Category: DAB Transcripts

Genesis 16:1-18:15, Matthew 6:1-24, Psalms 7:1-17, Proverbs 2:1-5

Today is the 7^th day of January, almost said December, January. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and I’m still moving into this new year and I bet that in some ways you are as well, but we have set sail and we are in this new year and we’re about to take our seventh step of 365 steps that will take us through the entire Bible in a year and in the first week we have covered some significant ground. The Bible kind of launches us into the deep right away. And, so, we have met some key players that are going to affect the rest of the Bible and in fact affect the world until today and we’ll get to know their stories as we continue forward and we are certainly for the first time in the first Gospel of Matthew getting to know this man named Jesus that has certainly affected the world and radically affected our lives until today. So, we’ll take the next step forward. We’re reading from the new International version this week. Genesis chapter 16 verse 1 through 18 verse 15 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we’re just beginning our first full work week of the new year and there’s a bunch of stuff we covered in the Scriptures today, stuff that…things that we can think about all day and some of these things we need to be thinking about for the rest of our lives. So, in the book of Genesis Abram has become Abraham and that should snap some things into place because Abraham affects the world all the way until today. And, so, now there’s a promised child to an old couple that are beyond childbearing years, and this is supposed to be a son of promise that will grow to become as many as the sands on the seashore. So, we’ll have to see whether that’s gonna happen or not but that’s the promise. God has found this man Abram and this man Abram has believed God, and that belief has caused him to be seen as a righteous before God. And when we passed by that passage of Scripture you may not even have paid any attention to it or you may have heard that before, but it doesn’t mean anything. It should though. The entire premise of a man named Paul who we’re going to meet later on in the year who is responsible for like two thirds of the New Testament, this is the central thing for the apostle Paul, that Abraham believed God, and God considered him righteous because he believed. So, we’ll get into all that when we get there because today we have new things to unpack and unfold. But I want to point this out because we’re in the book of Genesis and we’re just getting going. But this one thing, that Abraham believed God, and God considered him righteous because of it is a very, very, very important thing to the Christian faith. So, just a bookmark. Remember, because we’ll be visiting this territory again.

And then as we move into the book of Matthew Jesus is still speaking and he’s speaking and he’s speaking pretty frankly about grandstanding today, about drawing attention to yourself, which is really exposing the deficits within yourself, what’s empty inside yourself. But Jesus is saying, “don’t do that, don’t do that spiritually”, right? So, don’t walk around acting like you’re more spiritual than you are because you’re only exposing yourself as less spiritual than you think you are. Do these things in secret where your Father can see them and where you can commune with Him because otherwise, if you’re doing these things, even if they’re good things, if you’re being generous or whatever, you’re doing these things so that you can be seen doing them, then that’s the end of the story, it’s a good thing that you did and you get the pat on the back that you wanted, somebody observed you doing that and then you can continue to build the false story around yourself that you’re uber spiritual when the reality is, if you were then you would do these things in secret where only you and your Father know. So, something to think about because we definitely live in cultures where we are our own spotlight and we are constantly trying to shine the light on ourselves and we do this all kinds of ways, including kind of curating our life for Facebook or Instagram, like trying to make ourselves look a certain way. It is only partly the truth. What we’re portraying is what we like to be, but we know what’s really going on and so does God. And, so, Jesus is saying, “you don’t have to do this, God knows.” And that relationship is in secret and what you do in secret is something that God will reward you for but if you’re gonna shine a spotlight on yourself that’s all there is, that’s the beginning and the end of the story, you got everything you’re going to get. So, well done, you did good, but you got your word already, you arranged for it yourself, you were looking for that little bit of dopamine or whatever to make yourself feel better about yourself and you got the pat on the back and they’re you go, that’s all there is. Jesus is trying to indicate that there’s a whole lot more if we’re walking with God. There’s a whole lot more available than just a pat on the back or Facebook like.

And then we got into the Psalms today and we’re left with something to think about and we should think about this all day today. Actually, this should probably be a point of meditation, like something to really kind of consider today, “if you conceive trouble you will be pregnant with evil and you will give birth to disillusionment.”

Prayer:

Father, we invite You into that. What does that mean in our story right now? In what ways are we conceiving trouble that will make us pregnant with evil and only give birth to disillusionment? What ways have we done this? What ways are we doing this? We have been taught by Your own words Jesus, to humble ourselves today. And, so we do, and we invite Your Holy Spirit into all that we have read. We heard of a promise today to an older couple that by this time next year the promise will be fulfilled. And, so, we’ve been waiting for things for a long time. And, so, we bring that to You Lord. About this time next year what are our hopes? What should we be hoping in? What are You promising as something that pulls us forward as we walk with You? There’s plenty for us to think about today and we invite Your Holy Spirit into all of it. Come Holy Spirit we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

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

And we’re kind of moving into the year, it takes a couple weeks to get fully moved into the rhythm of the year and unpack everything that’s going on.

I mentioned the Promised Land films yesterday, that those are available in the Daily Audio Bible shop.

There’s other things in the Daily Audio Bible Shop that are available and one of those things is our Windfarm coffee and our Windfarm boutique tea. And you might think like, coffee, tea, Bible what’s going…like…why do have that stuff in the Shop? It’s because they pair well. Kind of a coffee snob around here. I pretty much like to drink good high quality coffee, have for many, many years and I drink it every day as I’m , you know, reading the Daily Audio Bible, but I’ve found over time…and by the way, I’m a tea drinker too…I drink tea almost every day during the week as well. But what I found over the years is that my routine, that includes coffee in the morning, has also become like a part of my rhythm. It’s like part of an environment that surrounds this rhythm of the Bible in my life. And, so, over time, just being kind of a coffee snob, I found coffee roasters and we’ve had our own windfarm brand of coffee for 8…at least…eight years. And, so, we roast the coffee fresh at altitude in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and then send it out and we import the tea. It’s boutique level, high quality, excellent tea, like not grocery store stuff here we’re talking about for the tea drinkers. But we realized, this is a part of a morning, afternoon, or evening ritual for most people, not everybody, not a hundred percent of people are like coffee or tea or hot beverage drinkers, but most people are going to buy a cup coffee somewhere or steep some tea at some point every day. And, so, we just began to realize we can source, we can do good and source this in raw and do this ourselves and then make it available to the community and bring the best high quality product that we can to the community that’s going to spend this money anyway and then just harvest the margin to help support the efforts of what’s happening here at the Daily Audio Bible. So, the Daily Audio Bible Windfarm coffee and tea is available in the Daily Audio Bible shop, but also we have a coffee club, like we can send it to you every month. And we do. Hundreds and hundreds of pounds of fresh roasted coffee and tea get shipped every month all over the world. And, so, you know, every time that I am grinding up my fresh coffee and doing a little bit of a pour over in the morning getting and getting ready for the day, I know where this coffee came from and it came as an outgrowth of this community that I love with all of my heart and it reminds me to be prayerful and mindful of you as I’m going into the day. And it can do the same thing for you, not only to remind you to pray for your brothers and sisters that are in community together going through the Scriptures, but also just to center yourself around the fact that this day is not going to work if we don’t walk with God. And, so, as we put these little kinds of reminders in our lives, and they can be anything like…listen…it doesn’t have to be coffee or tea. Like, you can listen to what I’m saying and go, “ya, ya, ya, ya, I’m gonna stick with my Maxwell House or whatever”. That’s fine. But as you put little things, little reminders to maintain what’s going on in your life, to maintain the rhythm, which is our word for the year, to keep things in working order. The more that we can do to help ourselves have reminders, like, that we do not have to go sideways, we don’t have to skip tracks today, like we can actually have a successful day on every level if we’re paying attention. So, this is one of the reasons for it. So, you can get coffee shipped to you, however many bags, however many pounds, whatever kind of tea…like…we have a lot of different varietals that we’ve sourced over the years. So, you know, if that’s something that’s already kind of part of the rhythm of your life, check it out at the Daily Audio Bible Shop, maybe you’d like some sent to you every month and when that box arrives it’s just one of those reminders about what this next week, this next month is gonna look like for you. So, you can check that all out at dailyaudiobible.com in the Shop or if you’re looking for the coffee club, like you want it sent you each month, go to the Initiatives section in the website or in the app and you can read all about it.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link on the homepage. I thank you. I’m humbled. I‘m humbled and surprised and delighted that we’re in our 14^th year and God has been faithful and that as a community we’ve done things that have never been done before in the history of the world. And there is no community like this. It’s, quite remarkable what God is doing in and among us. So, thank you for your partnership. There’s a link 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’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Today is January 1^st, 2019. This is Randolph from Toronto Canada. Brian, I wish you a happy new year to you, Jill, China, Max, Tyler, Ezekiel, Mary Jo, Mike and all those who work behind the scenes of Daily Audio Bible. I praise God for your commitment to reading the Bible every day. I’ve been listening every day for about six years now. I also want to let my fellow DABbers know that I listen to every prayer request and pray along with each of you although I don’t call often. A happy new year to all. This is Randolph from Toronto Canada. And Blessings.

Greetings to the Daily Audio Bible family. Just so blessed and so happy to be a part of this beautiful community another year. Brian, I thank you, Jill we thank you and team and to my Daily Audio Bible family. We are embarking upon a whole new year with Brian guiding us through revival. For those of you who are new, you are in for such an amazing journey. If you were looking for a different step, 2019 will make just basically drawing closer to the Lord was truly the best thing that you could have ever done for yourself this year. Within this community you will find so many prayer warriors, individuals that are there to stand in the gap for you no matter what you’re going through we are all here. So, we listen, some of us call in on a consistent basis and pray, but some of us pray on the outside, just listening and may not hear from us all the time but we are listening and truly we are praying. So, I just wanted to welcome you guys to this new step, the next step I should say, in your spiritual journey. It will be one that you will never regret and that you always look back on and say that this is truly one of God’s blessings. So, thank you again. Everyone, have a happy healthy and a very prosperous and blessed 2019. This is Sherlock from New Jersey.

Hi Daily Audio Bible DABbers. To Brian, Jill, happy new year to everyone. This is Tinese calling from Cleveland Ohio and I am just grateful for a new life and today a new year. I am praying for each and every one of you that 2019 will be a prosperous year, that you will find a deeper connection with God and that your goals and dreams that you have, you will be able to achieve those as well as just live the very best life that you can. I’m excited. I’m asking you guys to pray for me as well. I love the word of the year of being “Maintain”, that is awesome. For my personal goals I’m adding a little bit to that, I’m adding “obtain” because sometimes I just leave so much on the table because I’m fearful and I don’t maximize my opportunities. So, I also want to be able to obtain some things that God has for me this year as well as sustain. I want to be sustainable, I want to leave a great footprint for my family, for people that I have an opportunity to mentor. I want to be able to give back. So, I want to be able to have resources and opportunity and information that I have had in my life, I want to be able to pass it on to them. I am so thankful and deeply grateful for the Daily Audio Bible. I am, even more at this point my life, just profoundly…I just have profound gratitude for the blood of Jesus that covers my life. So, many times I can look back and see why I should not be here and where He has kept me. And when I get to heaven I want to get there, and I want to say, “hey God, look, I did the best I could, I went for it all in Jesus name.” And I thank God for everything that He’s doing. So, again, I’m praying for each and every…

Hello DABbers, this EZ in Georgia and for those of you that have been listening for a long time, you’ll know that every year or two I will start out to do this with all of you and then the pressures of life or the length of the program in the day will just make me feel like I can’t finish. And last year I ended up just reading the daily message, but I love this so much and I want to complete it and I want to be part of it and this is the first day of January as I record this. So, I would ask that you all…just…if you would, please lift me up in prayer that I will finish this this year, that peace will come into a lot of personal trials. My family is going through a lot of health issues and that the will of the Lord will be done in my life. I have music ministry and it’s very difficult for an artist in this day in age to get into churches because praise teams have kind of taken that kind of ministry and made it obsolete in a lot of areas. And I just pray that that will change enough that doors will open for me. I love all of you so much and I’m thrilled to be back and I’m gonna stick with it this year, I promise.

