A Walk Through The Word

Daniel 2:24-3:30, 1 Peter 4:7-5:14, Psalms 119:81-96, Proverbs 28:15-16

Today is the 26^th day of November welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is great to be here with you today. Today is my daughter China’s birthday. Her very first birthday as a mom. And she is mommy to our beautiful granddaughter Reagan whom we are smitten with. So, happy birthday China on this lovely Friday. And typically, it’s this day, this day we call black Friday, this big shopping day. It’s sort of like the first day, although it’s not, right? I mean, it’s not but it’s just this is day I guess that you start really really focusing on and paying attention to the fact that Christmas is really just a…just a few weeks away, like less than a month away, right? This is the 26^th of November and Christmas is 25^th December. So, it is definitely gets more busy and everything but what a wonderful thing that we get to celebrate and enjoy this season together as we continue our journey. And our journey takes us back into the book of Daniel. And we began the book of Daniel yesterday and will continue for today reading from the New English Translation this week. Daniel chapter 2 verse 24 through 3 verse 30.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we just concluded first Peter. So, this…this letter, not a superlong letter. Obviously, we read it in a couple of days. We’ve reached the conclusion and it should have been observable that this idea of long-suffering or endurance is practically on every page. It’s a theme that keeps coming up and will continue all the way until the very very end of the Scriptures, where endurance really is one of the central points of the final book of the Bible. And we’ve mentioned, we’ve said this endurance is an irreplaceable piece of our faith journey and that the Scriptures in the New Testament are going to kind of reiterate that over and over and over. But what were they and enduring? We know that they were enduring…enduring marginalization and persecution would break out here and there but why is practically every letter that we are encountering instructing or encouraging the receiver of the letter to endure? Basically, we’re in the Roman Empire. These letters are being written from within the Roman Empire and let’s remember that it was the Roman empire that executed Jesus. We know that the Jewish people were complicit. Like, we have the story in the gospels, but it was Rome that executed Jesus in order to stave off any possibility of any type of uprising. And at this point, it wasn’t illegal to be a Christian in the Roman Empire. The society of the Roman Empire was polytheistic, which essentially means the worship of many gods or the understanding that there are many gods. So, worshiping Jesus as a deity, that’s not…not a problem. You can worship whatever God you want because the gods were…were involved in all different aspects of life. And, so, maybe there’s this God that you need to do this thing and this Goddess that you need to do that thing. And, so, it’s not unusual. It wasn't…it wouldn’t have been unusual for people to be worshiping Jesus, although He would have been a God that wasn’t like an ancient God of theirs. Where it gets sticky is that you can worship whatever God you want in the Roman Empire, but the gods of the Empire, the ones that made the Empire great, everybody in the Empire had to worship those gods because those were the gods providing the stability of the Roman Empire. And, so, obviously Christians wouldn’t do that, and that made them stand out because this is part of public life. So, in this case, the Christians looked more like the Hebrews, the Jewish people because Jews also wouldn’t worship the gods of the Empire. But the Jewish people, they had a bit of covering. They sort of had an exemption. They were a people who were practicing of an ancient religion, Judaism. They had always been worshiping this way. They had always been separate. There never had been mixture. They were known for worshiping their God, the God of Israel. So, they were marginalized and didn’t have all of the rights of a citizen but they were allowed to…to just worship their god and not have to intermingle into Roman culture, basically, as long as they kept their act together, which is why we see like the Sanhedrin working together with the Romans to get Jesus killed. It made them look like they were turning over a terrorist to be executed who was going to cause an uprising because they thought He was a king. So, it would look good. It would keep Rome off their backs. We remember reading the story of Jesus trial and the high priest saying, “it’s better for one man to die than for all of us to get wiped out.” And, so, we can see how this all worked. For a while, Christians were mostly Jews. Infact for a while Christians who were not called Christians, they were either called followers of the way or Nazarenes, were only Jews. And, so, Christian’s kind of had the same past that the Jews had, because it does seem like they were part of the same thing. Once the Jews fully rejected Jesus and rejected His followers. Now you have this kind of newly evolving religion as it looks emerging in the Empire. And, so, everyone’s like, “that’s cool but you have to worship the gods of the Empire”, because as time went on more and more Gentiles, more and more Romans were coming into the faith, and they were not gonna be allowed to stop worshiping the gods of the Empire that they had always worshiped. And, so, therefore the tension and the need to endure. Not just endorse some kind of physical suffering, but to ensure the whole process as this is all getting worked out. And, so, this is why we see this theme of endurance happen so often as we move through the letters that are found in the New Testament. And this is why we can see instructions about it, instead of, “just hang in there”, you know, “have a stiff upper lip. Just don't…just ignore people who are saying bad things about you.” Instead, they were instructed, you are partaking in the suffering of Jesus. This is a posture. This is a lifestyle. This is a way to be in the world, understanding that you have the name of Jesus. You are saved forever no matter what bigotry you face no matter what slander comes your way no matter what physical oppression comes your way, endure because you are a witness for the truth of Jesus, and you are secure. No one can take your soul from you. And, so, we see why they would be saying this, and we can see how they would be stereotyped, and we can see why they are encouraged to fly above the stereotype because you’re not gonna just be able to beat a stereotype with words. You’re gonna actually have to show a life that people can look at a go, “ahhh…I know them, they aren’t that. What…what’s being said, that’s not true, that’s not how they are.” To actually be different instead of just talking different. And if you’re curious about like what…what does that marginalization actually look like? We’ve talked about it so many times. But what were people actually saying that would stereotype believers in Jesus. There’s actually a description that has been preserved, written by a man named minutia’s Felix. I think if I remember right, sometime in the late second century. So, like maybe in like the 180s. So, just imagine you’re a believer, and hopefully you don’t have to imagine that. Just pay attention to the fact that you are a believer, you are in some kind of congregation with other believers, you have a certain way of conducting worship, certain things that you do like maybe taking communion or singing hymns. The kinds of things that we recognize even in churches today. We…we understand the rituals of our faith. And not listen to this description of Christians by a Roman observing Christians and buying into the stereotypes. So, Felix says, “they know one another by secret marks and insignia and they love one another, almost before they know one another.” Now, we could stop there and go, “I’m not so sure about the secret marks but the love part, that’s what we’re going for. But let me continue. “Everywhere also, there is mingled among them a certain religion of lust and they call one another promiscuously brothers and sisters that even a not unusual debauchery may by the intervention of that sacred name become incestuous”, right? Super old language, but the idea of calling each other brother and sister and feeling like you’re a part of the family of God, that was viewed as secret meetings, secret hand signals, secret insignia, lust, incestuous lust through this Savior because now their loving their brother and sister. So, you see that…the things that even today that we take for granted in our faith, how easily they can be misinterpreted. Let me continue on. “I hear that they adore the head of an ass, that basest of creatures consecrated by I know not what silly persuasion, a worthy and appropriate religion for such matters. Some say that they worship the virilia of their pontiff and priest.” Virilia is not a word we use now, but we’re talking about…well you can guess what we’re talking about. They’re being accused of worshiping the genitals of their priest. “And they adore the nature, as it were, of their common parent.” Because they would say, maybe “father” to their priest. Now we have father, brothers, and sisters. This is an entirely incestuous religion. That’s where the stereotype is going. But wait there’s more. If that…if that weren’t a horrible enough stereotype. It continues. “Suspicion is applicable to secret and nocturnal rights and he who explains their ceremonies by reference to a man punished by extreme suffering for His wickedness and to the deadly wood of the cross appropriates fitting altars for reprobate and wicked men that they may worship what they deserve.” These are the kinds of things that were being said about our brothers and sisters, right? Alright, I just said our brothers and sisters and we all know we’re talking about. We see how the stereotypes went. You start thinking those kinds of things about people, you start thinking, “yeah, they worship their pastors’ genitalia, they have secret insignia there are other descriptions of Christians actually eating human flesh and maybe killing and eating. The way stereotypes spread around. This is how the stereotype went around communion. This is the kind of stuff that we’re talking about when we’re talking about stereotyping and what the early believers are instructed to endure and…and rise above that. If somebody thinks you’re eating human flesh in some kind of ritual and your worshiping the genitals of your priest and you have all of the stuff going on, it’s pretty hard to combat that unless you’re just not that, and it can be seen that you’re just not that. And this is why they are told to endure and why it’s an important lesson for us today. We don’t have quite the same type of marginalization for most of us, although there are things going on the world today that…oh…are really really difficult to see. And, so, much of that is carried out through stereotyping. And they were told to endure. And we are being told to rise above it and fly higher than it and just not be what the stereotype is. That is so important right now for the body of Christ because so often we’re playing into the stereotypes by just being at war with ourselves. But let’s just make it is simple as possible. If these letters had not sufficiently encouraged our brothers and sisters, our spiritual ancestors in the first century, had they not endured we wouldn’t be here talking. We may very well be worshiping the gods of some empire somewhere. And it’s easy for us to say, “well this is the last generation, these are the end times, it’s all going down because every generation says that.” But our endurance is actually what keeps the story going forward. And should there be another say five centuries out in front of us or fifty centuries out in front of us, how will this story continue if we do not endure now, if we do not stay true now? And, so, let's…let’s carry that with us as we continue our journey through the rest of the Bible. But let’s carry that with us as we move through the holiday season and let’s carry it with us every day of our lives, that our actions, that what we do actually does matter, that we are a living testimony and we overcome a stereotype by not being it. We overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony.

