Category: DAB Transcripts

2 Kings 20:1-22:2, Acts 21:18-36, Psalms 150:1-6, Proverbs 18:9-10

Today is the 2^nd day of July. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It’s great to be here with you. I guess we are through threshold and we are squarely in the month of July. We’re in the seventh month of the year and there’s no going back. There’s only going forward. And, so, that’s what we’ll do. We’ll continue taking steps forward as we move our way through the Scriptures. And just to kind of get a lay of the land, we have a couple of days left in the book of second Kings and then we will have completed first and second Kings and before this month is out we will have read the entirety of first Chronicles and gotten our way into second Chronicles and then in the New Testament for the month of August we will complete the book Acts and then begin to move our way through the book of Romans, which will be the first of Paul’s writings that we encounter. But that’s a bit over a week from now. So, let’s settle into where we are. We’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. Today, second Kings chapter 20 verse 1 through 22 verse 2.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the book of Acts, right, we first followed along with the apostle Peter then we got to know Saul who became Paul and we’ve been traveling on these missionary journeys with the apostle Paul who was instructed to go back to Jerusalem and we went along with him as he went port to port on his way back to Jerusalem, visiting with the believers who had nurtured. And pretty much they all told him the same thing, “don’t go back to Jerusalem. It’s gonna be bad news”. Of course, Paul was aware of this through the Holy Spirit’s counsel, He kind of had an idea of what was coming and yet he…it was important that he obey God, right, not the Council of everybody else. So, he went to Jerusalem. And that is what we got to experience today, Paul arriving back in Jerusalem. And the reason that I’m recapping again is because we are touching up against serious, serious, issues in the early church, issues that are still with us today, issues that will and should challenge us, issues that people are spouting off everywhere all of the time on a continual basis. And that is fundamentally this, “who gets to be a follower, a disciple of Jesus Christ? Who gets to do that? Who gets to be in?” So, let’s explore this. As we read in the book of Acts today, when Paul arrived back to Jerusalem and the church leaders met with him they essentially said, “look, thousands of Jewish people are now following the Lord Jesus Christ. They are following The Way. They have embraced the teachings of Jesus and found a more comprehensive way of obeying the Mosaic Law and living into their faith. But they are devout about their faith and they and we are hearing things coming back here to Jerusalem that you are out all over the world saying you don’t have to observe circumcision, you don’t have to obey the Mosaic law in order to follow Jesus.” So, two very different viewpoints and we’re gonna talk about this as we continue our way all the way through the New Testament because there’s no avoiding it if you’re looking for it. And the issues are so fundamental that they affect us until today. So, on one hand you have Jesus who is Jewish, who ministered under…inside…within the Jewish context. And, so, of course, Jewish people began to follow the Rabbi. They began to follow Jesus and obey His teachings and even put their faith in Him and believe in Him, but they never ever considered the idea that they would be leaving their Jewish heritage and faith. Jesus never called them to leave their Hebrew roots. And He said with his own mouth, “I didn’t come to abolish the law I came to fulfill the law.” So, that’s where they’re coming from. At the same time, the apostles, including Peter and obviously the apostle Paul is now become the apostle to the Gentiles, they saw with their own eyes, they witnessed in their own ministry the Holy Spirit coming upon Gentiles. They saw Jesus come into the lives of households who had never heard anything about Jesus or Judaism. So, I mean, this caused dissonance for them. This is something to figure out because on the one hand the Hebrew religion, Judaism had always been very exclusive. These were God’s chosen people. Like this is a very exclusive people with a very exclusive religion. And yet then this rabbi comes, so Jesus comes, the son of God comes, but they’re all…all of those things are what people are thinking about Jesus. Like not everyone is like, “oh…of the Virgin Mary…yeah…of course…He’s the son of God”. Like, some people dismissed Jesus completely outright. Some people believed He was a wise and beyond His years, rabbi. Other people were following Him because His teachings made more sense while other people were following Him because they believed He was the son of the living God, the Messiah, but they all recognize that He was Hebrew and that was the context that He was in. So, for the Holy Spirit to begin falling upon Gentiles the world over, like, this is kind of a problem because the exclusivity is going away and everyone is universally welcome into this new thing that God is doing in the world. So, for many, especially the Jewish people, this is really hard to wrap their minds around. And, so, the way that, for the most part they could reason this through, is that a Gentile would need to convert to Judaism and then begin to follow the rabbi, Jesus, the Messiah. And we watched an entire church counsel, the first church council, like, this was the first and big issue that they needed to have a meeting about. And they took the witness and they realized, “okay, we thought we understood one way. We can see that God is doing something different that we haven’t seen before. We can’t deny what God is doing among the Gentiles, but we can’t deny who Jesus was, and the context that he taught in.” Right? So, it becomes the central question, who gets to be in? Who gets to be a follower, a disciple of Jesus? Who gets to be saved. In other words, and as we will see, this was always a disagreement. So, when we get to the writings of Paul and as we start moving through the different letters that he is sending to specific churches we will notice that the argument was an intense one because people were coming in behind Paul and telling people, “Gentile or not, you gotta get circumcised. Gentile or not you basically have to become Hebrew and follow the Hebrew customs.” This caused a tremendous amount of confusion but also seriously, seriously, made Paul angry. So, there were these conflicts about who gets to walk with Jesus. And if we’re honest and we look throughout our world today, we’re still fighting the same battle. We certainly aren’t these days, for the most part, trying to get people to convert to Judaism in order to follow Jesus. As it turned out, and we’ll see why as this story continues, the Jewish people mostly abandoned the idea of Jesus the Messiah, the son of God, who died to take away the sins of the world. It largely, as time went on, became something that was predominantly Gentile. And that is the way of the world today. But we’re still arguing about who gets to be in and sort of creating these grids in our minds about how much tolerance we can take for a person who doesn’t believe the way that we do. Like, do we say, “well…you don’t believe the same theological points on the Trinity, so you must not be a Christian” or “you don’t see the doctrine of original sin the same way that I do so you must be going to hell.” On the one hand, we could say, “well…this kind of vigorous debate has always been a part of our faith journey and the story of our faith in Jesus.” And yet it was Jesus. Like, whether you’re Jew or Gentile, it was Jesus who told us that the world would know us by our love for one another. Our disdain and disregard and dislike for one another are what’s most easy to see in the world today. I mean, troll the Internet for five minutes and you can find it. Vigorous debates among believers who seem to be convinced that it is their job to inform other believers that they will be cast into outer darkness. It’s not helping. I’ve actually had many conversations with people who love to do that kind of debate. Ad they’re like, “well…we do this kind of debate, we do this vigorous kind of debate so that the world won’t be deceived by the inaccuracies of everybody else.” And I’m like, “the world doesn’t care at all what you have to say.” They don’t want any part of this.” Sometimes I wish, as believers, we were forced to have a bumper sticker on our car. You know how you’re driving along in their delivery trucks…it’s like or our school buses…like, “how’s my driving? If there’s a problem call 1-800, you know, 123-4567.” I wish we had all have those bumper stickers, maybe on our four heads even sometimes. “How am I loving? If there’s a problem, call 1-800-123-4567.” How would that go for you on any given day? Because you will be known by your love. At least if you believe in Jesus, if you believe the words of Jesus then we will be known as disciples of Jesus by our love for one another. The early church had to deal with these kinds of issues. It’s been a part of our story and yet Jesus couldn’t have been more clear about the posture of God’s kingdom and the importance of actually loving those around us. So, I don’t know if I can plant something in your mind, but I wish that when you wake up in the morning you would think, “how am I going to be known by my love today?” And when you put your head on your pillow at night and you’re saying your night night prayers, I wish you would think was I known by my love today?