Genesis 13:5-15:21, Matthew 5:27-48, Psalms 6:1-10, Proverbs 1:29-33

Today is the 6^th  day of January. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it is a pleasure and it is a joy to be here with you as we do this for the first time, we reach out our hand, we grab the knob, we turn it, we push forward, and we walk through the threshold of a brand-new shiny, sparkly, new week and I will remind us of this probably more weeks than not because it is a line of demarcation, like it is a new week, which gives us the opportunity to release the previous week because it has become a part of our history and we can look forward to the new week because it has not yet been lived and it is shiny and sparkly and new. And we stand here at the threshold of this new week and we get to decide how were going to live into what comes next. And when we systematically remind ourselves that His mercies are new every morning, and that we remind ourselves of these new weeks then we get a chance to reflect not only on the past week and how we managed it, but what we’re going to do to properly align ourselves with the Scriptures and with the Holy Spirit’s guidance in our lives in the new week. We have a much better chance of succeeding if we pre-decide how we are going to do this, right? A plan is always a better thing than winging it. And, so, we make the plan to step into this new shiny, sparkly, new week and walk with God in every moment and in every conceivable way and watch what that does to this week. And one of the ways we do that is to immerse ourselves in the daily rhythm of the Scripture. So, I guess the lesson as we’re moving into this new year for a Daily Audio Bible right now is that we should pay attention to the brand-new weeks that come our way as opportunities for reset and restarting and one of the things we do as each beginning of each new week, we switch translations and read from another translation, which then gives us a comprehensive view over the course of a year of all that biblical scholarship and translation has to offer us. So, we pick up where we left off, but we just switch translations each week and allow those translations and those translation teams to allow God’s word speak to us. So, this week we’ll read from the New International Version and we’ll pick up where we left off yesterday. Genesis chapter 13 verse 5 through 15 verse 21 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the book of Genesis, just to kind of keep us attached to the story that’s being told, this man named Abram is going to become a very, very, very important figure and it’s probably not too much of a spoiler alert that he will have a name change. And, once he does a bunch of stuff will click into place. This man who has followed this God that he did not know into a land that he had never been influences the world until today and deeply affects three of the world’s religions, two of the greatest number and that would be Christianity, Islam and Judaism and they all trace their roots back to this guy. And, so, we’ll watch this unfold as the story goes forward but even as we consider Abram going after his nephew Lot who had been taken captive and that he chased him all the way as far as the city of Dan and beyond, these geographical landmarks that we just kind of go by them, there just places in our imagination, they’re not. No, they’re actual places. And, so, the ancient Canaanite city gates of the city of Dan, which had other names before Dan, but these ancient city gates that probably Abram would’ve had to pass through, they’re still standing, some of the oldest gates in the world. And in February, late February, we’ll be going on an adventure to the land of the Bible. Of course, that’s all full. It’s been full for over a year, but we go into the land of the Bible and we do this virtually every year. And, so, like, even the gates that I just told you about, as we travel through the land of the Bible visiting these geographical locations where the Bible happened, yeah, we’ll be posting that all up, so you’ll be able to see all of this and the trip becomes virtual. So, so many of the places that we’ll visit in the Bible are actual places and you’ll be able to see what they look like. If you want to kind of jumpstart on that there is a resource in the Daily Audio Bible shop, it’s called Promised Land, the Essential Pilgrim’s edition and it is a double DV set that also comes with an instant digital download and there’s over four hours a content. I’ve been shooting in the land of the Bible for…gosh…I think six years in a row to amass one of the greatest collections of the landscape of the Bible that exists. And, so, a lot of this is incorporated into the promised land films and what they are is just like two to three-minute short films and each of them is a location and they’re kind of organized by where they are: North, South, East or West in the land of the Bible. And, so you can see these things for yourself as we move through the Bible, you’ll be able to zoom in, watch a quick short film, if that’s what you want to do, and immerse yourself even deeper in the geography of the Bible so that you sort of have a lay of the land as we’re reading these the stories. My whole life I was raised around the Scriptures, I was raised as a pastor son, so these stories, you know, the more famous stories in the Bible were stories I grew up knowing and I always just imagined them and then even as an adult when I kind of returned to the Bible and it became part of my life I still just kind of imagined them. And then finally after many years of being invited I went and I this is like alonmst a decade ago now, but, you know, I didn't….I just thought it was gonna be kind of gimmicky and I just didn’t want to go. I thought that it would maybe even mess with my faith in a bad way. I don’t know…I just imagined, you know, a place where Jesus did something important in the Scriptures across the street from a McDonald’s or something. I just didn’t want to see that. That’s not how it is though. And, so, you can see. You can see the land of the Bible with the Promised Land films. That’s over four hours of content and will definitely set you up as we move through the Bible. So, you can check that out, but we will be going to the land of the Bible virtually next month, late next month. So, we’ve got some time and that’s always a fun community experience.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word, we thank You for the story that is beginning to blossom and unfold before us as we begin to know some of these main characters that are our spiritual ancestors and begin to know their story and begin to understand that their story connects to our story and even as Jesus, we are listening to Your words that we now call the sermon on the Mount. I’m pretty sure that’s not what You wrote at the top of Your notes when You decided to give this message, but this is what we call it and we’re listening to it and it’s a deeply challenging thing. We’re right here at the beginning of the year. You begin to press in on us with the truth, You begin to come…we always are inviting You near not understanding that that’s not just a sense of comfort, like draw near to me Lord so that I can feel better about whatever’s going on in my life and I can feel comforted and I can feel like You’re gonna be here to beat up the bad guys in my life. Sometimes when we pray that You will draw near You do draw near and it confronts us with things that cannot stand in Your presence that are in our lives and this is what we begin to find as we read that what You’re telling us in the sermon on the Mount. So, come Holy Spirit, plant the word of God in our lives, interpret it for us into our own contexts and stories as we walk with You and humble ourselves and surrender our agendas, we invite You through Your word to speak on Your own behalf. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

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

And I mentioned the Promised Land films just a minute ago. I mean, you can check out all of the resources that are in the Daily Audio Bible shop at dailyaudiobible.com. We have collected and continue to do that, to collect resources that are tailor-made for the journey ahead, the journey through the Bible in a year, companions to take you on that journey and accompany you through that journey as you move through the Bible. So, the Promised Land films are certainly that but check it out. Check out the resources that are in the Daily Audio Bible shop as we move forward through the Scriptures.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There’s a link on the homepage. I thank you profoundly and humbly that if this has been life-giving to you over the years are over the last week, if life is coming into your life because of the word of God, then thank you for your partnership. What we’ve done as the Daily Audio Bible and this won’t be the last time that I say this…I mean we’re entering our 14th year and this was never launched out of some big ministry somewhere. This this grew up out of a prompting and some obedience and out of the dust of the Internet and we’ve been a community ever since. And, so, what we’ve done over these years has been done together and everything that will be done as we go through this year will be done because we did it together. So, if you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, thank you profoundly and humbly, thank you. 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’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

This is Michelle from Gettysburg. I am listening to Brian’s reading from the 31^st and just praying in Thanksgiving and I think to myself, how many days this year did I just think that something wouldn’t go or God wouldn’t pull through or how is it going to turn out and here we are on the 365^th day of our reading and God is faithful. God is just always faithful. So, maybe you didn’t go the way we thought or maybe things didn’t work the way we wanted them to, but God had a plan. And, good or bad in our minds or our ideas, God was good, He was good all the time. And that is a praise. Even if my mom’s health isn’t exactly what I want it to be or there was a loss this year and all the prayer requests that came over, they weren’t always happy ones and there were many losses but we forged forward and we just took the next step and we just showed up, and we showed up for the readings and we showed up for God’s word and we came because we knew He was faithful. Somehow all of our stories line us back up showing thanksgiving, showing praise, and showing up. So, by the time this gets played it’ll probably be day three of the new year and we just started and took the next step, right? I thank you Daily Audio Bible people showing up, for knowing God is faithful, for knowing that in another 367 days we will be back here praising and thanking Him again as we should each day. I love you.

Dear Holy Spirit thank you for being with me, thank you for being with us and giving us this precious community of believers. On this last day of 2018 I am contemplative as Brian said so eloquently today in his reading, contemplative especially of this new word of the year, “Maintain”. And Lord, I ask that you help us as you always do Lord as we lift ourselves up to You every day and help us to maintain the hope, the hopefulness that You are. Help us to maintain the love that You give and that You have placed in our hearts as believers in Your son Jesus Christ. Help us to maintain the trust in You in knowing that You are everything, everything in our life, and if we maintain that trust and keep You first and foremost, in all things, in all thoughts, in all words and in every day, that You will keep us in the palm of Your hand and bless us exceedingly. Help us to maintain the faith in You always. And I am so grateful for Brian, Jill, Asia…China…I’m sorry…China and I just love all of you and thank you so much for this blessed community. God bless you. Happy new year.

Good morning daily Audio Bible family, this is Dmmy from Dallas Texas. This is my second time calling this year and this year is my first year completing the entire Bible. Of course, I missed some days but I’m going to do it over again for 2019. Have a happy new year everybody.

Good afternoon Daily Audio Bible community. This is Diane Olive Brown from Newburgh Indiana calling on December 31^st at 4:12 PM and I have something I found that I think will really encourage your faith. It’s called Authority and it’s an anonymous…I don’t know who did this but it’s really great. When mountains will confront the way like it and leap, arise and say be thou removed and they shall be by the power of God capped in the Sea. All the power on earth, all the power in heaven to Christ, the son of God is given and from the throne He will endue and hindrances will flee from you for all the power of being that man faith through the Lord I surely can. Faith from his power on earth to tread on serpants __ on dragon’s heaf. Where though are oh mountain high, where there though art in earth and sky, when there though art truth is the same be thou removed in Jesus’ name. Be though removed faith will restart for yonder sea arise depart. I may, I can, I must, I will, the purpose of my God fulfilled. Isn’t that wonderful? We have a purpose and we shall fulfill it. Shalom shalom.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family it’s January 1^st. Happy new year. Let’s pray. God please give us the confidence to trust You to charge how things are to how You want them to be in our lives. Only You God can do that, and nothing is impossible with You God. We ask for the commitment that we need to take action. Lord, we pray that we may count our days with wisdom and realize how every day counts in the light of eternity in the saddles of our hearts. Watch over our hearts Father God. Let us ask ourselves in every situation what will this do to my heart. Help us measure our days and let us always ask ourselves, what is this going to do for my life and what is this going to do for my heart in my daily decisions. Please give us a discipline and joyful life Father God did help us to remember that our joy is in You. Help us to have a meaningful life and let us abound in pleasing You God. In Jesus mighty and precious name we pray. And we pray this prayer for all of us, especially for our children and those that are struggling. In Jesus mighty and precious name we pray. This is Nydia from New Jersey. I love you.

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

Today is the 5^th day of January. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is a pleasure and an honor to be here with you today as we reach the conclusion of our first week together in this brand-new shiny, sparkly, new year and, I mean, it’s not our first full week, right? We just…we started this new year in this week, but this is our first weekend and tomorrow we’ll start our first full week of the year, but it’s good to be here with you as we take the next step forward and continue to move away from shore and into the deep as we move through the Bible this year. So, we’ve been reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week and that’s what we’ll do today. Genesis chapter 11 verse 1 through 13 verse 4.

Commentary:

Okay. So, of course, in the book of Proverbs, the voice that is saying these things right, “since I called out and you refused, since I extend my hand no one paid attention”, this is the voice of wisdom speaking. And, so, what wisdom is telling us today is that the choice is ours. We can pay attention to wisdom and allow wisdom to guide us and we will avoid the pitfalls that the lack of wisdom would present. However, if we’re not gonna pay any attention, well then wisdom will end up laughing at us. In other words, wisdom is attainable and the lack of wisdom in our decision-making is avoidable, which brings us to the word for the year.

Every year, all of these years, there’s been a word that’s kind of been our north star, something we can focus in on really and really pay attention to and that usually gets announced at the end of the year. And, so, in the community ending the year last year we mentioned what the word for this year is and the word for this year is “Maintain” and we will look at what it looks like in the stories that we will encounter in the Bible for people to maintain, we’ll look at that as we go along, but we also need to remember this word and put it in our own lives and just kind of see what it does. Like, if it means nothing to you all year long, that’s not problem, but I might mean everything to you, it might be the word that you actually need because maintaining requires awareness and vigilance. Like, you have to maintain things for them to work properly, right? If we don’t maintain our health it will go away. If we don’t maintain our vehicle it will break down. If we don’t maintain our spiritual lives, then we will be weak and everything will fall apart and we’ll find ourselves once again shaking our fist at God in the sky for letting something bad happen to us that was completely avoidable had we paid attention to the voice of wisdom. The voice of wisdom in the Scriptures today basically says you can listen to me or you can mock me but if you do then when calamity strikes you’ll feel as if wisdom is mocking you back because you didn’t pay any attention and you avoided wisdom so that you could reap the harvest of calamity that you are experiencing. Wisdom is something that we must maintain in our lives and if we will it will lead us to a narrow path and if we will walk that narrow path it will lead to life and isn’t that what were here for?

Prayer:

Father we thank You for allowing Your word to speak to us in these first few days of the year so profoundly on so many levels and we haven’t even sailed out of the harbor, we’re not even out in the deep yet and Your word is speaking to us and we’re thankful for it. Show us how to maintain wisdom God. And one of the ways that are practical is that we continue to put wisdom in our lives each and every day. So, come Holy Spirit, as we submit ourselves to You, Your will, Your ways. 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 and we’re talking about what’s going on around here and we talk about it every day but as we move into the new year, you know, we kind of try to highlight little things that are good to know as we take the journey.

