Category: DAB Transcripts

Ecclesiastes 4:1-6:12, 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:7, Psalms 47:1-9, Proverbs 22:16

Today is the 3^rd day of September welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is…it is a joy to be here with you today as we exhale, as I say often. Let it all go, it’ll all be waiting but we need a change of atmosphere. And, so, we come around the Global Campfire and we let God’s word wash over us, wash into us and then we go back with a new perspective into what we were doing into the world and what a joy it is that we can do this together. So, let’s take that next step. We began the book of Ecclesiastes yesterday and we’re gonna continue that journey today. We’re reading from the New International Version this week. Ecclesiastes 4, 5, and 6 today.

Commentary:

Alright. So, in second Corinthians today Paul is essentially talking about or unpacking the fact that there are…there are things that will never be in harmony with each other. He says, “what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? What fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial?” Belial is this word that simply means, like worthlessness or maybe meaningless. “What harmony is there between Christ and that which has no value? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?” We could push back on that and say, “well a believer and an unbeliever, their human beings. There’s a lot in common.” But in Paul’s view, those who believe are new creatures, new creations, which for Paul isn’t like a reset, like a restart of humanity. It’s a different kind of species, like a new humanity upon the earth, one that has been restored and made righteous before God, a different kind of thing of which Jesus was the firstborn which we’ve already talked about. Paul’s talking about all this in the context of not being yoked together with unbelievers. And if you have the choice you shouldn’t. I mean my two cents on that, which is probably worth about two cents is that life is a winding road and marriage is difficult enough as it is. With no faith to fall back on…O…that’s very difficult. But what Paul is saying is also beyond just whether or not you should marry an unbeliever. This goes to Paul’s philosophy in general. We are new creatures upon this earth part of God’s divine family knit together as a body, the body of Christ. And basically trying to live with one foot in the world as a person who has already died to it while keeping one foot in this new creation that we are living into is essentially the same as God inviting His chosen people to separate themselves so that they become…can become a nation of priests to the rest of the world. And we read that story already and we saw what that mixture did. It all fell apart. So, why do we often find ourselves in a position where we did…where basically we’re wondering, “how dark…how much of the…like how much into the shade can I go, like before the actual darkness…like how far into the darkness can I go, while remaining in the light?” When Paul deals with these kinds of issues he’s basically saying, “why would you do that? Why would you do that?” And it’s fair. Like why would we do that? Why do we do that? Why do I do that? Like, why are we doing this?” Because like borrowing from Solomon, it’s meaningless. It’s chasing the wind. And, so, Paul gives words of encouragement. And I quote Paul. “Therefore, since we have these promises dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God. And, so, we find that the Scriptures have led us to consider like what is the defiling us. What are we allowing to contaminate the new creature that we have been made? What are we allowing to tell us who we are? Because if it’s not our faith in God then we are chasing the wind. And, once again we find Paul saying it’s a bigger story, like “look higher. Live into this. Be righteous because you can now. You can be holy, be set apart, because you can be in union with God because you can, He’s your father, you are adopted into His family. Don’t waste this gift, don’t waste your life. And the pollution that you once lived in, you don’t have to do that

Prayer:

Father, once again we find ourselves challenged, we find the Bible being a mirror and forcing us to look at ourselves and we thank You for that. It shakes us. It disrupts us. It’s necessary. It’s You, Fathering us. It’s You, loving us and saying there’s more. And, so, we reach for You and invite Your Holy Spirit to show us the ways that we’re trying to mix things up in unhealthy ways with…with things that can never be in harmony with one another. We need You. We need You alone. We need Your Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth. And we trust in that promise that You will. Come Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus, we ask. 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 Prayer and Praise:

I’m basking in the spirit and I’m still lying in my bed
the sun has not yet risen and I’m very glad that I’m not dead
it’s quiet and it’s dark and it seems the world is still asleep
but I feel you all around me God inside too real deep
it feels just like I’m glowing and I know that can’t be true
pre-dawn is my favorite time to come in prayer to you
there are no real distractions no voices cars or lights
no human interference no arguments or fights
only me reflecting thoughts that spring from deep within
thoughts now filled with gratitude that used to be about sin
I come to you for power I come to you for grace
I come to you my father because there really is no other place
I lift you up for what you’ve done because you’ve done so much for me
I praise you God for who you are and how you set me free
it seems like I can’t get enough of praising you each day
the closer that I get to you the more I love to pray
thank you God for lifting me, for loving me, for setting free
I thank you God my eyes can see a concept like eternity
the suns now up and I’m still in prayer
I still can feel you everywhere
inside outside all around even deep below the ground
because you Are truly awesome

blindtony1016@gmail.com. I’d like to give a shout out to God’s Smiles and Peter and Gentle Ben and Rebecca from Michigan. Know you are all loved and prayed for daily. And once again, Brian and the Hardin family, thank you for this wonderful podcast for God’s Holy Spirit flow. Keep it flowing y’all. All right, bye-bye.

Hello this is Duncan the Piano Man from Fredericksburg Texas this on Sunday morning August 30^th. Lincoln my prayers are for you. Let me pray right now. You’re the uppermost in my mind. A number of you have had deaths in your family this week from the terrible virus that we’re all dealing with. But for people to stay together for marriages to stay together I am burdened especially today. My wife and I went through 43 years of marriage and we had a lot of stormy times. God brought us through though and it will be a year in October that she’ll have been with the Lord in eternity. So, let me pray now Father before this thing runs out. I just pray for Lincoln and his wife. Father I am just praying that You would soften her heart. Lincoln wants so much for this marriage to stay together. And Father they’re still Young at and I don’t know if they have any children, but I bring him to You Lord Jesus. Also, Father that that marriage would be mended, and that marriage would be strengthened, and they would just stay together till death do them part. And Father that they would grow together in You. Quicken that spirit Lord. Father pray for also that lady in New York who is behind financially and a lot of things and deals with mental issues and also has no work. And Lord there’s probably a lot of other things. Be merciful to them Jesus. Thank You for hearing our prayer. Father I…we love You and we leave love each other in You. Thank You, Lord. Amen.

Good morning family. Hey, I had a revelation this morning. I every morning do the Daily Prayer which you can access on the app under the navigation bar under helpful links. And I’ve been doing it…well…for almost 2 years now every morning faithfully and I can’t tell you what a difference it’s made in my life. I really recommend it. What I thought this morning and I believe the Holy Spirit gave me was this is a prayer that is so socked full of what we need to know about our relationship with God that every morning you’re reviewing it and it gives God the opportunity to speak into your heart. So, that’s what the spiritual disciplines do. They in themselves do not make you holy or righteous or anything, they just give God the opportunity to pour like a faucet into your soul. And, so, one that I really appreciate too is solitude because it allows me to just sit and muse with God all day. Anyway, I better take off now. I just wanted to share that with you. Please during this really heartbreaking time in our country it’s…it’s so important to get everything straight, get your plumb line straight with God and have a clear conscience. It’s worth everything. Okay kids. Bye.

Hi this is Kristi from Kentucky this is about the eighth time I’ve tried to record this. It’s kind of difficult. I’ve been listening for 12 years and the first time I’ve ever called in for prayer. I put this on a Prayer Wall about a year ago but I’m still…I’m still patiently or impatiently waiting sometimes. I was involved in a Christian community in Ohio where I have two children that are still there. I was involved with them for many years. I lived there for a couple years but when I moved in, I saw that they were becoming increasingly more controlling over people’s time, their money, their interactions outside of the community and who they could speak to and who they couldn’t. And I saw red flags. Anybody that leaves is deemed either a sinner in love with the world or mentally ill. And, so, out of all of the years that they’ve been in existence only like five or six people that have left are actually in any kind of relationship with the church and most people in community aren’t even allowed to talk to them, which has happened to the two of my children and me. Since I left it has been, it’s been really ugly. It took me a year of some intense biblical counseling to really recover emotionally, spiritually. But my children are still there, and they refuse to have any relationship with me or to pursue restoration of any kind. I haven’t spoken to my daughter since December…it’ll be two years in December. I’d ask you to join me in prayer for all truth to be revealed whether it’s myself or them, all the darkness be revealed, and light come into that darkness. People are set free in Jesus’ name.

Hi, my names Sam from Texas and just calling in because…express my gratitude for this community, for this…Brian and everybody that listens in. About a year ago I found this just wanting to, you know, have the word of God, you know, to hear it in my life every day and now it’s…it’s…it’s a staple of my day. You know, I start my day before I put anything else into this mind, I put this podcast in this word of God. Prayer requests. Could you all please lift up my church community in Allen Texas? We…we’re going through a…a lawsuit. And not to get into any details but just lift up my pastor, his name is Dustin and the leadership. You know, sometimes you gotta rip off the Band-Aid to heal and I know the situations gonna be handled by God and He’s gonna get the glory. Another prayer request I have is for a new believer, her name is Taylor. She’s an alcoholic. She’s just got 60 days sober yesterday by the grace of God and I…I praise him for that. You know she came to the Lord about 3, 4 weeks ago, you know, and the Lord’s really been knocking on her on her door and seeking her her whole life. And I was in a previous relationship with her but I had to make a decision to end it so that she could focus on herself and I could also focus on myself because me and God get some business to do and I’m grateful for that. You know, just lift up Taylor and her recovery that she has a spiritual experience with the Almighty God and Jesus could continue to enter her heart, softens her heart and her mind to Him. Thank you, guys. Have a blessed day.

This is my second time prayer requesting. My names Ryan Kelleher I live in Santa Barbara California and my heart’s heavy and I’ve had a long journey of…I want to say mental illness but I’m not even sure. I just thought I’d reach out and receive some…some prayer. Thanks guys.

Ecclesiastes 1:1-3:22, 2 Corinthians 6:1-13, Psalms 46:1-11, Proverbs 22:15

Today is the 2^nd day of September…I was gonna say July and I have no idea why because that was a while back. It’s the 2^nd day of September, and here we are in a brand-new month and we’re obvious…I’m obviously trying to move into this new month, but we’re moving into some new territory along with moving into this new month. We finished the book of Job yesterday, which brings us to the book of Ecclesiastes today.

