07/05/2022 DAB Transcript

1 Chronicles 1:1-2:17, Acts 23:11-35, Psalms 3:1-8, Proverbs 18:14-15

Today is the 5th day of July welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is great to be here with you today as we gather together and move forward taking the next step on this adventure that’s leading us through the Bible. And we’re moving into some new territory, new but familiar territory actually. We finished the book of second Kings yesterday and the book of second Kings ends with Babylon conquering the kingdom of Judah and carrying its people into exile and Jerusalem including the temple of the Lord being destroyed, which effectively ends the chronicling of kings, right? There’s no more king in Israel and there is no more king in Judah. There are no more kings to chronicle, which brings us to the books of Chronicles.

Introduction to the book of Chronicles:

And we’re going to go back through some of the same stories at the same time period. It’s just going to be through a little bit of a different lens. And, so, we don’t know who wrote the book of Chronicles. We do know they were one text and then were broken apart, just like the books of Samuel, ad the books of Kings. And there is a Jewish tradition that suggests that Ezra the priest and scribe was involved. But there isn’t a complete consensus on that or the time period. It’s thought that the books of Chronicles were probably penned about four centuries…400, 450 years before Jesus came and that is the time period of Ezra. And as I was just mentioning, we’re covering a lot of the same stories and territory that we covered in the books of Samuel in the books of Kings, but the lens is shifted away from royalty or the monarchy and this…these stories are seen through the lens of the priesthood, those who are charged with reminding the people who they are and who God is and where they’re going. And, so, a lot of the same stories with the little bit of a different complexion. So, as we launch in today and…and continue forward these…the first section of the book of first Chronicles is a lot of genealogy. And this is a really interesting point that we’ve reached in the Bible, at least for me. It’s a very memorable thing. I mean name after name after name who begat who is a tedious part of the Bible for most people. And this genealogy section or the genealogy sections of the Bible are often sort of skipped over, like what in the world do I need to try to sound out names I cannot pronounce. I don’t know anybody with any of those names and these people lived thousands of years ago. How is the story connected to my story? Why do I need to actually read these names? But if we begin to understand what’s happening it does become meaningful. And all you have to do is sort of just look back a day, just look back a couple of days back when we were reading second Kings and remember our journey through Samuel and Kings and the way that that story ends is that the northern kingdom of Israel is carried into exile by the Assyrian Empire and the southern kingdom of Judah is conquered and carried into exile by the Babylonian Empire. These are conquests of kingdom’s, military overthrow of a people who are then deported from their homeland. And it’s not like the enemy sat down with a pen and paper trying to document who belongs to who. People were sent away into exile in waves, and nobody had any control over it. If you were the conquered people, you did what you were told, or you die. And many people did die. And people died without their families knowing they had died. And people’s families were split apart and sent in different directions. This is exile. This is being conquered. And, so, they’re being re-settled into other areas. These genealogies that we’re about to read in first Chronicles is an attempt to remember who they are and where they came from and how they’re knit together as a family and to remember those who are lost. And, so, every year we come to this particular territory I…I remember the different kinds of museums that I have attended, that are there for remembrance, are there because an atrocity of some sort happened and people need to not forget what happened and not forget who was lost. So, I mean like…I’ve…I’ve talked about Holocaust museums in the past. I am thinking right now of the time I spent in Rwanda in Africa many years ago and visiting the different sites where genocide had taken place. And actually, it’s very stark, where the bones of the people that were killed in the genocide in Rwanda are preserved. And you can just…you know…walk into a room full of skulls of people who had died and another room of clothing that people were wearing when they died and rooms full of pictures of those who were lost so that family members who never knew what happened can come and see if they can find that name or remember the connections. And every time that I’ve been in a place like this there is this kind of contemplative space, a room that’s starkly lit, like the one that I’m thinking of in Rwanda had starkly lit. It’s got a very tall ceiling. It’s circular and floor-to-ceiling it’s pictures of people who were lost in the genocide. And it’s a quiet room. It’s not supposed to be a room to tell jokes and stuff. It’s a somber event to be in there. And you can sit down, and you begin to realize there is the voice of a woman coming through the speakers very softly saying the name’s, repeating the names of the people that were lost over and over and over so that this will never happen again. And, so, that it can be remembered and so that they can be remembered. And, so, if we put ourselves kind of in that position with that kind of posture understanding that this genealogy is in many ways a reconstruction of who they were and how they’re connected after such a terrible thing had happened to both the northern and the southern kingdoms, then we can find some meaning in the territory that we’re moving into. And, so, with that said, we will begin the book of second Chronicles. Chapter 1 verse 1 through 2 verse 17. And we will begin at the beginning with the first man.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we have already talked about the new territory we moved into in the Old Testament as we began first Chronicles. And, so, we have the lay of the land there. And just briefly just to point out what’s going on in the book of Acts, Paul went to Jerusalem as it turns out. We remember as he was moving in that direction, he was being warned every step of the way and there was only trouble in front of him. And we remember those sad goodbyes on the docks as they’re setting sail, people crying and Paul saying, you know, we’re never going to see each other face-to-face again. So super bittersweet on this journey back to Jerusalem. And Paul gets back to Jerusalem, but he’s not free for very long. He’s snatched up and grabbed in a mob formed and just, they’re trying to kill him and then the Romans find out that he’s a Roman citizen, so they have to protect them, which is interesting. It’s the Romans now protecting Paul from the Jewish people who are his people. And in today’s reading Paul leaves Jerusalem. Like he wasn’t there that long. And the commotion that was getting stirred up was significant. I would say, at least in my opinion…and you may have a different opinion, but if you have 40 people literally pledging themselves not to eat or drink until they have killed you that’s a pretty serious thing. And, so, as it turns out Paul is led out of the city in the evening after dark under heavy guard and sent on his way to the coast to Caesarea. And Caesarea was a very cosmopolitan very new city on the coast, a jewel, a beautiful place. And the ruins are extravagant until today. But at the time this would’ve been a playground for Romans, a place to go. That was the intention, to make a destination place in the Roman province of Syria. This is also the place if we remember from just a little bit earlier in the book of Acts that the apostle Peter was led to go in order to share the good news with the Roman centurion Cornelius and his family. So, this is where Paul is on his way, and this is not a dominant Jewish city. This is a dominantly Roman city. And, so, a significant less chance of Paul being assassinated before he can even stand trial. But as we learned, they had a stop on the way and that was in a city called Antipatris. And the ruins of Antipatris still remain. Very fascinating place, at least to me. I’ve been there a few times because there is the Roman road that still kind of exists, pieces of it going into the city, and there are like chariot tracks from repeated use from that era where you can still see where the chariots kinda ground their way into the road. I remember standing there just going, man this…this is how Paul got into this city on his way to Caesarea, and these chariot tracks, there from that time. They’re not just singular chariot that tracks, they’re like a worn into the stonework. So, it’s repeated use. But it’s just so fascinating to just look at that and go, man I’m touching the Bible here. This is this is where that happened. And I find that to be…even as I talk about it, like lifts something in me. It’s like touching these places and realizing these are real stories that really happened is really meaningful. Nevertheless, so Paul stops in Antipatris and then on to Caesarea which is where we leave him today. So, his journey to Jerusalem, under the leadership of the Holy Spirit and against all of the people that were warning him away happened and he was there just briefly and now he is no longer in Jerusalem. We are on the Mediterranean coast in the city of Caesarea Marittima. So, it seems like Paul, at least the fear of immediate death has been removed from Paul. We’ll have to see how this plays out as we continue the story tomorrow.