This being the first weekend, you’ll find that when you wake up tomorrow there will be an additional program and it will be called DAB community prayer. And, so, you know, you’ve been a few days into the year now. And, so, you know that at the end of each program there are other voices, brothers and sisters from all over the world rejoicing and also asking for help and prayer and that’s part of the community experience. We come together each and every day, allow God’s word wash over us, understand that were not alone, you can never listen to the daily audio Bible alone, that’s the irony. If you’re listening to it right now, then so is someone else. You’re never alone. Like, it doesn’t matter what time of day or night, like, this is an ongoing thing, there are tens and tens and tens and tens of thousands of us that are taking this journey. You are never alone when you’re listening to the Daily Audio Bible, someone else is listening to it too. And, so, we’re a community, where a family, we’re taking this journey together and one of things that if you’re knew that you’ll realize over time is that none of us are here to hurt anybody else, we’re here to let God’s word speak to us and to do that in community because it helps to know that our struggles are not individual and we’re not really alone. It helps to know that, but we come together, and we accept each other, and we understand that we are each a work in progress. And, so, whatever the story is that’s brought us to this point, no matter how much we’ve avoided the voice of wisdom and caused calamity. Hey, every day His mercies are new, and every day is a chance to start again. And, so, we accept each other like that, as works in progress. And, so, we pray for each other, we love each other, we rejoice with each other, we cry with each other, but there’s no way to play every single call that ever comes into the Daily Audio Bible. We tried this at one point but it got to the point that, you know, we’re investing a couple of hours a day and it’s mostly not about the Bible anymore. So, at the end of each week we come together so that every voice can be heard so that we can all pray and spend some time just hearing from each other and you’ll notice that showing up tomorrow if you knew. Of course if you’ve been here for a while you already know the drill, you already know the ropes, but at the beginning of the year these reminders, these refreshers, they help us…well…they set us up to succeed as we move through the year together. So, watch out for that. That’s coming.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link, it’s on the homepage and as I have said and will say, what we’ve done we’ve done together and we can’t do what we do if we don’t do it together. So, thank you for your partnership. If what we do as a community brings light and life and good news to you each day, then thank you for being life-giving so that we can continue to do this every day. 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’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 for Sharon the Victorious and I just heard your pain and I’m reaching out to you from the other side because my son passed away a year ago and my husband died __ and I just want to tell you to hold on, hold onto Jesus, hold on because it doesn’t get better but God gives the comfort to those who…you know…He just comforts us. And when it gets really bad if you just keep on believing, keep on praying. I just…I’m lifting you up today and I’m just knowing that God’s wrapping His loving arms around you and He has just got his hand on you and He will never leave you nor forsake you and every weapon formed against you is not gonna prosper. And I just pray, I have no idea how you lost your daughter, but I lost my son to suicide and the grief I know feels overwhelming, but I know that God carried me. He just picked me up and I know that grain of the sand __. That was my God. He picked me up and He walked me through because I couldn’t, but he could. And when we lean on Him with everything that’s in you He sees you through and, you know, I’m gonna just tell you like everything’s great and everything’s fantastic because I still have days where I don’t feel like getting out of bed, but you know, what God is __, and I know that He loves me and every single day that’s what I tell myself. And that one day I will see my husband, I will see my son again, but until then I have to live because that’s what we do. We just get up and do the best we can and that’s what I keep telling myself. And there are days when I don’t want to, __ you will because God says you will. Because He says you can you all things through Christ who strengthens you and that’s the truth we can and I love you and I’m praying for you.

Good morning my family, sorry I’m have a cold, but I needed to get this message out to my sister Sharon, to our sister Sharon who is victorious. God gave you the power to call your DAB family Sharon, God put you in this family for a reason. You are loved, and the Holy Spirit nudged my imagination this morning, He gave me a picture of all of us sitting around the global Daily Audio Bible campfire with our arms entwined and singing, “it only takes a spark”. I’m not going to attempt to sing it to you because I can barely talk but it only takes a spark of God’s love to rescue Sharon, it only takes a spark of the love of Jesus to pull you up and out of the pit that you’re in right now. It only takes a spark __ to restore you and to use you more than you can ever ask or imagine. You are not alone. Be Victorious Sharon. I can’t wait to see how God uses you and your story in this new year coming. I love you sister, we all love you and I pray that all of you have the best new year, all my brothers and sisters and God really, really is good, He makes us strong in our weakness. Wendy, I think it was Wendy from California, whose husband is spending new year’s in jail, homey, I pray for restoration for you as well and for everyone that’s going through mental illness. I pray extra strongly for our brothers and sisters in Christ that are dealing with mental illness in our family __ in Jesus’ name. I pray for all of you. Amen

Hey Daily Audio Bible family, I wanted to share with you a conversation I had with my second-grader and my first-grader in the car. They both were driving with me and they asked, “can we listen to Brian?” And at first, I had no idea what they were talking about. I said, “Brian who?” And they said, “you know, Brian who reads the Bible.” I want to thank you, Brian, for what you do. For making my six-year-old and my seven-year-old want to listen to the Bible. It’s a wonderful thing. I want to ask prayers for my two sons who have some disabilities and are trying to overcome some delays in speech and delays in eating and a beast to be called autism. So, if you could pray for my boys, but I want you to know how much the Daily Audio Bible means to my family. Thank you for what you do and have a wonderful 2019.

Hi this is Mike from Denmark. I have a message for Sharon the Victorious and we heard your request when you called out to all of us here today the 30^th of December. I just wish to tell you that God is with you, Jesus is with you and I just ask that you find a place to be quiet and sit and listen to the Holy Spirit and let him cover you with your love, with His love and His peace in this moment. I ask that the Holy Spirit would be heavy on you and will give you the peace, will give you the joy that you so need right now in this moment, and know that you will never walk alone as you are a daughter of Christ, of God. You will always be with Him, will always walk with Him, and you will not be alone.

Hello my DAB family this is Mark Street from Sydney Australia and I’m actually just ringing for a New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day well wishes for my whole family. I just want to say how much I love you all, everybody, the prayer warriors, the people that ring in with their stories and sharing them so. You have all been such a wonderful part of my life in 2018 and I’m praying for you and I’m looking forward with excitement to sharing 2019 and trying to be a little bit more giving back to the community in 2019. I wish you all a wonderful new year and Brian and Jill and family, I certainly wish you a wonderful and happy new year as well and look forward to hearing from all of you in the new year. Love you all my family. Talk to again soon. Mark Street from Sydney Australia. Bye-bye.

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

Today is the 4^th day of January. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is great to be here with you for our 4^th step of 365 steps that will take us all the way through the Bible. So, if we just keep doing what we’re doing and getting together like this every day we’ll go through the entire Bible this year as a community, which is what we’ve been doing successfully for the last 13 years. So, this is our 14^th time that we’ve come to January 4^th. So, let’s dive in, we’ve been, like I said at the beginning of the year, we’re kind of moving into this year and kind of getting comfortable and finding our way and our space and what’s going on here. And, so, we’ve been talking about the different books that we’ve begun. Like, we began the book of Genesis in the Old Testament, we began the book of Matthew in the New Testament. So, we’ve talked about those books. We talked about Psalms yesterday. And, so, when we get to the Proverbs reading we’ll talk about Proverbs and then we’ll be moved in, we’ll be moved in at least into the books that we’re reading until we reach a new book. So, from the Christian Standard Bible, which is what we’re reading this week, Genesis chapter 8 verse 1 through 10 verse 32.

Introduction to Proverbs:

Okay. So, we’ve come to the book of Proverbs and this is the last book we need to kind of move into and understand what we’re reading about until we come to a new book, like I said at the beginning. The Proverbs…we need to fall in love with the Proverbs because it is an invaluable book of ancient wisdom, but not because it ancient. It’s wisdom that has stood the test of time and it’s practical and it has been practical to the human experience for thousands of years. So, this is the wisdom of the ages. And, so, we should have a relationship with that, we should get to know it because it will instruct our lives as we move through this year without a doubt. So, in the structure of the Old Testament, which is where Proverbs is located, Proverbs is the main book in what is called the collection of wisdom literature. And the other books in the wisdom literature would be Ecclesiastes, Job and part of Psalms. And these portions of Scripture are called wisdom literature because they’re more intended to speak a direct lesson rather than be a narrative where the reader follows a story and then kind of gleans the meaning from the outcome of the story, which is how much of the Bible is. The wisdom literature speaks directly to what it’s trying to teach and most of the Proverbs are attributed to the great wise man and King, Solomon, although there are a couple of other voices involved that lend their wisdom to the Proverbs. And it seems that the Proverbs may have been collected all along but weren’t really put into a collection until the time of around Hezekiah who was also a king. And most scholars think that some of the Proverbs could even predate Solomon and they were a series of oral traditions or oral wisdom that have been handed down. And we each have oral wisdom in our lives, things our parents told us, things that our grandparents told us, but this would’ve been wisdom that was wide-spread and it had been handed down from generation to generation and then finding its place into a collection Proverbs. So, Proverbs obviously is in the Bible, so it obviously has religious connotations in everything that it says and the first part of the book is the wisdom of God speaking in first person directly to the reader in a feminine voice that is identified as the voice of wisdom, which is what we’re hearing. Now that we’re four days into this, this is war hearing now. And Proverbs addresses the human experience and it transfers direct wisdom to what we, as human beings, experience both in our interpersonal relationships with each other, in our relationship with God, in our relationship with ourselves, what’s going on inside of us and it gives us the ultimate roadmap to life. It is truly the ultimate book of wisdom and the greatest collection of wisdom that mankind has. Whatever you do, the book of Proverbs tells us, whatever you do get wisdom because wisdom is more valuable than anything else. If you have wisdom everything else can be achieved and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So, I mean even that little…like that’s two sentences right…there so much there that we can meditate on it all day long. That’s how potent the book of Proverbs is. And, so, with that said, Proverbs chapter 1 verses 20 through 23 today.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for another day in it. We thank You for…I mean…we’re covering some serious ground in these first few days as we just set sail and as we continue to move out into the deep, we can already feel You drawing us in. Some of us are intrigued. We’ve never really read the Bible before. We know some of the Bible stories but we’ve never read any of it in its context, we’ve never actually read the stories from the Bible, we’ve just heard them our whole lives. Some of us are becoming intrigued and even falling in love with other portions of the Bible that we’ve never really experienced before, maybe the book of Psalms, or maybe the potency of the book of Proverbs has just never really dawned on us, that we could turn to this one book with 31 chapters in it that will tell us everything we need to know about how to deal with just about every situation we will ever encounter in our human lives. And, so, we see that there’s a lot more to this story than maybe what we thought and this book that we thought was so difficult to understand and so unapproachable all these years even though we’ve believed that our eternity is based upon what is taught in this book, maybe it’s not so unapproachable after all. Maybe what we’re finding is a true friend, a friend that will speak the truth to us only and never lie to us. And, so, Holy Spirit, come, plant the words that we’ve read from Your word into our lives this day and every day as we move forward, that we submit ourselves to this discipline, we commit ourselves to taking this step day by day, every single day of this year. And we look forward to all that You will speak to us, all that You will reveal to us, and all that You will change within us because of this rhythm. Come Holy Spirit we pray in the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, its where you find out what’s going on around here. So, like I have said every day of this year and like I will say every day of this year, stay connected. And this is one of the places to find out what’s going on. All the links to everywhere that you can interact can be found at dailyaudiobible.com. Now, we just talked about the book of Proverbs. And, so, one of the other things that I should mention as we’re moving into this year is the companion programs to the Daily Audio Bible, the sister programs that exist as additional resources to help you immerse herself in a relationship with the Bible. And a couple of those would be the Daily Audio Bible Psalm and Daily Audio Bible, Proverbs. And, obviously, your listening to the Daily Audio Bible and what we’re doing in community here is moving our way through the entire Bible, which will include Psalms and Proverbs, but we’ve also created Daily Audio Bible Psalm and Daily Audio Bible Proverb as companions. You know, maybe your big meal of the day, spiritually, is been listening to the Daily Audio Bible, but you need a snack, you need…like you need to immerse yourself in this and these companions would be great. Daily Audio Bible Psalms is simply going through the book of Psalms as we do on the Daily Audio Bible but it’s only the Psalms, and we switch translations every day and you can just move through the Psalms, takes about five minutes a day for you to get some more of the Psalms into your heart and mind. Daily Audio Bible Proverb goes through the entire book of Proverbs in a month. There’s 31 chapters and so we read a chapter a day. Some of the days…or some of the months…we don’t get to Proverbs 31, but the idea is a chapter a day and this takes two minutes…two minutes a day invested every day of this year and you will be pouring the unfiltered wisdom that has stood the test of time throughout all of recorded history and is thought to be one of the greatest pieces of literature of mankind and can you pour this into your life in a couple of minutes a day. And then when you actually need wisdom you will have wisdom because you’re in a relationship with wisdom and wisdom is speaking to you every day. Two minutes a day, like a pretty good deal since that’s all you have to invest is a couple of minutes of your day. So Daily Audio Bible Proverbs is a great companion when you’re listening to Daily Audio Bible at night or in the morning or on your way to work or at lunch or whatever you do…you know…that’s your rhythm, you set and establish that rhythm and then you find another place for two more minutes to pour wisdom into your life and watch what it does when you do. Of course, Daily Audio Bible Psalms, and Proverbs aren’t the only companions. There are many ways to go about this. My daughter China, whose been reading along, reading the Bible for the last 10 years, this is her 11th year. So, since she was 10 years old she’s been reading the Bible every day and she went through Daily Audio Bible kids and then she launched Daily Audio Bible teen and then she wasn’t a teen anymore and so she’s kind of grown into her calling, which is Daily Audio Bible Chronological, going through the Bible chronologically in a year. So, in the order in time that things happened. From the Daily Audio Bible, from what we’re doing here, we’re doing Psalms, you know, Proverbs we’re doing Old Testament, we’re doing New Testament, we’re moving through and we certainly place a high premium on context but the Daily Audio Bible chronological goes through the Bible in the order that happened in time. There’s also Daily Audio Bible Kids. So, going through the New Testament by kids for kids. It’s great for on the way to school, it’s great for bedtime. Check it out. And there’s Daily Audio Bible Teen. So, through the New Testament for teens by teens. There is Daily Audio Bible in Española. So, if Spanish is your native language there is a whole community that has been doing this for nearly a decade now every day in Spanish just like we do at the Daily Audio Bible and they have also the Proverbios. So, Proverbs in Spanish or Psalms in Spanish just like we have in English. If Japanese is your native tongue, then you can go through the New Testament with the Japanese team or Arabic through the Bible in Arabic or through the Bible in French. And our French team has mimicked what we do at Daily Audio Bible, going through the Bible in a year in French but they also Proverbaes. So, they also have Provers in French or Psalms…sorry I don’t speak French…so sorry for you French folks. That’s why we have brothers and sisters who are passionate about their native language. So that’s available in French. We also have Daily Audio Bible Portuguese and Chinese. So, you can check out all of those channels if those are your native tongue’s, but if I English is your native language then certainly encouraging you. You have the Daily Audio Bible, but the Proverbs and the Psalms are also available. So, three times a day you can kind of go to the word and put it in your life without…I mean…you can do all of this in the time that you’re gonna waste listening to other kinds of entertainment. So, maybe focusing on your spiritual life this year is gonna radically transform some things and these are some of the resources that are available.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link that’s on the homepage. I thank you profoundly. We are a community, and this is a community experience and what we’ve done for this, these 13 complete years and now into our 14^th, what we’ve done we’ve done together and that we’re here because we’ve done this together. And, so thank you 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, 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’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’m gonna keep telling you that. And those of you that have been around, you know I’m gonna keep telling you that because I know that some of you, this is the only time you’re gonna hear it today. And I’m gonna keep telling you that until maybe you believe it. You are not alone on this journey. You are loved, and we’ve been a community who has loved each other well. So, that’s it for today and I am Brian and I do love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