Introduction to the book of Ecclesiastes:

Ecclesiastes is one of the more interesting books in the Bible, at least for me. Like there was a time it was my least favorite thing to read in the Scriptures because it kinda comes up across the depressing and a little hopeless and pointless and I used to not like…just…didn’t reconcile well with what I had assumed life was supposed to look like. And but now it’s one my favorite…one my favorite books because its brutally honest and we face some hard stuff. And Job does the same kind of thing, it just does it from a different perspective. So, to…to kinda get ourselves in the right frame of mind to enter into Ecclesiastes, the best thing that we can do is think about what would happen if you got everything you ever wanted? And you can think, “that sounds heavenly.” Like, “that sounds like what I’m after.” But imagine it. Imagine that all of the challenges of your life essentially, they kind of evaporate. So, money is no longer a problem. You checked the bank this morning and there was $100 million in your bank account, like more than you can spend and your house is paid for, your vehicles are new you, got money in the bank, your kids are doing great, they’re obeying, they’re not rebellious, you can care for them, you can care for their children, you can care for their grandchildren into the future, whatever you’d like to pursue you can pursue it and when you’re done with it you can be done with it and just everything, the resources for everything, the power for everything is at your disposal. So very, very few people in the world ever experience anything like that. We’re always just striving forward to…to get through or to make ends meet, or just to get a little ahead or have a little nest egg or to pursue a dream but not a lot of people can do whatever they want whenever they want with whoever they want, but the writer of Ecclesiastes who is known to be Solomon who collected and penned many of the Proverbs, he did have that ability. That was his life. So, his father, King David had gone through the establishment of the city of David, right, and making Jerusalem the capital city of Israel, and he fought many battles and he collected many treasures, but it was left to his son to build the temple of God. And we remember the story of Solomon praying to the Lord for wisdom and God saying that He would grant him wisdom and grant him long life and grant him riches and honor, and everything else. And, so, Solomon did have this. Solomon took ancient Israel to the apex of their civilization. The brief period where the wind was at their back and everything was in their favor happened under Solomon’s reign and rule. And he was so wise people traveled from all over the world to hear him and to speak to him and to consult with him. He was the king. And, so, he was the supreme ruler of the land with the power of life and death. He was enormously wealthy and brought Israel into a time of immense prosperity. So, he could dream in any direction and he did. We’ll find this from the book of Ecclesiastes, but we also found this when we were reading of the story of Solomon, of his development, of the things that he built, of the things that he dreamed, of the people who came to hear him, of the alliances that he formed. So, he’s a very powerful…maybe the most powerful man in the world at this time. He also had 700 wives and 300 concubines, so 1,000 of the most beautiful women in all of the world available to him all wishing to bear a prince or a princess. And I know all of our children are princes and princesses but like for real, like to bear a royal child. So, this is a very powerful person who has been given the wisdom of God. So, you’d expect like if he gets later in life and he wants to write down the story, you’d think it would be this unbelievable adventure story, a memoir of unspeakable experiences and instead what he writes is that it’s all meaningless, which just seems like such a weird conclusion to come to, but that’s what he concludes, it’s chasing the wind, it’s all meaningless. It’s almost hard to comprehend because we’re always chasing that next…that next thing. Like, if I could just achieve this then my life would be better. If I could just get or attain that then my life would be better. And, so, we…we chase these things, but we can never get to the end that, we’ll always be chasing something. So, if that’s really what’s going to make life better, we’ll never get there because we’ll only be chasing the next thing. Solomon gives us the perspective of somebody who got all the things, everything you could ever want he experienced. And, so, we get a look at his perspective on what it looks like to get off the wheel, basically to stop chasing and pursuing other things because they don’t lead anywhere, they’re meaningless. And, so, Ecclesiastes comes to similar conclusions that Job comes to. Now Job dealt with suffering and in that context, we explored it. Solomon wasn’t exploring suffering he was exploring whatever he wanted to explore. But it gives us the perspective of…man…if you do achieve it all, if you do, then you find out that it still did not fulfill you. And he concludes that only God can do that. There is no other way to fulfillment and what you have is something that you should appreciate and enjoy and see it as a gift from God and be looking at what everybody else has or whatever else you are trying to achieve because if you achieve it all you’re still not gonna be fulfilled. So, it gives us a prime opportunity to explore those pursuits and to consider what we’re trading our life for. What is promising us more that we would actually trade the days of our lives that we cannot get back that are precious? What we trading our lives for? Is it really gonna be worth it? So, Ecclesiastes is part of the wisdom literature of the Bible, which also included Job, which includes Proverbs, which includes part of the Psalms, which includes apocryphal texts, like Sirach. So, that’s kinda the genre that we’re reading and some of the territory that we’re heading into. And may we allow the Holy Spirit to come and teach us. We have Proverbs and we see all of these wise sayings, but this is deeper than that. This is an older man nearing the end of his life reflecting back on all that he’s experienced and coming to certain conclusions about the way that he’s spent his own life. And may we find that there is a time for every purpose under heaven. And maybe we’ve been trading our lives chasing the wind. And, so, we begin. We’re reading from the New International Version this week. Ecclesiastes 1, 2, and 3 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, you can kinda see what we’re talking about the book of Ecclesiastes, everything is meaningless, it’s chasing the wind. And, so, let’s just…for a quick second since we’ve already talked about Ecclesiastes…just…let’s look at what we read today. Solomon basically said, “look, I have done it all. I have gone as far as you can go in any number of directions and it’s meaningless, it’s chasing the wind because no matter what we achieve, no matter what gets accomplished, it’s gonna be forgotten here upon the earth. No matter what we achieve, no matter how we accomplish, we’re no different than the animals because we all end up in the same place, which is we all experience death. And then Solomon is basically using all of the knowledge that he has upon the earth, the earth’s knowledge, to say nobody knows what happens after that. Nobody can prove anything. So, it's…it’s all meaningless. And, so, what’s missing from the equation? What is it that makes it all meaningless? The lack of faith. Faith isn’t a part of the equation of what we were talking about today. It’s only faith that makes anything have meaning. And Solomon at this point in his life seems to be doing what…what you do as you kind of continue to grow and age ask the big, big questions. You kind of come to the end of what you can know and then realize it is meaningless. Without a view of eternity, without a faith view, without faith in God then really, we all do end up in the same place and everything that we’ve worked so hard to achieve fades away or is given to who knows. And, so, in so many ways we are, in the book of Ecclesiastes, looking at life apophatically. That’s a process of subtraction to arrive at the truth instead of a process of addition. So, if you’re looking cataphatically, like essentially a process of addition, you’re saying, “this is like that. This is like.” Whereas if you are looking apathetically, you’ll be like, “that is not like that. This is not like that.” In so many ways what Solomon is talking about is what Jesus said, “what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?”

Prayer:

Father, we thank you for your word and it’s disruptive on..on…in many places at many times. It’s disruptive it shakes us. It…it shakes us out of our comfort zones and forces us to look at what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. And right at the outset we can see there is no purpose or meaning without a bigger view. The same kinds of things Paul is writing about in his letters, “look higher. This is a bigger story.” But it if we don’t see that bigger story than all we see is the toil of our lives trying to scrape forward and achieve some sort of security and some sort of happiness that all fades away in time. There is no hope but you. And, so, we are acknowledging that and we invite your Holy Spirit as we continue into this month and into this territory that the Bible is leading us into, that you take us deep, deep to the level of our motivations, deep to what it is we’re trying to do here. Are we trying to be our own God? Be our own sovereign? Carve of our own niche? Even if we could do that we end up in the same place as everything else on this earth, which is the grave. If we have no hope beyond that it is meaningless. And, so, you are our meaning. You are our purpose, not what we can do for you. You are our hope, not what you can help us do to make life better. You are our only hope and we put our hope in you. And we ask, Holy Spirit, sweet comforter, that you come into the disruptive places and that you comfort us and that you reprioritize and reorient our posture and what we’re aiming toward in this life. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.

Song:

Turn Turn Turn - Anthem Lights

[Spencer Kane]

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven

[Joey Stamper]
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven

[Caleb Grimm]
A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

[Chad Graham]
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven

[Spencer Kane]
A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing

[Joey Stamper]
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven

[Caleb Grimm, Spencer Kane, Joey Stamper]
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sow
A time for love, a time for hate
A time for peace, I swear it’s not too late

[Chad Graham]

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn

Job 40:1-42:17, 2 Corinthians 5:11-21, Psalms 45:1-17, Proverbs 22:14

Today is September 1^st welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is a great to be here with you. We made it. We made it across the threshold, and we are in the ninth month of the year, the 245^th day of this year. So, on top of everything else that’s been going on this year, also this was a leap year. So we’ve got 366 days this year and here we are, threshold of a new month, it’s all out in front of us and we get to choose the story we are gonna tell, and allowing God’s word to inform those decisions certainly can’t do bad. It’s only gonna help us and help us considerably as we make it and continue to keep it as the rhythm of our lives. And, so, let’s dive, in brand-new month. We’re finishing the book of Job today. In yesterday’s reading, God showed up which is all Job wanted, but it seemed like it might be different than what he was expecting because He had a bunch of questions, God did, a bunch of questions of His own that no one could answer. And, so, we will continue with that discussion as we conclude the book of Job. We’re reading from the New International Version this week. Job 40, 41, 42.

Commentary:

Okay. So, as we begin this new month, we concluded the book of Job which we’ve been working through for a while. And in the book of Job we heard a lot of things about God. Like we were able to kind of sit in on a discussion between Job and…and three of his friends and then Elihu at the end, so four people…so five people very, very clearly and passionately telling each other what they know about God and what…and His movements and what He does and what He doesn’t do and how He does do it and how He doesn’t do it and how things are. And Job argues back, but he also argues back with what He knows. So, he argues back with the things He would say to God if he could find Him. And, so, we get to hear Job’s arguments and then Job gets what he wants. God shows up with His own questions in His own mighty power. And the irony is that all the bluster of all the people who were talking kind of went out of them. And all of the things that Job had prepared, like his existential argument, basically, that he’s gonna present to the Lord and ask for answers, it just all seems to deflate. All these words about God dissipated in God’s presence. So, what Job thought he needed to say to God, became unnecessary when he was in God’s presence. And, so, what are…what…what can we take away here from this story about suffering? Because we find ourselves in the position of Job a lot. Certainly, we don’t face the destruction that Job faced but we face things that are so difficult that they get us…they get us confused and we want answers and we want understanding and we start demanding and we start accusing and we have to remember who the accuser was in this story. The accuser was Satan. And then we basically read all of these arguments and saw all kinds of accusations being spit out of humanity toward God. And then God shows up and nobody has anything to say because all of the sudden one realizes I don’t know what I’m talking about. I don’t know what I’m saying. What Job says is, “I…basically I had only heard about you before, but now I’m here in Your presence and I…I like clamp my hands over my mouth. I repent. I’ve said too much. I didn’t know what I was talking about. Your ways are too wonderful for me to comprehend.” Maybe we can take that clue because we find ourselves in judgment of God and with accusation in our heart when He doesn’t do what we want him to do. Maybe what we need isn't…isn’t to stand in the position of the accuser against God. Maybe what we need is to find ourselves in God’s presence. Maybe we can learn to be silent. Maybe we can put our hands over our mouths and stop spouting off things that we do not know and do not understand, and we never will maybe. Because isn’t the ultimate question here, “do you want God? Do you want God’s presence? Or do you just want to run around talking about God to each other? And if you want to run around talking to each other about God then that’s not the same as the presence of God.” And in the presence of God you realize your understanding will fail you. He is beyond what you can comprehend. And as I say that to you, I’m saying that to myself. I often confess, I’m a thinker. I live in my mind. I try to figure this out. I read the story of Job and I’m like, “I get it. I want understanding. I need to know how things work” only to realize through stories like Job there are things that are too wonderful for me to understand. I don’t like that. But I am not the most-high God and I can never put myself in that position because if I do all I’m being is an accuser and I don’t know what I’m talking about. For all that I do know, including reading the Bible every day for 15 years, for all that I do know I don’t know that I have even scratched the surface of all there is to our glorious all powerful almighty God. And, so, may we leave this book that has allowed us to kind of go deep, go down there, go into some of the pain, some of the story, some of the stuff of our lives, which is what it’s there for. What…this territory that we’re being led into into the Bible, this is where we’re supposed to go, this is where the Bible is leading us, this is what’s supposed to happen. We’re supposed to wrestle with this, but maybe fundamentally what we’re learning here is that in spite of anything that may happen the only safe place to be is in the presence of God. And to set ourselves up as the judge of God is utter folly, profoundly foolish. We don’t know what we’re talking about.