Prayer:

Jesus, obviously as we read the stories of Your life and ministry You were known by Your love and You were known because You were true, there was nothing false in You. It seems like every day we’re like juggling the false and the true, right, the shadow and the light. We can even think that we’re shining the light when we’re actually spreading the darkness. We so easily forget the fact that we will be known by our love for one another. So, come Holy Spirit and help us be known today by our love in every way we. We ask this in Your name. We ask Holy Spirit that You would come because we don’t…we can’t navigate…we can’t do this on our own. Like, we forget. We don’t have the discipline, we get too angry, we get pulled in so many directions we forget. So, the next thing You know we find ourselves condemning one another instead of loving each other and we can get ourselves twisted so backward so quickly. Holy Spirit come, that we be known by our love. Love is the currency of Your kingdom, not being right, not dogma, not doctrine, not being the sheriff at the gate of who gets to be in and who doesn’t. You are the judge. You will be known by our love. Let us love today we ask in Your precious name. Amen.

Song:

We are one in the spirit we are one in the Lord
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
And we pray that our unity will one day be restored
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
Yeah they’ll know we are Christians by our love

We will work with each other, we will work side by side
We will work with each other, we will work side by side
And we’ll guard each man’s dignity and save each man’s pride
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
Yeah, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

2 Kings 18:13-19:37, Acts 21:1-17, Psalms 149:1-9, Proverbs 18:8

Today is the 1^st day of July. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is a pleasure and a joy, it is an honor to be here with you as we step ourselves into the seventh month of the year. Today is the 182^nd day of the year. And, so, we’re one hundred eight days into our journey together and what a journey it’s been. We have been everywhere together in the first six months. We’ve been all the way from the creation of the world, all the way through the stories in the Gospels of Jesus. We’re in the book of Acts now learning of the early church, but we have wandered in the wilderness, we have traveled with Joseph, we have traveled with Moses, we’ve traveled with Abraham, we’ve moved through the time of the judges, we’ve moved through the times of the Kings and spent plenty of time with Israel’s first King Saul and second King David. That’s just scratching the surface. And look at all that God has spoken to us directly into our own spirits and directly into our own lives about our postures and our motives. The Bible is amazing because it’s alive and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and it can penetrate within us to the point where soul and spirit divide. That…I’m not sure exactly where that is but that’s deep because that’s where our identity is. God is speaking to and transforming our identity, which is one of the big themes of the Bible that we’ve seen, right? The children of Israel were slaves. Their identity needed to be changed. The wilderness was used to change their identity from slave to chosen. And perhaps the exact same thing is happening within us. So, here we are launching ourselves into the brand-new seventh month of the year, the month of July and launching ourselves into the back half of the year. And we’ll do that by picking up where we left off yesterday because that’s what we do. Step-by-step day by day we go all the way around the sun and make a revolution around the sun and that’s called a year on planet Earth. But day by day we make a revolution through the Bible, which makes a revolution and in our lives. So, here we go. Second Kings chapter 18 verse 13 through 19 verse 37 and we’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week.

Commentary:

Okay. So, a few things to point out, a couple things we need to touch on. So, yesterday in our reading from a second Kings we witnessed the destruction, the end of the northern kingdom of Israel. So, those 10 tribes that were Israel, they’ve been hauled in exile and displaced all over the Assyrian Empire and they disappear from history at this point as cohesive tribes, like never see them again. We also see that the Assyrian Empire who conquered the northern kingdom of Israel had its sights set on also simultaneously conquering the southern kingdom of Judah and actually was succeeding because fortified city after fortified city was falling. And, so, the scene that we saw today where king Sennacherib sends his envoys to Jerusalem. This was coming from the city of Lachish. The ruins of Lachish still exist today. That can be seen in the Promised Land films, but this one would’ve been just like the second fortified city only to Jerusalem and it fell. So, the king of Assyria is at a conquered city, Lachish, sending envoys to Jerusalem which is the last city to conquer, taunting and threatening them. And we read the story. King Hezekiah goes before the Lord, and Lord delivers Judah. So, as we go into the second half of the year we go into the second half of the year without 10 of the tribes, they’ve been conquered, and we only have Judah remaining.

And as we mentioned yesterday and saw more today, Paul is on his way back to Jerusalem, the city where he started this journey, right? This guy who affirmed and witnessed the stoning of Stephen in Jerusalem. Once he found Jesus the Jewish people wanted him dead just like he wanted all the other Christians dead and he’s been moving around the empire sharing the good news, but he’s on his way back to Jerusalem and we’re seeing that at every stop he’s stopping and visiting with people that he had brought to the Lord and established churches and their all telling him he shouldn’t go to Jerusalem and he’s saying, “yeah, I know. Like, I have to go to Jerusalem because the Holy Spirit told me to go to Jerusalem, but I know. I know that imprisonment and shackles are in front of me and maybe even death. I don’t know but I have to go.” And, so that’s where we find Paul and that’s the story that we will enter into as we continue into the second half of the year.

And then as we enter into this brand-new month and this back half of the year we have some striking words from the book from the book of Proverbs. “A gossips words are like choice food.” Okay. So, gossip is like a currency, it’s like information currency. It’s a secret currency that we carry around. We witness things, we hear things, we see things, and then we don’t hold onto them in confidence. We then go and use the currency to make ourselves look more like we’re in the know and we share it with other people. Like, we talk about people behind their backs and they don’t have the benefit of being there to tell the story correctly or to defend themselves or whatever, to be a part of the conversation. And, so, we’re kind of consuming them behind their back to each other and it’s dark and it’s a community killer because along with gossip…like you get a tasty morsel of gossip and you call up your friend or you meet for coffee and you’re gonna lay out the story and share the gossip, you’re gonna have to make up a bunch of stuff along the way, right? You heard this little bit of information and you’re gonna have to say, “so, I think what’s happening here is…” And then you’ve gotta give your interpretation of it when you are not involved, and you do not know what you’re talking about. Gossip gives us little portions of information that we then flesh out with assumptions and we create false realities about people. And if you’ve been on the receiving end of this before, if you’ve been gossiped about you know how destructive it can be because we are peddling half-truths and made-up things. We are carrying falseness around and infecting our communities like cancer with this stuff. So, you have to listen to the proverb and wonder if it matters to you. “A gossips words are like choice food that goes down into one’s innermost being.” Do you want all that stuff down in your innermost being? Because that’s what you’re doing when you listen to it. That’s what you’re peddling when you offer it, poison that goes down to one’s innermost being. So, let’s think about that as we move through this new week and as we move into this new month and as we move into the second half of the year.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit, we invite You into that. We often find ourselves sharing things we shouldn’t be sharing, telling things we shouldn’t be telling, filling in blanks we have no business filling in because we don’t know what we’re talking about and consuming each other. And this is not helpful to Your body. It’s like cancer in Your body. So, Holy Spirit come. Help us to understand the power of our words and the power that rests behind our teeth to make those words. And may we bring light and life and good news through our words this day and every day. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