Prayer:

Father, we invite You into that. We have confessed many times as we have come before You that endurance is one of the…one of the things that are not on our short list of things we love to do. And we fail at it all the time because we forget that there’s a reason for it. Help us to remember that there’s a reason for it. It builds strength within us. But it is also us standing in the face of whatever may be flying in our direction and holding true to the gospel. Holy Spirit come into this we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

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

It’s Black Friday. So, there’s all of that going on around here. And we have been talking about some of the brand-new resources that are available.

For example, our brand-new Christmas album that releases on the 1^st of December but is available for preorder now. And when you preorder the album you get the first three tracks with the other seven just showing up like magic on your device on the first of December. This new Christmas recording is produced and arranged and performed by my son Maxwell of Daily Audio Bible kids fame. He did Daily Audio Bible kids for many years after China moved forward toward Chronological and some of the other things that she’s done over the years. Max seems to be our child that is walking in his father’s footsteps toward a vocation in the music industry. And he has been working so hard on that his entire childhood. He blows me away to be honest. He has far outpaced me as a pianist. He is a fantastic player and arranger. And, so, he’s well on his way. And it’s so thrilling to be able to offer this and remember talking to him about it back in the springtime and to create an atmosphere, to create the kind of album that you want to listen to while your unwinding, while kind of the day is unwinding at Christmas time. Maybe the way I always picture it because the way I always do this kind of thing is to shut the lights off in the house and just leave the Christmas lights on on the tree and we have a little village and that kind of stuff and just…just let that set the atmosphere. This record really fits the bill as a soundtrack for that time. So, the album is called Christmas Time. It’s by Maxwell Hardin. You can find it available for preorder on the iTunes store for Apple devices and the Amazon music store for those associated devices. So, I hope you can check it out and I hope it can bring an atmosphere of calm and contemplation and thoughtfulness and reflection in this holiday season.

Also, it's…it’s Black Friday so the Daily Audio Bible Christmas box for 2021 is now available. This year we are including a copy of the God of Your Story, which is a written companion, the perfect written companion to the Daily Audio Bible. We’re also including our Daily Audio Bible Journal 3.0, the Global Campfire candle that indeed smells like a campfire, fills the room with that sort of aroma. And that can be used all year long to just remind us, we’re not alone. We’re sitting around the Global Campfire together. We’re all over the world. Maybe we won’t see each other, but that does not mean we’re not connected in spirit because we are, and we’ve been traveling throughout this year with tens of thousands of our brothers and sisters around the Global Campfire. And, so, the Global Campfire candle brings the aroma into the room. We also have our Daily Audio Bible Christmas Ornament for 2021. So, it says Daily Audio Bible 2021 on it and the word for the year which has been “Mend”. That ornament is available only in the Daily Audio Bible Christmas box each year. Then you also will have your choice of fresh roasted DAB blend coffee from our Windfarm brand that we roast at altitude in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and then ship fresh to you. If you are a tea drinker, you can choose our…this year we’re…we’re offering our honey Bush and rooibos tea, which is one of our most popular. So, you can choose either Windfarm coffee or Windfarm tea for the box. Also included is a Global Campfire pop socket, 2 Global Campfire stickers, five…a series of five Global Campfire postcards. Of course, they can be used as postcards and sent anywhere. But they’re a series of five. They’re beautiful. They can be set around in places to remind us to pray for one another and be together in community as we’re taking the journey. And then a mystery item from the vault will also be included in every box while supplies last.

And then the other resource that makes a very very wonderful Christmas present would be Promised Land, photographs from the land of the Bible, which is a beautiful coffee table book that has photographs from the land of the Bible curated from nine different seasons in the land and then printed to exacting specifications. It is a beautiful book. And when we were just putting it all together I just decided if we’re going to do this I want this to be excellent, truly a beautiful thing. And it is a beautiful thing printed on beautiful matt art paper. It's…it’s lovely.

So, you can find at Christmas Time, the new album in the iTunes Store or the Amazon music store. You can find the Daily Audio Bible Christmas box in the Daily Audio Bible Shop in the Christmas category. And you can find Promised Land, photographs from the land of the Bible in that same section, the Christmas section in the Daily Audio Bible Shop and I hope you get a chance to check it out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, thank you. If this mission to continue to read the Bible, the scriptures fresh every day and offer it to anyone in the world any time of day or night freely and to build community around that rhythm so that we know we are not alone in this endeavor. We’re doing this as brothers and sisters all over the world. If that has been meaningful and life-giving to you then thank you for your partnership as we approach the end of the year. Thank you so much. We wouldn’t be here if we were not in this together. And, so, thank you. There is a link on the homepage, at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, that’s the little red button up at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.

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

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hello friends this is Alisa from Colorado. I called in a couple months ago asking for prayer for my taste and smell to get better and I just want to thank you so much for those of you who prayed for me because it is slowly improving. So, praise God for that. Today I just wanted to ask for prayer because since I called, I found out that I have stage four kidney disease and my kidneys are quickly failing and the doctors don’t know why. And I actually need a transplant as soon as possible. S0, I’m only 30 years old. I have a 3-year-old daughter. And, so, as you might imagine this time’s pretty scary for me and my family. So, I just need prayer that we find the perfect donor match for my body and that the Lord has His way. I do trust Him, and I do know that He’s going to get a glory through this but it’s just a scary time. I did want to say to Blind Angel that I do relate with you. So, I to pray for you, And I’m also blind. So, we’re in this together sister. And I just want you to know I love you and I pray for you. Thank you so much for all of your prayers in advance. God bless you all and I hope you have a very happy Thanksgiving.