Prayer:

Father we enter into that. We realize that what we’re staring at is the end of ourselves, the end of our ability, the end of us to declare ourselves sovereign, to declare ourselves our own God. There are things we don’t know. There are more things that we don’t know then things that we do know. We do not know all that we think that we know, not even a fraction. You know all things. You are all powerful. You have designed it all, including our hearts. And, so we come to the end of ourselves and reach for You Papa, Abba, Father. It’s Your presence we need. When we find union with You, we find wholeness we find what’s missing, we find what we don’t know. And, so, we surrender ourselves to You, invite Your Holy Spirit to come and lead us into this month with all humility, seeking nothing more than Your face, seeking nothing more than to be in Your presence, and to see the adventure that You are offering us, where we can lean back and relax in Your care. You know it all. As long as we are with You there is no other place to be. So, come Holy Spirit and lead us we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, and that’s home base, that’s where the Global Campfire exists. That’s where we are. That’s how we all come together. And, so, it’s good to stay connected in any way that you can.

I mention on a continual basis the different aspects of it because…well…because first of all we need repetition in our lives but second of all, every day, every day we have new friends, new family. And, so, if this is your first day, welcome to the adventure of a lifetime. You can find out all about the community here checking out…by checking out the Community section. That is where the Prayer Wall lives and that is where you can always go for prayer or extend prayer to your brothers and sisters. And when we talk about Philippians and words of encouragement and…and there’s nothing…there’s nothing like knowing that people are praying for you. And you can know that here because people are continually praying but the Prayer Wall is one…one resource to go to.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com as well. I thank you profoundly, profoundly. Thank you for your partnership. We simply wouldn’t, none of us…none of this would be happening if we didn’t do this together. And, so, thank you deeply. There is a link on the homepage. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you’ve a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the red button 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.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hello, my wonderful DAB family today is Friday, August 28^th this is Rosie and Oklahoma calling and with a praise report. I asked all of you to pray for my oldest daughter Melissa because she had gone back to her ex-husband and I was concerned about it because he had several addictions going on at the same time and I was concerned that if things didn’t work out between him and her that she would just get that much further away from God. But I asked you guys to pray for her and he had just caused her to…to sink deeper into the pit and she finally told him to leave and instead of sinking deeper after he left, she pursued God more. And she looks like the same daughter but she’s not acting the same because she’s totally sold out to the Lord now and I just wanted to thank you all for praying for her. I really appreciate it. So, if any of you out there have never called in and you have a prayer request, if you want your prayers answered, this is the way to do it. Call in because we will all pray for you. And I just wanted to let…let you guys know how much I appreciate you and how much I love you and how much you mean to me. And I just wanted to let you know that. And I love you. Talk to you later. Bye.

Hi family this is Biola from Maryland I hope you’re all doing well. Brian and Jill God bless you God bless your ministry. Sister from South Dakota, I heard your prayer request and I’m praying for you. I’m a bit behind so I’m praying on the day you called. I know you would’ve done your birthday by now. Happy birthday and I am so sorry about the loss of your mom. You know the word of God says that blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. And the Bible says that the Lord is close to those who are broken hearted. So, I pray in the name of Jesus that you will be comforted by the Lord and the Holy Spirit will wrap His arms around you and your family in the name of Jesus. Prodigal, I heard your prayer requests and I am praying for you brother. I want to believe that it was because you were in such despair that you said with your mouth that Jake was probably going to die. Brother the Bible says that death and life are in the power of the tongue and that __ and if you’re a child of God don’t confess that with your mouth. We know the reality, yes, okay he’s been taking cocaine but don’t confess that he’s going to die. And I pray over Jake. I pray the word of the promise of the Lord in Isaiah 49 verses 24 and 25 that says that shall the prayer be taken from the mighty or the captives of the righteous be delivered but thus says the Lord even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away and the prayer of the terrible be delivered. For I will contend with him who contends with you and I will save your children. And I am standing on that for you and Jake in the name of Jesus we contend with that cocaine, we break the power of that addiction in his life in the name of Jesus and I pray right now that he will be set free completely in the name of Jesus. Sister who called in about Amber I’m praying for you that you will find a solution to this issue in Jesus’ name.

Tossed and Turning I want to pray to you. This is Kira from Denver. Hey DABbers. And Tossed and Turning I just heard your call about your adult sons living at home in their 30s and your 52-year-old son in a wheelchair and does a lot of drugs and expects you to take care of him and your husband who’s in his 80s and I am praying for you. I just want to lift you up to the Lord and have Him hold you and comfort you and just I’m just praying for you. I so admire your compassion. I kicked my son out when he was only 22 and I was messed up though, you know, and so was he and things are changed now and I’m just praying and hoping. And…yeah…I just I just want to lift you up Tossing and Turning. Thank you so much for calling. I love all you guys. Come Holy Spirit.

This is Suzanne calling from Albuquerque. I’m calling to lift Daniel Johnson Junior up in prayer. Bear with me I am a very, very private prayer person. I’m not used to praying in front of anyone, not even one person. I feel extremely clumsy and awkward but here goes. Father we come together to lift up Daniel Johnson Junior and to encourage him and we ask for Your love and comfort and guidance as he seeks gainful employment. We know that he is struggling very hard and he’s trying to keep faith strong in You and he’s also trying very hard to not succumb to his fears and anxiety about what tomorrow may bring. We know that You are comforting him, guiding him, and encouraging him as You are so many of us who are struggling for finances. So, Father we just pray for him and please give him courage. We hope that perhaps through this pandemic one of the…one of the blessings that we all may find is that our hearts are open and expanding in love towards one another. Amen.

Hello Daily Audio Bible my name is Matthew from the United Kingdom today is the 29^th of August 2020. Let us pray. Almighty and everlasting God, in the name of Jesus I come to You. You are God of hope, God of comfort, and God of grace. I come before You on behalf of the Daily Audio Bible. Our Father and our God I lift up the Daily Audio Bible family to You, particularly I lift up Brian and his family and his ministry before You. Lord God we thank You for Your Spirit in him that guides him through as he brings the word of to us in different versions. Father I will pray that Lord You will continue to guide him, and Your Spirit in Christ Jesus the Holy Spirit of God will continue to lead and even in his interpretations. Father I lift up all the prayer warriors before You. Almighty and everlasting God just as they intercede for the community Lord Almighty intercede for them. Lord Jesus undertake for them. You know their heart desire, You know their needs O God. Father I will pray Lord that as they remember others in Your love and Your mercy and Your grace You will remember them. Thank You our Father and our God because You are faithful. You know our heart desires and You promise to meet all our needs according to the riches and glory of Your son Jesus. We pray all of these things through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Hey everybody this is Angie from Winchester Virginia. Just wanted to let Barbara from Alberta Canada know that I’m praying for you. When I heard your prayer request the other day it really hit home with me. I have a son that is suffering from bipolar disorder and I’m just going to ask you guys to pray for him. He has been pacing the floors for the last seven days and just pacing hours on and 14, 15 hrs. at a time and talking to himself. And there’s really nothing I can do. He’s not suicidal, he’s not homicidal. So, I cannot put him under an emergency court order and it’s just breaking my heart. So, I’m just asking you guys to please pray for him and just asks that God put His protection around him and just lift him up in prayer please. And also pray for me. I’m a nurse and I am sitting in the parking lot at work right now and I don’t want to go in tonight because of Covid. We’re getting her second wave right now and I don’t want to do this a second time. It’s just so draining and we’re just seeing so much, and I just ask that you would lift me up in prayer too because I feel like I’m about ready to break. Anyway, Brian thank you for this platform. We love you giving us a platform to where we can get our daily bread from God is just amazing and thank you so much and I love you guys. I hope you have a blessed day.

Job 37:1-39:30, 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:10, Psalms 44:9-26, Proverbs 22:13

Today is the 31^st day of August welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is great to be here with you. Can you believe it? We have made it to the end of another month. With that today’s reading we’ll complete eight months consecutively seven days a week. We have journeyed long and far and unique…it’s been a unique year, to say the least, and there’s much out in front of us, much left in front of us in the Scriptures and much left in front of us in our lives this year. So, let’s get to it. Let’s finish this month strong. We’re reading from the book of Job while reading from the New International Version and today we’ll read Job 37, 38 and 39. And I just by way of reminder, so Job had three friends who came to see him, they have debated, they have conversed, they have talked, Job has pled his case, he is looking for God. Ad then there was his fourth voice, Elihu, a younger man who appears on the scene. And, so, he’s with these men listening to them but out of deference because he’s younger, he hasn’t spoken but then he feels like he can’t hold it up inside anymore, which…and he has a need to say his peace, which can be…which is common to younger men, right? And, so, he’s now saying, “okay. I’ve listened to all the wisdom of the elders. I’ve listened to Job and this is what I have to say because I can’t not say it.” And we’re…we’ve been listening to Elihu, but we’ll continue with that today in Job 37. And then Job will get what he wants because it Job 38 the Lord will show up.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we have been working our way through the book of Job. We’ve talked a lot about the book of Job, and now we’re ending the ending of the book of Job. In fact, as we begin next month, tomorrow, we will conclude the book of Job in tomorrow’s reading. So, we’re almost there and if we just kind of glance back we remember, Job began with unspeakable tragedy. We watched this person who was a very wise, wealthy, strong, prestigious person in the community, wherever he lived, very well respected and systematically his entire life fell apart. He lost everything that he had. He lost everyone that he loved. It all just went away. And, so, Job is just undone, as you can imagine. He just is destroyed, and his friends come to see him, and they can’t even recognize him. It’s so horrifying what has happened to Job. And Job only wants one thing. He doesn’t believe it’s fair. Like he believes he is suffering unjustly. So, basically at the core of it all, what Job wants is understanding. He wants the knowledge about his situation. He wants to understand. And, so, his friends are there trying to make him or help him understand and they’re in this kind of circular thing where Job is holding onto his innocence and his friends are trying to pry his fingers away from that and tell him that it can’t be, you can’t be innocent, you can’t be righteous. Like this is happening because of something in you, your pride, your evil. And he keeps saying, “like that’s…everything you’re telling me I already know. There’s not a thing you could…there’s no understanding that you have that you can impart to me that I don’t already know. What I want is an audience with the most-high God. I want God to explain and make me understand.” And Job claims, “I…like I’ve looked everywhere. I can’t find Him anywhere. And of course, his friends are like, “of course you can’t find Him. Like only the righteous can find Him. Like, you’re not gonna find Him.” So, there’s this whole circle going on and then Elihu, the younger person, goes on a rant on Job, just kind of goes off on all of them, and then the Lord God shows up. Like Job gets the audience. This righteous man Job is clinging to his innocence and looking for understanding gets what he wants. And God comes, it’s just different than he was thinking. God says, “who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man. I will question you and you shall answer.” I’m telling you, if that ever happened to me, I would pee in my pants, like…or more. Like, can you imagine that you have been having an ongoing discussion with your friends about God, claiming…making claims and kind of arguing and debating with each other about God and about your understanding of what He does and does not do and His ways of acting and working and then God shows up and is like, “who is this? Who is this that’s talking without…like talking about things they don’t know? Brace yourself. I have some questions of my own. Since you have all these questions for me let me ask you a few questions.” We’re talking about the most-high God. We’re not talking about some powerful person. We’re talking about God. It's…it’s a…it’s a wonderful thing that God shows up but it’s a terrifying thing to think about if you put yourself in the position. It’s like, holy cow
or holy something. I don’t know what to say. And He already knows what I have said. And the questions that God is asking, they cannot be answered. Who could know the answers to those things but the creator of all? And, so, as we conclude the book of Job tomorrow, we’ll hear what Job actually finally does have to say. We’ve listened to Job preparing his arguments for the whole book. So, we know what he was planning to say. Tomorrow we’ll find out what he actually has to say.