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

So, this coming Sunday, the most immediate thing that’s going on around here. This coming Sunday is the 7^th of July and the 7^th of July is kind of our own little Daily Audio Bible holiday that we have together. It’s the day we do the Daily Audio Bible long walk and this has been a tradition over a decade now. It’s a day that wherever you are, no matter where you are, this doesn’t have to be all that complicated. You can go somewhere as close as next-door. Like, just go for walk down your sidewalk. Wherever you find beautiful, that’s where you want to go. Whether you drive for hours, or whether you just go for a walk, it’s a long walk with God. It’s a day set aside to truly honestly rest in Him. Like, to truly take everything off of our plates altogether. This happens on a Sunday, this coming Sunday. So, this happens on the weekend, which will make it a little easier scheduling wise, but take everything off your plates, every obligation, like it can wait for a day, especially when it’s a day that your giving to God, where you really are going to rest in Him. You’re going to go somewhere beautiful and hear life happening all around you. I mean, if you go to a local park, if you go somewhere and sit down and just start listening, you realize that life is exploding everywhere. It’s all around us and we’re missing it. I mean, you spend 10 minutes just listening to nature and you realize I’m missing a lot because I’m running, running, running, running running, but I don’t know why. I’m accumulating, accumulating, accumulating, but I don’t know why exactly, it’s just that everybody else is. But what if you slow the world out enough to hear your heart beat again? What if you had a day that there was no agenda other than to say everything, everything, everything in your heart to God and to let Him say everything He’s been waiting to say back to you for the longest of times? But you’re just so busy and when conversation happens with Him it’s one-sided, it’s you, you’re doing all talking. What if you had space to listen? That’s what the Daily Audio Bible long walk is about and that is one wonderful way of resetting and moving into the second half of the year. So, make plans for that this Sunday. It’s very individual. It’s a solitary endeavor but it’s also a community event because we’re doing it together at the same time on the same day. So, wherever you go just take a picture, take a video, post it back to Daily Audio Bible’s Facebook page, which is facebook.com/dailyaaudiobible and then we just watch it all unfold. We see the beauty of the earth all around the world all in one day. It’s magnificent. So, that’s coming up this Sunday. Make plans for that.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that dailyaudiobible.com. There’s a link on the homepage. Thank you profoundly for your partnership as we are here in the thick of the summer now. Thank you for your partnership. So, the link is on the homepage. If you’re using the 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 have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253, is the number to dial.

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

Community Prayer and Praise:

Sacrifices his only Son to save our sins. And Jesus hanging on the cross for our sins. The gift of the Holy Spirit. And my heart is full of joy today, hence the smile. What I did want to share is even though my heart is full of love and am lifted up by the Holy Spirit, the world we live in would tell me otherwise because I can share that my life is not perfect and far from it. I have a prodigal son who has not spoken to me or any type of communication going on for years now, grandbabies I have not seen. And the world would tell me otherwise, that I should just be broken, but thank God, thank God for His grace and His mercy and His love that keeps me lifted. So, I wanted to share that family, that we’re all…we all have something that the world will tell us that we should be broken. Hang on to the promise of Jesus and He will see us through. You can think back if you have something in your life that He has lifted you, He has pulled you up, why would He not do that again for your family? I’m keeping my eyes on Christ and I’m praying for each one of you as it’s been every day. Thank you. Amen.

Hello DAB family this is Joyful Noise from Southern California. I’m calling in…haven’t called in for quite some time but I do listen or __ listen every single day and if I don’t I try to pay catch up. Isn’t this the most amazing ministry? So, if this ministry has blessed you in any way…like, if you’re listening in as a new listener or…I don’t know that about the Lord and are becoming closer to Him and even understanding like His purpose in your life and His purpose for the world and the universe and even from the beginning, you know, if you’ve been hanging out with us since January 1^st, from Genesis onward then kudos. That is awesome! Hang in there. This is my…I think…seventh year through the Bible with Brian and the community. And it is actually amazing how it’s grown me as a Christian and as a community member, as a mom, as a wife, as everything. So, hang in there. And then also, if this ministry blesses you, consider blessing the ministry back, through prayer certainly but also through, you know, your financial contribution. If you think about it this is __ but there’s never a day where I wake up and go, “I wonder if they recorded the…nope for sure, they did it.” Even when Brian’s traveling or the families traveling. Even when…I’m sure…I’m they have birthday parties and, you know, they’ve got stuff in life just like us, but they make it a priority. So, and the team of people. It’s not just Brian of course, it’s a team of people that make this happen in the background. So, consider supporting them. Look. It’s just a thought. Maybe pray about it. So, I’m calling in today to ask all of you to lift up my friend who is an amazing young man, he’s 16 years old, he’s the youngest of our three kids and we really thought until this last fall, whew, we’ve skated…whew we skated this one. We are not going through those tough teen…” Oh no. It came out. And probably as a result of learning disabilities and since he was in about fifth grade just really feeling stupid even though we’re getting accommodations, even though we’re helping him even though we’re trying to convey to him how to, you know, God has a plan for him and you know…

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family this is Jay from Nashville Tennessee. All right, so I wanted to just shoot out a praise report real quick to just thank God for this promotion that I’ve gotten. I went from technician level to engineer level at my job. So, I mean, I’m just, I’m overwhelmed. So, those of you who are in positions that you don’t want to be in or you feel like there beneath you or you feel like you should be doing something different, you know, I started working for this company six years ago and my job was to take out the trash. That was my job. And for six months I did that as effectively, as efficiently, and as professionally as I possibly could all the while praying to God and believing that whatever he had for me that’s what I would do. And today I am an engineer in the same company and, you know, God has just blessed me because…I didn’t want to…but I humbled myself and I did what I had to do. So, let that be a lesson or at least an example to you because I know that there are a lot of people that are not working where they want to work, or they don’t like where they work, or they don’t like what they do. That could very well be an opportunity for you to relax and enjoy the simplicity of a job that really isn’t super complicated. And you can take that time to pray and be with God while you’re at work. I can’t tell you how many times I put my headphones in and listened to sermons, listened to Brian and, you know, just listened to God’s music and just put that time for him. So, I encourage you to find time throughout your day to do that with Jesus. Love you guys. Bye.

Good morning everyone. This is a Christie from Kentucky. I wanted to pray for us of our friends. Daniel Johnson Junior, congratulations on your 24^th wedding anniversary on 6/17. I wanted to pray for Slave of Jesus to let you know brother that I’m praying for your work situation. Also praying for Natalie as you go into your inpatient treatment for your anorexia. Praying for you sweet child, for you and your family. Also, I am praying for Victoria Soldier to ask the Lord to bless her with as many blessings as that she gives to all of us. We love you so much Victoria Soldier. Also praying for Christie in Korea for your husband who you say is agnostic. Christ’s Child in New Zealand, I’m praying for your brother who is in a bad relationship and Vera in California, praying for your precious daughter Michelle as she goes through her surgery, which should be done by now. Praying for a good outcome for that and that her Lupus is at bay. We ask for complete healing and restoration on your precious daughter’s body. Not Shaken, I’m praying for your son who is in jail. Also, for your daughter who needs forgiveness from family members, but especially from her daddy. Also praying for you Jerry in Maryland, thinking about what you said about your long walk and I was thinking, just a suggestion, but Jerry, why don’t you take your beautiful wife with you on that long walk? Just pull away from all the noise and confusion of the everyday trials and maybe while you’re on that walk you can share the significance of what it means and maybe have a heart-to-heart talk with her. You are the leader of the household and we just pray for you Jerry. All right everyone. I just want to thank you all for continued prayers. We are healing. We still have a king-sized hole in our house and our heart from the loss of our dog. And today I will go pick up the remains. So, continued prayers are appreciated, and I love you guys so much. Have a blessed and lovely day today.