Good morning my DAB family this is Judy from Georgia. Today I want to thank Brian Hardin for that beautiful book, that Promised Land. I was looking at all the pictures and imagining that I was there, or I could see when the apostles were traveling through spots and just awestruck by how far they walked and how much they went through. It’s just beautiful. And then today, Tuesday November 23^rd you mentioned about Maxwell having an album. So, I went I listened to some of the tunes that were available to listen to and preordered it and then I got the three songs right away and it is beautiful. So, thank you Brian and Maxwell for brightening my day and my Christmas season. I love you all. Thank you for this platform. I am very grateful. God bless you. Goodbye.

Good morning, DABbers Marjorie from New Mexico. I’m calling in prayer request. I have a younger sister she just turned 47. She married her husband when she was 15 because she became pregnant. And I don’t know how to put this but he…he was the devil in disguise. Well anyway, long story short he had an extramarital affair, and he got the woman pregnant, and this was in 2014. Well, my sister divorced him. He…he had been abusive throughout their marriage. Anyway, they still live together in the same house. She says they’re sleeping in separate beds, but he’s controlled her her whole life. He’s kept her from my mother and I. And now we’re back in contact but we have to hide to talk because if he finds the messages, he will go off. But my sister denies that he’s in control of he. But then the next breath she’ll say that…that…that she is afraid, that she doesn’t want him to find out. And I said OK but why would…why would it matter? Anyway, just pray for her to…to come to Jesus and to know Jesus and to allow her to leave that…that abusive relationship. I know their divorced. She says that they’re separate but she tells me lies because __ she’ll contradict what she just said. So, I just ask for prayer for her. Her name is Crystal. Thank you, DABbers…

Hello. Good morning family this is Hope in Nebraska. It is November 23^rd. I would just like to share with you the mighty works of God in my life. When I was two years old my older sister was taken away, adopted by another family member. And…and let’s fast forward 41 years that God has brought her back into our life and my heart just rejoices…it rejoices. Yes. And I would like to say that God is doing a mighty work in your life and that he loves you So much. I pray for the renewal of your spirit, that as it says in Numbers chapter 6 verse 24 through 26 that the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you, the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace. And I say this in the name of your son Jesus Christ. Amen.

Hey there Daily Audio Bible family this it’s John calling from Bethlehem PA I hope you’re doing well. Today is the 23^rd of November and I just got through listening to the prayer requests or the program from today and listening to their requests for today’s program and then transcribing the prayer requests and I wanted to thank Work in Progress in California for being just an awesome example of light and life and hope in the world for your friend Marlene that you’ve come to know over the course of time from frequent visits to the…the grocery outlet there in your neighborhood. And I wanted you to know work in progress that I am praying for Marlene, thanking God for how He’s treated her and His hand His healing hand in her life with regard to the cancer that she’s overcome through Him, I’m certain. And of course, so sorry to hear about the loss of her husband tragically in the motorcycle accident. So, yeah brother, I’m here with you lifting her up as well and will be…will be keeping her in mind. And then I also wanted to just thank His Girl Warrior from Alabama for calling in. And I’m praying for the salvation of your family your parents and your brothers. And, so, I’m lifting Shane and Joshua and Benjamin and Normie…and Norman and Becky along with Madis, Manesis, Brianna and Riley up and thank you sister for again for being a shining example of Jesus light and life in the world. Keep on doing your thing. They’ll see you and you’re a testimony to God’s greatness. I love the family. Take care. Bye-bye.

Daniel 1:1-2:23, 1 Peter 3:8-4:6, Psalm 119:65-80, Proverbs 28:14

Today is the 25th day of November, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian, it is wonderful to be here with you today in our neck of the woods or our part of the world here in the rolling hills of Tennessee and for that matter from coast-to-coast in the United States, this is Thanksgiving Day, so happy Thanksgiving. May your heart be full of gratitude today.

Introduction to the Book of Daniel:

And so now that we have observed that let’s observe the fact that we are moving into some new territory in the Scriptures. I thought we were gonna be finishing the book of Ezekiel today, but we actually concluded the book of Ezekiel yesterday. Which brings us to the book of Daniel and Daniel is indeed an intriguing book. We’ll enjoy the historical account in narrative form of the story and we’ll encounter really famous portions of the Scripture that we’ve probably known since Sunday school, like Daniel in the lion’s den, this is the Daniel that we’re talking about. Or Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego in the fiery furnace, we’ll be encountering those stories, but that’s not all that Daniel is, Daniel has visions and he writes these visions down and they have been consulted for thousands of years in terms of what they represent and what their timeline is. So, they are studied in eschatological studies all the time, eschatological studies or eschatology, being the study of the end of all things, the end time, so Daniel was contemporary with Ezekiel and we read, we’ve been camping out in the book of Ezekiel, but we concluded the book of Ezekiel yesterday. Daniel was one who was taken into exile when Jerusalem fell to Babylon, which is a topic that we have been on for a while in the Old Testament. We know that when the exiles went into exile it wasn’t a good time, it was a sad, depressing time when all seemed lost and so Daniel certainly had to experience this disruption in fear of the unknown. But through it all, Daniel was favored by God, and he was gifted and so it was recognized and he rose to become an advisor and then an influential advisor and an authority in the kingdom of Babylon. So, Daniel was exiled so he’s in exile, an exiled Hebrew so, he’s a Hebrew. He was also a prophet; it’s just a little different because he wasn’t assigned to be a prophet for Israel. His prophecies aren’t for or against Israel, and the visions that Daniel sees and writes down in this book there not, there not particularly Jewish. So, Daniel has a unique voice in the Bible and this book of Daniel is going to carry us, it’s gonna carry us into the final month of the year. We still have a lot of ground to cover, but Daniel is going to carry us over into the month of December. And so, let’s dive in, we’re reading from the New English Translation this week, Daniel chapter 1 verse 1 through 2 verse 23.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word, we thank You for this day. It’s a good day to be thankful. This is a celebration day in this country but it’s a good day to be thankful no matter where we are on this earth. So we do focus our attention toward gratitude. We are grateful, we are thankful that You have given us the gift of life and are allowing us to share with one another as we continue our journey through the Scriptures. We are also grateful for this new territory as we move into the book of Daniel and we invite Your Holy Spirit to lead us, to quicken us, to awaken us to the things that that we need to grasp, the things that we need to hold onto in our own lives as we continue this journey forward. Come, Holy Spirit, lead us into all truth, lead us deeper in our relationship with Jesus, light our way, guide us, we pray in the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it is the website, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here and there are plenty of things going on around here. It’s Thanksgiving, we’re being grateful today and I know that doesn’t affect everybody in the whole world, but it affects those of us who live in the United States.

For the last couple of days, I’ve been talking about our new Christmas album that is available: a beautiful contemplative modern composers production from my son Maxwell, a beautiful treatment. Very thoughtful treatment of the Christmas carols that we know and love. Very, very much appropriate for the time of day when you kind of winding down, everything is decorated, you’re getting ready for the season. It’s been a busy time and you just kind of shut the lights off and just leave the tree on right, or just like the Christmas lights on and just kind of wind down for the night. This is the album for that time of day, and it’s available for preorder right now, it will become the full thing will become available on the 1st of December. But when you preorder the album, you immediately get three of the tracks, and this is available for preorder on the iTunes store, somewhat like apple music, the iTunes store. So, I guess if you just go to Apple music and just look for Maxwell Hardin and Christmas time, you’ll find it. It’s also available for preorder in the Amazon store. So, I’m a proud papa but I mean music was my life and my vocation and record production is what I did before this fairly radical transformation into ministry that I find myself doing now. So, I’m pretty picky about that kind of stuff. But I love, I love what he’s done and I hope that you get the chance to love it too. And you can get it now at the iTunes store or the Amazon music store.