And then in second Corinthians, Paul is defending himself. This is something the that he…that he has to do often but definitely has to do with the fellowship that’s in Corinth. It appears that the kind of the accusations that are against Paul is that he’s just a shyster and that he really made this all up, he’s making this all up, he’ is manipulating people. And Paul is basically trying to push back and say like, “dude if this is what our…like if that was the plan, if the plan was to…to…to manipulate people and swindle people and do all of these things there are like way more effective ways than trying to create a way of looking at the world and spirituality that is nonsense to Gentiles and heresy to my fellow Hebrews who want to kill me. Like there are better ways to do what you’re kinda claiming that I’m doing. Like that’s not what we’re doing here at all. It’s all for your benefit.” I mean just quoting from…from second Corinthians, “all this is for your benefit so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So, we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what…but on what is unseen since what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal.” So, even in defending himself he’s trying to say, “look higher.” And that’s just like kind of a theme that we see in his letters to the Corinthians. Like…like even in your divisions look higher…there’s a bigger story here, seriously. Do you have to make this argument, this debate, this accusation? Like is this all there is to life? Can’t you see the transformation that God wants to do in you and the way that he wants to use you to transform the world? It’s bigger than what you think”, which ironically isn’t so different than what’s going on in Job. It’s bigger than you think. And when you think you know it all you have put a ceiling on where you can go because you cannot see the unseen, you just waste away in the seen. And, so, let’s take that to heart as we close the books on another month together and prepare to go sailing into the ninth month of the year.

Prayer:

Father we thank You. We thank You for these eighth…eight months that we’ve had the opportunity to be in each other’s company every single day these months. And You have taken us through some territory this year, some serious soul-searching, some deep things. Not only in the Scriptures but in our lives. Like this has been a shaking and You have been faithful and we are grateful. And, so, as we release this month and…and allow it to become a part of our story, a part of our history we look forward to the stories that are yet to be told, the stories of the grand adventure of life in relationship with You and in relationship with one another. And, so, we stand here at the end of something, a month, and on the precipice of the beginnings of something, another month, and we worship You. We are grateful. You are glorious. You are the most-high God. There is none like You. It’s a ridiculous thing to even say that. There is none even remotely like You. You are all powerful. You are the most-high and we are Your children. And, so, we are so profoundly humbled by that. And we ask forgiveness for all of the accusations and all of the assumptions that we have made like You or made about You. We confess that we know in part, we see through a glass darkly. We don’t know what we think we know. But day by day step-by-step we are being transformed from within. You are sanctifying us. You are setting us apart and our prayer is that we just stop getting in Your way. Come Holy Spirit, well up from within and lead us the narrow path that leads to life we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it is…it’s the website but it’s home base for the virtual community that we are centered around the Global Campfire. So, check it out.

Check out the Community section. This is how to get connected.

Check out the Daily Audio Bible Shop. There are resources there, all kinds of resources, an entire Global Campfire line of resources that are just ways of allowing us to feel that connection that we share with our brothers and sisters who are on this journey of going through the entire Bible in a year. So, check that out. There are our written resources, audio resources, music, all kinds of stuff that are intended for the journey that we are on, taking us through the Bible in a year. So, check…check out the Daily Audio Bible Shop.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, thank you profoundly, humbly. Here we are, last day of…last day of the month and it’s hard to believe because these months…as crazy of a year this has been it’s like…it seems like it’s going fast at the same time, like a lot is going on, but here we are at the end of another month and again I can’t thank you enough for your partnership especially as we move through the summer. So, there is a link on the homepage of dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the app you can just 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 prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the red button at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253. That’s the number if you are in the Americas. If you’re in the UK or Europe, you can dial 44-20-3608-8078 or 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.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family today is the 27^th of August this…this is Laura in West Palm Beach Florida. I just heard a prayer request from Michael as he’s driving to possibly another eye surgery this morning. I…I hear despair in his voice. I know he’s lost his father and his mother in the last couple years and he’s been divorced in the last two months and I know Michael needs hope. I know he said that he’s been seeking God’s face and can’t find it. Lord I know that even Job in his despair said that all that he could see about you and know about you was just a whisper of the…of the truth. Father I just pray that Michael would grab a hold of this whisper of hope and that Lord he would have a successful eye surgery. I pray Father that He would continue to seek you because your word says that if you ask and you seek you will find. And Lord I know that you’re there for him. God he is seeking, and I know you’re not going to turn Your back on him. I just pray Father for Michael’s despair to be replaced with hope and peace and trust. And may his eye surgery be successful. And Father not only his eye surgery but I pray that the eyes of his soul would seek You and find You.

Hey this is for the DABber the Michael that called in, you had…you lost your parents and you have issue with your eyes that you may have to have a surgery. I think you said another surgery. I really feel for your man and I know how it is to not feel God or not…not be aware of God around you. That happens to me a lot and I just want to pray for you this morning. Lord we ask for a strong movement of Your strength this morning Lord in Michael’s life. Michael is like us Lord, he needs You, he…he can’t do this alone and he’s asked…he wants You Lord, he’s asking for You, he’s aware of You, he’s here listening to Your Scripture. He’s a part of our group Lord and he’s a part of Your kingdom. We ask that You deliver him from this I issue Lord, that You give him complete health and restoration of any vision loss or anything, Lord that You can comfort him with this…in regard to the loss of his parents and his divorce Lord that You can help him get through that without dwelling on it and without feeling any guilt or without any misery Lord. Please deliver him from these things and begin to bring joy, comfort, and purpose and all kinds of good things into his life Lord. We know that all good gifts come from You. We ask that You just pour out joy on his life and help him to begin to live in a different way in the likeness of Job where everything was taken from him and the pain was so great but in the later part of his life You blessed him with more than he ever had. We ask that You now begin to restore Michael and bless him Lord and help them to live a long fruitful and happy life. Let him share with others what…what happened to him Lord. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Hi this is Bighearted Ben and radiant Rachel and Andrew from Pennsylvania. We have a prayer request. Andrew’s buddy Kevin Cranes got in a car accident, a head car collision…head on collision…he’s in a coma and he’s in a coma in the hospital and he needs a lot of prayer. He’s one of Andrews good friends. So, we’re asking that everybody pray with us for Kevin Kevlar otherwise known as…what’s his nickname…Kevlar. Alright. Dear God, we lift up Kevlar to you. We pray that you will send your Holy Spirit to him, to his hospital room. We pray that the Holy Spirit will wrap his arms around him and heal him completely Lord bring him through this so that he can continue on with his life. He was just about to retire, and we pray that he can enjoy his retirement and live a long healthy life. And is there anything else to say Ben? Andrew, you got anything to say? And thank you for this dinner, please nourish it to our bodies. Dear Jesus, please have everyone in the whole wide world even that have been praying __ even everyone in the world to have no __ and the coronavirus to go away and every virus to go away…

Hello everyone, it’s Margo from Liberia I’m still stuck in the UK, been here for over a month and we just found out that our third flight’s that we’ve booked we’ve been bumped off again. And really today I just feel desolate. I do trust God. I totally trust God but my feelings right now…I feel like I’ve got no control over my life. I’m stuck here. I’m useless to anyone. I can’t do anything. I looked into getting registered here so I can work here but I can’t do that. I…I…I’m what I’m asking for is for prayer that we can could back to Australia. My husbands supposed to be doing some training, my sons getting married. I really…I want to be there for my son’s wedding. I’m just at a loss this morning and I guess I just…I’m in need of some support and some prayer. And I’m angry because it’s Australia that’s not letting us in. There’s thousands of us stranded in other countries and the governments put these flight caps on. And, so, kind of, if you can pay business class you can pretty much get in but the flight…the costs are horrendous, and I know I’m not even speaking very well today. I’m just trying to be coherent. I do trust in God, that I know, but I also know that it’s okay to feel upset about things some time. And that’s me today. Please pray. I love you guys. Bye.

Abigail from Oregon this is God’s Life Speaker. I hear your pain for your loss for your baby. Praise God that you got to hold your baby. And I understand totally being pregnant with friends and watching them continue. That happened exactly to be where we had multiple miscarriages and I was pregnant with a friend of the same…good family friend at the same time and it was so hard. I hear you. I hear you. But continue to lift them up, continue to pray for their babies, continue just to believe and speak life that…that your baby is coming. And I can be 11 years away from that time and just tell you the blessing…the blessing is coming. I don’t know why the wait. I don’t understand the babies that we’ve lost. But they are in heaven and will get to hold them. So, Abigail don’t worry about your friend that had an abortion. Pray for her. She will see that baby if she knows Jesus. Continue to be the light and the life of these girlfriends. Know people are praying for you. Losing babies are hard. Losing anything as hard, right? Because we so want it. And to hear that God has a plan…well He has a plan as we live continuously in the places that He has put us. Just like Joe did, we press forward. So, Abigail from Oregon God bless you. Look forward, speak life into yourself into your friends and into the unknown babies that are all you to come. God bless you.

Hi, I just had a prayer request. I had a stroke a week and a half ago and I lost my mom to cancer three weeks before that and I didn’t want to cry I just miss her. I’m a single mom with four boys and I’m in the hospital right now. I just wanted…I have two older boys and two younger boys, and I think one of my boys relapsed into using drugs. It was just too much for him. And if you guys could just keep us in your prayers. My pastor’s wife came and told me about this awesome iPod thing and I’ve been listening to your series from my bed in the hospital and I can’t wait to get home and listen to my boys…have my boys listen to the kids section. If you could just, please keep my family in your prayers and help me get home soon. My little boy Mario also has a birthday coming up on September 1^st and he’s pretty sad I’m not going to be able to be there because I’ll still be in the hospital…

Job 34:1-36:33, 2 Corinthians 4:1-12, Psalms 44:1-8, Proverbs 22:10-12

Today is the 30^th day of August welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is a joy to greet the new week together with you and step into it together. It’s this shiny threshold that we throw the gates open and walk into every week and just remind ourselves nothing’s gone right or wrong, not…the bottom hasn’t fallen out of anything and we haven’t soared into anything. It’s a week that is in front of us and we will live into it, moment by moment and the story of this week will be told with the words that we say the conversations that we have the actions that we take the decisions that we make. That’s what’s gonna…that’s how this week is gonna form itself. And, so, we choose now to center ourselves in God’s Word and orient ourselves to Him and to submit ourselves to Him on the front end of the week, not at the backend when everything has gone wrong, now. We get to choose how to live into this week and what posture of heart we will live into it. Like are…are we gonna rage all week long or are we going to be patient? We get to choose that. And, so, let’s choose wisely. And one of the wisest choices that we make is to continue the rhythm around the Global Campfire, allowing the Word of God to speak into our lives and inform our week. And, so, let’s dive in. We’ll read from the New International Version this week and continue the book of Job. Today chapter 34, 35, and 36.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for bringing us into this shiny sparkly new week and we look to the future with anticipation as we prepare to end a month and begin anew. We mark the passage of time, as we as we always do. The passage of time is an opportunity for us to see Your faithfulness, that You have brought us here, that we are still standing. No matter how worn-out we might be, You have been faithful. We are still here, and we are grateful. And, so, we look forward with longing to all that You will speak to us in Your word and the coming week, all that You will do in our lives in this transformation process, this removal of the veil so that we might see and reflect Your glory upon this earth. What a gift. What an invitation. What an overwhelming sense of possibility, that we get to collaborate with You in the world this week. Come Holy Spirit. May we represent You well. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, home base, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here. So, check it out. You can check it all out using the Daily Audio Bible app as well by hitting the Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner.

