love works, naked and unashamed? We’ve been trying to be our own God for a long time and in the center of every soul we know this is not working but there is a way and Jesus will certainly reveal it to us, as we continue our journey through the New Testament.

Prayer:

And so Father, we thank You, thank You for bringing us two days now, just getting started but we thank You that we are here and You are speaking to us through the Scriptures which will not only orient us to You but also orient us to what is going on around us. So come, Holy Spirit and all the we’ve read today, plant it in our hearts. We’re at the beginning of this journey but we want to continue to plant seeds into the soil of our lives so that they yield a harvest, a better life, a life where we’re not hidden, where we’re not hiding and ashamed, but rather looking at the example that Jesus has provided for us. We learn how to be true. Come Jesus, we pray, in your name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, that is the website and that is where you find out what’s going on around here. We got a brand-new year and that’s what’s going on, we’re moving into this brand-new year. So, just as we’re going through the books that we’ve begun over the course of several days, we’ve just begun to unpack different things about the Daily Audio Bible over the next few days. So, you’re listening to the Daily Audio Bible right now. The Daily Audio Bible has a number of channels, you can go through the Bible chronologically with my wife Jill and my daughter China at Daily Audio Bible Chronological. Or there is Daily Audio Bible Kids going through the New Testament with my son Ezekiel, who is a kid and a pretty amazing one at that. So, Ezekiel certainly has a lot of kids listening to the New Testament before bedtime or on the way to school or whatever, but lots of adults listen to. It’s something very, very, very pure about hearing the Scriptures from the lips of a child. There’s also the Daily Audio Psalm which is basically a Psalm a day, a couple minutes a day pouring the Psalms into our lives. There’s also the Daily Audio Proverb. Proverbs, we haven’t talked about Proverbs yet but we will day after tomorrow because reading from the Proverbs is part of our daily rhythm. But we take a bite-size portion of the Proverbs and we’ll see that a bite-size is enough on plenty of days one sentence from the Proverbs can speak volumes into our lives. But Daily Audio Proverb goes through a chapter of Proverbs each day, five minutes or less we’re talking, which allows us to move through the entire book of Proverbs each month. It’s like a five minute or less investment of time but we are pouring unfiltered wisdom of the ages from the Scriptures into our minds and let and allow it to seep down into our hearts and as we get to know the voice of wisdom than when we find those crossroads where we need wisdom we have wisdom, we’ve been investing into achieving wisdom, which is indeed a worthwhile venture. The Bible tells us that wisdom is more valuable than any other thing that we could achieve. So, it’s worth it. And then we have several other channels that are in languages that are not English. For example, Daily Audio Bible in Española, our Spanish team has been at this over a decade, every day bringing the Scriptures in Spanish as well as the Psalms and the Proverbs. So, if Spanish is your native language and you want to move through in Spanish you can find those channels in the Daily Audio Bible app or using the online player. Also, we have the Scriptures in their entirety, as well as Psalms and Proverbs separately in French. There’s also a Daily Audio Bible Japanese and Arabic and Portuguese and Mandarin. So, if you speak those languages, you can check those out. There’s a lot of ways to engage with the Scriptures. So, check them out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, and we have a mission here and the mission is to bring the spoken Scriptures, read fresh every day and given freely to whoever will listen to them, wherever they may be on this planet, regardless of what time of day or night it might be and to build community around that rhythm so that this is not just a solitary endeavor that we’re going to slog through the Bible and finally read every word in it, but we’re going to do it together in community, we’re not alone. We don’t have to feel alone, either in the Scriptures or in life. And if that makes a difference in your life then thank you for your partnership, we’re a community, we’re in this together. If we weren’t in this together, we wouldn’t be in this at all. So, thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. 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 P.O. Box 1996 Springhill, Tennessee 37174.

And if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, that is a little red button up at the top of the app screen, you can’t miss it. You hit that button and no matter where you are in the world, you can reach out for prayer 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.

Prayer and Encouragements:

Hello, it’s God is my Judge from Australia. And, I’m calling in for the first time. Today, after hearing, you know, that on the 21st of December that it was Brian’s parents anniversary and it just got me thinking, well, I chose that day to listen to, I was a little bit behind. And I chose that day cause it was also my wedding anniversary. In the 3rd in which I have been online and my husband has left me and each year it’s a difficult day just before Christmas. And I know that there’s many people out there who are experiencing similar problems. And my heart goes out to them, particularly Lord. I think of them and pray for them regularly. I just haven’t asked for prayer Lord, I am still fighting for my marriage, praying for marriage daily. I can’t say that I will ever stop. And I just, would appreciate the prayers of the DAB family all over the world. Yeah no, just thank you for everything, for all the shares, the thoughts you share and the prayers, it’s just helps me to, it just helps me with my walk with the Lord daily. Thank you.