We’ve also announced the release of the Daily Audio Bible Christmas box for 2021 and I won’t go into all that today. You can check that out in the Daily Audio Bible Shop in the Christmas section.

And then the other item that we have been talking about is Promised Land, Photographs from the Land of the Bible. Another project that was long in the waiting, long in the making, but worth it. It is a beautiful coffee table or end table book that will stand up and will hold up to be passed down but allows us to kinda drop into the different regions of the land of the Bible and get a little glimpse of what it is we’re talking about when we read these stories so you can check that out in the Daily Audio Bible Shop as well.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if what we’ve been doing around this Global Campfire this year has been life-giving than thank you for being life-giving. We wouldn’t be able to be involved in any of this if we weren’t in this together as a community and so thank you profoundly for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage of dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996 Springhill, Tennessee 37174.

And of course, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app which is the little red button up at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that’s it for today, Happy Thanksgiving everybody, I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Ezekiel 47:1-48:35, 1 Peter 2:11-3:7, Psalm 119:49-64, Proverbs 28:12-13

Today is the 24th day of November; welcome to the Daily Audio Bible, I’m Brian it is wonderful to be here with you today. It is a joy for us to take the next step forward together. That next step lands us in the Old Testament in the book of Ezekiel, we will conclude the book of Ezekiel tomorrow which will be Thanksgiving Day here in the United States and maybe…maybe even more importantly to me personally, will be my daughter, China’s birthday. So, this year we’ve had two birthdays in our family on national holidays because Jill’s birthday is always the 4th July which is a national holiday in United States, Independence Day and then now China on Thanksgiving Day. But I digress. We have come around the Global Campfire to take the next step forward in the Scriptures, so let’s do that, we’re reading from the new English Translation this week, Ezekiel chapters 47 and 48.

Commentary:

Okay, so the apostle Peter in his first letter, at least the letter known as first Peter in the New Testament and he is giving us wisdom and guidance for life. Yes, indeed for the holiday season where it is upon us, but for life and I swear it couldn’t be more poignant because if…if we can be self-reflective, as Christian people as the body of Christ, we would have to know that we are arguing with each other constantly and that is spilled into social media to the point that it’s really, really disheartening and sad the way that we need to be right all the time against each other and what is that look like if you are on the outside of this, knowing that something inside of you is tugging you toward spirituality. But you look at this and say, but that, that who wants to be involved in that, some of that would be deserved. We brought it upon ourselves. Some of it would be a stereotype, it’s not fair, it doesn’t represent all but once you become a part of the stereotype then it’s very, very easy to dismiss the stereotype because it’s not actual people anymore. It’s a set of behaviors and characteristics that are brought together in some kind of melting pot and an isolated in some sort of way, dismissed in some sort of way. That has been the story of the Christian faith through different parts of our church history. It has also been certain that we have been on the other side of that, marginalizing others and stereotyping others in the same way, which is what’s really easy to find going on. If we leave here the 21st-century and go back to the first century, go back to when this letter was written, we’ve talked plenty through our year about the back story, about the culture that Jesus came into about the culture of the early church and what they were facing when they were being marginalized and stereotyped by Jew and Gentile alike, where they were being kind of shot at from every direction and persecution had begun because marginalization had begun because stereotyping that happened. And now, these aren’t people anymore right, this is a group of people with a select group of behaviors that are weird, and so all kinds of assumptions were being said about these early believers. So now, with the freedoms of the internet and the freedoms of speech and the freedoms that we take for granted often, if somebody maligned us we feel slighted in some way or stereotyped in some way, usually we’ll just go right back, right eye for eye, tooth for tooth, whatever we gotta knock out, whatever we feel likes been brought against us we’re gonna come back that much stronger and dominate and be right. The people that Peter is writing to, these Jewish people who are being dominated by the Roman Empire, who really don’t have a spiritual home anymore because they’re also being dominated and pushed around and stereotyped by their fellow Hebrew people, they don’t really have the opportunity to rise up and do that. But even if they had the opportunity to rise up and do that that’s not the council that the apostle Peter them with. And honestly, if we have to sum up what Peter is saying it’s: hey guys, you’re better than this, don’t you know that you’re better than this. Let me just quote Peter and it’s really simple, it’s is the 15th verse of the second chapter of first Peter “God wants you to silence the ignorance of foolish people.” I mean just stop there because we could be like; well, that is what I’m doing if we’re the one that is constantly doing this. Let me read the whole thing, God wants you to silence the ignorance of foolish people by doing good, live as free people, not using your freedom as a pretext for evil but as God’s slaves, honor all people, love the family of Christ, fear God, honor the king. I guess there’s plenty to say, doesn’t it, doesn’t just say it for itself, like if that’s not how we’re conducting ourselves, then there is at bare minimum, a disconnect from what Peter is suggesting what we live into as the body of Christ. Like, it’s not, the things aren’t being said or marginalization or stereotyping isn’t happening. It’s the response. Do you, do you fight back with the same tactics or do you say no, that’s not, that’s not who I am and just move on and rise above it all and be better than that because eventually your true character has to shine through. And isn’t that what makes us human, isn’t that what humanizes us away from a stereotype and makes us a person like everybody else doing their very best to try to live true. This advice will change our lives. It’s as simple as that. If we change our speech, we change our lives and this could change our lives and maybe we only have control over that. We can’t change the world we can just change our lives. But if God’s people would see things like this directly and clearly from the Scriptures and obey it, instead of all of the different nuances that we fight over we would change the world by rising above it all and revealing a better way to be a human being, but may we at least personalize it. May we at least take ownership of ourselves and determine for ourselves that we are going to rise above it all. We will be a witness to the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ not by the next clever meme, but by the weightiness of our very lives.

Prayer:

So, Holy Spirit, come into that, O we need You, more than ever we need You. We are all over the map, all of the time. And so, on some days we are actually doing well and on other days we’ve lost ground. We need You because we need to consistently live into the principles that you have taught us and this one specifically in first Peter today, understand our posture of heart and how it is that we should be in this world and how that will change things. Come Holy Spirit into this, we will not be successful without Your leadership and we humble ourselves to Your leadership and pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com that is home base and that’s where you find out what’s going on around here and there’s a lot of stuff going on around here right now as we move into the holiday season. So, yesterday we announced our brand-new Christmas album that releases one week from today on December 1st and is available for preorder right now and you instantly get 1/3 of the album, three songs, well, it’s a 10 song album. This is a contemplative kind of atmospheric treatment of the classic Christmas carols that we know and love and it was produced and arranged and performed by my son Maxwell. So, during this preorder week, it is available in the iTunes store for the Apple devices and it’s also available in the Amazon store for download. So, that is available now, I’m excited for you to hear it. I’ve been listening to it for over, well, about a week. It’s beautiful. It’s right down my alley and enjoyed since I was a kid, shutting all the lights off in the house and just leaving the Christmas lights on and just kinda, just being quiet, just enjoy, just having Christmas music in the background to set the tone and just appreciating the season and this record is made for that so just search for Maxwell Hardin Christmas Time and you’ll find it. I hope you can pick up a copy when we have preorder pricing.