This is Chris from South Carolina and I just want to say…just reach out and say thank you to the DAB family, to Brian and Jill and his family for this wonderful ministry. I found this at the beginning of the year and this is my first full year and I have faithfully listened to this every single day and it has given me comfort during a very hard time this year. And I called in a couple of times asking for prayer requests for my marriage. I continue to ask for prayer for my marriage. I’ve been married for 30 years now. We are separated and I’m just…just praying that God would just restore my family and restore my marriage and I just want to say that this is a wonderful ministry and I have enjoyed it so much and I am wishing everyone a happy new year and for great blessings to come within the 2019 year. I am looking for great things to continue to happen. So, God bless everyone and thank you very much. Goodbye.

Hi Daily Audio Bible, this is Rebecca from Michigan, I know I haven’t called in a long time, it’s December 29^th and December 24^th I had to put my dog down because her heartbeat was 40 and they’re supposed to be 120 and she had fluid building up in her lungs and fluid going in her tummy…stomach…and I think she’s was dying. Anyway, she was 12 going on 13 and I just cried my eyes out because that was my walking buddy, my friend. So, this year I just want God to bless me with new friends, A new friend that will make my heart strings fly, give me the closeness to the Lord. I want to find me a walking friend because that’s what my dog did for me, she was my walking buddy and know people, they’re not the same as a dog but I really don’t necessarily need another dog. I just want some new friends, I want a new friend even if it’s a boyfriend, a girlfriend, I don’t care, but I just want some friends that I can hang out with that are godly Christian people because I’m single and a lot of the churches, they kind of don’t pay attention to the singles. I’m usually sitting by myself in church. So, I just want some friends. Please, ask God to bless me with some godly Christian friends. That would be awesome even if I have to get a non-Christian friend to introduce them to DAB, that would be great.

Hello Daily Audio Bible family, this is my first time calling but I’ve been listening for years. I am specifically calling in response to Yvonne in Chicago who left plea for prayer on 11 November for God’s direction and her obedience for that direction. Yvonne, I heard your prayer and I am praying for you. Your call resonated with me because I’m Yvonne from Tampa and our stories are similar. I too went through a divorce many years ago and I went through a major career path change as well. I currently have a godly man for a mate and my career path change has turned out better than I expected. I just wanted to encourage you sister, our God is so good and even if His answers are as we expected or desired His plan is so much better than ours. As I lift up your circumstances I just wanted you to know that I am playing for you daily. Please call back and let us know how things have transpired and how God is working in your life. I listen daily and I pray for the DABbers regularly. Thank you, Brian for this wonderful podcast and for all of the people behind the scenes that put together this platform. It has changed my life and I know so many others. This is Yvonne or EV for short from Tampa. God, bless.

Hello this is Sherry from Kansas, I did not hear the program Brian said that the word for the year was to “Maintain” or “Maintain” and when I heard that from a friend my heart sunk because I thought, oh know, that means were not going anywhere, we’re not going to move from where we are, but I looked at the definition of maintain from Merriam-Webster and it’s really strong. It’s a much more strong word and I thought it was. It means, number one to keep in an existing state, to preserve from failure or decline. Number two to sustain against opposition or danger, to uphold and defend. Number three, my favorite, to continue or persevere in, carry on, keep up. Four, to support or provide for, to sustain. And number five, to affirm in or, as if in an argument, to assert or to take a stand. And I realize that my position in Christ where I am, all of these apply to this. I need to make sure that I preserve from failure or decline. I have to sustain it against opposition or danger and I have to uphold and defend. I have to continue and persevere in, I have to carry on, I have to keep up, and I have to take a stand and assert what I believe in and what my righteousness in Christ and my position in Christ stands for. So, I just wanted to say, good word, the word “Maintain” and it is something that we need to meditate on and focus on the coming year. And thank you Brian for that word. Bye.

Hi, this is Paul in Kansas. I’m just listening to the 30 December broadcast and I heard Sharon Victorious, asking for prayer. Sharon is grieving and feeling alone, and she wonders if she can make it. Father, I lift up Sharon to You and I ask that You would comfort her and sustain her in her grieving. I pray that Your Holy Spirit would fill her and that Your love would fill her and drive out all of her feelings of hopelessness. I ask that Your love would fully invade her being and drive all the harmful things that she has been thinking. Lord, please give Sharon hope, please let her she how much we all love her and deemed her. In Jesus name. Amen.

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

Today is January 3^rd. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it is a pleasure and an honor to have these moments together with you as we take the next step forward in our adventure that will lead us through the entire Bible this year. Of course, this is day three so we’re still not quite out of harbor yet, but we certainly have set sail and in the two days that we‘ve spent together so far we’re already seeing how quickly and how deeply the Bible can speak. And, so here we are at day three taking the next step forward and just kind of moving into our new year. And, so, as we mentioned a couple of times, the way that the Daily Audio Bible works is that we’ll read a portion from the Old Testament and then a portion from the New Testament and then some Psalms and some Proverbs each day moving us a little bit forward as we move through the entire Bible. And, so, we talked about Genesis on January 1^st and then we kind of talked about the book of Matthew that we’re reading now, yesterday. And, so, when we to the Psalms today we’ll talk about Psalms and then tomorrow we’ll talk about Proverbs and then will kind of be moved into the books that we’re going through currently. So, let’s dive in and take the next step forward in Genesis. And we’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. Genesis 5 verse 1 through 7 verse 24.

Introduction to the Book of Psalms:

Okay. So, this brings us to the third section of our daily reading, which is from the book of Psalms, and since we haven’t talked about Psalms yet this year let’s just kind of give ourselves a little context for what will be spending time in the whole year. We’ll be spending time of the Psalms every day for the whole year. So, kind of understanding what we’re reading’s helpful. So, the Hebrew word for Psalms would probably be translated best as praises. It’s a collection of 150 songs and hymns and congregational singing’s and liturgical prayers and individual songs and poems, poems of worship. It’s basically five books in one and they’re classified by who wrote them or their theme or their purpose. Some of them give praise to God, of course, and others speak of His character or His actions or His power, some are songs of lament or repentance and others are songs of thanksgiving. And we’ll notice as we move through the Psalms why they stood the test of time because they are brutally honest, whether in questioning or in full-blown worship because no matter the start circumstances the book of Psalms is meant to bring praise and glory and adoration and reverence and honor to God in every circumstance in all of the issues of life for every purpose. And, so, it’s an invaluable collection that gives language to what we feel in our hearts. Literally, the Psalms will touch every nuance, every emotion that we experience as we go forward in the year. And Psalms is a beautiful book. It contains some of the most heartfelt musical poetry that’s ever been written and like I just said, every human emotion is explored in the Psalms. David, who we haven’t met yet, but we will get to know David who is a shepherd boy that will become a king and we’ll understand that story in all of its detail, he was a master musician and he composed most of the Psalms and even though we have a large amount of like biographical information about David throughout the rest of the Bible, the Psalms are what reveal his heart. And what we find is that he’s utterly human and he brings his humanity to the table when he’s crying out to God and the back-and-forth or the ebb and flow of his humanity is always in his compositions. And, so, they speak to us so eloquently and so deeply because they’re so honest and they’re coming from the human heart so we can find ourselves in the Psalms. And then other writers of it in the Psalms include David’s son Solomon, the sons of Kora, Asaph, Ethan and then there are a number of Psalms whose author is unknown or they were anonymously written and collected. But ultimately the purpose of the Psalms was to bring the people together and to enrich their worship experience and to tell their story, their Hebrew story. And these songs would’ve been sung in public and they would’ve been sung in private as people went about their daily lives not unlike how we use of modern worship music. But the Psalms, they’re ancient, they’ve stood the test of time for thousands of years and we still sing and quote them now and their power and beauty is unmatched in literature, they’re absolutely unrivaled. And biblical scholars believe that the Psalms were written over a fairly long period of time between about 950 B.C. until about maybe 165 or 170 B.C. so, you know a period of about 800 years and three major periods in Israel are covered in the Psalms, and the first will be during the reign of David and Solomon and then the second would contain songs written when the children of Israel were taken into exile and we’ll get to know and understand that story pretty well and then the third section would contain writings from when the exiles were freed to come back to their to their homeland after the exile. So, it’s a long time span and a lot of different culture points that are represented but the Psalms are very cohesive in their purpose of bringing glory and honor to God in a very authentic and beautiful way. And, so, that’s what we’re reading when we’re reading the Psalms. And today we will read Psalm chapter 3, which is titled Confidence in Troubled times, a Psalm of David when he fled from his son, Absalom.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we covered a lot of territory in the book of Genesis as we went through the generations of the first people and their lifespans culminating in the fact that humanity after the fall of man in the Garden of Eden took its knowledge of good and evil and created an evil world, devoid of God, separated from God. And God looks down upon the earth and sees the wickedness of every creature. In fact, it defines pretty starkly, they basically became like animals and only participating in wickedness, which brings about the flood and introduces us to this person named Noah. And, of course, the Noah and the ark story is about as famous as it gets. So, we don’t need to retell that story other than that we should notice that God finds Noah to be righteous and wants to start over with Noah and enter into a covenant and this is the first time that we see this kind of language in the Bible, but certainly won’t be the last time. Covenant will be a thread that runs all the way through all of the Bible. And in terms of like dating Genesis, like some of the things that we can look at, like how do biblical scholars come to the conclusion that Moses had a hand at least in and collecting some of these stories? I mean, so what we read in the book of Genesis today is about clean and unclean animals. That theme or that idea, at least in the Bible, isn’t introduced or expanded or expounded upon until Moses shows up on the scene and we began to get the law, the Mosaic law, which we’ll get to soon enough So, that’s how Moses gets into the picture, that’s how some of this material becomes part of the books of Moses.

Then of course, in the book of Matthew we’re getting to know Jesus now. And, so, Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist and He is in the wilderness being tempted and we see exactly what it is that the evil one goes after in Jesus, which is His identity, right? If you are the son of God, then do this so that, right? And, so, we find, okay, the voice of the accuser in my life is after the same thing, the question of who I am and do I know who I am. And as I’ve mentioned a number of times, as we go through the Bible, not only will that question be answered from every conceivable angle but we’ll see that this is one of the main, main, main tactics set against us, deception. It was deception in the garden of Eden and it is deception in our own lives that is our greatest challenge.

Of course, we talked about the Psalms, kind of did a little flyover to understand the context.

And then, of course, we’ll talk about Proverbs tomorrow.

Prayer:

Father, we thank you for your word, we thank you for this, the third day and we move further and further from shore and won’t be long before we’re all out in the deep together taking this vast journey that transforms us from within and we thank you that your word can do this in our lives, it can become the best friend we’ve ever had because it will just tell us the truth and it won’t pander to us and it won’t be false, it will simply tell us the truth, and then, then it’s in our lap and we can choose to believe the truth or walk away from the truth, but we’ll have a clear understanding of where the paths are going to lead. And, so, we are grateful, we are humbled, we thank you for bringing us this far, we thank you for all that you have yet to speak to us in the coming months. So, come Holy Spirit we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, its where you find out what’s going on around here. And I’ll say that just about every day because that’s where we stay connected.