2 Kings 17:1-18:12, Acts 20:1-38, Psalms 148:1-14, Proverbs 18:6-7

Today is June 30^th. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it is great to be here with you today as we enter a brand-new, sparkly, shiny week, but also this is the last day of the sixth month of the year. So, this is kinda the point where we’re halfway through the Bible. Well done for making it six months every day through the Scriptures. And we have another six months out in front of us as we reach for the end of the year and reach for all that God has for us in the second half of the year through His Word. So, let’s dive in and get this week off to a good start knowing that we will enter the seventh month of the year beginning tomorrow. This week we’ll read from the Christian Standard Bible, and we’ll be picking up where we left off in the book of second Kings today. Chapter 18…sorry…17 verse 1 through 18 verse 12.

Commentary:

Okay. So, even as we conclude our reading for the first six months of the year and even as we prepare tomorrow to kinda turn the page and move into the back half, the second six months of the year, some pretty big things have happened today that we should know, kinda going forward. And these things are things that we will refer back to, but this is the place where we encountered them in the Bible. So, in the book of second Kings today, we’ve been tracking…and you gotta pay attention…because we’re moving through the kings of Israel, which is the northern kingdom, and the kings of Judah, which is the southern kingdom. So, today, what we just read was the end of the northern kingdom of Israel. Like, it will never be the northern kingdom of Israel again. It never was again. Assyria captured Samaria, the capital city of the northern kingdom and deported all of its inhabitants, which, as we have referred to before, is the way that they built the empires back then. Like, displacing people so that they didn’t have a homeland outside of the empire, and so that over the course of generations they would forget where they came from. And, so, what we watched in today’s reading was that the children of Israel were displaced from the Promised Land, 10 of the tribes were deported to other lands while many other conquered peoples from different places were moved in, right? And, so, they’re like, we don’t know how to worship these gods and there were lions and all of this. What we are seeing happen now is the earliest versions of what would later be known in Jesus time as Samaritans, right? So, the capital city of the northern kingdom was Samaria, but the Israelites were deported, and new people were moved in. They sent for a priest who already was worshiping false idols and he began to teach them, and they began to mix all of their cultures together creating a new way of worshiping God unlike Moses teachings and over time they became the Samaritans. And, so, the people of Judah, they will get conquered, but they will get to come back and they will believe that they are holding onto the true traditions. And, so, those people up in the north near the Galilee area, they will be known as Samaritans because although they worship Yahweh they don’t worship him the same. They don’t have the same understanding of Him at all. And, so, we will…it won’t be the last time that we interact with people of the north near the Galilee. But at this point in second Kings we are well before of the Roman Empire came in and controlled the area.

So, then in the book of Acts we’re obviously moving into the New Testament, moving forward in time considerably. So, are at a time where Paul is moving around the Roman empire, but these returned exiles who have come back to Judah and control Jerusalem, the remnant, the remainder of these people are trying to hold onto some influence and power. Paul has been moving around the empire sharing the gospel, but in Jerusalem they want Paul dead, right? He’s an apostate as far as they’re concerned, he has left is faith and has begun these crazy teachings about this guy Jesus. So, he deserves to die under Mosaic law…they want Paul to die. And now Paul’s on his way to Jerusalem where people want him dead, but the Holy Spirit has told him to come. And, so, we see this final meeting between Paul and the brothers and sisters, the Ephesians who have come to see him at the docks and we see this tearful farewell where he’s like, “I have to go back to Jerusalem. I don’t know exactly what’s gonna happen. The Holy Spirit just keeps telling me I have to go back there and that I will experience chains and affliction and I know that I’ll never see you…you will never see me again.” So, it’s a bittersweet moment to say the least. And we’ll continue to track with Paul, obviously, for quite a while, but we’ll see where this story leads because he’s on his way to Jerusalem and the complexion of his ministry is gonna change dramatically.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. And here we are at the end of the first half of the year and at the precipice of the second half of the year and we invite Your Holy Spirit into that second half of the year, into all that is out in front of us and we ask that You speak to us and transform us and change us, so that as we complete this year we don’t even recognize the person that we once were. You have changed our hearts from within. And we look back and we’re thankful for all the work that You have done in our lives this first six months. We are so grateful. We are so thankful. And as we move through the center of the year, even as we prepare for the Daily Audio Bible long walk, just to reset and live into this second half of the year, next week, we invite Your Holy Spirit. Come Jesus we pray. In Your mighty name, we ask. Amen.

2 Kings 15:1-16:20, Acts 19:13-41, Psalms 147:1-20, Proverbs 18:4-5

Today is the 29^th day of June. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It’s great to be here with you as we reach the conclusion of another one of our weeks together. And we only have one more day left. We’ll start our week in the month of June and end our week in the month of July coming up. So, we are here at the center of the year together. Well done. So, we’ve been reading from the Contemporary English Version this week and it’s still this week. So, we’ll continue to do that today. And we’re continuing working our way through the book of second Kings. Today, second Kings, chapters 15 and 16.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for another week in Your word, we thank You for bringing us here to the center of the year. And as we move forward we’ll be moving out of this month and into the seventh month of the year. So, we look with anticipation for all that You will do but we also stand here quietly and reflect about all that You have already done, as You’ve brought us this far, day by day step-by-step. Your word has counseled and spoken to us and has shifted so many things from within. Come Holy Spirit and continue the work that You’ve begun in us. I pray these things in the name of Jesus, our beloved. Amen.

Announcements:

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

Daily Audio Bible long walk is coming up a week from tomorrow. The 7^th of July is our Daily Audio Bible holiday as a community. It’s like our own thing and we’ve doing it for over a decade. It’s just a day set aside. This happens to be on a Sunday this year. So, it’s relatively easy to do. Set aside the whole day. Go out somewhere beautiful, whether you’re just walking down the street or whether you’re driving across town or across your state or wherever…wherever you find compelling and beautiful and spend the day with God just walking. Remember when you fall in love and you can just go for these walks for hours and it’s like five minutes has gone by and you’re just so into each other and what each other is saying? Yeah, that’s what we’re talking about. It’s the middle of the year. Have you ever spent a day like that with God where you are uninterrupted, and nothing was distracting you, when you got to say everything you needed to say, you could actually fully pour out your heart, and you gave space and time, your phone wasn’t blowing up, your inbox wasn’t blowing up, your obligations, you weren’t running behind all day or in life, it was a day that didn’t have time and you set aside the space for God to pour out his heart to you too? What a way to regroup and get ready for the second half of the year. So, Make plans for that. That’s coming up next Sunday and it’ll be…you know…you might be like, “what…where…how do I do this?” It’s an individual process. Like this is between you and God. So, go wherever you want to go and spend that day. What makes it a community experience is that you can just take pictures. Like, take a picture or shoot a little video with your phone or whatever, wherever you go, whatever you’re doing, and you can post that to our Facebook page. It’s facebook.com/dailyaudiobible. All the sudden, then we are each able to look into a glimpse of where you are and what the beauty of the world looks like in your part of the world. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s a wonderful tradition and it’s always rewarding because it is a reset as we move into the second half of the year. So, plan for that long. The long walk, a week from tomorrow, next Sunday the 7^th of July.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link and that link lives 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, if you prefer, is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253, is the number to dial.