The other thing is that tomorrow is going to be Thanksgiving here in the United States and then the day after that is a Friday and it’s Black Friday all over the world. I think big, big shopping day and so our email inboxes are about to get jammed with every conceivable Black Friday configuration known to man, so just letting you know a little bit, a couple of days ahead of the game here. The Daily Audio Bible Christmas box that we’ve done annually for a long time, we didn’t do it last year due to COVID, but we are doing it this year and it becomes available, now today. So, if you go to the Daily Audio Bible Shop using a web browser or using the Daily Audio Bible app you will see in the Shop a new category, it’s called Christmas and the Christmas category you will find Family Christmas 2021. And this year in the box we have a copy of the God of Your story, a written resource that is, I mean the Daily Audio Bible is what the Daily Audio Bible is and this is happening in real time, we’re doing this together every day but if there were a written version of the things that we talk about as were navigating and moving through the Bible in the fashion that we do it would be the God of Your Story. It’s a 365 day dated devotional, that’s not my favorite word because it just plugs right into the Daily Audio Bible here but if you’re ever without Internet access, or you’re kinda of taking break from the Internet and you continue the rhythm in the Scriptures, than the God of Your Story is a perfect companion to the Daily Audio Bible. This is a beautiful hardback edition. It’s a lovely piece that I thought would be fairly simple to write but it took two years to really dive in and write this and so I’m glad that it is available and it will be in the Christmas box this year. We also will be including the Daily Audio Bible writing notebook, the Daily Audio Bible journal 3.0 and yeah, we’ve just been over time kind of trying to create a journal that you can carry with you, that you can have with you that is fun, uses good quality paper and is good to write and I personally use black wing pencils that we sell in the shop as well and the journal is perfect for writing in a pencil. But I’ve also written plenty of notes in pen. But if you’re planning to take the journey through the Bible next year and if you feel like God speaks to you through His word, then it’s good to have something to take notes with. If the Lord is speaking it’s good to take notes and so a Daily Audio Bible journal will be included in the Christmas box this year. We are also including the Global Campfire candle which is well, it’s a Global Campfire candle. It’s got the Global Campfire logo on it. It’s a beautiful tin candle and we worked with the perfumer to create an aroma that smells like a campfire. And I’m not talking about a smoldering campfire that just had water poured all of it and just smells like soot and smoke. It’s a lovely aroma that evokes a campfire and evokes the community that we are around the Global Campfire. Also, included your choice of either the DAB blend of fresh roasted coffee or if you are a tea drinker, we are including as the tea selection, our honey bush and rebus herbal tea, which is one of our more sought-after teas, so it’s your pick either coffee or tea. Also included will be our 2021 Christmas ornament. So, it’s got Daily Audio Bible 2021 on it and the word for the year which has been “mend” and I love these. I’ve got them since we started doing them. I think 10, 11, 12 years ago, I don’t know, a long time ago. I got one for each year, goes on the tree and it just reminds me of the journey through the Bible in a year in community. There’s no possible way I could have everybody over for hot cocoa and cookies at our house and that would be impossible, but it’s one of the ways, one of the things that I have in our Christmas tradition that brings the community home and close in nearby. So, that ornament is available in the Christmas box for this year. In fact, that’s the only place you can get it, is in the Christmas box. We are also including a Global Campfire pop socket. So, pop socket is that little handhold device he can come to stick to your tablet or your phone and then you have a little grip. We’ve made one with the Global Campfire logo on it. Also, two Global Campfire stickers and a pack of five Global Campfire frame-able postcards, it’s a series of Global Campfire postcards. It can be used as postcards to write, put a stamp on, send away or to kind of hang onto and put in different places to remind you of the community that we are as we moved to the Scriptures together. And then lastly, we will be including a mystery item from the vault, while supplies last. So, you can check out the Christmas box. The family Christmas box for 2021 in the Daily Audio Bible Shop which you can access at dailyaudiobible.com or using the Daily Audio Bible by pressing the drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner and in the Shop you will find Christmas category now that it’s Christmas time and you’ll find the Daily Audio Bible Christmas box for 2021 there in the Christmas section. Another new resource that we’ve been talking about for about a week is the Promised Land, Photographs from the Land of the Bible which is beautiful coffee table book full of photographs from the land of the Bible that have been curated from nine different seasons in the land of the Bible that can also be found in the Daily Audio Bible Shop. In fact, we even put it in the Christmas section to make it easy to find. You can find it in a couple of other sections but if you just go to the Shop, click Christmas, then you’ll find Christmas box as well, as well as the Promised Land book, so check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, here as we begin to approach the end of the year, I thank you humbly, humbly, deeply with a deep gratitude. We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t in this together. And so, thank you. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996 Springhill, Tennessee 37174.

And as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app or you can dial 877-942-4253.

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

Ezekiel 45:13-46:24, 1 Peter 1:13-2:10, Psalms 119:33-48, Proverbs 28:11

Today is the 23^rd day of November welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it’s awesome to be here with you today as we continue our journey through this week and continuing our journey through the book of Ezekiel. We have been moving through Ezekiel for a while now. Couple more days in Ezekiel and then we will…we will conclude that book. We began the first letter of Peter yesterday in the New Testament and so we will continue that journey today to let us dive in. We’re reading from the New English Translation this week. Ezekiel chapter 45 verse 13 through 46 verse 24.

Commentary:

Okay. So, today is the 23^rd day of November and the day after tomorrow in the United States is Thanksgiving Day, which is a national holiday for us here in the United States, but typically the day after that which is Friday is known as Black Friday and that’s definitely true in the United States that…that's…that’s true around the world as well. It's…well…I guess it's…it’s not really a holiday. It’s just something that retailers definitely dive into. People are going to be out shopping for Christmas. So, all of these big sales begin and that kinda kicks off what we know as the holiday season or the Christmas season and it will only amp up all the way through the rest of the year pretty much. And, so, that’s where we’re sitting. We’re right on the cusp of things becoming busy, the busiest time of the year. And it’s in the busiest time of the year that we may be going too fast, and we find ourselves back in old ruts where we’re just reacting to things because we feel like we don’t really have the time to process everything that’s coming our way. Ironically, we see words that give counsel for this kind of attitude or this kind of behavior in first Peter today. Now, there…there was no Black Friday. Peter isn’t commenting on the holidays that exist in our day and time and in our parts of the world, but it is the holiday season that makes us feel full of joy but also feel very busy usually. And, so, it’s so easy because maybe we’re tired, we’re not getting enough rest, we’re running too fast, we’re trying to figure out how to pay for it all, all of the stresses that come put us in a position where one wrong word, right, can send us into a tornado of awfulness. And if we paid attention to James, we know that a lot of that awfulness comes from our mouths. That’s really where it lives. The awfulness might separate us bodily from one another, but it originated with words and behaviors that we had grown accustomed to and fall back into because we’re not paying attention. Listen to what Peter says. “Like obedient children, do not comply with the evil urges you used to follow in your ignorance, but like the holy one who called you become holy yourselves in all of your conduct. For it is written, you shall be holy because I am holy.” So, Peter’s obviously not talking about the Christmas season. He’s talking about every day, like this is what normal is supposed to look like. But the holidays can certainly give us a gut check and first Peter can certainly give us a reminder of where were supposed to be walking instead of in this old rut that we have fallen back into being reactionary and spewing things out of our mouths that should not be said. So, Peter gives us something that we can kinda just let sit there in our back pocket and we can kinda carry around with us. And if we can stay observant enough to know like, “okay it’s startin’ to heat up inside of me. I’m gonna boil over and when I do things are gonna come out of my mouth”, that’s how it’s gonna boil over. If we can catch ourselves there and simply say, “you must be holy because I am holy.” Let’s take that into the rest of this week because before this week is out many, many, many of us will be kind of in…in situations that we’re not normally in. We’ll be around family members that maybe we’d only see once a year or a couple times a year. We will be all pulled together and then all of a sudden, boom, it will be the holiday season. If we could hold on to this, “you must be holy because I am holy”, that could save us from all kinds of awfulness, which means its at least worth meditation, right? It’s at least worth thinking about.