And, so, we’re kind of moving into our year and just explaining all of the little things that make us a community and one of those things is what you can find at the website in the Community section. In the Community section you will find all of the different links to all of the different social media channels that we’re on. It’s a good idea if you’re planning to take the journey to stay connected that way. Not so much like, you know, posting memes of cats and stuff like that, which we don’t do by the way, but following Daily Audio Bible on Facebook or twitter or wherever it is that you are, you know, if we’re having like a technical problem…this is a seven day a week thing so once in a while…there’s like 17 servers that are constantly spinning and sending out data…and so once in a while if there’s any kind of glitch, any kind of little anything we can just alert everybody and that’s what we do, just here’s what’s going on, don’t freak out, we’re fixing it, that sort of thing as well as just any sort of announcements that are community related as we take this journey. So, that’s a good place to stay connected. Then there are also other places like DAB friends, which is a Facebook group where you can talk about whatever you want. This is one of the ways where constant interaction with people are happening. And, so, check that out in the community section. Another thing about that is occasionally we’ll play a song. So, like on January 1^st we played a song. Sometimes we’ll play a song that’s maybe gonna illustrate what we’re talking about in the Scriptures better than me spouting off another thousand words, right? Sometimes music, which is my background, which is my wife’s background, that’s where we come from and sometimes music can do the end run around your intellect and just speak to your heart and that is what we are here for, is to allow them God’s word to speak to our hearts. So, invariably anytime there is a song played then we start getting a ton of emails, “what was that lovely song, want was that song, where can I get”, it’s all posted on the social media channels, it’s always there, you can always find it there, including links to just go get it. So, another reason to stay connected that way.

Okay. If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible then you can do that dailyaudiobible.com and I cannot possibly thank you enough. We would all not be here, like this would have disappeared long ago if we didn’t jump on the ship and sail it together. And, so, thank you for your partnership, there’s a link 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’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Genesis 1:1-2:25, Matthew 1:1-2:12, Psalms 1:1-6, Proverbs 1:1-6

Today is the 2^nd day of January. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is awesome to be here with you today. We set sail yesterday into this new year and we’re barely away from shore, but we are certainly on the voyage of the year and of a lifetime as we go through the entire Bible this year and do it together, do it in community and it’s hard to describe what that’s like until you make one trip and we are on that trip. We’re just all sort of getting moved in for the year, kind of getting everything situated, understanding where everything goes and how it all works and that’ll happen, we just step-by-step day by day a little bit more gets unpacked and then we find a rhythm and off we go, sailing through the year. So, we established yesterday that will be reading a little bit of the Old Testament, a little bit from the new Testament, a little bit from Psalms, and a little bit from Proverbs every day as we take this journey. And we did that yesterday, but every time that we come to a new book, we will talk about it, give a little context, that’s a big deal around here, the context of any particular book. This helps us to understand who it was written to, when it was written, and what it was trying to communicate, and how those who had originally heard it would’ve understood it so that we can contextualize it into our own lives appropriately and get the knowledge that God has bestowed upon us through the Scriptures. So, we began in the Old Testament yesterday with the book of Genesis and we talked about that. Today when  we get to our New Testament portion we’ll talk about the book of Matthew, which we began yesterday, but, like I said, we’re slowly moving into the year finding our rhythm. So, before we talk about Matthew let’s go into the book of Genesis and see where we are in the story. We’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. Genesis chapter 3 verse 1 through 4 verse 26

Introduction to the book of Matthew:

Okay. So, now we have come to our New Testament reading for the day, this will be our second day in the book of Matthew and we talked about the book of Genesis yesterday to get into our year and so now let’s talk about what we’re reading in the book of Matthew. Matthew, just like Genesis is a part of a grouping of books and this particular grouping of books has four titles in it: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and these are known as the Gospels. Now, in terms of time, like, when these books were written, Mark is the first of the Gospels to be written, followed by Matthew, then by Luke, and then by John. So, we’re reading the book of Matthew first and you might think, like, why are they not in the order they are written? We’ll get to that in a second. The first three Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the synoptic Gospels and their called this because they share the same blueprint and it is thought that that blueprint is the gospel of Mark, the first gospel. So, Matthew, Mark, and Luke share a lot of the same stories, actually in a lot of the same exact wording, but not entirely. So, Mark comes first, you know, it’s sort of the first roughhewn gospel written about the life of Jesus ever. This happens, maybe 10, 15 years after Jesus death. The gospel of Matthew comes about a decade, decade and half later and Matthew has a specific purpose. Yes, it’s utilizing some of the stories found in Mark but it expands upon those stories and it’s written for a specific purpose, to reveal that Jesus is the fulfillment of so much of what had been foretold in the Old Testament, which is a fitting way to begin the New Testament, by reviewing that the Old Testament prophecies have and are being fulfilled in this person of Jesus - God in the flesh come to earth. Now, Matthew is one of the 12 apostles of Jesus and so he speaks, you know, with the voice of a first-hand witness to the events that are recorded. And, in terms of Matthew, as we’ll see, Jesus calls him, but he was a tax collector. And in the first century he worked for the Roman authorities he’s collecting taxes from his Hebrew brothers and sisters and so these people are thought of as traders and that’s why the tax collector in the New Testament is like an outcast person, they betray their own people and exploit their own people and so their hated, but, you know, they’re willing to do it because it’s a lucrative thing and they can become wealthy up and above and be perceived more as aligned with the Roman culture instead of the outcast Hebrews. So, when Jesus calls Matthew he has everything to lose and he leaves it all behind and follows Jesus. So, from that perspective what we’re reading is from a man who gave up a life that he knew that was working for him in exchange for this fantastic leap of faith to follow a man that he believed was the son of God. And, you know, since the topic of the Gospels is centered around the life and ministry of Jesus, we’ll start to get to know Jesus pretty well in this book and we’ll start to understand His personality and His style, and we’ll encounter over 20 parables in the gospel of Matthew. And parables are like symbolic picture stories that Jesus used a lot in his ministry to not just, you know, give information, but to draw a picture that spoke to something deeper, the issues of the heart, the interior life, where, according to Jesus, the kingdom of God is, and is coming, and is now, and is among us. And that is one thing we will be hard-pressed to miss in the book of Matthew, the rumblings of the kingdom of heaven, and that it is near, and that it is now, and that Jesus came to not only be the king of this kingdom, but to announce it. And, so, we take our second step from the book of Matthew. Today, Chapter 2 verse 13 to 3 verse 6.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we covered some significant territory and were not like even away from shore yet, right? We’re just like day two into our voyage through the Scriptures and we’re just getting out of the harbor and we’ve covered some significant territory. Today in the book of Genesis we see one of the saddest portions of Scripture that we’re going to encounter and there are some pretty sad scenes that we’ll find in the Bible, but this one is particularly sad because it sets the trajectory for the human race. There’s a garden and it’s called Eden and there’s a tree of life and there’s a tree of the knowledge of good and evil and we probably all know this story and we know that Eve has a conversation with serpent and she eats from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that she was forbidden to eat from, she gives the fruit to Adam, they eat. This is known as the fall of man and, you know, it’s sad on a number of levels but it’s a sad scene to see God walking in the garden at the end of an evening looking for his children to spend some time with them and their hiding and they never knew to hide before, they never knew fear like that before, they ever knew they were naked before. And, so, when God finds them He says, “what are doing here?” And they’re like, “I was naked, so I hid.” That right their friends pretty much describes our lives if you’ll think about it for a moment. I was naked, I was exposed so I hid. And it’s just sad because God looks at them and says, “what have you done?” And here we are here, here we are, and this is the trajectory that we chose and now we see how we got from there to here, and we see murder introduced and we see hatred introduced into the story in today’s reading alone. So, there’s this plenty to think about and meditate upon just from the book of Genesis today.

And then we came to the New Testament and we read from the book of Matthew and we discussed Matthew already, but probably if you were paying attention, you can see that, you know, like you can’t turn around in the book of Matthew without Jesus fulfilling some sort of prophecy. That is the intention of this particular gospel, is to connect those dots from the ancient Hebrew story to what God was doing in the world when Jesus came because it was a new thing and people were having a very, very difficult time and we’ll talk about that as we move through the entire new Testament. Matthews gospel as well as so many of the other writers in the New Testament are to reveal to the Hebrew people this is not a surprise, this is been foretold all along, what is happening is something that we have been looking for and waiting for. And we’ll see how that story pans out and how it unfolds as we continue in the book of Matthew and through the rest of the Gospels.

And then we get into our reading from Proverbs today and we’re told that the fear of the Lord, and this is the awe and respect, the overwhelming awareness of how sovereign and how powerful and how almighty that God is, and there’s no way we can comprehend that with our minds. So, we come to a place of silence and awe because there’s no way to…its too…God is too powerful, too big, too beyond us and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and it is a fool who despises wisdom and discipline. So, this is just day 2. We aren’t even out of the harbor and the Bible is speaking to the depths of our identity. I mean, stir that around in your cup today, “I was naked and so I hid” and realize how much that describes your life or meditate upon the fact that the fear of the Lord is beginning of knowledge, that’s where we start, that is the starting point and there’s so much there to contemplate.

Prayer:

Father, we thank you for your word, we thank you for bringing us into this new year and letting us set sail once again for a journey that will take us physically all the way around the sun and we will experience all of the seasons of where we live on this planet and every day will be a new beginning for us and we will have the opportunity to make choices that are going to matter and are gonna add up to what this year of our life looks like. And you have given us a gift that no matter what is going on we can consult and we can come back to and you can speak to us through your word. And, so, we are grateful and we’re looking at it and seeing this does touch everything and you’ve touched some deep things in our lives today alone, but by the time this year is over you will have…you will have touched everything about our identity and who we are and we will have choices to make. And, so, come Holy Spirit. Lead us into all truth. This is your promise and this is why we come here, to allow your word to speak on its own behalf, to hear every word that is in this book and to understand its context, and not to not be confused about it anymore. And the less we become confused about your word the less we become confused about our lives because it is showing us how to live here. So, we thank you and we invite you. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, and that’s home base, that’s where you find out what’s going on around here. So, as we’re kind of moving into this year and just moving into the different books and finding our place and finding our rhythm there’s a lot of little things just kind of know and the just kind of get to know and dailyaudiobible.com being home base is one of those things, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here.

The Prayer Wall lives at dailyaudiobible.com where brothers and sisters from all over the world are praying for each other about all kinds of stuff on a continual basis. So, visit the Prayer Wall.

If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, and by the way, if you’re not using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can download it for free for your Android device, for your Android tablet, for your Amazon-based tablets, or for Apple devices. The app allows you stay connected, not only to all the things we’re talking about like the Prayer Wall, but you can check off each day that you’ve listened to, kind of keep track of where you are. You can take notes. We’re big into that and we’ll get to journaling soon enough, but sort of feel like if this is God’s word and God is speaking through His word then, if God is speaking then we probably should take notes in one way or another. And, so, there’s the ability to just take notes in the app and kind of store them and look back over them as you go through the year. So, yeah, the app is available and it’s a free download and in it connects you to all this stuff, but Daily Audio Bible websites the place to find out everything’s that’s going on around here. So, be sure to check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, this is this is something that is…this is a community project. Yeah, we’re moving into our 14^th year now and we haven’t missed a day in these years and it’s been a seven day a week thing, but it’s been a community experience. Like, there’s no big organization behind all of this. Daily Audio Bible is something that kind of rose up out of the dust of the Internet and has become a thriving community around the world and everything that we’ve ever done we’ve done together. And, so, thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, 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, there are a number of numbers that you can dial depending on where you are in the world. If you are in the Americas, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial and if it helps 877-94-Bible is the number to dial. If you are in the UK or Europe, 44-20-3608-8078 is the number to call, and if you are in Australia or the lands down under 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.

Genesis 1:1-2:25, Matthew 1:1-2:12, Psalms 1:1-6, Proverbs 1:1-6

Today is the 1^st day of January. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian and it is a pleasure and an honor and a joy to be here with you today as you’ll hear me often say, because it’s the truth every day, but of course this is especially true today. It’s a brand-new, year happy new year. This is the first day of 2019. We got ourselves a brand-new shiny, sparkly new year to live into and it’s all out in front of us. And the reality is the decisions that we start making today will add up to what this year is going to look like and one of the best decisions we could make is to center ourselves around the rhythm of the Bible in our lives every single day this year, allowing it to speak into us and to guide our steps as we move into the year. So, welcome aboard. If this is your first day with Daily Audio Bible, welcome to the family and that’s what you’ll find is going on around here, a community wrapped all over the globe and it doesn’t matter what time of day or night it is, you’ll never be listening to the Daily Audio Bible alone. Someone somewhere will also be with you listening. And if you were here yesterday, you closed 2018 down and your back for 2019, welcome back, this is the beginning of our 14^th year broadcasting the Bible seven days a week. I haven’t missed a day in 13 full years and now today begins our 14^th year of the Daily Audio Bible. And if this is day one for you, then just kind of hang around for week and you’ll kind of have the rhythm of everything, we’ll just explain how it all works, how we do what we do, and what to expect, and how to interact, and just how to navigate. And pretty much how you navigate is that you get up every day and push play at some point and we’ll get to all of that over the course of the next week, but what we’ve come here to do today and what we will come here to do every day is to immerse ourselves in the Scriptures. And, so, let’s dive in for the first time in our new year. And, so, today being the first day of the year, we’re starting the Bible. And, so, the way that we’ll go through the Bible this year is a portion from the Old Testament, a portion from the New Testament, a portion from Psalms, and a portion from Proverbs every day as we move our way through the Bible. So, that being said, we’re starting for sections from the Bible, Old, New Testaments, Psalms, and Proverbs. So, rather than spending a bunch more time talking about all of the books that we’re beginning, we’ll spend a couple of days just moving into the new year. Every time we encounter a new book we usually talk about it. Context is an important aspect of biblical study. And, so, kind of understanding the lay of the land as we walk into the land is helpful in us unpacking with the Bible is telling us. So, we’ll do like a flyover of Genesis and Matthew and Psalms and Proverbs, we’ll take one per day for the next few days and just move into our new year. So, we’re going to begin with the book of Genesis.