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

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi family, it’s Marylynn calling from New Brunswick and I have a couple of prayer requests. A little bit along the serious line but not for myself. Our church family here in Milton has been made aware of the fact that there seems to be some spiritual darkness, spiritual attacks, not happening now but possibly pending. We had community prayer this morning with our pastor who is wise beyond anything I have ever seen. His name is Pastor Joel and he commissioned everybody a community prayer this morning under the authority of Jesus Christ to have authority over these spirits. So, I’m asking this community, particularly the warriors that I hear regularly, asking you to lift up our church. We prayed around the perimeter of the building this morning, the whole property inside and out. We prayed in front of all the entrances and we just really…I just really feel is that this is a legitimate concern that has been brought before us and I would really covet the community joining us in this. Also, I have a new client. They are wonderful people. They are nonbelievers. They are educators and they are very much…kind of worshipers of knowledge and intellect but they’re wonderful people and they both suffer from some health issues, but when I am there one of the items in their house…they have a lot oh __  stuff in their house but on their wall in the dining room they have an encircled pentagram with a sculpture and it really bothers me. I don’t see any evidence that there is Satanic activity in his family, but I have been praying that that thing would fall off the wall and break. So, if you would join me in that as well I would appreciate that. Know that you are all loved, and your prayers are appreciated, and you are lifted up. Thank you so much family for listening to all of this…

Good morning DAB family may the Lord bless each and every one of you. I am calling for the women in Dubai who needs to get her life back together. Knowing that you have been in a dark relationship, that you want to end that and give yourself to God. Know that there’s nothing that God cannot do, and He will restore your life as you continue to surrender your life to Him. Sheila from Texas, you know, you’re calling in to encourage everyone and I am in agreement with you as the DAB platform has enriched our lives may we sew into is as much as possible when possible in the name of Jesus, you know. Also the woman who called to pray for another woman who is married to a nonbeliever, God bless you, you know, and the woman who is married to that nonbeliever for 26 years know, know, know that there’s nothing that God cannot change. You know, just keep giving it to the Lord. He will…He will restore that you know. He will make you equally yoked, I truly believe that. Natalie and Doug going through depression and anxiety, you know. I am so sorry that you are all suffering that from this but know that the struggle is real but keep continuing going forward, keep continuing praying and surrendering to the Lord. Jamie from Nebraska I know you’re going through challenges but know that the Lord is with you. The sick pastor who lost his wife, I am so sorry but know that I’m praying for you and know that there’s nothing that the Lord cannot do. You know, we face these challenges and we don’t often know why but we know that we serve a mighty God and God will do what He will only those Father God that he has already have a plan. Just trust in Him, continue to trust in Him. This is Esther from Flushing Queens. God bless you.

Hi family this is His lLttle Cherry in Canada. I am so grateful for everyone who prayed for my daughter’s wedding, which was this past Saturday, June 22^nd. I have been talking about this wedding for probably a year and gearing up for it and I had requested prayer specifically for the weather. My daughter Joy had her heart set on having an outdoor wedding. And, so, we chose the venue for that reason. There was rain in the forecast the whole week of her wedding. And, so, thank you for praying for whether specifically. The day before the wedding was torrential rain. The day after the wedding was rainy as well. But miraculously the day of the wedding was beautiful and apparently there was rain all around us that day, but we had lovely blue skies and Joy was able to have her wedding outside in the trees and it was…it was gorgeous, it was a beautiful wedding. I’ve posted a picture on the DAB friends page. There were so many miracles that happened the weekend of the wedding I’m so grateful that you prayed. I specifically was fairly well, and my health is a big issue, but I was feeling well the weekend of the wedding as if I was 20 years younger and able to run around and do all the organizing that I needed to do. And, so, thank you family. I am so grateful. I am absolutely grateful. I wish I had a better way to say it. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you guys. Bless you. Bye for now.

Hi Daily Audio Bible family this is your sister Julie calling from Southern California. Natalie, oh sweet Natalie, you’re talking to a sister that has suffered from anorexia and bulimia for…it was for 35 years and now I’m 58 and by the grace of God I have two beautiful children, two beautiful grandchildren. I no longer struggle with it…with those disorders at all. I’m not perfect by any means. I still struggle with some other things but…and I also wanted to take the opportunity to thank Loralee for praying for me and my struggle right now. And I will be reaching out to you. But Natalie, and Loralee, whoever is struggling with addiction or whatever and just please know that you’re not alone. Oh, my goodness I think there’s more of us that struggle with addictions than don’t and my….my…reach out to me please -  justbreathing1@gmail.com. And Natalie take your Bible with you sweetheart when you go to the inpatient care. And honey just know that…oh my gosh…you are deeply loved. Falling in love with Jesus and knowing how much he loved me…knowing how much he loved me actually was my cure. Just know…oh…I just hope that you can absorb every second of his love and every bit of it. And I love you and I’m praying for you and pulling for you and I know you’re not alone sweetheart. You are gonna do great and marvelous things for the kingdom in Jesus’ name. God bless you sweetheart and God bless you all my family. I love you. Brian thank you and have a wonderful day. Love you all. Bye-bye.

2 Kings 13:1-14:29, Acts 18:23-19:12, Psalms 146:1-10, Proverbs 18:2-3

Today is the 28^th day of June. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is always a joy to be here with you, always good to come around the global campfire and just relax and let God’s word speak to us, always a pleasure. So, we’re moving into the end of the week now. We’ve been reading from the Contemporary English Version this week and we’ll continue that as we continue our journey through the book of second Kings. Today we’ll read chapters 13 and 14 as we continue through the kings, the stories of the kings of Israel, the northern kingdom, and Judah, the southern kingdom.

Commentary:

Okay. So, as we end another one of our workweeks together and continue to journey through the book of second Kings we’re seeing, you know, the back-and-forth between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the northern and the southern kingdoms. So, at times, they’re allies with each other and they go to battle with each other and at other times they’re enemies with each other and battling against one another. And, of course, this is…you know…the whole dynamic of the situation is influenced by who is the king, whose the king of Israel, whose the king of Judah, and then the prophetic voices played a role in all of this mix as well, even though the people usually ignored them. But we did say goodbye today to one of those very influential voices, the man of God, the prophet Elisha died after giving a final prophetic word to Jehoash who was king of the northern kingdom of Israel.A

And then we move into the book of Acts and Paul is beginning his third missionary journey and working his way into Ephesus where he spent two years, and this is Paul’s final recorded missionary journey and we’ll see why soon enough. But we also see that his opportunities to share the gospel and to have influence will only grow even though he’s not traveling around the known world anymore. And it’s gonna be in the most counterintuitive ways. And, so, we’ll see that as we continue with the story

