2 Kings 13:1-14:29, Acts 18:23-19:12, Psalms 146:1-10, Proverbs 18:2-3
Today is the 28th day of June. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is always a joy to be here with you, always good to come around the global campfire and just relax and let God’s word speak to us, always a pleasure. So, we’re moving into the end of the week now. We’ve been reading from the Contemporary English Version this week and we’ll continue that as we continue our journey through the book of second Kings. Today we’ll read chapters 13 and 14 as we continue through the kings, the stories of the kings of Israel, the northern kingdom, and Judah, the southern kingdom.
Commentary:
Okay. So, as we end another one of our workweeks together and continue to journey through the book of second Kings we’re seeing, you know, the back-and-forth between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the northern and the southern kingdoms. So, at times, they’re allies with each other and they go to battle with each other and at other times they’re enemies with each other and battling against one another. And, of course, this is…you know…the whole dynamic of the situation is influenced by who is the king, whose the king of Israel, whose the king of Judah, and then the prophetic voices played a role in all of this mix as well, even though the people usually ignored them. But we did say goodbye today to one of those very influential voices, the man of God, the prophet Elisha died after giving a final prophetic word to Jehoash who was king of the northern kingdom of Israel.A
And then we move into the book of Acts and Paul is beginning his third missionary journey and working his way into Ephesus where he spent two years, and this is Paul’s final recorded missionary journey and we’ll see why soon enough. But we also see that his opportunities to share the gospel and to have influence will only grow even though he’s not traveling around the known world anymore. And it’s gonna be in the most counterintuitive ways. And, so, we’ll see that as we continue with the story
And in Proverbs today gives us plenty to think about as it relates to our opinions. So, we probably all have people in our lives who have or seem to have an opinion about just about everything that there is and then they love to give that opinion without permission, right, unsolicited and it doesn’t even matter like what the topic is, they just seem to have an opinion on everything from politics to relationship advice to parenting to you name it without actually taking the time to form and fully understand and create a well-rounded collection of thoughts. They just spout off whatever’s happening at the top of their mind and they seem to know very well what everybody else should be doing. A lot of times we take a look at those people’s lives though and they don’t know what they’re doing. They just seem to know what everybody else should be doing. So, this is strong medicine here. This is a big teaspoonful full of something bitter. According to the Proverbs, those people are fools. It’ not understanding that they’re looking for. Its hearing themselves talk that they’re looking for. So, let’s use today, and as we move into the weekend and change the flow of our lives for a few days. Let’s observe ourselves. Let’s watch for what it is that causes us to offer an opinion. Are we asked for an opinion or are we just offering our opinions where they don’t belong because we might catch ourselves moving into foolish, foolish territory and places that are not healthy, but the good news is that this is how we actually become wise. We catch ourselves. We watch ourselves. We hear the words of wisdom spoken from the Proverbs and then we watch ourselves and then when we can catch ourselves like being pulled toward throwing in our opinion into the mix when it’s not necessary or not invited or not even welcomed and we really don’t know the situation. We can invite the Holy Spirit. That’s gonna guide us away from being foolish and back onto the path of wisdom.
Prayer:
Holy Spirit come into that. We are all guilty of stepping into foolishness. We are all guilty of playing the fool in these areas. And, so, we ask that You would come and You would help us observe our own behaviors, the things that trigger us, the things that pull us in these directions and we ask that we would be able to pause before we open our mouth and begin a dialogue with You. What is this about? Why am I about to jump into this? Why am I often finding myself jumping into these things? We invite You Holy Spirit into these questions and into these observations. Come Jesus we pray. In Your mighty name, we ask. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com is the website, home base, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here. So, stay tuned, stay connected.
One of the things that we’re talking about is July 7th and that’s coming up pretty quick here, a week from this Sunday. So, July 7th is kind of like our own little Daily Audio Bible holiday. It’s a day that we’ve been setting aside for 11 years we’ve done this. It’s what we call the Daily Audio Bible long walk and it happens every seventh of July and it’s just a day to commemorate the fact that we are moving through the middle of the year, an opportunity to regroup and go for a long walk with God. We’ve been allowing God’s word to speak into our lives for half a year and it’s time to regroup. And, so, it’s an individual experience. Go somewhere beautiful whether near or far, and go for a long walk with God, uninterrupted. Like, set the time, set the day aside so that all other obligations and responsibilities are just off the calendar. Like, this is a day that you get to spend however you want to with God. Go somewhere beautiful. Say everything that you need to say. Listen to everything that he needs to tell you, advanced words about how the second half of your year should look and where you should be aiming yourself. And just enjoy the serenity that comes as a result of just taking the one day. It’s incredible. And, so, yeah, it’s an individual experience, you’re doing this by yourself, but take your camera or whatever, your phone or whatever and snap a picture or take a little video wherever you go and post that back to the Facebook page for Daily Audio Bible facebook.com/dailyaudiobible and all of the sudden we have this mosaic, all these windows opening into each other’s lives all over the world where we can experience all over the world what the world looks like today as we move through our day on the long walk. So, that’s coming up the 7th of July, put that on your calendar.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link on the homepage. Thank you humbly, thank you profoundly for your partnership, especially as we move in and through the summer time. Appreciate your partnership more than I can possibly articulate. The literal reality is that we wouldn’t be here if we weren’t here together. That’s the beautiful thing about this community, we’re here together. So, there’s a link on the homepage. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.
And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253, is the number to dial.
And that is it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.