Introduction to the book of Genesis:

Not only is Genesis the first book in the Bible it’s also the first book in a series of books that are known as the Pentateuch or the Torah which is comprised of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. So, that kind of lays out our first portion of the year, that’s the territory we’ll be heading into. And although Genesis doesn’t specifically reveal the author’s name, traditionally these are the books of Moses. And, you know, most biblical scholars will would have some divergent opinions on exactly who wrote the Torah, especially like the book of Genesis, because we’re covering the story of creation and Moses certainly couldn’t have been an eyewitness to the creation story. So, if Moses is the author of this book then this is a collection of the oral traditions that were happening long before the children of Israel, who we’ll meet soon enough, began to become a people, a people who would be later known as Jewish people or Hebrews. And, so, that’s how we call the Scriptures that we’re about to read the Hebrew Scriptures. And since we’re starting with Genesis and, you know, Genesis reputation is that it’s the origin story or the creation story, we can often lose the fact that the book of Genesis actually covers more territory or more historical time then then any of the other books in the Bible. In fact, it covers more time than the rest of the Old Testament put together. So, we’ll start at the creation in the beginning, of course, and then we’ll go all the way until we have met the children of Israel, and they arrive in in the land of Egypt and grow into mass of people that will become a nation. So, inside the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis we’re gonna cover a couple of thousand years and a couple of thousand miles and then we’ll slow down and find our pace and our rhythm and cover a couple hundred years to the end of the book. And, so, are you ready? Off we go into our brand-new year. We’ll read from the Christian Standard Bible for the rest of this week. Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 through 2 verse 25.

Commentary:

Okay, so we just finished our first reading for the year and boom, the Bible starts speaking right out of the gate. So, in the book of Genesis we find out our origin story, we find out how it is we got here and what things looked like before they got to the way that they. And, I mean, the Bible doesn’t mess around with kind of getting us into the story. We’ll find out how things got the way that they are in tomorrow’s reading.

Then in the book of Matthew, off we go, we have the origin story of the birth of Jesus and the genealogy and we read a bunch of names and, you know, a lot of times you read these genealogies in the Bible and that’s where people’s eyes glaze over, “like, what are all these names and what does this all matter” and we’ll get to that soon enough, but the story or the genealogies that we read today, these are names that may seem obscure to you at this point but we’re gonna meet a lot of those people in the stories that we will encounter as we move through the Bible this year and we need to remember that every single one of those names represents a life that was lived, and a generation that walked the earth leading from one generation to the next to the next of the next all the way until the birth of Jesus. And, of course, we’re in the Gospels now and we’ll be spending some time, the first half of this year getting to know Jesus very well.

Then the book of Psalms starts and gives us two paths and what we’re gonna find out is that the Bible does this repeatedly, like constantly gives us a picture of two paths and two outcomes and then like a perfect gentleman allows us to choose the path that we’re gonna to take. And then as we immerse ourselves in a relationship with the Bible, we’ve gotta start scratching our head about why it is that we blame God for the paths that we choose when we knew where the path was going to lead. So, Psalm tells us, “how happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers. Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction and he meditates on it day and night. He’s like a tree planted beside flowing streams that bears fruit in its season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.” So, right out of the gate, there it is, the path before us. The path that we are on right now is the one that we delight in the Lord’s instruction and meditate on it day and night. If we will stay on that path we are not gonna be the same people 365 days from now. Life is not going to be as confusing as it might be right now. Context and purpose and the filling in of the blanks begins to happen right now and it doesn’t stop. And we’re taking the first of 365 steps, so, 364 more steps and we’ll be at the end of the year and it’s gonna be different in profound, yet hard to describe ways.

Then we launched into the book of Proverbs today, which is essentially giving us the context for why it exists. It is the ancient wisdom of all time that has stood the test of time that has plopped itself into our laps as a friend saying, I can tell you how to demystify your life. I can tell you how to live this thing right. And we will find that on a continual basis the Proverbs, and we don’t read a lot of Proverbs in any given day, but they are so succinct and so powerful that in one sentence it can just expose all of the falseness within us and force us to, again, consider what path it is that we’re walking and where it is that we’re hoping to end up.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for this brand-new year. Here we are, we walked through the threshold, everything is shiny, everything is sparkly, we haven’t a messed up anything yet. It’s all out here in front of us and You have greeted us at the doorway of this new year, arms outstretched, inviting us to walk with You not only into this year but through this year, and that we might do this in community and have the counsel of the Scriptures every day. What did we wait so long for? We are so excited Father to what You will do, and what You will speak to us in this year. And, so, we invite You. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

Okay. So that is our first days reading. We are off and underway and like I said, we’ll move into this year. It doesn’t all have to happen at the same time. We’ll move into this year, we’re creating a rhythm, a rhythm of coming together in community. We liken it to a global campfire. I couldn’t tell you where that came from, it just popped into my head one day…I just…it was just like we’re all around this…the light of the word of God, we come in out of the cold, we set aside a little bit of time each day and come into a quiet place in community where we can allow God’s word to speak and we’re in this together. And, so, as as dark as the night be and as cold as it might get, you’re not alone, and this fire is always burning, the word of God is always being sent out into the world and we’re always here for each other as we’ll soon find out. So, like I said at the beginning, if this is like…if you were here yesterday…and maybe you’ve been here for 10 years…maybe you’ve been here all…since day one…or maybe last year was your first year…welcome back. This is…what you’ll find is that the journey this year will not be the same as the journey last year. None of the journeys are the same because we are always in constant change in our lives and yet the Bible speaks to us where it is that we are and gives us a hand of friendship to lead us forward to where we’re going. So, welcome back friends because it is a joy to have another year together in community. If this is day one for you, or maybe, you know, you listened to a couple of days ending the year and you’re gonna stick with this, I could not be more happy and the smile on my face is because we have been on a collision course with the Scriptures for a long time. Whatever has been going on in your life, all of the millions of decisions that were made, not only to bring you to planet Earth by your ancestors but all of the decisions that you’ve made throughout your life have brought you to today, and somehow we ended up here, right now and it is not purposeless, what happens from here dictates the rest of our lives and placing the Scriptures in our lives is the safest, best thing we could possibly do. So, I normally say something like this on January 1^st. It does not matter how you got here. It does not matter the peaks and valleys. It doesn’t matter the choices that you made, even the horrible choices that you might’ve made, even though horrible choices that you might’ve made as recently as last night. This is a new year, and this is a new day, and this is a new beginning, and what comes next starts now. So welcome on board, I am so excited that we’ve set sail together and I look forward to each and every day that we will spend together as we take these steps that will lead us through the year and through the Bible and you’ll see what I’m saying. Look in the mirror at some point today, look really, really close, spend a few moments, maybe even take a selfie, look into your eyes, you see that fatigue, you see that worry, see those lines, you see that insecurity, you see that comparison, you see all of the things that have brought you here, remember your face, this is where you area and this is where you are right now. 364 days from the right now will be New Year’s Eve, the last day of this year, what, that day is going to look like is completely predicated on the decisions that we make from this day forward each and every day. And as the rhythm of the Bible becomes a part of our lives it’s gonna start changing things. We will look in the mirror this time next year, one year from today and be looking into the eyes of a person who has been irreversibly transformed in profound ways. So, I am so excited for all of us, myself included, because, well, this is year 14 and I look in the mirror and don’t see the same person any year. Things shift in profound and unspeakable but deep and irreversible ways. So, it doesn’t matter what’s come before this moment it matters what comes after this moment and yeah, it’s a jungle out there but we don’t have to go through it alone and we certainly don’t have to go through it confused. And no, the Bible isn’t gonna give us magic spells and incantations that are going to keep all the, you know, all the problems of life from facing us and trying to take us out but the Bible will certainly tell us how to navigate and the Bible will certainly give us context for what is going on. And, so, we are in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing and if we will keep doing this in a straight line, remarkable things happen. So, welcome aboard. Happy new year.

Song:

Into the Wild – Manic Drive

Stuck in an ocean, staying in motion are we too comfortable

Have we settled short? Has the city made us fragile?

Cage for safety, glass and concrete protect us from all fear

I know there’s shelter here, but I’m running to the frontier

And in this moment, it’s all clear

I don’t have to go, but I can’t stay here

Now that I see it, see it

Guess I’ll be leaving, leaving

Into the wild

It’s a jungle out there, jungle out there

We don’t care about the lions

When we march towards the giants

Into the wild

It’s a jungle out there, jungle out there

So we dance and be courageous

Even though these wilds are dangerous

Though we’ve never been there before

This adventure is an open door

Tell me, whatcha been waiting for?

Why don’t we go, why don’t we go

Into the wild

It’s a jungle out there, jungle out there

We don’t care about the lions

When we march towards the giants

Twists and turns, still lessons learned when we find out where to go

So we take these winding roads into the great unknown

It won’t be easy, there’s hills and valleys, cliffs and waterfalls

But they look so beautiful, so we keep on moving forward

And in this moment, it’s all clear

I don’t have to go, but I can’t stay here

Now that I see it, see it

Guess I’ll be leaving, leaving

Into the wild

It’s a jungle out there, jungle out there

We don’t care about the lions

When we march towards the giants

Into the wild

It’s a jungle out there, jungle out there

So we dance and be courageous

Even though these wilds are dangerous

Though we’ve never been there before

This adventure is an open door

Tell me, whatcha been waiting for?

Why don’t we go, why don’t we go

Into the wild

It’s a jungle out there, jungle out there

We don’t care about the lions

When we march towards the giants

Father, just tell me where to go

Take the lead, and I will follow

Even when I leave my comfort zone

Even if I’m far from, even if I’m far from home

Where my heart is

But my heard is battling my conscience

And I have convictions to be honest

Even if believers don’t believe it

Some will call me sinner, some will call me saint

They can call me whatever, I ain’t doing this for them

So I’m taking my music and I’m taking Your Name

And I’m reaching the lost in this wilderness

Though we’ve never been here before

This adventure is an open door

Tell me whatcha been waiting for?

Into the wild

It’s a jungle out there, jungle out there

We don’t care about the lions

When we march towards the giants

Into the wild

It’s a jungle out there, jungle out there

So we dance and be courageous

Even though these wilds are dangerous

Though we’ve never been there before

This adventure is an open door

Tell me, whatcha been waiting for?

Why don’t we go, why don’t we go

Into the wild

It’s a jungle out there, jungle out there

But, we don’t care

Malachi 3:1-4:6, Revelation 22:1-21, Psalms 150:1-6, Proverbs 31:25-31

Today is December 31^st. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is such a deep honor to come to this threshold with you as we’re completing our complete revolution through the Bible this year. So, this is step 365 and this is the 365^th day of the year and every day this year we showed up together to take the next step forward and it has led us to this point, the precipice, the conclusion of our complete reading for the Bible this year. So, let’s take that step. Let’s get to it. We will conclude the book of Malachi today. We’re reading from the contemporary English version today. Malachi chapter 3 verse 1 through 4 verse 6.