And in Proverbs today gives us plenty to think about as it relates to our opinions. So, we probably all have people in our lives who have or seem to have an opinion about just about everything that there is and then they love to give that opinion without permission, right, unsolicited and it doesn’t even matter like what the topic is, they just seem to have an opinion on everything from politics to relationship advice to parenting to you name it without actually taking the time to form and fully understand and create a well-rounded collection of thoughts. They just spout off whatever’s happening at the top of their mind and they seem to know very well what everybody else should be doing. A lot of times we take a look at those people’s lives though and they don’t know what they’re doing. They just seem to know what everybody else should be doing. So, this is strong medicine here. This is a big teaspoonful full of something bitter. According to the Proverbs, those people are fools. It’ not understanding that they’re looking for. Its hearing themselves talk that they’re looking for. So, let’s use today, and as we move into the weekend and change the flow of our lives for a few days. Let’s observe ourselves. Let’s watch for what it is that causes us to offer an opinion. Are we asked for an opinion or are we just offering our opinions where they don’t belong because we might catch ourselves moving into foolish, foolish territory and places that are not healthy, but the good news is that this is how we actually become wise. We catch ourselves. We watch ourselves. We hear the words of wisdom spoken from the Proverbs and then we watch ourselves and then when we can catch ourselves like being pulled toward throwing in our opinion into the mix when it’s not necessary or not invited or not even welcomed and we really don’t know the situation. We can invite the Holy Spirit. That’s gonna guide us away from being foolish and back onto the path of wisdom.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit come into that. We are all guilty of stepping into foolishness. We are all guilty of playing the fool in these areas. And, so, we ask that You would come and You would help us observe our own behaviors, the things that trigger us, the things that pull us in these directions and we ask that we would be able to pause before we open our mouth and begin a dialogue with You. What is this about? Why am I about to jump into this? Why am I often finding myself jumping into these things? We invite You Holy Spirit into these questions and into these observations. Come Jesus we pray. In Your mighty name, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

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

One of the things that we’re talking about is July 7^th and that’s coming up pretty quick here, a week from this Sunday. So, July 7^th is kind of like our own little Daily Audio Bible holiday. It’s a day that we’ve been setting aside for 11 years we’ve done this. It’s what we call the Daily Audio Bible long walk and it happens every seventh of July and it’s just a day to commemorate the fact that we are moving through the middle of the year, an opportunity to regroup and go for a long walk with God. We’ve been allowing God’s word to speak into our lives for half a year and it’s time to regroup. And, so, it’s an individual experience. Go somewhere beautiful whether near or far, and go for a long walk with God, uninterrupted. Like, set the time, set the day aside so that all other obligations and responsibilities are just off the calendar. Like, this is a day that you get to spend however you want to with God. Go somewhere beautiful. Say everything that you need to say. Listen to everything that he needs to tell you, advanced words about how the second half of your year should look and where you should be aiming yourself. And just enjoy the serenity that comes as a result of just taking the one day. It’s incredible. And, so, yeah, it’s an individual experience, you’re doing this by yourself, but take your camera or whatever, your phone or whatever and snap a picture or take a little video wherever you go and post that back to the Facebook page for Daily Audio Bible facebook.com/dailyaudiobible and all of the sudden we have this mosaic, all these windows opening into each other’s lives all over the world where we can experience all over the world what the world looks like today as we move through our day on the long walk. So, that’s coming up the 7^th of July, put that on your calendar.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link on the homepage. Thank you humbly, thank you profoundly for your partnership, especially as we move in and through the summer time. Appreciate your partnership more than I can possibly articulate. The literal reality is that we wouldn’t be here if we weren’t here together. That’s the beautiful thing about this community, we’re here together. 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, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253, is the number to dial.

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

2 Kings 10:32-12:21, Acts 18:1-22, Psalms 145:1-21, Proverbs 18:1

Today is the 27th day of June. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is pleasure, of course, and an honor and a joy to walk in here and sit down around the global campfire together and just kinda come in out of whatever’s going on and let it recede and fade and allow this peaceful place to begin to take hold as God’s word speaks into our lives. So, we’ve been reading from the Contemporary English Version this week. We’ll continue that. And we’ve been working our way through the book of second Kings, which is what we’ll continue with today. Today chapters 10 verse 32 through 12 verse 21.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we’re working our way through the book of Acts, which obviously comes immediately after the Gospels. So, we had been spending our entire year in the New Testament with Jesus. And now in the book of Acts we’re mostly looking at what came next through the ministries of the apostle Peter and then the conversion and the ministry of the apostle Paul. And Paul has been on these missionary journeys sharing the good news wherever he goes. That’s why he’s on these journeys and we’ve watched Paul kind of be an attraction. Like he’s ground zero for something. Like he’s saying these things and people are beginning to wrestle with and think about. And, so, for some, their hearts are awakening to Jesus, while for others they’re rejecting this and like looking at the disruption that Paul’s causing in   these cities and inciting riots against him and so on and so forth. And we’ve watched the apostle Paul adapt, adapt to the people that he’s speaking to, so that they can actually have a dialogue instead of something more confrontational. And we get to this point in the book of Acts, and we have a little bit of ground underneath our feet now about how it was that the early church began to form. And, so it’s about here every year that we get to this point that we have to reframe what we might have thought the early church was like. I have been all over the place. I have been all over…I’ve traveled and traveled and traveled and many of you have too, but it’s often that I encounter people who will say something like, “I just wish that we could go back to the beginning. Like, this faith, this religion, it’s bloated. It’s different than it was. I wish we had it more true back then when the Holy Spirit was working the way he was and just paving the way.” As if the formation of the church were an easier, more joyous time, but somehow the Holy Spirit was working in a way that he doesn’t work today. It was a more powerful time. That is a miscalculation. Like, that’s a false assumption and the book of Acts completely and clearly shows us that the Paul’s missionary journeys…like…he wasn’t on vacation, right? Like he’s not sailing around on a cruise ship docking and going and doing these fun events where he’s sharing about Jesus and then gets back on the boat in luxury and sails to the next port. Everywhere Paul goes, he certainly shares the gospel, but it also causes disruption and all of the early believers were experiencing this. What Jesus had invited people into was a clash of kingdoms, where a kingdom, the kingdom of God, that is within and among us is being revealed. And kingdoms don’t clash without disruption. So, in today’s reading Paul’s in Corinth and he’s ministering to his fellow Hebrews, the Jewish people, trying his best, over and over and over and over to explain the implications of Jesus life in the Hebrew context and all he got was opposition and insult. So, he had to shake the dust off of his feet and he’s like, “look, I have tried, I’m innocent, like I’ve tried. Your blood is on your head. I’m going to preach to the Gentiles.” That’s pretty much what Paul does for the rest of his life and when we get into Paul’s writings we’ll see exactly what he thinks about his Jewish heritage as well as the Gentile people been welcomed into God’s kingdom. The irony in Corinth, though, is that Paul didn’t leave town, right? Like, so many times a mob has been stirred up against Paul or he’s been thrown into jail or beaten or whatever and then they leave. In Corinth, he’d been spending time in the synagogue, but he was getting nowhere. And, so, he shook the dust and is like, “your blood is upon your own heads”, but all he did was go next door to the home of Titius Justice who was a Gentile, who worshiped God. He just happened to live next the synagogue. And, so, Paul moves next door, so Jew and Gentile alike can hear what he has to say. But the point is, this was all experienced through challenge and disruption and hardship. And we need to remember that as we continue to bring the good news to the world. When we’re engaged with the gospel we’re at the clash of kingdoms where light and darkness are colliding. So, that’s gonna be disruptive, but we need to remember that we’re running a race that that were planning on finishing and that’s language. That’s the kind of language that Paul will use as we move into his writings. And, so, let’s remember what the Lord spoke to the apostle Paul and apply it to our own lives. “Don’t be afraid. Speak out. Don’t be silent. I’m with you. No one will attack or harm you. Many people in this city belong to me.”

