Jeremiah 44:24-47:7; 2 Timothy 3:1-17; Psalms 94:1-23; Proverbs 26:6-8
Today is the 24th day of October. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It’s great to be here with you today and fantastic that we can take the next step forward into and through the adventure that are the scriptures in a year, in community. And, so, let’s get to that to a reading from the Names of God Bible this week. And we will continue forward in the book of Jeremiah, chapter 44 verse 24 through 47 verse 7 before taking the next step forward in Paul’s second letter to Timothy. But first Jeremiah chapter 44.
Commentary:
Okay. So, this week we’re reading from the Names of God translation, which, like I said yesterday, preserves any reference to God in its original language. And, so, most of the words used for God, we kind of recognize, we’ve heard them around. But the names of God Bible puts them in some context, like using them in sentences, like, so we can see, like, how they’re actually used. And, so, yesterday we looked at, what is it mean when the Bible says I am Yahweh, Tsebaoth, Elohim of Israel, which means I am Yahweh, the Lord of armies or the leader of the heavenly hosts, the God of Israel, and we talked about, in the New Testament, when we see Yeshua we’re just pronouncing Jesus name in its original tongue. So, we come to a couple of other words today. Let’s just point them out so that will always know going forward when we hear these names pronounced or in song or, you know, spoken somewhere, we know what they mean. So, we come across as Adonay Yahweh lives. So, Adonay, you probably have mostly heard it Adonai. This translation phonetically writes it out, Adonay, because that is actually more proper Hebrew. Adon – Adonay. And we pronounce it Adonai. But this means the Lord, like the highest, like, the top Lord. And of course, we talked about Yahweh yesterday as being, like, a personal name, a personal name ascribed to God. And, so, we can be, like, so, this is God’s name? Like, this is his first name, like, Yahweh is the name? Like haven’t they called…like Jehovah…like what are all these names? Well, in terms of Yahweh, when God speaks through Jeremiah, but it’s not just Jeremiah, but we’re in particular talking about Jeremiah because we’re reading through Jeremiah as we’re reading this translation. This is what God calls himself, Yahweh. So, for God to say, as Adonay Yahweh lives, He’s essentially saying, as the highest God lives. So, like, as the highest Lord of all, who is God, and whose name is Yahweh lives. That’s what where talking about when we’re talking about Adonay Yahweh. And when God refers to himself as Yahweh Elohim, He is a saying, I am the God whose name is Yahweh. Okay, let’s look at another one. As I live, declares they Melek whose name is Yahweh Tsebaoth. Well, we’ve already talked about Yahweh Tsebaoth. What is Melek? Melek is the king. So, as I live declares the king whose name is Yahweh, the Lord of armies. Okay, and then we get to the Psalms and we encounter the word El. Which is just root of Elohim, and it just means God, like the highest, the mightiest God, El. And we also encounter, arise oh Shophet of the earth. So, Shophet is one who governs. So, like, the judge, like, arise oh judge of the earth. Okay, so, there’s our Hebrew for the day.