Check out the Community section. This is where the Prayer Wall lives. This is part of what the Global Campfire is, that we are people who pray for each other, that we stay connected, that we actually get invested in each other’s stories. We feel that spiritual connection with our brothers and our sisters, people that we may have never seen, people we may actually never be able to lay human eyes on. But as we…as we learn, that doesn’t mean we don’t love them, that doesn’t mean we don’t care. We are the body, right? If one hurts, we all hurt, and we sense that. And when one rejoices, we all rejoice, and we sense that. So, the Prayer Wall is definitely a resource for always being able to reach out for prayer and in prayer with prayer for one another. So…so check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. The link is on the homepage. If you are using the app, the Daily Audio Bible 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. We have a Hotline button in our community. We can always reach out. And that is found in the app, little red button at the top, you can’t miss it 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.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Good afternoon family this is Soaring on Eagles Wings from Canada. If you guys…as you guys will remember, my mom passed away in March. She had breast cancer and other things and I was trying to get to Maryland before she passed but I missed it by hours. But my youngest sister, my baby sister, who has given up her whole life to care for our mom has had a mammogram and they called her for a diagnostic one and now they have seen some…something that they want to go and to a biopsy on. And, so, I’m asking you guys to pray, please in deep prayer for my baby sister Sandra as she’s faced with this now and she is in…is in emotional turmoil already because of the death of our mom. She hasn’t resolved that yet and now the possibility that there may be something there. And I am also a breast cancer survivor. So, please pray with me. My heart is just troubled because I’m concerned for my baby sister. So, I ask you all to join me in prayer and ask for God’s divine intervention so that He would miraculously remove whatever they…that there is…they are seeing their, that the biopsy will show a non-malignant situation. Grant her piece now because I’m sure she’s scared. She’s not saying much but I can imagine her thoughts. So please ask the Lord along with me to wrap His loving arms around her, protect her and keep her mind fixed on Him. She’s a Christian. She loves Jesus and I thank you all. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Hey fellow DABbers this is Lincoln from Canada and I was wondering if you would be so kind to pray for my wife and myself. In June it would’ve been six…seven years since we got married and the first six years were pretty rocky but this last year has been a pretty good year until January when my wife informed me that she was leaving and I was completely blindsided by that. I did not see that coming. And, so, after she had moved out, we started some reconciliation efforts and we started to spend a little bit of more time together and things seemed pretty promising until May when it was my birthday. When I came home on my birthday she was at the house and she and surprised me with my favorite meal and she had gotten me some gifts and we spent an amazing weekend together, which was really nice. And then, right the very next weekend she…things weren’t going so well. So, she decided she was going to block me, and I have not had any communication with her in 2 ½ months now. So, today I reached out to her to see if there’s a way that we could come to the table and discuss a plan forward and she doesn’t seem to be willing. So, it is very painful, and it seems this marriage me may end in a divorce and I am praying that may not be the case. So, I’m inviting you to join me in prayer as we seek God’s leading and hopefully, we can get this marriage restored.

Hi Brian and Daily Audio Bible family this is Victory Michelle calling from New York. I’m so glad I was able to get in touch with you guys. I called once before but I don’t think my call got through. I’ve been with the Daily Audio Bible about 12 years now. Here’s my prayer request. I don’t have a job right now and I have some mental health issues that kind of prevent me from working sometimes. So, I really need a job that doesn’t stress out my mental health issues. Also, I’m thousands of dollars behind in my rent. I’ve applied to the city for grant. So, I need prayer that they will grant my request. And basically, that’s it. I’m also behind on my taxes as well. So, I have a lot of financial problems that have been giving me a lot of anxiety and depression. I’d also like prayer for a husband because I’ve been single all my life. I’m in my 50s right now and I believe God wants me to have one. Just want to thank you and I really appreciate being on this call and I hope someone’s able to pray for my prayer request. Thank you.

Hi this is Dorothy out in California. This message is for Jana who has a daughter, Amber in third grade, and you’re worried about school. This is for Shannon. Your birthday is this coming Saturday and you just lost your mom and I am so sorry about your loss. And Prodigal, who you’ve lost everything and you’re struggling with your son who’s addicted to heroin and stole from you a lot of money. Abba please, please, rescue them. Please help them. Please step in. Guys, I can’t…I can’t give…say anything in that I’ve ever experienced…I’ve never been where you’re at. One day you’ll be able to help someone who has been where you’re at. God came to me in a dream a couple days ago. I think it was God. There was this man and his name was Abba but he said make sure to mention only my kids call me that and I was distraught over something and I was ready to give up on life and he had said, there’s more than what you see, don’t give up. Keep going. I love you guys. You are not alone. You have a DAB family. Keep calling and keep posting on the Prayer Wall even if it’s every day. God loves you. He is the God of miracles. He has you in His hands. I love you guys.

Hi, DABbers this is Lucy in Huntsville Alabama. My family lost two members on Tuesday, August 25^th. My dad died. I had not called in about him, but I put a prayer request in DAB friends on Facebook. I did not know at this time that a cousin of his who was, I guess she’s a third cousin of mine, she died as well the same morning. She had been diagnosed with melanoma just a few weeks ago and was doing great and suddenly had to be rushed to the hospital a week and half ago and had a pulmonary hemorrhage. They had to do work on her in the hospital, but they couldn’t get her in an ICU bed because there were no ICU beds available because of all the COVID patients. My dad got the COVID-19 also. He was in a nursing home. He was safe but someone brought it in, and he ended up with pneumonia last week and I kept checking on him nobody could visit but he seemed to be doing great until Monday. The nurse told my brother that she thought he was about to die, and he hung on for one more day. I really appreciate your prayers. My brother and I both of us had cancer. My cousin had cancer. I got…her daughter also has another form of cancer. We would really, really appreciate your prayers at this time. Thank you.

Job 31:1-33:33, 2 Corinthians 3:1-18, Psalms 43:1-5, Proverbs 22:8-9

Today is the 29^th day of August welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is great to be here with you as we reach the conclusion of another of our weeks together. And this concludes the last full week of this month, August. Before we get through another one of our weeks together, we will embark on the journey through another month. But like we often say, we’re here, this is where we are and we’re here now and we’re here to take the next step forward, which will lead us back out into the book of Job. We’re reading from the Voice Translation this week, which is what we will do today. Job 31, 32, and 33.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we came to one of the most popular famous verses of Scripture in the New Testament today when Paul says, “where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom”, right? So, we sing that in songs, we quote that, we repeat it to ourselves, it’s famous. What kind of freedom is Paul talking about though? Because if we can grasp what Paul is saying today, it's…it's…it’s like a mind-blowing thing. Seriously, there are the things that we encounter in the Scriptures that if we will just slow down and not make them a theological metaphor of some sort, just actually think about the reality that Paul is describing, it is mind blowing stuff. And today is one of those days. So, Paul does say, “where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom or there is liberty.” So, we kind of have to start out going, “well…where is the Spirit of the Lord then?” And we realize when we start thinking about that how often we’re trying to get into the presence of the Lord where this freedom is but we have to go somewhere, like we have to be in some sort of mystical state or we have to be in church or like where…where is the Spirit of the Lord where I can enter that presence and find freedom? According to the Bible, we can never escape His Spirit. Like, according to the Bible if we make our bed in the…in the depths, if we go up to the highest heavens, if we go to the far side of the sea, even there His Spirit will guide us. So…so there is nowhere that we can escape from His Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. So, we could say wherever we go there is liberty. Wherever we are in whatever state we’re in - and I don’t mean like state of the United State, I mean like whatever condition we’re in - there is still freedom. That is the…the crux, that is the mind-blowing thing that Paul is saying today, but he’s saying, “in order to live into that, in order to even recognize that you have to understand that you haven’t been seeing it that way. You haven’t been experiencing it that way. You’ve been looking at your life through a veil.” And this is where Paul turns back to Hebrew tradition and the law and his own education and his own understanding. And he talks about Moses. And we spent a lot of time with Moses as we were getting into our year. So, we know the story of Moses and freeing of the slaves from Egypt, but we remember when they went out into the wilderness where we spent so much time earlier this year that God called Moses up on Mount Sinai and the people build a golden calf and the whole story and he came back down but they were supposed to come meet with God. That was the instruction. They were supposed to purify themselves as an entire community and come up on the mountain of the Lord and meet with God. And, so, they drew near, God descended upon the mountain and it terrified them, they were afraid. And, so, they backed off and essentially inaugurated Moses to be a prophet. God invited all the people to hear from him and the people backed off and appointed Moses and said, “you go up before the Lord, you listen to what the Lord says, you come tell us, and then we will obey it.” And that’s what happened. So, Moses goes into the presence of the Lord and comes back down and his face is glowing, right? Remember this. His face is glowing and it’s freaking the people out because the glory of the Lord is upon Moses. And, so, they’re afraid of Moses. And, so, Moses puts a veil over his face so as not to disturb the people in order to do his work, the work of the Lord in leading the people. So, Paul takes that picture and essentially says, “God’s people have been looking through a veil ever since. The glory is behind the veil, but the veil is in front of the glory and essentially that’s the problem. You’ve been looking at it through a veil ever since.” But let me just quote it from Paul from second Corinthians. “Their minds became as hard as stones for up to this day when they read the old covenant (which is the Hebrew Scriptures the Torah) the same veil continues to hide that glory. This veil is lifted only through the Anointed One. Even today a veil covers their hearts when the words of Moses are read, but in the moment when one turns toward the Lord the veil is removed. And by the Lord what I mean is the Spirit, and in any heart where the Spirit of the Lord is present there is freedom, there is liberty.” So, as Paul has explained, especially in the book of Romans, the law exposed the ways in which people fail and fall short, this old covenant. With the coming of Jesus and the inauguration of this new covenant we are shown the ways in which we are free from those failures because we have been made righteous before God through Jesus. That’s how we get to this famous Scripture. That’s it in its context. When a person turns to Christ, the veil is removed and all of a sudden, the glory of God can be seen without a…a veil and we can see that we are free. These things that…that keep estranging us from God are not a category, they’re not supposed to be a category, tight? If freedom exists where the Spirit of the Lord is and we can’t escape the Spirit of the Lord, then freedom is always with us and always available and when the veil is removed we can see that and live into it and experience it from glory to glory, like continually, always, like as a way of life. So, knowing that we’re free from sin, eternally free…ahh…eternally free, what a complete and utter relief and the implication of essentially opening our eyes, right. the veil removed, having eyes to see and ears to hear. The implications of this are astounding. And, so, I won’t paraphrase, I’m just gonna quote it from the Scriptures. “Now all of us with our faces unveiled reflect the glory of the Lord as if we are mirrors. And, so, we are being transformed into His same image from one radiance of glory to another just as the Spirit of the Lord accomplishes it.” That is crazy stuff to think about, that the process of sanctification is transforming us completely into the likeness of our Savior, of God, a mirror image. I don’t know if that blows your mind or not. It blows my mind to think about. It brings all of the things that I can obsess about or worry about or fret about or concern myself with or distract myself with into some kind of context. Like Paul has this way of leading us to a place where we can see this vista and realize that that’s the reality we are headed toward and that’s what we are living into and it is a way bigger story than we are living than we are choosing to live. And today is one of those days. We reflect the glory of the Lord upon the earth. We are, as Jesus would have said, the light of the world if we choose to live into the removal of the veil. So often we just want the veil. Like we just choose the veil and then stay confused about it all when the clarity here is, the veil has been removed. Our job is to reflect the glory of the Lord upon the earth. That is quite a calling, quite an invitation, quite a purpose for life. And, so, let’s live into that.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit we invite You. It is Your glory we are reflecting. So often, we try to get a little bit of it and shine it but then make sure that there’s a bunch of it shining back on us so we’re recognized. This isn’t about us. We don’t have any glory. We are wandering in the dark without You. And yet You are inviting us to participate in Your glory to be transformed into Your likeness to be a part, a vital part, of Your work in this world by shining the light. We are humbled. We recognize for sure we don’t deserve any of this, It is way beyond anything we can earn, it is way beyond anything we can arrange for, it is way beyond anything we can accomplish. It is the highest of heights and You have invited us into it. You have lifted us out of the mire and set us in the heavenly’s. You have invited us to be a part of Your story. And, so, often we’re just to trying to make You a part of ours. But we come to moments like this and clarity comes bursting in and we see the bigger story and we understand how small we’ve made You and how weak we really are without You. And, so, we invite You as we move to close this week for sure. But as we close another month and move into September in a few days, we want to live into this fully. And, so, we begin by opening our hearts to it. Remove the veil. Let us see clearly. And not just right this minute but perpetually. May we live into our perpetual freedom. There is nowhere that we are going to go that You are not. And wherever You are there is freedom. May we see that, may we live that in the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it’s the website, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here.