Prayer:

Father, we acknowledge that we’ve often looked at the stories in the Scriptures through rose colored glasses, especially here in the New Testament as if all things were easy and if we could just go back to an easier time it would be better when it’s never been easy and that’s essentially what You said all of the time about this faith and about what we’re participating in battling darkness. Not just battling darkness in the world but battling our own darkness so that we are children of the light and can shine light into the darkness. So, come Holy Spirit, help us understand that we are a part of a long line of brothers and sisters who have carried this message forward thousands of years and we are still struggling - darkness and light. And You’ve given us an irreversible role to play in that story. Come Holy Spirit, may we live true, and in the light today in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, it is home base, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here. So, be sure to always stay tuned and connected in any way that you can.

We have July 7^th coming up on the radar here. And July 7^th is our own little internal holiday here for the Daily Audio Bible. It will be our…I believe…11^th annual Daily Audio Bible long walk. So, every 7^th of July we give ourselves permission to just realize we are in the middle of the year and it’s time to regroup. It’s time to take a day and set it aside and actually spend it with God. And the idea is just go somewhere beautiful, whether you’re walking down the street to a park or whether you’re getting in your car and driving for hours. Go somewhere that you find compelling and beautiful and quiet and serene and go for a long walk and become amazed at how much life is happening when you’re being still and quiet. And realize that now you’ve just carved out the space to say everything needed to say, right? All the chaos that swirls around life, all the obligations and responsibilities, all of the depression and anxiety that are attached to things inside of us that we can’t find any more because we’re moving too fast, so we can’t deal with anything. What If we took a day with God and dealt with some things? How would that affect the rest of the year? Do you think that the one day with God where you regrouped would pay off in dividends far worth more than a day? Of course! We’re learning to walk with God, His Word is revealing Him to us. So now let’s do it. Let take a day. And, yah, its individual. Like, when I go on my long walk, usually by myself…I’ve done it one year…one year with my wife, we do both do it, but usually it’s an individual experience. And, so, I’ll be doing it by myself, but I won’t be doing it alone. It’s just like the Daily Audio Bible community. Yeah, you might be listening to this right now solitary, but you are not alone, and you are not listening alone. So, this is what we do, just go somewhere, spend the day with God, snap a picture or take a video wherever you go, post it back to our Facebook page, which is facebook.com/dailyaudiobible and we open windows into each other’s lives and get to enjoy the beauty of God’s earth all around us all on the same day. It’s great. So, make plans for that. That’s the Daily Audio Bible long walk this 7^th of July, which is a Sunday this year.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, thank you. We would not be a community, we wouldn’t have a global camp fire burning, we wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing if we didn’t do this together and we’ve always done this together. So, if what we’re doing together - bringing the spoken word of God read fresh every day and offer it to the world to anyone who will listen to it anytime, anywhere. If that's…if that is the kingdom…that is light and good news for you then thank you, thank you for your partnership as we navigate and move through the summer time. So, there’s a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the at 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 have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253, is the number to dial.

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

2 Kings 9:14-10:31, Acts 17:1-34, Psalms 144:1-15, Proverbs 17:27-28

Today is the 26^th day of June. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible, I am Brian and its great to be here with you as we move through the center of the week, which I guess is why it’s called hump day, we’re getting over the hump and moving to the back half of the week. But no matter what part of the week we’re in we’re always taking the next step forward through the Scriptures, which would take us back into the book of second Kings. We’re reading from the Contemporary English Version this week. Second Kings Chapter 9 verse 14 through 10 verse 31 today.

Commentary:

Alright. So, in the book of Acts we’re continuing along with Paul on his second missionary journey and we should note the way that Paul adapts what he’s saying to who he’s saying it to. So, in Thessalonica Paul’s in the synagogue, he’s opening the Scriptures and he’s explaining how Jesus is a part of the Jewish story and a part of the Jewish heritage. And, so, many come to faith in Jesus and others are against him because they’re envious or jealous and angry mob kicks Paul and Silas out of town. So, they go to Berea. Paul’s in the synagogue again. The Berean’s are diligently searching the Scriptures. And, so, Paul’s right there to interpret. Many come to faith, many get jealous. The they’re out of town again. So, then Paul’s in Athens where spirituality is very diverse but very open and he’s talking about the unknown God because they worship many, many gods, including any unknown God that they may not have known about and Paul offers to them very concise, very simple explanation of how he sees the gospel. And, so, let’s look at that again. Let’s listen to what Paul says as if we’re in Athens and we don’t have any of the background of the Bible, we don’t know other than just sensing that there’s a God out there. This is how Paul explains to a person who worships an unknown God. The thing is, we’ll all agree with it, we’re reading it out of the Bible. But consider, do you functionally believe this? Do you live as if this were the truth? So, Paul says, “I want to tell you about this God that you’re worshiping that you don’t know. This God made the world and everything in it. “He’s the Lord of heaven and earth, and He doesn’t live in temples built by human hands. He doesn’t need help from anyone. He gives life, breath, and everything else to all people. From one person, God made all nations who live on the earth, and He decided when and where every nation would be. God has done all this so that we will look for Him and reach out and find Him. He isn’t far from any of us and He gives us the power to live to move and to be who we are. We are His children, just to some of your poets have said. And since we are God’s children must not think that He’s like an idle made out of gold or silver or stone. He isn’t like anything that humans have thought up and made. In the past God forgave all this because people did not know what they were doing but now He says that everyone everywhere must turn to Him. He has set a day when He will judge the world’s people with fairness and He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death.” So, there you go. We should find great comfort in that, great encouragement in that, but also put ourselves in the position of somebody who’s never heard this before so that we understand the kinds of people that Paul is trying to reach and we should also notice that Paul adapts the way that he interacts with people based on who it is that he’s trying to talk to, which doesn’t mean he is trying to change his message, it means he’s trying to enter a person’s story from where they’re coming from instead of trying to force-feed where he’s coming from. A pretty invaluable lesson for us in this day and age.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for this simple concise truth of the gospel from the apostle Paul here in the book of Acts. It reminds us of the fact that we are Your children. We also acknowledge the fact that we don’t know all that we think that we do and a posture of humility in entering into each other’s stories is the way of Your kingdom. Come Holy Spirit we pray. And we ask in Jesus’ name expectantly as we surrender, as we allow You to have space and access to our hearts and our day and our actions. Come Holy Spirit we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

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

Coming up in less than two weeks, the 7^th of July, is our annual Daily Audio Bible long walk. It’s happening on a Sunday this year so it kind of makes it easier. And we do this every July 7^th. It’s a day to give ourselves permission to say, “look, “I’m in the middle of the year, I have journeyed halfway through this year and come to this point with the rhythm of the Scriptures being in my life.” And by now we can see what the Bible does as we put it in our lives every day. So, it’s a day to regroup and go for a long walk with the God of the Bible who is revealing himself to us through the Scriptures. Yeah, just to spend the day saying all of the things that there just aren’t time to say. Like we’re just too overcommitted, too out of balance, we’re running too hard. So, we take this one day and go for a long walk, go somewhere beautiful whether near or far and go for a long walk and we can say everything that needs to be said and to allow space because the Lord has some things He’s been wanting but we’re just too busy to listen. So, what if we took a day and gave it to listening and just spending time with God and appreciating that life is happening all around us and we’re ignoring it. That’s the 7^th of July and yeah, it’s a very individual thing, but it’s also a very communal thing that we’re doing as a community all over the world. And you just take your phone. You probably have your phone or something with you anyway. Snap a picture of wherever it is you go or take a little video of wherever it is you go and post it up to our Facebook page, facebook.com/dailyaudiobible and then we’ll post them up and they become these beautiful little moments that we get to share with each other, little windows into each other’s lives and where it is that we are on the planet and where it is that’s beautiful where we are and we get this wonderful picture of God’s beauty all over the world on one day. So, make plans for that the 7^th of July.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible as we navigate the summer months, then thank you profoundly for your partnership. There’s 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, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253, is the number to dial.