So, let’s talk about second Timothy. So, in this letter, Paul, as he often does, is making some contrasts but we have to understand the context or at least remember, remind ourselves of the context. This is a personal letter from Paul to Timothy. Timothy has been raised up in the faith since youth and has been a protégé and a son in the faith of Paul. So, Paul has mentored Timothy up in ministry and has placed him as the pastor of the church in Ephesus. So, Paul is writing to somebody that he knows well and he’s writing to somebody that he trusts and who trusts him and he’s writing in the context of a personal letter to a pastor, to someone leading God’s people. And when that context becomes apparent, like, what we are actually talking about here, it really opens up. So, Paul tells Timothy, you’ve got to understand, in the last days there are going to be violent periods of time and people will be selfish and they will love money and they’ll brag and they’ll be arrogant and they’ll be abusive with their language and they’ll curse their parents, show no gratitude, have no respect for what is holy, they’ll lack the normal affection that you find in families, and they won’t be willing to make peace with anyone. Like, these are the people that have to be right, even if they’re wrong. They have to be right. They’ll be slanderous, they won’t have any self-control, they can be brutal, and they can have no love for what is good. They’ll be traders, they’ll be reckless and conceited, and it will be pleasure that they’re after more than seeking God. They’ll look good, like, on paper. They’ll appear to have a godly life but they will not let the Holy Spirit change them by His power. You need to avoid those kinds of people. So, we can read that as instructions just for our daily lives, for those kinds of people who are like black holes, sucking the life out of every room they walk into or, you know, people who are two-faced, who are really just playing a game. So, we can take that and go, alright, I know some of those kind of people. But when you bring into the context of a pastor or priest, you begin to understand that this is a dangerous kind of person within a faith community. All kinds of dissension and division, and any number of things can happen. Paul even goes on to talk about how some of these people, these guys, they go into, you know, “minister” to women and the ministry may be a little bit different than studying scripture. It may be more ministry done in the bedroom. And Paul’s just saying, like, none of this is good and none of this will build up the community and you’ve got to understand what you’re dealing with here and avoid it, shut it down. And you know, like, those of you are pastors, you’ve got this crystal clear. You know exactly what Paul is talking about, which is interesting, that Paul’s talking about this a couple of thousand years ago in the early church. And these kinds of things continue to go on. And these kinds of behaviors are so destructive inside of the community. And these kinds of people, who are not willing, as Paul would say, to allow God’s power to change them. And these are the kinds of people that go from place to place, to place, to place causing harm - the kind of people that have a desire for community but are so broken that they want the whole thing formed around them. Everything centers around their orbit and they can’t be wrong. So, Paul is essentially saying, like, this is not healthy, this behavior is not healthy. And when it’s habitual and a person isn’t pressing in any way, like, isn’t looking for transformation, doesn’t even see that they’re doing anything wrong, and will not be corrected, will fight even when they know they’re wrong, there’s a nonstarter here. There’s no way this to move forward and it’s got to be avoided. And, so, Paul then contrasts that kind of behavior with his own because what he’s telling Timothy is, look, this kind of stuff is going to show up from time to time and you just need to be able to spot it early and understand completely what’s going on here. And so, when you do spot this kind of stuff you also have a couple of reference points for how things should be. You have my example. So, Paul is saying, you have my example, you have walked with me and lived with me and ministered with me. You have what you’ve seen and you have the Scriptures. So, let’s start with a contrast of Paul. Paul’s saying, look, you know my teachings. You know how I live my life. You know what burns inside me as purpose. You have witnessed my faith. You have seen my patients. You have seen my love and you have seen me endure things. And you know about the persecutions and sufferings that happened to me. You were there in Antioch and Iconium and Lystra when things were not going so well and I was getting stoned and thrown out of places. So, you’ve seen what I’ve gone through and I endured those things and you watched God rescue me, which is a direct contrast to the kind of behavior that I’m telling you to avoid in your personal life and in the faith community of Ephesus. So, you know that. And you know that I have lived true. And you have also watched me face persecution. You have watched me face opposition. So, you’ve got to know that this kind of comes with the territory. And, so, he sums this thought up by saying, listen, continue in what you have learned and what you have found to be true. You know who your teachers were. So, stick to that and don’t listen everything that’s going on, all of the discussion that’s going on, stuff that we were talking about yesterday. From infancy, Paul says, Timothy, from your infancy you’ve known the holy scriptures and they have the power to give you wisdom so that you can navigate all this and so that you be saved through faith in Jesus. Which brings us to Paul’s declaration on the value of Scripture, which also happens to be, like, a formative Scripture for what we do here every day, for the Daily Audio Bible for the community that we are. Paul succinctly names why it is that we do what we’re doing together every single day as we journey through the scriptures in a year. Every scripture passage is inspired by God. All of them are useful for teaching, pointing out errors, correcting people, and training them for a life that has God’s approval. They equip God’s servants so that they are completely prepared to do good things. This is why we’re here. This is why we do what we do, which creates a natural and nice segue into just mentioning, you will have received an additional program in your feed in the app or wherever you’re listening to Daily Audio Bible today. And it’s a little fireside chat about this community, about the global campfire that we share every day, and how we got here, and where were going together. So, it’s sort of like an all community meeting about how we do what we do and how we need to do it going forward. So, by all means, if possible, don’t miss that.