The Initiatives, the Community, the Shop, they’re all there. Resources are available. What’s going on around here is available. Links to get connected on social media are available. The Prayer Wall is available. These are all always available so check them out at dailyaudiobible.com or in the Daily Audio Bible app you can just press the Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, I thank you with all my heart. Thank you for your partnership. What we’re doing here day by day seven days a week, 365…366 days this year in a row always never ending, this is done because we are together in community moving through this. And, so, I thank you profoundly for your partnership. So, there’s a link on the homepage. 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 PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button. It’s in the app, which is the little red button at the top, kinda looks like a Hotline button so it’s hard to miss. No matter where you are in the world, no matter what’s going on you can hit the hotline button, 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.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi this is Victoria Solider just calling tonight to pray for some of the DABbers I wanted to talk to… to soe of the DABbers and pray them. I wanted to pray for the lady who called about praying for the policeman nationwide. That is a…a really good idea. What we need to pray for is the eyes and the heart of our policeman. We know that they’re out there, we need them, we know that they’re…they’re doing a…that they’re doing a magnificent job, but we need to pray for those who are not seeing right. Like Jesus prayed for the man who was blind, and he touched him, and he said he’s seeing men as trees but when he touched him again, he seen men as men. We need to pray for those police officers who were doing the wickedness of shooting people and doing people wrong instead of trying to cover it up but we need to pray that God will open up their eyes and convict them that they will have a heart do every…to treat everyone right because righteousness is what exalts a nation. We all need to pray for our police officers. We need to pray for our leaders, and this is where we need to be. We need police officers and police officers need…need the protection also. So, my…my heart is deftly out for playing for lease nationwide and that…that they won’t do the evil stuff of…of wanting to take a life when they know it’s not right in their heart to do. The lawful shouldn’t have to stop them but their heart should stop them, the heart of God. And I just pray for that heart for every…every…every cop whether it’s a __ thing or just an evil thing. Lord you have your way. And I want to pray for…for our…for our…for the ones I have on my…my list still…the…the ones who are going…suffering cancer, the one who…

Hello this is Toss and Turning from Illinois my first time calling, no, maybe my second time calling. I’ve been listening for quite a few years now and I keep thinking about Barb in Canada and I have the same thing going on here at home. I have two sons that live at home from my second marriage that are in their 30s. One, the youngest has diabetes and doesn’t seem to want to move on and the second has a girlfriend and he’s in and out. And I have my oldest son that’s in a wheelchair. He got involved in drugs when he was in his early teens and he’s 52 and always depended on me to help him and angry with me when I don’t. And my husband is in his 80s and he has heart problems. So, there’s a lot of things going on here that I could use prayer for and I’m praying for you Barb in Canada and all those that have adult children living at home. Thank you, Daily Audio Bible for being there.

Good morning DAB family this is June in Maryland I want to thank everyone so much for praying for me so much. I’m feeling so much better. Just got cleared to go back to work. So, I am good. Thank you, God and thank you all family. I am calling to ask for prayer request for one of our coworkers who also had it. Six of us on my unit got it. My unit was shut down for two days and it was just crazy. So, she actually is older and just not doing so well. She ended up going to a hospital and then moved into the ICU and now she’s on a ventilator. So, I’m just asking you all to pray for her. I __  for her, of course, I have family so I don’t want to say her name but she…God knows who she is and if you guys can just pray for her, keep her your prayers, pray for a speedy or miraculous recovery and let this be a testament to God and His glory and let everyone see it. Thank you all. Love you all. I’ll call back later. Bye.

Good morning friends I’m way behind in my listening. Today is…I don’t know…August 26^th it’s a Wednesday but I’m way back on biggest 18^th and, you know, I’m not really beating…beating myself up about being behind but, you know, it’s like I always think about it, like I have to listen to as many as I can. And, you know, some days I just don’t make it. Like yesterday I just overslept and, you know, it was a pretty bad day. I’m not saying those two are connected but I’m just telling you to facts about my life. Yesterday, Wednesday, I missed the Daily Audio Bible. Yesterday, Wednesday, was one terrible day because I had to mandatory report. As a teacher I have too, and it doesn’t matter who tells me what’s going on I have to tell, and I believe that. I believe I should tell, and I always do. This one is the third time I’ve ever had to do it and it was the worst. But then this morning I wake up feeling a little dejected from, you know, still the lingering ugh from yesterday and I stumbled downstairs and I plug in my phone to charge it and I hit my trusted friend, the Daily Audio Bible and what of all days of all days friends is he, is Brian reading to us Esther. Thank you God for allowing me to get eight days behind so that when I would turn on my Daily Audio Bible today Lord God you would have my very favorite Bible story and you would have Brian telling me that yes, it’s a wackadoodle year but what if God has me ready for such a time as this. I see you God. I see You working on in my life and I love You and I praise You and I’m so excited to tell everyone about you. Thank you, Daily Audio Bible for always being there for me. I love you. Peace.

Hi DAB family this is Hopeful can you please pray for my husband Chris who is not a believer. He’s gonna be going on a three day silent meditation retreat August 28^th through the 30^th and I’m gonna be really praying for him that he would just really open his heart up to Christ and…and maybe…and pray maybe for the first time in a very long time. He doesn’t believe in prayer and has been coming to church with me very consistently off and on over the last 5, 6 years but just really consistently over the last couple of years and he’s just so close. And just this meditation retreat can…can definitely pull him away from Christ but I’m just praying that this will actually draw him closer to Him. It’s hard to encourage him to believe in prayer when he knows that I pray for children every single day and that’s just not something that we’ve been blessed with yet. And, so, I am still believing. We are, you know, as I had mentioned before we are in our mid-40s and it’s…my doctors have pretty much deemed it impossible based on my past history of…of endometriosis and all kinds of problems but I am still believing and I am believing with all the other women out there who have called in with infertility. We’re going to be this, and this is not the end of our story. So, anyway please pray for Chris this weekend. I love you guys. I…I pray for you every day. You inspire me to be a better Christian and thank you so much Brian for all of your commentations that have really blessed me.

Job 28:1-30:31, 2 Corinthians 2:12-17, Psalms 42:1-11, Proverbs 22:7

Today is the 28^th day of August welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is wonderful to be here with you today as we keep the journey going, keep sailing forward, keep moving step-by-step through the Scriptures. So, let’s get to it. We’re reading from the Voice Translation this week and continuing our journey through the book of Job and that today we’ll read chapters 28, 29, and 30.

Prayer:

Thank You, Father for Your word. Thank You, Father for community to experience Your word in. Thank You for the uniqueness of who we are all over the world moving through the Scriptures together and allowing it to wash into our lives, to inform our lives, to correct us, to rebuke us, to comfort us, to illuminate the narrow path that leads to life. And we confess that we’re always looking for the shortcut to the on-ramp of that road, but that is a narrow path that few ever find according to the Scriptures and Your word leads us and guides us and it is a twisty wine the up and down life that we live and each day with each challenge we are reminded of our utter dependence upon You and Your willingness to guide us into all truth. And, so, we invite You Holy Spirit to do just that. We open ourselves up to You. May the mind of Christ be our mind, may the narrow path be our path, may Your word be a lamp unto our feet and a light to that path and may we experience Your presence in every way. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base. its where you find out what’s going on around here. So, check it out.

Check out the resources that are available in the Shop. Check out the Community section, where you can get connected on social media as well as the Prayer Wall lives there and you can…doesn’t matter what time of day or night that it is, doesn’t matter where you are in the world, there’s always prayer needed and there’s always somebody to pray for, and there’s always somebody praying, and there’s always a place to reach out for and with prayer. So, be familiar with the Prayer Wall, that’s in the Community section. You can get to it from the Daily Audio Bible app as well by pushing the Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner.