Prayer:

Father, we love You. We thank You for Your word. We thank You for these new territories that we get to investigate and hear about and learn of and people that we get to meet and we get to watch You in the middle of all of it realizing You are in the middle of all that’s going on among us. May we have five days to see and ears to hear exactly that. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base and where you find out what’s going on around here. And we’ve been talking about what’s been going on around here. Couple of things.

First of all we announced last week our intention to return to the land of the Bible. And I remember last week coming and telling the story of how he got there and just wondering if anyone was interested in going and what that would look like and it is sold out. And faster by far than anticipated and left us kind of scurrying going, what do we…how we handle all this getting our feet under is now and it is sold out and there is a little bit of a wait list. Our partner and keeper of logistics and organization told me this is the fastest any tour has ever sold out for us. So, Israel 2023 is full and there is a wait list at this point.

The other thing that we are talking about can’t be sold out. Every one that can participate and that is the day after tomorrow is our own Global Campfire holiday. Every seventh of July we call it the Daily Audio Bible long walk. And that is exactly what it is. We take a day in the middle of the year, it happens to be 7th day of July and kinda set it aside realizing we’ve made it to the midpoint of the year. We have half of the year to go. We have come a long way in the first half of the year, and we have a ways to go in the second half and we have learned from the Scriptures and from our life experience we can be heading in a certain direction and get off by a degree or two, and end up somewhere totally different than we were planning to go. And, so, sort of taking some time to reorient, reprioritize, go out in the beauty of God’s world that He has created for us to enjoy and drink it all in, enjoying the serenity, enjoying the silence, realizing that life is abounding everywhere we look, and having a long walk, thinking these things over. What’s important? How have I gotten off track? And saying everything that we never have time to say to God, talking about everything like we had a whole day with God. Imagine. But we do and we’re setting it aside and we’ll say all we need to say and hear all that we need to hear and move into our second half of the year. And that is a very personal thing to do. It is a very intentional thing to do. And that is what we’ll be doing on the seventh the day after tomorrow. And we’ll make this such a beautiful community experience. And we will put a post on the Daily Audio Bible Facebook page that’s facebook.com/dailyaudiobible for the long walk. And as you go and do your long walk, you’ll probably want to take a picture, maybe you’ll want to take a video, something to remember the time that you had and you can come back to that post and share your pictures, share your videos, share your stories. And then all the sudden we get to participate in each other’s long walks look through little windows called pictures but look through little windows of what the world looks like today all over the world and the beauty of God’s creation and how He is speaking to us all over the world. So, make plans for that, the day after tomorrow. I’m very…I always very much look forward, have my…my own little traditions usually end up going into similar places and very much looking forward to this day. And, so, plan for that day after tomorrow and we will do the long walk together.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if the mission that we share in common to bring the spoken word of God read fresh every day and offered freely to anyone, anywhere, anytime and to build community around the rhythm of showing up around the Global Campfire every day, if that is life-giving to you and thank you humbly for your partnership as we navigate through the summer time. Deeply, deeply appreciative. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re 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. That’s the little red button up at the top or you 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.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Coming soon…