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

2 Kings 8:1-9:13, Acts 16:16-40, Psalms 143:1-12, Proverbs 17:26

Today is the 25^th day of June. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian, it’s wonderful to be here with you today, take the next step forward into our week and the next step forward through the Scriptures as we move our way through this week and month and year. We are currently in the book of second Kings as we read through the Old Testament portion of our reading and we are learning of the prophet Elisha. So, we’ll continue with that story. Second Kings chapter 8 verse 1 through 9:13 today.

Commentary:

Alright. So, in the book of Acts, we’ve now departed on Paul’s second missionary journey and we read of the falling out that he had with Barnabas over John Mark. And as we’re traveling on the second missionary journey we can see that like the first missionary journey its light and darkness colliding and Paul’s in the middle of everywhere he goes. But in spite of all this…just chaos that swirls around them sometimes and the struggles that they have to go through, we also have to notice that fascinating opportunities are happening. Like, Paul’s not thrown into jail and thinking, “God, get me out of jail so that I can continue this missionary journey.” Paul is on mission no matter where he ends up landing. So, in today’s reading Paul and Silas are in Philippi and they’re spending time in a common area and praying by the water and sharing the good news. But each day this slave girl who predicts the future, she would call them out, “these are men of God, they are servants of the most high God, they’ve come to tell you how to be saved.” And, so, eventually Paul’s exasperated with this and he looks at her and throws the demon out in the name of Jesus, which infuriates the girls owners because they’ve basically lost their way of making money. The girl was an attraction for this. So, the next thing you know, you’ve got a mob kind of rising up against Paul and Silas and then they’re severely beaten and thrown into prison. So, they’re sitting in prison around midnight, bruised from this beating, in chains and they’re singing hymns of worship to God, and the entire prison is silent as the other prisoners are listening to the gospel being shared with them in song. And then this earthquake happens, and the doors fly open and everybody can run but nobody does. And the jailer’s there about to kill himself because he just let everybody escape, even though he had nothing to do with it. And Paul’s like, “don’t kill yourself, we’re here, we’re all here, don’t worry, don't…don’t do anything to yourself”, which resulted in Paul and Silas being cared for by the jailer, their wounds being dressed, the gospel being shared, people coming to faith in Jesus. And if we back up in the story, if we just kind of look at how this story unfolds, had this girl who could foretell the future, had she not continued to call Paul and Silas out day after day, had Paul not thrown this evil spirit out of her, they would have never been thrown into jail. And we can look at it and go, “yeah, they would’ve never been thrown into jail.” But the thing is, had they not been thrown into prison, then this jailer and his entire household…Paul and Silas would’ve never laid eyes on this guy, like, they would’ve never crossed paths. And as we watch Paul’s ministry and later as we get into the writings of Paul we’ll see that this is the approach that he takes to life. Wherever he is at he is on mission. Yes. Sometimes they’re going on actual formal missionary journeys, but it doesn’t matter whether he’s in prison, whether he’s before Kings, whether he’s in sickness or whether he’s in health, he’s on mission and that is what’s deeply compelling about the apostle Paul. No matter where he lands he lands sharing the gospel of Jesus. And the opportunities that we have the spread light in the darkness, to bring good news in a sea of bad, those opportunities are limitless if we’re just simply paying attention. And it’s usually when we’re feeling opposition or hardship, like, when the darkness is pressing in on us that we usually isolate ourselves, but these are the times when we have the greatest opportunity

Prayer:

Father, we take this example. We look at what’s happening here in the early church when we look into the life of the apostle Paul and Silas who was accompanying him and into this story today and realize, had they just been angry because they were Roman citizens and had been beaten and they were just lamenting in the prison, just waiting for daybreak so that they could lower the boom none of this would’ve happened, and yet You used all of these things and worked them together for good, and the souls of an entire household were saved. So, help us to realize that what we do today matters and how we do it matters. It’s important that we stay paying attention. It’s so easy for us to find ourselves totally self-absorbed and what’s going on with us and whatever discomfort we may be trying to overcome while ignoring opportunities everywhere. Show us how to be awake, show us how to be aware and show us how to see Your kingdom at work in and among us, all around us. Come Holy Spirit we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

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

And as I mentioned yesterday, just a little less than two weeks will be the 7^th of July and the 7^th of July is kind of a little Daily Audio Bible holiday that we have of our own. It’s the day that we do the Daily Audio Bible long walk. And the long walk is self-explanatory, honestly. It’s a day that we set aside on the calendar, happens to be on a Sunday this year, but it’s a day that we set aside on the calendar and give ourselves permission to go and waste the day with God, to go and just be with God like we’re in love with God as he is in love with us. Like, we know that when we fall in love with people we will waste incredible amounts of time just being together because it’s not a waste. It’s the bond of relationship that is forming. What if we took a day and did that with God in the middle of the year? That’s what the Daily Audio Bible long walk is about. As we cross through the middle of the year it’s a fantastic time to go out into nature and beauty and just realize in the silence that the silence is full of life happening everywhere and to just spend the day with God talking, saying everything that we need to say, and listening for everything that He wants to speak to us. It’s just a regroup and reset for the second half of the year. So, you just go somewhere beautiful, whether that’s five minutes away whether that’s five hours away. It’s up to you…just somewhere beautiful that you find compelling and go for a long walk. Spend the day just with God. And as in years gone by, this will be happening all over the world and it’s a very individual experience, but it is a community experience to know, “I’m not the only one doing this. Like, I am indeed on a long walk with God and I am pouring my heart out and I am being as honest and vulnerable as possible. I am with God, but I’m the only one doing this. This is happening all over the world.” And it’s a beautiful thing. Take a picture, take a little video, something that you’ll want to hold onto to commemorate your day, but you can share that at the Daily Audio Bible Facebook page facebook.com/dailyaudiobible and then we post those up and they become little windows into each other’s lives, just little windows into the beauty of the earth all around the earth. And it’s wonderful, a wonderful annual experience that we have here as a community. Like I said, as we move through the middle of the year, why not take a few hours. Why not take that day and regroup with God? I mean, He has poured into us through His word thus far. Imagine what the second half of the year can look like we’re focused and in lockstep with His will and His ways for us? But how will we know that if we spend no time? So, July 7^th, Daily Audio Bible long walk. Put that on your calendar.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, I thank you. I don’t have enough words, like, I’ve used all the words of gratitude and humility and thankfulness because they’re all true. Thank you for your partnership as we move through the summer time, appreciate it very much. We wouldn’t be able to be here if we weren’t here together. That’s the beauty of us being here together as a community. So, there’s a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253, is the number to dial.

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

Hope you were able to find the DAB Archives Okay.

https://dailyaudiobible.tumblr.com/archive

Thanks for the note Judy. When did Pelham call in? I don’t recall a call coming in from him over the past couple weeks.