1 Kings 11:1-12:19, Acts 9:1-25, Psalms 131:1-3, Proverbs 17:4-5
Today is the 13th day of June. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is pleasure, always, it's…actually it is…it’s a pleasure and a joy to be here with you today and read God’s word out loud and come around the global campfire together in community and enjoy fellowship and know that we’re not in this alone. That’s a joy and a pleasure. So, we move toward the back part of the week now, we remember that we reached a point that we were calling the apex, sort of the moment in ancient Israel under King Solomon’s rule where ancient Israel reached its finest hour and where people from all over the world, dignitaries, royals from all over the world were coming to see what was going on, where ancient Israel was in its finest hour and shining brightly. And, so, the story has to continue, and we will continue with that story today. We’re reading from the English Standard Version this week. First Kings chapter 11 verse 1 through 12 verse 19.
Commentary:
Okay. So, pretty big day actually, in terms of transition, here in the Scriptures in both Old and New Testaments. The things that happened today, we read through their stories and we may have even heard these stories before, but the repercussions of the things that happened today in the Old and the New Testament change the story profoundly. So, in the Old Testament in the book of first Kings, what has happened here is that King Solomon has brought the people to their pinnacle to a wonderful place of peace and prosperity for sure, but they began to slide down the other side. And, so, by the time we finished our reading today there isn’t an ancient Israel as we have known it. So, Rehoboam has had a facedown with Jeroboam, Rehoboam being the son of King Solomon and the rightful heir to the throne. Because of his promise that he’s actually going to make life more difficult for his people, for his subjects, 10 of the tribes abandon Rehoboam and make Jeroboam their leader, their king. The house of David is no longer king of Israel. That is over. These 10 tribes in the North who are following Jeroboam and they will be known as the tribes of Israel. But there are 10 of them. Rehoboam will only be in charge of the holy city of Jerusalem and the tribe of Judah. And, so, what we have here now is the disintegration of ancient Israel as we have known it, right? The sons of Jacob, whose name was turned Israel, his children, the children of Israel who all grew up to be their own tribes, they’re not in unity anymore, they have divided and we now, from this point forward, until they all disappear, have the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Kind of a big deal. Here in the United States we had a Civil War. It’s part of our national history. It was a long, long time ago - the North versus the South. The repercussions of that, the reverberations of that, they can still be found. That’s kind of what we have shaping up here. We have the northern and the southern kingdoms now and they have two different kings. So, where is this story gonna take us. And that will…that will reveal itself, day by day, step-by-step as we continue to journey forward.
Then, in the book of Acts, there’s been this Pharisee, a radical Pharisee named Saul, who has absolutely been on a rampage trying to stamp out what has become known as the Way. And this is what the faith in Jesus was originally called. The term Christian, at this point in the book of Acts, the term Christian hadn’t been coined…no one had been called a Christian, no one was a Christian yet because that term hadn’t been invented yet, but this was…the teachings of Jesus were collectively being called the Way and, of course, the name of Jesus was being proclaimed and all of those in authority at the top were trying to stamp that out. Saul, being a radical Pharisee and just truly trying to live as righteous as he could, really felt like he was doing God’s will by trying to eradicate the Way. And, so, you know, he caused mayhem in Jerusalem and he’s got a letter and he’s on his way to Damascus to kinda do the same thing when he encounters Jesus on the road to Damascus and we know the story. It’s pretty famous. It’s just important to realize that this changes everything. Saul, this radical Pharisee who will be renamed Paul the apostle of Jesus Christ will write to two thirds of the new Testament. So, his conversion experience radically alters the story all together that we are in. Jesus has come for Paul and as we will see throughout most of the rest of the year, we will begin to realize the implications of that meeting and that encounter.
Prayer:
Father we thank You for Your word. And as we just take a moment to point out and pay attention to how radically the story has shifted in both Old and New Testaments today that You would also shift our hearts to receive and understand and interpret and apply where we’re going in the stories and in this year. We thank You for Your faithfulness to us. We thank You for the way that Your word…it just touches everything about us. It just doesn’t do it all in one day. As we invest into the rhythm of our lives and allow Your word to be involved in our lives over the course of a year everything has…everything has been touched and we’ve been given choices. And some of those choices are good ones and some of those choices we make incorrectly but we are can continually being refined because Your word continually brings up things that we can’t hide or run away from. And, so, as we begin to turn the page and move into some new territory in the stories that we’ve been following since the beginning of the year, we invite Your Holy Spirit to lead us forward into all truth and we yray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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And that is it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.