I haven’t talked about it in a while but the new resources…the new resource that we have this year is a guided prayer journey called Heart, a contemplative journey. And we released that way, way back last month at the beginning…way back. It seems like forever ago doesn’t it, that we did the long walk? But that was on July 7^th and released that on July 7^th and…yeah… it has struck a nerve. The feedback has been fantastic. It is simply a way of taking in an hour and just being guided in in prayer into some of the things that you’ve probably been feeling, that we’ve all been feeling over the last year or probably over the last many years, some of the deeper places of the heart. And then there are musical compositions around those prayers that are intended to lead that a prayer process, that thinking, that opening of our hearts to those emotions deeper as we contemplate as we become more and more aware of God’s presence in all of those things. So, Heart is available wherever you can get music, like i…the iTunes Store or Google Play. It’s not on…on Apple music stream-able. The prayers, like the only way to do stream-able content is then disembody the prayers from the rest of the project and that’s just very strange to say the least. So, you can buy it at the iTunes store or at Google Play and get the entire project and take the journey, if you haven’t yet. It's…it’s worth doing. It’s worth taking some time. Actually, it’s worth doing over and over and over actually. One time through is wonderful and then you go back for a deeper pass and a deeper pass and open your heart deeper and deeper and wider to what the Holy Spirit may want to say to you about some the things you’ve been feeling. So, check out the Heart project. You can just download it at the iTunes Store or Google Play or wherever.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com as well. There is a link and that link lives on the homepage and I cannot thank you enough. I cannot with all humility thank you enough for your partnership. 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, if you prefer, 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, which is the red button at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that’s it for today on Brian. I’m love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Job 23:1-27:23, 2 Corinthians 1:12-2:11, Psalms 41:1-13, Proverbs 22:5-6

Today is the 27^th day of August, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian and it is a pleasure to be here with you today as we move into the back toward the end of another week, and as we find ourselves here taking the next step forward in our week, in our year, and in the Scriptures, So, we’ll continue moving along in the book of Job and it’s nothing short of fascinating to watch what’s happening in the book of Job, the…the discussions…and there closer the arguments…that are happening between Job and his friends and then we’ll move our way into second Corinthians when we get to the New Testament. We’re reading from the Voice Translation this week. Job chapters 23 through 27 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we’re continuing forward in the book of Job, one of the beautiful pieces of literature, most beautiful pieces of literature that the world has ever known. And it’s this existential argument between Job and his friends. And, so, in the conversation today Job does a lot of talking and he’s passionate about it. He’ describing what he has seen of God’s movements in the world and his experience and then his friends are like attempting to explain why God did what He did. But it’s the “why” God did what he did questions that aren’t working for Job because he knows that they don’t know anything more than he knows and he knows he doesn’t know…if that makes sense. Like he knows he can’t get the answers that he’s looking for because they are beyond human understanding and his friends, no matter how well wishing or how much they needed to be right, they didn’t know because Job himself didn’t know and they’ve already shared their insights and he already knows this stuff and he’s like regurgitating things we already know. So, for Job nobody could answer the question…the questions except God, which is what Job had been staying all along. He wants an audience with God. And, so, we’re just moving in a big circle, basically. Job wants answers but he needs to get them from God himself, but he can’t find God. Job’s friends keep trying to tell Job that only a righteous person can ever find God. And since Job can’t find the answers and can’t find God, then Job must not be righteous as he believes that he is. But then…but then Job would respond like, “there is no possible way I’m letting go of my innocence. Like I am not gonna declare myself unrighteous and been guilty just so you can feel good, like you’ve gotten through to me finally. I don’t believe I’m guilty. I need to find God.” And we’ll remember what Job said a couple days ago, “if I find Him, even if he kills me, I’m still gonna hope in Him. So, Job is basically saying, “I’m going to search for God and if that search is hopeless, still I will hope.” And, so, that leads us leads us right back into some of the things that we’ve been contemplating as we move through the book of Job the whole way, like our own posture, our own attitudes, the way our own hearts are aimed toward God when we’re asking “why” questions or when we’re…we’re in a place of hardship or suffering or why are we looking for God. Is it about making life easier? Is it so that the struggle will go away? Is it because He will appease us with an answer? What we have to wrestle with through the book of Job is, “what if He doesn’t do what we want Him to do? Like what if our expectations…what if…what if we realized we have no right to any expectations? We’re talking about the most I God here. What if He doesn’t do what we want Him to do? What if we wake up one day and realize He’s not Santa Claus, that He is not a servant of ours, we are a servant of His. These are the things Job is leading us to wrestle with today.

Prayer:

Father we’re beginning to understand that it’s You we seek not for what we’re going to get but because there is no life outside of You. We love You. We trust You in it all, in spite of it all no matter what it looks like. We don’t know the whole story, but we love You. And, so, we just…we want this to be true. We want to be in Your presence for no other reason than we are in love with You, not for what You’re going to do for us or what You’re going to take away or what enemy You’re going to vanquish, it’s to be together. This is our hearts desire. Whether we can acknowledge that right now or not, this is ultimately what we are after, a union with You that makes our lives whole because You make life whole. And sometimes we don’t understand the process of that, and we become estranged because…because You’re not being Santa Claus. And, so, we wrestle today with “what if You don’t do what we want You to do?” That forces us to challenge ourselves about “who’s in authority here? Are we submitted to You and Your ways and Your will or are we trying to impose our own will upon You to try to get You to manipulate circumstances in our favor?” Come into those questions today, we pray, Holy Spirit. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it's…it’s the website, its where you find out what’s going on around here. All…pretty much all you can find out there. You can also find out in the app by pushing the Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner. But community is an important aspect of who we are around the Global Campfire. Makes quite a difference to know when we come in each day, no matter what day it is that we turn this on we’re not the only ones, we’re in this together, there are others all over the world, there’s a rhythm of life that we’ve established together to take this journey, a voyage across an entire year, a voyage through the entire Bible together and explore it and just understand in community. And, so, that makes a big difference and it’s good to be plugged in. So, plug in any way that you can, in any way that you want to.

Check out the resources that are available in the Shop. Check out the Initiatives for things are initiatives, things are going on. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com as well or in the app. So, there’s a link on the homepage of the website, but if you’re using the app you can press the Give button, that’s 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, which is the red button 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.

Job 20:1-22:30, 2 Corinthians 1:1-11, Psalms 40:11-17, Proverbs 22:2-4

Today is the 26^th day of August welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is a wonderful to be here with you today as we continue our journey step-by-step day by day, week by week, month by month through the entire Bible in a year. And traveling a year together in each other’s lives as we go through this in community is…it is an awesome thing that we get to be alive at this time on the earth to share and fellowship and be the body of Christ all over the world. And, so, what a joy to come around the Global Campfire today together and take that next step forward. So, we are continuing to work our way through the book of Job and we concluded first Corinthians yesterday, which will bring us to second Corinthians when we get to the New Testament reading today, but we’ll talk about that when we get there. First, Job chapters 20, 21 and 22. And we’re reading from the Voice Translation this week.

Introduction to the book of second Corinthians:

Okay. As…as we said at the beginning, we…well as we knew yesterday probably, we concluded first Corinthians, a letter of Paul to the church at Corinth yesterday which brings us to the letter that we know as second Corinthians. And this is probably not the second letter the Paul wrote to the Corinthians. Like, it’s probably at least the third because there was a first one referenced in first Corinthians. Like in first Corinthians there was a letter referenced that was previous to that one, but that one’s probably not preserved or discovered but we’ll talk about that in a second. Pretty much among biblical scholars the authenticity of this letter is generally undisputed. And you may be like, “undisputed? This is the Bible. Of course Paul wrote it.” But there have been disputes ongoing…ongoing all the way back into the early church era about whether or not Paul wrote certain of these letters, which isn’t to say that they don’t belong in the Bible. They’re just certain letters and certain linguistics and certain things in letters that seem as if they…they happened at a later time because of the development of the church structure, things that wouldn’t have existed in Paul’s time or…or didn’t because they hadn’t been formed or fleshed out yet. And that used to bother me a little bit. It’s like, “well then that calls into question lots of things” but it doesn’t. I mean the author of the book of Hebrews has been unknown for a very long…there was a time that it was attributed to Paul, but there’s like no biblical scholars today pretty much that would say Paul is the author of Hebrews. So, the author is unknown and that’s what we get here when we come through some of these letters of Paul. They are Pauline for sure. And there are all kinds of explanations for why Paul may or may not have written a letter. Some of the explanations would be like, Paul dictated his letters, and somebody wrote down what he said. And, so, if he was using a different secretary a different scribe, somebody else to write down a different letter than the language would be a little bit different because it’s being written down by somebody else or as was common in the emerging early church schools around certain teachers and people would form. So, like maybe there was a Pauline school. Paul spent a lot of time in places like Ephesus where he’s doing the good work, where he’s teaching people in an ongoing way. And, so, they are being raised up in this kind of Pauline theology, this thought…the way that he sees things, the way that he received things from Christ and taught those things. And I guess this is a good time as any to just kind of go through those. This…this letter that we’re about to go into, second Corinthians, this is…this is an undisputed authentic letter of Paul. So is first Thessalonians and Galatians and first Corinthians, which we just read, as well as Philippians and Philemon, and Romans, which we already read. These are undisputed letters of Paul. And then there are the…kind of the disputed letters where scholars don’t agree, where there’s vigorous…and has been…like this isn’t new, this kind of biblical scholarship isn’t new at all. It’s very very old. Like it wasn’t invented in the year 2000 and we’ve been debating these things for the last 20 years. It’s ancient scholarship. This has been going on a long time. And, so, the letters that scholars aren’t in complete agreement that Paul actually authored although they’re Pauline in the thought would be, Ephesians, Colossians and second Thessalonians. And then the pastoral letters of Timothy – first, second Timothy and Titus – I mean they’re very few biblical scholars or historians that would…that would affirm that Paul wrote those letters, specifically there’s church structure etc. etc. in those letters that a historian could say like, “that hadn’t developed yet in Paul’s lifetime. So, this is of Paul’s thinking, but Paul probably didn’t write this.” So, does that make something not have any authority anymore in the Scriptures? Not to me, not to me at all. But I’m sharing these things because we’re going through the whole Bible together and we’re trying to get as much of the story, as much of the context of what’s being said as we possibly can so that we come out of a year in the Bible basically going like, that was the tip of the iceberg, I’m diving in so that we develop a relationship with the Scriptures throughout our lifetimes. So anyway, back to second Corinthians one of the authenticated letters of Paul. It’s just that second Corinthians has a few complexions to it. It almost seems like maybe more than one letter was stitched together to create this a cohesive thing that could be read among the churches. So, could be that this first letter that Paul is referring to in first Corinthians is actually stitched in…is a part of second Corinthians as well as…I mean some scholars think there’s almost up to like five different pieces of letters or notes or something that…that has been consolidated into second Corinthians. Others think it’s maybe a couple…a couple of different letters that were put together and consolidated so that they could be…they could be read. Nevertheless, Titus who was a son in the faith of Paul had visited the Corinthians and then later on met up with Paul during his travels, as he’s doing his missionary journey, and Paul then was able to hear from Titus some feedback on what was going on in Corinth and even some of the impact of his previous letter, which is what we just read. And, then, so Paul writes another letter, which we’ll begin today. And let’s not forget what we’re talking about. We’re talking about a cosmopolitan urban city in the Roman Empire and a church within that city. So, Corinth has everything that a big city has. It’s a sensual Roman city - many ideas, many persuasion…persuasions, it’s is a secular society, rebellion in a lot of ways - and as part of the culture some of these feelings, some of these persuasions they found their way into the church. And we can wonder like, “how would that happen?” And all you got to do is go to any church today and see that it’s the same…like we are informed by the culture that we live in. So, we live in one part of the United States, we’re gonna have certain convictions and certain persuasions because our culture is that way. And we can go to a different part of the United States and find that our brothers and sisters think very differently about things. And then we can go to another country and find out that the experience of Jesus is…isvery different because it’s contextualized in the culture, into the way we can understand things. And, so, some of this is coming into the church at Corinth. And we remember when we read first Corinthians, division was a big issue. And this big issue has not dissipated. And, so, there…there were members in the…the Corinthian church as we remember from first Corinthians who were like, “I’m of Paul. I’m of Cephas. I’m of Apollo’s s. I’m of Christ. So, there’s like these divisions and some of that has continued to the point that there are certain people trying to kinda take over. So, like church politics existed in the early church. So, some people are taken over, trying to take over, get power, even questioning Paul’s authority at all, even though he founded the church. They’re questioning his leadership, his rules, whether he’s really an apostle, even his gospel, even the gospel itself. And, so, Paul’s addressing these kinds of things and they are not unfamiliar. It’s just a different time. They just wore different clothes. They just had different technology. But the heart of the matter…yeah…the heart of the matter is still with us today. And, so, with that we begin second Corinthians chapter 1 verses 1 through 11 today.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for its ability to do what it says, to keep at the very low level of our identity and speak to us there and we need that and we are grateful for that because we’re searching for identity and we search at superficial levels. We search for an identity by seeing how well we’re doing compared to somebody else when Your word can speak identity into the depths of our souls. And, so we are grateful and we invite Your Holy Spirit to plant the words spoken each day into the soil of our hearts, that we may be fruitful, that we may bear the fruit of the spirit bountifully, overflowing, a harvest so rich that it spills out of our lives and touches everyone around us. This is our work. and this is accomplished by surrendering to You. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com, its home base and…yeah…it’s the website but it’s home base. It’s where the Global Campfire lives around here between the website and the Daily Audio Bible app. This is kind of our little portal into community here. So, stay tuned and stay aware and understand what’s going on around here.