Prayer:

Father we invite you into that. And we are inviting you into all kinds of things about us but if we had to break it right down we’re asking your Holy Spirit to help us keep guard over our tongues, because James is right, we can burn our whole life down with our tongue, and we’ve set fires with our tongues and we’re moving into a time that is the most joyful, but is also a volatile time for many. So come Holy Spirit, may we be aware of your presence and walk with you in all of our interactions. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base. That’s the website, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here. And always something going on around here. But now we’re at the end of the year plenty is going on around here. So, something brand-new today. And I guess with every resource that becomes available around here there’s a story and I love to tell the stories and this story is about my son Max, Maxwell.

Manny years ago, when Maxwell was just a little fella, he’s a little bit younger than his bigger sister China. Well, China when she was a little girl had vision for Daily Audio Bible Kids and we launched Daily Audio Bible Kids when she was 10 I think…9 or 10…I can’t remember…I’d have to count the years. And once in a while Max would make a cameo appearance and then we started having the Maxwell minute., where he’d just come share some of his thoughts and he had the best thoughts. I’ve had so many great conversations with him throughout his life. But when he was a little kid just the way his mind would work I remember him talking to me about Adam and Eve and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the serpent. And he was like, “so the snake did he say like “sssssss” to them and they just understood what he meant? Stuff like that would be in the Maxwell minute. And then Max grew up a little bit more and learned how to read and then he began to do Daily Audio Bible Kids carrying that tradition forward that Ezekiel now has. And as Max got older and older, he got a little bit less interested in the day-to-day daily recording. And, so, big commitment for a kid, largely because he got bit by the music bug, and I began to teach Maxwell how to play piano about that same time and he really really took to it and he became really amazing at it. And then he got really really good at engineering, audio engineering and production kind of following in the pathway of his father because that was…that was my vocation before there was a Daily Audio Bible. Well…he’s not a little kid anymore. He’s a grown young man now, but through all the ups and downs of growing up and being a teen and moving through all of those uncomfortable years and all of those uncomfortable distinctions and all that stuff that goes with becoming a grown up. I would say music has been his anchor. It’s something that he has pursued throughout his life. And if I’m being honest, he has far surpassed me as a musician. And, so, earlier this year I asked him if he would begin to create a Christmas album for us around the Global Campfire. And he has been working on that throughout the course of the months of this year. And I love Christmas music. I don’t know, there’s some kind of connection point to my childhood through Christmas music because I’ve just loved it my whole life. I’ve been an avid collector of it. I have more Christmas music than anybody I know. So, I’m a little bit of a connoisseur of Christmas music when it comes Christmas time. And I love this record. It’s cool, it’s modern but it’s contemplative and thought-provoking. And this will be the second Christmas album that we’ve released over the years here around the Global Campfire. The first one was a few years ago called Family Christmas. That was a production that I was able to do. But I love Max’s production just the modern feel, just the way kid of modern composition…composing is going right now is…it’s to really pack life, to not sterilize the tracks, to actually have atmosphere and noises from recording and try all kind of unique instruments in different configurations. And I just love the treatments to these classic Christmas carols. I’ve had the advantage of listening to it all week. So, this brand-new Daily Audio Bible Christmas album is called Christmas Time. And like our other Christmas record it is the kind…it…it’s not the kind of music that’s gonna get you up and dancing and having a party. It’s the kind of music that…that you…that you listen to when you’re having a cup of coffee or cocoa or whatever and, you know, you turn the lights off in your house and just have the Christmas lights on and it’s peaceful and serene and different and very calming, that’s how this album Christmas Time feels. And it’s coming just in time for the holiday season. So, this brand-new recording will release on December 1^st. So, a week from now, but it is available for preorder on…well…at the iTunes store for Apple devices and at the Amazon store. In about a week it’ll begin to move out into all the digital platforms worldwide, but Apple and Amazon allow us to do a pre-release with prerelease pricing. And when you get this new album Christmas Time, you’ll get three of the songs instantly and then the other ones will show up in your music collection on the first. So, if you like Christmas music as I do, if you like Christmas music that…that sets an atmosphere of reflection and contemplation then this will be a great addition to the collection. So, you can go to the iTunes store…and you’ll have to go to the iTunes store and not Apple music and search for Maxwell Hardin or Christmas Time. And I’m so excited for you to hear. This is the first thing he’s allowing to go out into the wild for a while now and I’m proud of it and I’m proud of him and I’m hoping you can pick up a copy for your holiday season. And, so, that’s brand-new today and moving us into the holiday season.

We also have the brand-new Promised Land, photographs from the land of the Bible. and I have loved the feedback that I’ve been able to hear so far. I love the pictures on social media when they arrive. I love that. And, so, that resource is available at the Daily Audio Bible Shop. Just go into the Books and Audiobooks section or go into the Lifestyle section and you’ll find it there while supplies last. We have some more on the way, but I think it’s starting to get doubtful that they are going to arrive before Christmas. There’s just this massive supply chain issue in the world right now. But Promised Land, photographs from the land of the Bible is available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop at dailyaudiobible.com.

Maxwell Hardin and the Christmas Time record are available in the iTunes store or the Amazon store. So, check those out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if the mission here to bring the spoken word of God read fresh every day and offered freely to anyone who would listen to it anywhere on this planet any time of day or night, and build community around that rhythm, also known as the Global Campfire, if that has been life-giving to you than thank you for your partnership as we begin to move toward the end of the year. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner, or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, the little red button at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.

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

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi, my DAB family this is Work in Progress here in California. Just got a prayer request for a woman named Marlene. Marlene works at a Grocery Outlet kind of in our neighborhood here. And…and, you know, a while ago I could tell, you know, I’ve kind of gotten to know her a little bit, and…and a while back I could, you know, saying hi I could tell something was kind of on her mind and kind of talked to her and she said that, you know, her cancer had come back. And, so, she allowed me to pray with her. And anyway, long story short with that, her cancer, she went in for surgery and everything was good…good with that. But today I saw her again and it was that same kind of thing where I could tell something was wrong and…and…and she told me that her…a week ago her husband was killed in a motorcycle accident and she was right there and, you know, saw…didn’t see it happen but, you know, she…she…she…it was a bad accident let's…let’s put it that way. And, so, she again…I hugged her and she just burst into tears and I told her that I’d be praying for her and I know you guys will be too. Her name is Marlene. Really really sweet gal. So, if you could just lift her up in prayer for healing and that she draws near to the Lord that would be great. Thanks DABbers have a great day.