Prayer:

Father for the last time for this year and we will never be returning back this way again, we will not be returning to this year, so for the final time, we thank you for your word and we thank you for all that it represents in our lives, we thank you for the twists and turns and highs and lows, the peaks and valleys the mountaintop experiences and the depths of suffering all found in the Scriptures and all found at one point or another in our own human experience. We thank you for the way that the Scriptures speak into our lives where we are right when we need it. We thank you for how dynamic it is so that no matter how many times we take the journey it’s a different journey and you are speaking to us right where we are as we move forward and take steps forward through our lives. So once again, Holy Spirit, come, plant the words not only spoken today but all that has been…all that has been talked about this year. And we’ve spent a lot of time together this year talking about a lot of things. You have truly touched every part of our lives at one point or another during this year. All of the tender places inside of us that need healing, all of the places of pride that need to be crushed to powder, all of the places that pull us away from you, and all the things that draw us to you, you’ve touched them all. Your word has spoken into our lives and we are grateful, and it is true. We look back now at the beginning of our journey and we look in the mirror and the face staring back, the eyes looking into our own, something’s different, something has changed. And we could say, well, it’s just…it’s just what a year does to you, you’re a year-older, but it’s actually not that we’re worse off and have more lines on our face, it’s that wisdom is setting in, its that your Spirit has guided us into all truth and although we haven’t perfectly walked that path, we have walked it and we are better for it and we are being sanctified and transformed and we’re seeing that. We are being remade into your image. And, so, we thank you for what your word does in that process, and we’re grateful. So, father, we release this year. It is becoming a part of our history. It is certainly a part of who we are but it is becoming a part of the past and we look forward to all that you will do in our lives in the coming year and we stand here in your presence in the present with grateful hearts. Thank you father for your word and thank you for the gift of community. Thank you for letting us live at this time in human history where we can be a community no matter where we are on this planet, no matter what time of day or night, no matter what is going on in our lives. We are in this together and we thank you for each other and I thank you for what we have represented in each other’s lives this year as we have followed your Holy Spirit. And, so, once again we pray. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

And that’s it. Friends…it just always hits me…December 31^st…here we are. We read those last words and it's…I mean…for me…it's…you know…on one on one hand it’s just another day because we don’t stop, this rhythm doesn’t stop. And, so, the rhythm will continue tomorrow and we’ll turn back to page 1 of the Bible and start over but it just never…it just takes my breath when we get to the final words of the Bible and the Old Testament closes and the New Testament and the Psalms and the Proverbs and that’s it. And then all of everything that has come this year, like all that has been faced, victories and defeats right, like this…the whole of life. I don't…somehow it just kind of gets encapsulated and floods into my heart at this moment where we conclude the Bible. And, so, it has been quite a year this year of hope. And yeah, I didn’t have that word, “hope”, to remind me…there were some hopeless days. I’m sure that’s true for you too and yet there were some days that were full of hope as well, as is the case in life. But hope, knowing that hope is the road, that faith drives on has reminded me so often when I’m feeling hopeless that, okay, there’s nowhere to go from here. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. And, so, have to get out of the chaos and find hope. And what I have found was it’s always there. It’s available, it’s not absent, it doesn’t go anywhere, we just stop paying attention to it. And, so, it’s been a good year and I’m looking forward to this new word, “maintain”, in the coming year and I’m sure we will have plenty…plenty to talk about as we as we dive into it in the new year, but we’re not there yet, that’s still out in front of us and here we are at this moment where we’ve come to the conclusion of our journey and I always realize that…I mean I think part of the melancholy of this day for me is that, even though tomorrow is a new day and a new year and we just keep continuing marching forward, it’ll be new. I realize that some of you have taken this journey and you’re feeling like, “there, I did it, I read the Bible and I’m going to do this and I’m gonna do that or I’m gonna do the other. And, so you’ll be…you’ll be off on your way. And, so, it’s been an honor, a joy, a privilege to be in community with you this year. And if that’s what you’re doing…if you’re moving into some other things now, God is leading you in other directions, then I bless you for sure and I just want you to remember, as long as God will allow us to be here, we’ll be here waiting, we’ll still be here, don’t be a stranger. And I realize for a lot of us, we’ll be taking…stepping through the next threshold together and we will be marching into the new year and off we will go for another revolution around the sun and a every word of the Bible will be read during that time and we’ll find ourselves here, one year from now having concluded the Bible again. And I realize that there are thousands of you listening right now that are still trying, like you’ve been kind of checking things out the last week, you just found out about this and you’re trying to find the rhythm and we greet you and believe me, you won’t be a stranger for long. There aren’t really strangers in the Daily Audio Bible. We have a…we have a very special thing…a beautiful thing where we are all over the world and in all kinds of stripes and flavors and denominations, but we’re centered around one thing and that one thing is that each and every day we will allow the Bible to speak for itself and we will do this in community because life is very difficult to navigate on your own. And to know that no matter what is going on you aren’t alone, that we are the body of Christ, and we are in this together makes all the difference in the world to a journey through a year of life. And, so, here we are, we’re at the end and we’re about to make a new beginning and a new community will form around the rhythm as we go into the new year, but for now, whether you’re taking the journey again or whether you’re hopping off the train or whether you’re try to figure out what’s going on, may the Lord bless you and keep you, may he make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, may he lift his countenance upon you and give you peace, may the strength of God to go with you, may the wisdom of God instruct you, may the hand of God protect you, may the word of God direct you, may you be sealed in Christ this day and forever more. Amen.

I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here next year.

Song:

Glory - David Crosby

When you roam

You’re traveling alone

Tryin’ to catch each grain of sand

Slipping through your hands

And the wind

Is weathering your skin

And all that’s on the outside

Is breaking you in

Let me be

The oil upon a glove

Moving in the creases

Soften what’s [dark?]

(Glory) In the blink of an eye

(Glory) In a moment of weakness

(Glory) I will be your armor

(Glory) I will be your witness

(Glory) You can’t lose me, no

(Glory) No, you can’t lose me

And when the weight

Is layered in rounds

Like [?] clouds

You can’t find your way out

Let me be (Let me be)

Your glory in the sky (Your glory in the sky)

Circling your shadow

Cradling the light

(Glory) In the blink of an eye

(Glory) In a moment of weakness

(Glory) I will be your armor

(Glory) I will be your witness

(Glory) You can’t lose me

(Glory) You can’t lose me

Sleepless night, wake again

The strength of the heart isn’t continuing

Let me take no your [?] hands

If love could lift us then I would carry them

And your shield

Of skin and bones

Stumbles in the sand

To carry you home

Let me be a torch

To bear the light

To stock the cellar

For the long night

Glory, Glory

Glory, Glory

Glory, Glory

Glory, Glory

Shining glory

Glory, Glory

Glory, Glory

You are a shining glory

Glory, Glory

Malachi 1:1-2:17, Revelation 21:1-27, Psalms 149:1-9, Proverbs 31:10-24

Today is the 30^th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is pleasure, of course, it’s an honor every day to come together around the global campfire that is our community. And, well, it’s December 30^th. We’ve got a brand-new shiny, sparkly week out in front of us and before this week is out we will have entered a brand-new shiny, sparkly, new year. So, if you can believe it, we have two stops left to take of the 365 steps that we take each year, leading us through the entire Bible. There are only two steps left and today is one of them and today brings us to the final book that we will encounter in the Bible, and that is the final book of the Old Testament the book of Malachi

Introduction to the book of Malachi:

Malachi is also the last of the minor prophets and the name Malachi means my messenger. And this has left scholars trying to consider whether or not the title of the book is supposed to be attributed to an author that’s named Malachi or whether it was written by someone else and the title is referring to the content. So, for our purposes we’ll assume the author was a prophet of God named Malachi who was likely a contemporary of Ezra and Nehemiah. The hard part about things like this, and we’ve encountered this in some of the other minor prophets, pretty much nothing else is known about Malachi outside of the book. Malachi would’ve lived about 100 years or so after the Persians defeated the Babylonians. So, we know the story…like…we’ve spent a lot of time this year on exile. So, we know that the Babylonians defeated the southern kingdom of Judah and defeated Jerusalem and carried Judah off into exile. The Persians subsequently defeated the Babylonians and then they began to allow the Jewish people to return to their ancestral homeland even though they never had like an autonomous government again. So, Malachi lived about hundred years after that and it had been more than ½ a century since the temple spurred on by the prophetic voices of Haggai and Zechariah as we will remember because we just read through those books. So, a half a century after the temple and been rebuilt, but the promises of restoration and prominence and former glories, these had remained unfulfilled. So, the people were in their ancient homeland but, you know, the glory of their ancient homeland and their former days, that had not come back, that had not materialized, and they existed in the land but as a discouraged and distant and tiny province of the Persian Empire. And because of the circumstance the people had been become disinterested in their passion for God. And, of course, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this in the Bible and it’s not the first time, you know, we’ve experienced it in our culture and even in our own lives. And it brought about, like, moral and spiritual decline and became apparent and that’s what happens and we’ve seen it over and over in the Bible. So, for example, sacrifices that were offered to God, according to the Mosaic law, were to be spotless and without blemish. And in this time when Malachi’s prophesying, the priests had begun to use blind and blemished animals and the law was becoming more and more irrelevant as sort of like the centerpiece or the plumb line for the culture. So, into all of this came the prophetic voice of Malachi. He was probably the actual final prophet of the Old Testament age. And he rebuked the doubt and faithlessness of the people and called them, like so many of the other prophets had done, to return to God. And after Malachi, so we have these two days in this prophetic word, but after Malachi it would be another 400 years before God sent another prophetic voice and that prophetic voice would be one that was crying out in the wilderness and his name would be John the Baptist, which would then mark the onset of the New Testament era. And, you know, we might wonder what happened during the period of silence between the Testaments. And, so, for that, in part, we can turn to the books known as the Apocrypha. In many Christian traditions, some or all of those books are considered Scripture. Others avoid them or hold them as suspect but I mean the reality of our church history is that many traditional printed versions of the Scripture include the apocryphal books. Others don’t and I’m not suggesting that you go from here tomorrow, we finish the Bible, and then you go into the Apocrypha unless you just kind of want a historical glimpse at just understanding what was happening in that 400 here because many of them come from that time. It’s called the inter-testamental period. And, so, they kind of offer some insight on the path that led to the New Testament era and the coming of the Savior. And maybe the best articulation or understanding of these books, maybe that’s found in the Geneva Bible, which was published in 1560, which predates the King James version in English. And, incidentally, the original King James version in English included the Apocrypha but the Geneva Bible comes about a half-century before the King James version and according to the Geneva Bible these apocryphal books were to be considered as works written by godly men and, I’m quoting, were received to be read for the advancement and furtherance of the knowledge of history and for the instruction of godly manners. So, again, you know, it’s not a plug for the Apocrypha, it’s just that, you know, we’ll read Malachi today and tomorrow and then we will finish the year and then we can begin again on January 1^st, but 400 years, right, so 400 years passes between those two days and between the Testaments. So, having said all of that we begin the final book that we will encounter this year. Malachi chapters 1 and 2 and we’re reading from the Contemporary English Version.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for bringing us this far into Your word. This leaves us at the threshold, we have one more step to take and that will be taken tomorrow, and we will have concluded the entire the entire Bible. And, so, yes, this is definitely a week of reflection where we consider what the trajectory of our lives is going to look like as we move into the new year. We have some goals that we would like to achieve, some things that we would like to see shifted and accomplished and we’ve invited You into that. And we acknowledge how grateful we are for Your word and how much it has influenced those sorts of decisions as we consider what is coming next for us. And, so, we invite You, once again, come Holy Spirit, plant the words that we’ve read deep into our hearts and lives. Let our hearts be fertile soil so that the fruit of the spirit may be yielded in abundance as we go into this new year. Come Jesus we pray. In Your mighty name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is, of course, the website, its home base, its we’re you find out what’s going on around here. So, be sure to stay tuned and stay connected.

Reminding you, tomorrow’s the last day of December and when we move into the new year we have to reset all of the channels and all of the feeds and it’s a fairly intense project that requires absolute perfection. And, so, thank you for your prayers over that but also just, you know, we’re resetting the year. And, so, we’re starting over. And, so, the old year will pass away. So, anything you haven’t downloaded from 2018 that you want to keep, this is the time. If you’re a little bit behind in certain areas or you want to pass the word along, we usually keep the last couple of weeks of December up for little bit so that those who are just a little bit behind can kind of finish strong. Those, like, if you’ve gotten months and months behind, you’re not even gonna hear this, but this is the way that it works. It’s a daily rhythm through the year and that requires quite a little dance at the end of the year for all of us. So, that’s a reminder.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible here in this year and would like that to be receipted to you as a tax deductible contribution for this year than that has to happen this year. Thank you profoundly, profoundly, humbly, and gratefully for your partnership. 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 mail, 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’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here and we’ll lock arms and hearts and we’ll put our foot forward and take a step through the final threshold and complete our reading of the entire Bible tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Good morning, it is December 26^th, this is Joanne Marie from Southern California and I just want to wish everybody a post Merry Christmas. We’re still in the Christmas season and I want to wish everyone a very happy and a blessed New Year’s and just a quick prayer that I am reading. Father, we are Your people, the sheep of Your flock. Heal the sheep you are wounded, touch the sheep who are in pain, clean the sheep who are soiled, warm the lambs who are cold. Okay my fellow by the Christ followers. Have a great day, God bless you. Ciao.

Hello, this is the Greatest Trucker from way out West. Don’t take much to be the greatest trucker, sometimes the greatest trucker, well, he ain’t so great. I’m calling in today for Prodigal as many people have been and I hear that on the prayer line. And I would like to say the Prodigal that there is a job for you, like to have you do while you’re still here and that is to pray for a little boy named Ezra in Oregon, I think. And there’s a lot of us that are praying for this little boy named Ezra. He got beat up by somebody as a baby, almost killed. He’s still struggling but he’s actually gaining a little bit and doing better. And, so, between doing that and counting whatever blessings you have, maybe there’s just one or two, keep doing that, just keep praying for Ezra and counting the one or two blessings you have in your life and I believe that that will pull you through, I really do. You just hang onto the name of Jesus until your last breath brother no matter what. God bless you and we’re all playing for you, we’re all pulling for you. So, hang in there. Don’t give up. We love you and pray for Ezra. Adios.

Hi this is Sharon the Victorious, not really Victorious. I want to thank you all for all your prayers. __ my daughter passed away I don’t know how I can do it anymore. My husband and I were supposed to go away but he left me, he went by himself and I’m here alone. And I don’t like the thoughts they hurt my head. I miss my daughter terribly. I’m here alone. __ . Please pray for us because I can’t deal with being alone right now without my daughter and my husband. And I don’t how I can even do Christmas this year by myself. And you need to pray for me because I don’t know what I must do. I’m scared and need prayer. I don’t want to do something to myself, but I don’t see any way out. I can’t deal with it anymore. Thank you, guys for all your prayers. You have a Merry Christmas.