Hello, my DAB family, this is Mark Street from Sydney, Australia. Today is the 26th, Boxing Day. And I just really wanted to ring in for a praise report. Just quickly, we found out on Christmas Day that my daughter had been exposed directly to somebody with COVID. And while we were at our Christmas party so, today, on Boxing Day, we decided we also needed to go and get a COVID test. So, we went to the COVID testing center at 630 in the morning, cause it opens at 7 and the lines are so long here as well. We were 1 and ½ hours in waiting and I said to my daughter, looks like I’m gonna miss out taking my mum to mass today, cause this is gonna take a couple more hours to get tested. And as I just finished saying that that statement, that I was gonna miss mass, one of the COVID testers opened up a second line and beckoned us to go through and we bypassed a whole heap of people, probably over an hour and 15 minutes from waiting. People looking envious and we legally got in and got tested within the next 15 minutes. And I was able to take my mother to mass and enjoy the rest of the day. So, praise God, he hears even the little things as you see. And my daughter was absolutely amazed and she said, it was when you said you were gonna miss mass, that’s when it happened and we were the first in the new line. So, praise God for all the little things. Love you, family. Mark Street from Sydney, Australia.

Hi Daily Audio Bible family, this is Renzo in Florida. And I just wanna pray for the DABer, one of the DABers. Her name is Jody and I just pray, Father God, I just pray for Jody in Texas, Lord God, I just pray for her husband that is struggling with physical disease, Lord God. I just pray in the name of Jesus that You just completely heal Jody’s husband, Lord God. In Your name, it’s all Your power, Jesus, thank You for everything. And Father God, just pray to, I just pray that, You just help them to just keep seeking you and let them to feel Your presence God. Help them to not feel alone. And thank You Jesus for everything. In Your name we pray. Amen. Yeah, and DABers, if you guys could pray for me, I feel like, it’s like a weird time of the year cause like, the years ending and it’s like bitter sweet. Like, so like I’m happy and then I’m not because it’s like the end of the year. But I mean, I like, yeah, so if you guys could just pray for me as I go into the next year to just keep my eyes on Jesus’s face and keep seeking Him. And just pray for me as my future. And I want to encourage you guys with this verse, Isaiah 41:10 Fear not for I am with you, be not dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness. God Bless you guys. Jesus loves you, I love you too. Thanks and have a great, hope you guys have a Happy New Year. God Bless you.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible, first-time caller, Kim from Indiana. I am asking if you would join me in prayer for my sister Tina. She had a double transplant last year and was doing well but graft host disease has taken over and attacked her bone marrow. She’s been told it’s a terminal condition and I just appreciate your prayers for her healing. I love you.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family. I’m so happy to get to talk with you. I just finished Christmas. I want to say that I included a little card about DAB in all my Christmas cards. And I’ve actually had several people comment on that, I’ve done that for the past few years. I’ve been listening now for 13 years. I have very good memories of my husband waking early in the morning and reading Brian’s first book and starting to listen to DAB and that’s what got us listening so many years ago, and we’ve been doing it ever since. I got my dad to listen and one day he told me that one of his favorite parts is the prayer request at the end. And funny is that’s the thing that I would sometimes not listen all the way through and I asked him why and he said that it just really keeps his heart soft to hear other people and it keeps his heart humble and that really blessed me and now I always listen to the end or I try to. I wanted to pray for Josie in Texas and Father, I pray for Josie and her husband who is in the hospital and I pray Lord for physical and spiritual healing. I pray that You would meet all of their needs Father and that they would know You better Lord, through all of this. I pray for Emily and Jim in Texas and in Wales and their first Christmas apart and I just pray Lord, what a beautiful story how they both received DAB boxes and I just pray that You would prove to be their close, close friend during all this, and that they would know you better and love you more. Alright, talk to you soon, this is Mountain Girl in New Mexico.

Morning DAB family this is Jimmy from the East Coast calling for Irene. I am a little, a lot, behind I will…I will catch up. So, week between Christmas and new year. I’m calling for young lady name Irene who’s 17, born in Zambia and was adopted to a Caucasian family and he’s facing the reality that there are some people who will discriminate for your skin. I had a similar background. Not exactly the same but when I was young, I went to London, I lived with a Caucasian lady for a long time and had a wonderful, like introduction to the different world and though I still live with my…my birth family and I’m grown now, I’ve been treated very well and have myself a child and he’s mixed it and I feel, I get it. This past year has been best couple years been scary in my struggle was to just keep an open heart and not let it drag me down because don’t let the enemy’s sell you a narrative that everyone is bad or is awful. And you already know that because you’ve had those great, even down South had those great interactions and just know that God is with you and God is protecting you and God is brought you in the situation that you are for a reason and as a mechanism of love and change and he will always be there. I’m praying for you. I’m praying for you because I went to a college that is predominantly white too, so I know, just…just know that God loves you and know that your special. I’m praying for you always, always.