Check out the resources that are available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop, they exist for the journey that we are taking together through the Bible in a year every single day. So, check that out. Check out the Community section that’s where to get plugged into community on social media as well as where the Prayer Wall lives and…and there are times where there could not be a better resource…just a place to reach out and know you’re not alone and a place to reach out toward each other. Sometimes when we feel at the lowest God really uses our reaching out toward each other in prayer as a way of lifting our own spirits up. So, be aware of the Prayer Wall it’s always happening.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com as well. There is a link on the homepage. If you’re using the app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner. And if you prefer the mail, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174. Can’t thank you enough for your partnership especially as we navigate the summertime. Thank you profoundly. Thank you humbly for your partnership

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement you can hit the Hotline button it’s in the app, the little red button at the top or there are number of numbers that you can use. If you are in the Americas 877-942-4253 is the number. If you’re in the UK or Europe 44-20-3608-8078 is the number to dial or 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 on Brian. I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Job 16:1-19:29, 1 Corinthians 16:1-24, Psalms 40:1-10, Proverbs 22:1

Today is the 25^th day of August welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is a joy as it is every day, an honor, a privilege, it’s great to be here with you today around the Global Campfire and let’s just come in and warm ourselves. If it’s first thing in the morning, this is the first thing that we’re doing and we are setting our course, if it’s halfway through the day and we’ve gotten beat up already by life, then it’s just a time to step away from all that, if we’re closing down our day, it’s a time to step away from all of the things that we could be thinking about, all the things we could be worrying about, just all of the issues of life on planet Earth and just set it aside for a minute, reorient ourselves to God through His word and come out refreshed. And, so, let’s get to it. We’re reading from the Voice Translation this week. We’re working our way through the book of Job. Pretty aggressive, direct conversation is happening between Job and his friends. Job is defending his innocence and he doesn’t want the answers of his friends. He wants God. His friends try to tell him that’s probably not gonna happen or what’s probably the problem with Job. And yet steadfastly, in fact, what we read yesterday is riveting, “even if he’s slays me, even if I can’t find Him and ask Him, even if it kills me I’m still going to hope in Him”, which is Job’s way of saying there is no other hope. And, so, we continue our journey today. Job chapter 16, 17, 18 and 19.

Commentary:

Okay. So, as we continue the book of Job and our journey through it and the conversations between Job and his friends centered around Job’s unbelievable suffering, we’re seeing Job hold true to his innocence and his deep desire, like his single-minded focus to find God and ask these questions of God because nobody else can give the answers that he’s seeking. And his friends are trying to tell him like, “even if you could see God, even if you could ask Him these questions, even if you could have that conversation you are to blame essentially for your own downfall and you need to see that. Like, you need to come to this place of humility.” And Job is like, “the thing is, I’m not. I’m innocent.” And just about in every day that we read in Job, the way that Job kind of concludes something that he’s saying is, so spectacular in revealing his heart. So, he is going off today about how God has hunted him down, beat him up, put him up for target practice. Like there’s nowhere he can go, there is no place to escape, he’s withering away. So, we can tell for sure that, yes, Job…Job has lost everything but the battle, a lot of the battle is in Job’s mind. Like he is unbelievable down, like completely depressed. We can read some of the words that we read today and commiserate. Like no, we haven’t experienced probably the hardships of Job, but the sentiments that are coming out of his mouth, the things that he is saying, they feel true. Like, we don’t often say them. We try to keep them inside, but they feel true to some of our experiences. And his friends, they are trying to comfort him, but Job’s being direct, so they’re being direct back. Like they feel like a need to defend God against the accusations Job is making and they’re trying help Job understand like, “dude, you have…you have a part to play in this. There’s no way you don’t have a part to play in this.” And, so, we get to the end of the reading today and Job is frustrated but his heart comes sailing out. He’s like, “I wish…I wish that my words were just words that aren’t flying away. I wish these words were immortalized. I wish they were written down.” Obviously, we’re reading this book, so we have this we have this book. But he’s saying, “I wish they were written down. Better than written down, I wish they were chiseled into stone. I wish that what I’m saying could be heard because I know my redeemer lives and, in the end, He will rise and take His stand on the earth. I know that even if my skin is stripped away and I wither away, I know in my flesh I will see God, not somebody else, me, with my eyes. This is what I am looking for. Again, it’s like there are these sections in Job that I just…don’t know what to say about them, you stand speechless. You’re like, “Okay. that reorients me.” Because Job doesn’t understand. He cannot get the understanding for what’s happening, and his friends cannot explain it to him. And, so, in spite of pain and suffering and unbelievable depression and hopelessness, like hopelessness he’s reaching beyond his experience and beyond his understanding and saying, “I know…I know my Redeemer lives because there is a knowing that is beyond circumstance, a knowing that is beyond experience, a knowing beyond what we can understand and knowing beyond our mind.” So, what we’re seeing kind of emerge here, at least in Job’s convictions are, “I don’t understand. I really don’t. But I do know that God is there and I am seeking and I will find Him.” May we all live into that today.

And then also today we concluded the letter known as first Corinthians. And just…just a little…kind of a side story…a little bit of an undercurrent side drama in these…some of these letters of Paul. As this letter ends today Paul’s like, “hey don’t forget the money”, right? “Don’t forget money that I have promised to the church in Jerusalem.” That collection that he’s taking up, that appears in a number of his letters and in some of those letters he’s kind of defending himself. Like, it’s like the people are not sure about Paul’s intentions and why he needs the money. So, like even in first Corinthians he’s like basically, “get the money together. I’m coming through. Here’s when I’m gonna be coming through. And you can take this to Jerusalem. We can send it to Jerusalem. Maybe…maybe you can choose some people to take it to Jerusalem and…and maybe I can…can go along with them.” Like, he’s trying to like, “I…I’m not gonna steal the money.” But it gives us some clues into the early church that that was some of the suspicions going on in the early church. More than likely what’s actually going on here in this early church is that Paul, being a Jew, being raised up and educated in the Jewish Mosaic law, having converted to follow Jesus and then going out among the Gentiles, like this causes problems. We have talked about this and we will talk about it more. Paul is a very controversial figure, has always been a controversial figure, but remember in the book of Acts where there was this first church council. And Paul was a part of that counsel. The apostles, the church, the Jerusalem church, the mother church, the first church was a part of that, was making those decisions. And the ultimate decision was can Gentiles follow Jesus without first converting to Judaism and getting up to speed their understanding of the law and then start following Jesus? The ultimate decision was that, of course, “the Holy Spirit is moving among the Gentiles. God has made that decision. Who are we to stand in the way? Like, we don’t get to decide. God already decided. So, it’s gonna…it’s gonna tip things upside down and we’ll see where it goes, but we gotta follow what God is saying.” Probably during that counsel and Paul’s sharing of his work among the Gentiles, and the establishment of the churches Paul probably shared like…like we can…we can collect resources from all over the world to help here in Jerusalem because Paul’s collection is for the Jerusalem church. That’s how it is in his letters and this is a very poor church as we…as we understand from the Scriptures. So, many scholars believe like this collection is important resources for the work of Christ, yes, but not all of the Jewish believers were on board with some of these decisions and the idea that Gentile believers would give back but basically understand that this all started among the Hebrew people. Jesus was a Hebrew person and this first church this Jerusalem church is fighting a battle against their own people and against the whole world, and they should be honored in that, that Paul being able to go out and bring back resources to help the church helped some of those people who were absolutely against this decision, the Judaizers as they’re called in some translations, help them either one, just be quiet because they were going to get something or two, understand God is at work, no church is gonna be an island, this is the body, everybody needs to help everybody. But even out among the Gentile churches we see in Paul’s writings when he’s talking about the money, when he’s collecting the money, that even they get a little bit prickly. And it…so there’s no theological thing I’m trying to say here. Like I’m not trying to say, “so here’s the truth and here’s how we should think about that today.” I’m just saying like interesting pieces of the story emerge if we’re looking for them and we get a more comprehensive view of what’s actually going on as we systematically go through the Bible together like we are. So, we finished first Corinthians today which means tomorrow we will begin the letter known as second Corinthians.

Prayer:

Father we thank You. We thank You for Your word and we just circle back to Job for second and we declare, because some of us are in the depths of depression and suffering and anxiety and hopelessness, and all of us gets challenged in these areas. Some of us are in deep depression. All of us have experienced it in some way. And, so, to cry out beyond our understanding, beyond what we think we know and to know that our Redeemer lives, it’s certainly comforting but something wells up from within us. It’s a knowing that is beyond knowledge. Holy Spirit lead us into that today we pray. In the mighty name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it’s the website, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here. So, definitely stay connected. It’s a long journey through a year every day, day by day step-by-step, and so it’s good to know we’re not alone on the journey.

Check out the Community section. That’s a great place to get connected on social media, but also the Prayer Wall lives there. And man, what connects us more than prayer? It’s quite a connection when you pray for somebody even someone you may have not actually physically met before, but to know them by voice or to know some of their story or just to feel led to reach to one of your brothers and sisters in prayer. Like, there’s no shortage of things to pray about and the Prayer Wall is a great place to go for that. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that dailyaudiobible.com. And thank you. Thank you is the right words even though it’s just remarkable that we’re…that we’re on this journey together and that this is happening, that this doesn’t happen any other way than for us to…to do this together. So, thank you for your partnership. 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, if that is your preference, 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, which is the red button up at the top, you can’t miss it…looks like Hotline button because that’s what it is 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.