Hello everyone, my name is Christina and I’m from Indiana. My family and I have posted multiple things on the Prayer Wall and have had plenty of responses and prayers and people keeping us in your thoughts and we want to reach out and say thank you for everything that you have done. Even the simple kindness of praying for someone that we’re not used to. We’re used to doing everything on our own and not having people here and I’m thankful that we do. I’m thankful to God that he showed this app to my husband, and he has shared it with me, and I’ve shared it with countless others. And that God is continuously helping us through the struggles that is life and the problems that we are having continuously. But I really want to say, please pray with me for my family for all of my family. Dear God I want to thank You for everything that You’ve given me, all the blessings of both of my kids, my two five year old’s that don’t understand what’s going on but still push through every single day like nothing’s happened. I want to say thank You for the life that You have given me and my husband and continually to push us and carry us through our struggles. Thank You for everything and that…

Hi family, it’s Machala from Gloucester. It is Saturday the 20^th of November, and it is half one in the morning. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers over this past year. I have been struggling but things are getting back on track now. I’m moving in the right direction, and I can only thank God for that. I don’t know where I’d be without Him. I’d appreciate your prayers for sleep. Sleep is happening but not as much as I would like or as much as there should be and I can’t or I'm…I’m struggling to get my brain to switch off. Yeah. Father God thank You so much for this day You have given us. Thank You for all that has happened. Thank You for the opportunities and the things that have been achieved. Sorry if there’s opportunities that I’ve missed and those things that could have gone better. I give them all to You and submit them to Your care. Lord You know those thoughts that a whirling round, those things that are stopping us from sleep and we do commit them to You. I pray Lord that You would help us to rest, that You would help us to relax, that we would find peace so that we may be restored through sleep.

Hey friends this is Planted by the River in California, and I was just overtaken by the prayer request from…I am sorry I missed your name…but the woman whose has a husband who has had multiple strokes and they’re now calling in Hospice. And I was just emotionally overcome by your message about tears and pain and also laughter and joy. And all I could think of was the joy…the joy of the Lord is your strength, and you radiate it my friend. I’m just praying that the God will…that God will cradle your heart and protect you from the pain of the loss of your husband as…as he goes through his end of life and God…and God will be there with you. And I just want to say your husband is blessed to be having a woman beside him like you to take care of him through this…these multiple strokes and this process. And I just picture you and he and God together passing through this challenging time in life. And sister I just pour out God’s blessings on you and His favor and His peace. I love you friend. And just know that we’re all here with you going through it together and God is with you and we love you. Praise God. Take care.

Hello Daily Audio Bible family this is His Girl Warrior from Alabama it is Saturday November the 20^th and my grateful for today is my parents…are my…bla…are my parents haha - Norman and Becky. I’m grateful for them being alive and still being a part of my life and that they are generally healthy. I’m thankful for their kindness and support in this last year of my life which has been kind of a Cray Cray one. Please pray for their salvation. My parents are not believers, and neither are my brothers. So, please pray for my brothers Shane, Joshua and Benjamin and please pray for my nephew Madison and Manesis, Brianna, and Riley. They need Jesus and I…they listen to me but they…just pray that God would move on their heart and the Holy Spirit would take the scales off their eyes and that the hard life stuff that they’ve experienced won’t keep them from the love of Jesus. Anyway…so it is a beautiful day here in Alabama. I’m about to head out and go hiking. Alright I love you guys. Thank you that I can know that a worldwide army of prayer warriors is going to be praying for the salvation of my family. Alright. See you guys later. Bye.

Ezekiel 44:1-45:12, 1 Peter 1:1-12, Psalms 119:17-32, Proverbs 28:8-10

Today is the 22^nd day of November welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it’s wonderful to be here with you today as we continue the journey that we are on, you know, the one that’s leading us all the way through the Bible and all the way through this year together. We are continuing our journey through the book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament. In the New Testament we’ve got some new territory to move into. We concluded the book of James yesterday, which will lead us to another letter, this one known as first Peter. And we’ll talk about that when we get there, but first we are reading from the New English Translation this week. Ezekiel chapter 44 verse 1 through 45 verse 12.

Introduction to first Peter:

Okay. So, I mentioned at the beginning that we were moving into new territory in the New Testament, a letter known as first Peter. And this is the apostle Peter that we’re talking about. So, whereas we had never really heard from James all that much before we read his letter, we do have a bit of an understanding about the apostle Peter, not only from the Gospels and the life and ministry of Jesus, but also from the book of Acts, which spends pretty much the first half of the book centered around the ministry of Peter. So, we kind of understand Peter and who he was. But this will definitely be the first time that we’re hearing directly from him in…in sort of a letter fashion. And it’s been a while. It’s been a while since we’ve been around the apostle Peter in the Scriptures. And, so, this is kind of like we’re being reunited. And if we remember much about the apostle Peter as depicted in the New Testament, we know he’s a passionate person. Maybe even a person who, at least at one point, spoke before he thought. But a very passionate person. And, so, we’re going to find that Peter is no less passionate in letter form. And if we thought that the book of James was direct and was pretty much looking at us square in the face as it told us the truth first Peter will do the same thing in its own sort of way. So, if we buckled up to go through James Then we should just stay buckled up as we move into this new territory. But let’s talk about Peter himself. Peter’s…Peter’s name is actually Simeon or Simon. And, so, it’s not unusual to hear him referred to as Simon Peter. But where does the Peter part come from? It comes from Jesus, who renamed Simon and gave him the name Cephas, and that should also be a familiar name that we’ve heard before – Cephas, this is Peter. Cephas in Aramaic in the language that they were using means rock. So, Cephas is an Aramaic term and when it is translated into Greek, which is largely the language of the New Testament than the word is not Cephas anymore. It’s Petro’s. And as you can see, that sounds quite a bit familiar to Peter which is how we get to the name Peter. And we definitely did some traveling with Peter. Like I said, in the Gospels and the book of Acts we might remember that it was Peter who…who denied Jesus three times in the courtyard of Caiaphas, the high priest as Jesus was being tried by the Jewish people before being turned over to the Romans. And we followed that story, but we follow Peter all the way to a dramatic transformation. We see Peter in the upper room on the day of Pentecost when tongues of fire hovered and came down as the Holy Spirit fell upon the people in the upper room. Peter pretty much right after that preaches a powerful message in which 3000 people believe. So, a dramatic transformation in Peter’s life. And like I said, he’s still passionate and direct in this letter. But just…just like James, James wasn’t being passionate and direct just to be mean or forthright or just confrontational. He was trying to expose some things so that freedom would be available. Peter is also very direct but also encouraging. He’s lifting up those who are suffering because of Jesus, because of their faith in Jesus and he wants to remind them and us that there is profound hope profound hope in Jesus. And, so, let’s dive in. First Peter chapter 1 verses 1 throug 12.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for bringing us into this new week and this new territory with these new letters from Peter as we hear a voice that…that we got to know earlier in the year. And we pray Father that, You know, this is a really really old letter that it speak very very dynamically and personally to us as we continue our journey of growth, our journey through a year but a year that we repeat really want to grow in You. So, as we do most every day. Holy Spirit we need You. And You are always with us. We are just not always aware or paying attention. We need Your help. We need You to lead us into all truth. This is what the Scriptures tell us that You will do, and we believe that. And, so, we trust You that You will lead our thoughts, the things that we meditate on from the Scriptures, the attitudes that we take toward what we’re reading, that You will plant seeds in our lives and will bring a harvest of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it’s the website, it’s where you find out what is going on around here. Here in the United States where I live in the rolling hills of Tennessee this is a holiday week. It’s Thanksgiving week for us and so we have this holiday coming up on Thursday, Thanksgiving. And then the day after that is black Friday and I think that is worldwide as we have this sort of retail day to mark the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. So, that’s all on the radar for this week.