Prayer:
Father, we thank you for Your word. We thank You for the richness in it and like we were talking about yesterday, just the adventure of discovery. It’s endless - the contexts, the words, the way that they speak to us and go inside of us and transform us as we continue to expand and mature and grow up and You. And, so, we do believe that every scripture passage is inspired by God. And we do believe all of them are useful for teaching and pointing out errors in correcting people and training them for a life that has Your approval. This is what happens to us every day, so, we can bear this out in our own lives, that, yes, Your word has done those things in our lives and You have equipped us so that we’re prepared to do good things. We’re prepared. We may choose otherwise but You have prepared us and continue to transform us through Your word. So, come Holy Spirit. We invite You to continue that work that You have begun in us at the beginning of this year and to see it through all the way to the end of this year as we continue to speak Your word, every single word in the Scriptures this year. Come, Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayers and Praise Reports:
Singing – The eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him. The eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him. We fear You Lord and we trust in Your unfailing love. The eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him. The fear of the Lord is ____ inside. It means friendship with God and eternal life. The eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him. We share You O god ___. We find healing within Your forgiving love.
Hello everyone. This is Jay from New Jersey calling, freshly discharged from the hospital as of Tuesday. As a result of just the guilt of everything that I’ve done I had some thoughts of wanting to take my life. So, I went into the hospital there and admitted myself. So, I’m out now and I’m going to catch up on the DAB. I got an email from Mark S. saying that everybody is sending me out love, so, thank you in advance. And let’s just pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for the DAB family that just loves me so much and Father I pray that their prayers, as I hear them, will just encourage me and assure me that I’m wanted and I’m needed and I’m loved and that Your will be done in my life. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen. All right. Talk you soon. Love you guys.
Hi family. I haven’t called in a while. This is Kim from California. I do need to ask for your prayers. First, I’d like everyone to pray for everyone that is in California that has had any kind of loss with all the fires. California is on fire right now, as I’m sure everybody knows. Things are getting a little bit better. Some of the fires are contained but a lot of people have lost their homes. They’ve lost loved ones. They’ve lost everything. And a lot of those people are workers in the Napa area and Sonoma area. There’s a lot of workers out there that people…everybody thinks that there’s ten million dollar homes out there…well there are but those people have insurance and the people that don’t have insurance, they’ve lost everything. So, I am going to ask for your prayers. And it is supposed to rain tomorrow…a little bit. ____. We live in the woods. We are surrounded by woods. There’s a lot of forest out here. So, I also ask for my own personal prayers for my husband and my family and all our neighbors in our little town and everyone that is involved in these fires. We are preparing in case we do have to evacuate. But I just want to ask for your prayers for everyone in California. I pray for rain. Thank you so much for your prayers. I do pray for you all the time. Thank you so much Brian and Jill. Thank you so much for this wonderful forum. God bless you all. Kim from California.
Hi Brian. This is Terry from Alabama. I love this community. I’ve been part of this community since your second year of doing this. I met you with John Eldritch and I need some help. I need prayer. I’m in love with a beautiful woman and I have been addicted to pornography for a long time. I’m in counseling for it and I’m working towards with a prayerful life of getting rid of it. But I need more prayer because of that addiction has resulted in lies that have caused pain to my girlfriend and I want her to have some healing and I want our relationship to have healing. So, please pray out for me and pray for my addiction and pray for my girlfriend and I love you all and I need your prayers. Thank you.