Hello DAB family, Merry Christmas to you. This is Abby calling from Maryland. I just wanted to wish you all a Merry, Merry Christmas. I know I missed the call, you know, I missed calling in last week but I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas. I want to thank God for the family and the community I have in Daily Audio Bible and I really want to give God the glory because three years ago I called early in the morning asking you guys for prayers because I was so scared. I was having pregnancy complications and to the glory of God later that evening I had my daughter. She was 9lbs and 1 ounce. She was a big baby and today’s her birthday and I just wanted to just call and thank you all to give a praise report that she’s doing well, my family is doing well. I call in, I listen to all the prayer requests, and I just want to keep you all encouraged, God is good, He’s always God, He will come through, He always comes through in every situation He always comes through. He’s never late. He’s always on time. So, Merry Christmas, I love you guys so much. Very Merry Christmas to Viola from Maryland, to Blind Tony, to just everyone that I’m not even mentioning. Merry Christmas to you all. God bless you this is Abby from Maryland. I love you all and Merry Christmas Brian and Jill and just the whole family. I just really, really love you all. Thank you so much for all you do. Merry Christmas and happy new year. Bye.

Hi DAB family this is Wendy calling from California. I’m calling this Christmas morning with an extremely heavy heart. And yesterday was my birthday and this past Friday me and my husband got into physical __ and he assaulted me. And I called before about him being bipolar and having episodes and yesterday night on my birthday I watched him, I watched him __ . And I’m feeling so much guilt and hurt that it had to come to this level. Please pray for him to get some help and my heart is so heavy that he’s in jail for Christmas. So, I just ask that God is watching over him, that He performs a miracle in his heart and mind and with the judges that he can actually get through this and not have it destroy his life. I just…I need prayer. My heart is so heavy right now and it’s so sad. I really am. I love my husband and I just know he needs help. And he’s been doing this all along. I just want to call in and reach out to my family and I truly ask you guys. This is so hard. __. So, please pray for me and my family. My husband’s name is Jonathan. Thank you family.

Zechariah 14:1-21, Revelation 20:1-15, Psalms 148:1-14, Proverbs 31:8-9

Today is the 29^th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian and it is a pleasure to be here with you at the close of the…I mean…this is the last close of a week that we have together in this revolution through the Bible in this year. So, we’ll be closing our final week together and also closing the second to the last book in the Old Testament, the book of Zechariah. We’ll finish that today and then move forward in Malachi tomorrow for the final two days of the year. So, if it hasn’t been obvious, like we’re on the threshold of ending the year and getting ready to gear up and start a new year together. So, we’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible all this week, which of course, concludes with today. Zechariah chapter 14 verses 1 through 21.

Commentary:

Okay. So, I mean it’s pretty obvious that we’re just days away from concluding the year, which, I mean, in concluding the year and concluding a complete reading of the entire Bible and preparing our hearts to start over again. And, so, as we continue the journey between the holidays…we’ve already talked about how it’s a contemplative time…we’re setting new goals and, you know, our lives have been disrupted a bit by the holidays. And, so, we’re thinking about what we want the next year to look like and we’ve even talked about how the Proverbs speak into that because it’s easy enough to go, well, I mean we’re just days away, let’s just finish this thing up and we’re not really paying attention, but the Bible is still speaking because it still has some things to say. The years not…like…we’re not done. And, so, we can turn again to the Proverbs to guide us in our resolution making and focus our hearts on what’s the next weeks and months are gonna look like. And, so, today in the book of Proverbs we’re directed to look outside, beyond ourselves, and to respond. So, we’re told, “speak up for those who can’t speak for themselves, ensure justice for those being crushed, speak of the poor and helpless and see that they get justice.” And the truth is, it’s probably…it’s pretty unlikely that we don’t all agree with what the Proverbs saying…but it’s also easy to agree with the sentiment and remain passive. But the Proverb isn’t describing, like, a posture or, like, a mindset or a philosophy. It’s giving actions that are we’re supposed to live into. “Speak up for those who can’t speak for themselves”, like, that’s an action. “Ensure justice for those being crushed”, that’s an action. “Speak up for the poor and helpless. See that they get justice”. This is, like, a participatory thing, not just something you can shake your head up and down and agree with. And, boy, you know, a proverb like this, it’s so easy to ambush a proverb like this and like you know, throw it into the stew that is the political climate of our day and, you know, make it rhetoric and make it a talking point or try to figure out who’s supposed actually be doing that when we’re all supposed to be doing that. Like it’s not proverb that was written for elected officials running government agencies. We’re supposed to obey the voice of wisdom. So, it’s not really supposed to be a political thing. I mean, maybe, you are supposed to engage in political discourse. But we gotta remember, like, Proverbs wasn’t written last week and it wasn’t written this century and it’s not speaking specifically to our political climate the issues of injustice. These are ancient issues and we’re just living through what it looks like right now. And the reason that this is important is that as we contemplate the new year our sense of justice does indeed shape our convictions and we’ve certainly had plenty of opportunity this year as we’ve gone through the Bible to bear witness to the erosion that takes place when justice is obscured. And, so, Proverbs isn’t giving like a posture or sentiment. Justice is a defining characteristic of God’s people, it’s all through the Bible and it it’s absolutely gonna shape our year. We may not think of it, like, we might not actively be thinking about it, but our sense of what is right and wrong, what is just and what is unjust will shape our convictions and will shape our year whether we ignore the proverb or not. And if we choose to kind of incorporate this into what we’re looking at in the new year, like, to pay more attention to the downtrodden in some sort of way, that’s gonna look different for everybody and it basically, I mean, like, we all agree, we all agree with the Scriptures say. So, it’s gonna boil down to whether we’re paying attention, but ignoring a proverb like this is like ignoring one of our most fundamental core understandings of God, right? One of our core understandings of God is that He is just and good. And we can think, okay, God is just and He’s good and He should bring justice to the poor and helpless or we can understand what has always been true, that we are invited to collaborate and participate with God as actual hands and feet, boots on the ground for His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven and that He uses our hands and feet our flesh and bone to bring blessing and glory upon the earth. So, one of those blessings is supposed to be…like one of the things in his kingdom supposed to be that the poor and helpless are treated justly. And, so, rather than just thinking that we’re doing our part by having random, heated social media, political debates…I mean…why don't…this doesn’t have to be like that. Why don’t we invite the Holy Spirit to speak to us individually about how it is that we can participate in bringing His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven and reflecting His glory upon the earth as the body of Christ. I mean, so, like, rather than figuring out whether we’re conservative brothers and sisters or whether we’re liberal brothers and sisters or all the different persuasions of politics and governments around the world that represent who we are as a Daily Audio Bible community, rather than try to figure out how to unpeel the onion there, why don’t we just ask God, you know, what does this look like for me? What is it You would like me to be aware of? How should I pay attention this year? How do I be made in your image? How do I be Christ like when it comes to what is just and good?

Prayer:

Father, obviously a worthy question because You brought it up in the Scriptures. You know it’s one that is definitely, definitely overwhelmed by the political climate of the day, but we’re kind of stepping away from all that noise and just saying, what are You saying  to me? How do You want me to incorporate this into my life and my actions as I take steps forward every day with You in the coming year? How is it that I can be Your hands and feet? How can I be flesh and bone? How can I be the body of Christ in every situation that I step into this coming year? So, we invite Your Holy Spirit. You are the Creator of all things and You know all of the answers to all things in and yet You are one of the last people’s that gets consulted. And, so, before we ever enter into the new year we’re consulting You, we’re asking You to begin to break our hearts for the things that break Your heart. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, its where you find out what’s going on around here, and there’s always something or another going around on around here.

Of course we’re about to end a year and that’s going on around here and we’re about to prepare to begin a new year, which will be year 14 of Daily Audio Bible. So, we’re about to complete 13 years seven days a week of this, which just blows my mind. And, so, that’s going on around here. But this is one of the ways to stay connected at dailyaudiobible.com.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible in these remaining days of this year’s then thank you profoundly, humbly, deeply for your support and partnership. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, 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:

Hi this is To Be a Blessing in California wanting to just let Terry the Trucker know that I’m praying for you as you continue on your journey of healing. Also wanting to lift up Miguel from Santa Rosa, Blind Tony, Jay from Tennessee, Lee from New Jersey, Drew from the Bay Area. Also wanting to present before you a young man who lost his job, his girlfriend broke up with him, and he is just struggling with deep deep depression stemming from a childhood and a lifetime of rejection. So, if you would lift up Alex __ for me that would be awesome. He’s a lovely young man. Father God, You know…You know where we are, You know what we need and when we need it. So, I’m just thanking You in the name of Jesus for being so sweet to us. I pray that You impress each Daily Audio Bible member, Brian and Jill, China and the others for everything __ dear God that You would be glorified. Thank You for loving us and giving us Jesus, the greatest gift ever. Amen. God bless You. Take good care.

Hello my DAB family community. This is Michael again, I’m sorry, I know I’m not supposed to call in back to back but I know sometimes you get on here and two minutes goes by so fast and then I guess I kind of ramble sometimes when I get talking and not realizing and not watching the time. And the next thing you know a way over the time. So, I know I was talking about my marriage and I guess I just need prayers on direction and what I need to do. I mean I need a __ to grow on where I need to be in this situation and that’s it. I’m just tired of fighting and trying to be in a positive state in this whole situation. So, I love you guys, I love this DAB family. Like I said…I don’t where I’d be without it. I’m just glad that glad the Lord led me here four years, almost five years ago and it’s been awesome…it’s been an awesome campfire to be around enjoying you guys and hopefully I’ll get to attend some of the things in the future. That’s my plan. Anyways, but I may be a week behind. I missed the Christmas thing again this year, but I love you guys. Thank you, Brian, thank you Jill and thank you China. Got to thank China also, she’s awesome. She’s definitely got ___ the Lord is definitely leading her __ . Appreciate this group and thanks for all the prayer warriors, the people who call in and many of you people __ who call all the time and hear the voices. Love you guys. Talk to again soon.

Hello, I wanted to say something to John the Prodigal. I know that you have lost so many things this year and you really don’t know how to how to live, how to go on with your life. And I just wanted to remind you, the apostle Paul in Philippians 4, he found the secret of being able to live with plenty or nothing at all. And the secret was Christ’s presence with them. And, so, the secret really is for all of us, Christ with us, the power we face anything, that’s how we can face tomorrow. And it’s such a thought that it’s Christmas time and that God sent Jesus into this broken world because we need it, so much help, we need it to know how to live. And, so, John the Prodigal, I just wanted to bless you with this Christmas present, this Christmas gift of speaking God’s word over you. Lord I thank You for the wisdom in the scope of this prayer. I fall down on my knees and pray to the Father of all the great family of God. Some of them are already in heaven and some down here on earth but out of His glorious unlimited resources He will give You, John the Prodigal, the mighty and strengthening of His Holy Spirit and I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your heart living within you as you trust in Him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love and may you be able to feel and understand as our God’s children shared…

Hi, this message is for the ICU nurses who called in. I forget your names, I’m so sorry, but I know that you are nurses and that you are work in the ICU. I am a medical student, which means that I don’t know half as much as what you guys know and that I learn mostly from nurses, but I respect the place where you’re coming from, you’re coming from a very humanistic, a very humble place when you reflect upon how your experiences…how you’ve been affected by experiences. And I wanted to share that it’s so courageous for both of you to just be so transparent about how you feel. That’s very uncommon, at least to me it’s seems it’s a little uncommon in the medical community and I very much respect and have been very thoughtful of both of you just for being able to be so forthcoming about how you feel and how you experience life, you know, as an ICU nurse. And I just wanted to pray a prayer of blessing and strength over both of you. And I pray that God’s love would surround you everywhere that you go and that His joy would be your strength every moment of every day and that God would bless the work of your hands, that He would bless and multiply your land, that you would prosper in everything that you do, and that you would be at peace, and in him that you would do all things, and that you would do above and beyond anything you could ask or imagine…

It is so hard to believe the 2018 is closing. I tell you, this family has definitely pulled out all the stops this year. There are so many of you to thank, especially those behind the scenes. SarahJane and the entire crew, Brian, and Jill Hardin, your children. This community has blessed my life so much and I cannot believe it’s 13 years. I just can’t believe it. For all of you who have had hardships this year, I pray that you’re ending the year on a strong note regardless of our circumstances. Something that I keep telling myself is we walk by faith and not by sight. We walk by faith and not by sight. And God is not finished with you yet. Having said that, John the Prodigal, I know you have had a year of loss like many of us. And I’m not trying to minimize that but brother you are still here like Walda said. God opened your eyes, He got you up, He is not finished with you yet. No matter what, you keep pressing forward. For all of those of you who are struggling with addictions I challenge you to get an accountability partner, get in a recovery group, get someone that is going to hold you accountable and that you can reach out to. For all of you battling illnesses, I am praying protection and healing and restoration of your body from the top of her head to the soles of your feet. I love this community dearly. I thank you all for your prayers. I thank all of you will listen and don’t call in but pray in the background. Know that we are all prayer warriors. 2019 is going to be a wonderful year and as Brian says, it’s not how we start it but how we end the journey and let’s end it well. I love you. Cheers! Asia and Munich.