We also have a brand-new resource that we began to talk about just a little over a week ago and the response has been really humbling. When…when a creative process…process begins or some kind of project, some kind of idea…that…you can have the idea in your mind that you want to write something, or you want to do something, or you want to create something and that’s fun. It’s fun to dream it up. But then you’ve got to count the cost and figure out how that’s gonna happen and…and then get involved in the process, and there’s no way to plan for everything. So, there’s gonna be all kinds of obstacles that come up in and so often we just kind of give up and think it’s too hard, but when you have a vision and you want to see something, no matter how long it takes, and you want to see something be born into the world and then it finally does happen, that is really rewarding feeling. And Promised Land, photographs from the land of the Bible, this brand-new resource fits that perfectly. It took years to make this and a massive amount of time and creative energy to make this. And, so, for it to be real, for it to be more than a dream or an idea, for it to be real and sitting on the coffee table and be able to look at it, that’s been really really rewarding and beginning to hear feedback that it is…it is really beautiful and really treasured is also really, really rewarding. This resource…it wasn’t created so it will be really really rewarding. It was created to…to locate some of these stories into the geography where they happened and to get a glimpse of what the biblical geography even looks like, what…what diversity there is because there’s a vast amount of diversity in a very very small space. And, so, with this coffee-table edition of Promised Land it’s easy to flip through the pages and visit the different terrain and geography and locations where some of the most pivotal and monumental things that happened in the Bible actually occurred. So, this brand-new resource, Promised Land photographs from the land of the Bible is available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop and you can get there from the web or from the app. Just go to dailyaudiobible.com and you’ll see…you’ll see the Shop in the navigation bar at the top, or if you’re using the app push the Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner and it will pop open a drawer. And one of the selections is the Daily Audio Bile Shop. So, once you’re in the shop if you go in the Lifestyle section or the Book and Audiobooks section you will find this brand-new edition Promised Land, photographs from the land of the Bible is available now. So, check it out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com also. There is a link on the homepage. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or with a mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button up at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.

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

Community Prayer and Praise:

Susan’s daughter, this is Christopher from the Pretzel City and I just heard your prayer request played on the 18^th. You didn’t leave your name but your left your mom’s name and your needs. So, we will be praying for healing for her and wisdom and peace for all of you in the mighty name of Jesus. I covet the prayers of the DAB family in the matter of a friend of the family and her daughter who is a close friend of my daughter. They are dealing with COVID. They’re both hospitalized and the daughter is 15 years old and is in the pediatric ICU fighting for her for life. So, please pray for Jenn and Elizabeth and let’s bring them home. I hope all of you have a blessed Thanksgiving and keep your eyes on Jesus y'all. Thanks.

Hello Daily Audio Bible family this His Girl Warrior and it is November 18^th and today I’m grateful for my baby girl. She’s my second born. She is drolly, humorous, a deep thinker, and she and I have been through a lot of life together – tears, struggles, shouting, scrunches, laughing, inside jokes, giggles, girl talk. I am grateful that at this point in her life we have a growing friendship and I look forward to the future. I would like to ask Daily Audio Bible to actively intercede for her salvation. She has seen a lot of stuff that isn’t great happen in my life and it…she just…she struggles. She’s honest. She’s like, “I believe God exists. I just don’t believe He’s good like the way you do, and I don’t see the need for Him.” So, if you guys would pray for her salvation, I would love that. Alright Daily Audio Bible I’m going to pray for all of our kids. Father, I pray for the children – small, middle school, high school age, grown children of the Daily Audio Bible participants. I pray for our children to know You and to have an intimate growing relationship with You Father. I thank You that they are never out of Your sight, never out of Your hands Father. We pray for their salvation in Jesus’ name. Amen. Alright guys I will talk to you later. Bye.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible this is Diane Olive Braun from Newburgh IN throwing my log the global campfire of the Daily Audio Bible community. And Jeff and I are heading for Beaver Island MI. I don’t know if you all heard the tragedy of the plane crash, the first in 107 years I think, where only one child…one child survived and the other people on the plane died. But Jeff and I are going there to be with these people and mourn with them. And please keep them in your prayers. And I’m so grateful and I’m so thankful for Daily Audio Bible. This is Thanksgiving and I’m thankful for the readings every day and I’ve added the Psalms, five-minute psalms to the readings of the Daily Audio Bible Chronological and Daily Audio Bible Kids and the traditional Daily Audio Bible, Brian. What more could I be thankful for? And all the friends, Radiant Rachel, Blind Tony. Happy birthday brother. I’m 72 and you’re in your 70s also. We’re in the same decade and oh, Radiant Rachel, oh it just so blesses my heart when your son comes on. And I’m grateful for…

Hello Daily Audio Bible prayer warriors this is Deb from Galbert again calling in for…for Samson and Clarence. They wanted to say that they appreciate your prayers for…especially Samson does it’s his son…but he hasn’t really heard by way of telephone for him. So, if you could continue to lift that need  up so that Sampson could get a call in here from his son that would be greatly appreciated. Samson wanted to thank Kingdom Seeker Daniel who wrote to him. And he wasn’t sure if you’d got it though. So, if you could give him a shout out that you received your letter. And for Little Sherry who wrote a beautiful letter to both Sampson and Clarence. But Clarence never received his letter. He…she mentiond it in her letter to Sampson. So, if you could resubmit a letter. I’ll give you Clarence’s address. Clarence is Clarence Daniel number 164876 PO Box 600 Grady Arkansas 71644-0600. Also wanted to let you know Samson’s birthday is coming up December 27^th and it takes about two weeks for a birthday card to get there. So, if those of you who have, you know, a heart for Samson, would you please send him a card. His address again is Samson Ellis number 69299 PO Box 600 Grady Arkansas 71644-0600. But that would be a joy for them. If somebody would like to write to Clarence, he would love to write back to people. He considers me a blessing because I share with him through Samson, but I would like for somebody else to reach out and be his special person or family that would be lifting up his needs. So, I’d ask that you ask God if you could be that special person for Clarence. They…they just love being a part of this community and to get a personal letter is…is the best for them. So, Lord we just lift these needs up to you and thank you for the way you’re going to meet them. God bless.

I’m calling from my porch in Georgia with my dog and I just wanted to reach out today for a lady who called in, called herself Blind Angel I believe from Happy Valley and pretty much just asking God to bless her health. Just hearing her list off she sounds like a strong lady who has trusted God for a while and that is now in need of a miracle. So, I just pray that as the lady who touched the hem of Jesus’ garment and was healed, as the two beggars cried out even over the voices of the disciples who told him to be quiet, they kept crying out and wanted Jesus to heal them, and as the man who was lower to the ceiling by friends, was lowered to Jesus and he was healed, I pray that for her, that she would experiencing healing and she would acknowledge God through that healing and that…that Jesus would be glorified as she walks around and is able to share in how God healed her. And I ask all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Hi Daily Audio Bible my name is Kaylee. I’ve actually never called before, and I am calling to lift up a coworker named Kendra who just found out about a month ago that she has breast cancer, but only recently did she find out that it has metastasized in her spine and her pelvis. And I felt so burdened to pray for her because this is the same diagnosis as my mother’s seven years ago. And we were surrounded by the church and so many people prayed for my mother and my family and she’s growing strong and is such an encouragement to others and so I wanted to do the same for this friend. Thank you so much.