Jeremiah 22:1-23:20, 2 Thessalonians 1:1-12, Psalms 83:1-18, Proverbs 25:11-14
Today is the 13th day of October. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is a joy and a pleasure to be here with you today beginning a new week. And, so, we just reach out and collectively grab the threshold and swing the door open and walk into this shiny, sparkly week that’s waiting for us to tell the story and waiting for us to live into. And this is the middle of the month, we’ll be crossing through the center of this month as we…as we journey through this week. And, so, let’s dive in. We’ll read from the New Living Translation this week and we’ll continue our journey through Jeremiah and when we get to the New Testament today, we’ll be beginning another letter from the apostle Paul. Same people, the Thessalonians. This letter is known as second Thessalonians, but we’ll talk about that when we get there. First, let’s read from Jeremiah chapter 22 verse 1 through 23 verse 20.
Introduction to second Thessalonians:
Okay. So, as promised, we’re gonna begin another letter today, called second Thessalonians. So, it’s Paul’s second letter to the church in the city of Thessalonica, a church that, as we remember from the previous letter, was born in persecution and had actually never experienced peace. Like, they were never…they were never free from persecution. So, over the years some biblical scholars have questioned whether or not Paul wrote this letter. And that’s really a theological thing because there are theological nuances in second Thessalonians that aren’t found in any of the other letters that Paul wrote and the tone is a bit different. But even so, the majority still except this as an authentic letter of Paul. Certainly, the earliest of church fathers in our long and illustrious church history certainly affirmed and quoted this letter. So, it has a long, long history. And Paul probably wrote this second letter to the Thessalonian congregation really just a short time after the first one because it seems as if you wanted to further clarify and broaden what he had been saying previously in the other letter. And he also felt the need to correct specific things, some inaccurate assumptions. For example, Paul wanted to emphasize the importance of people working to provide for themselves, right? Working to provide for their families and the community because some were quitting their jobs and just living idly, waiting, waiting for Jesus to come back and meddling in everybody else’s business. And, so, Paul ended up in this letter as we’ll see, telling the brothers and sisters that if they weren’t gonna do their share of the work then they weren’t going to get their share the food. Like, they couldn’t just leech off each other. But to make it even more complicated and certainly more confusing for the Thessalonians, there’d been some misleading communication that was going around and it was going around in Paul’s name. And the idea was that Jesus already came and they just missed it. So, for a church that’s been persecuted for and on behalf of the name of Jesus to find out you missed it, he already came, like, that’s horrible to even think about. So, Paul sets the record straight. He never said that. He would never say something like that. This is total false…totally false. But Paul’s not writing this letter only just to make corrections. The believers in Thessalonica were…like Paul had a special place for them because he rolled into town under persecution, the church was formed in persecution, he had to flee persecution. Like, these people had never known anything but pressure. So, Paul cares a lot about what happens to their faith and he thinks a lot about them, and they needed to be encouraged because they had plenty to discourage them because were always under fire. So, Paul wrote that their endurance wasn’t being overlooked, like it wasn’t going unseen and it was doing something, and we need…we need to hear this. Like, even right now, we need to hear this. It does something. It was making them worthy of the kingdom of God and he encouraged them that in the end justice would prevail. So, the second letter to the church in Thessalonica, just like the first one, gives us a clear view of people who were pretty seriously under pressure but who were remaining faithful to God and in love with Jesus and enduring. And this is a fine enough time to say it, this idea of endurance, this is just gonna come up so much. Like we are not gonna be able to escape it as we continue through our year, And, so, we begin. Second Thessalonians chapter 1.
Prayer:
Father, we thank You for Your word and as we move into this new week we…we have anticipation, we have an expectancy that You will speak to us in ways that we need to know that as we’re moving through this week and we are…we are encountering things that we weren’t prepared for that Your word will already be speaking into those things. And, so we pray Holy Spirit that we would have eyes to see and ears to hear, and that we would obey Your prompting. Come Holy Spirit into all of this we pray. In the mighty name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.
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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 Daily Audio Bible this is Rebecca in Michigan and it’s October 8th today. You know what I’m thinking, I was thinking about birds and flowers. I know that’s so weird there’s a verse in the Bible that says God sees the birds and he calls __ the flowers and you are and more important than either one of them. So, you know, I stopped and watch these little birds and I throw bread down to them and one time I threw a waffle down to them and when I’ve thrown these pukes is of waffle to them, this one little bird he dived down to get it and this big bird started __ dive down to them and get it too and that little bird was just like flapping his wings and trying to take off with that __ from that big bird so he could eat that waffle. The waffles must’ve been good if a bird wants to eat it. But then if you stop and look at flowers and how beautiful they are and even the honey, the hummingbirds come and suck out of the nectar of the flower and it’s like…it’s amazing and then you’ll see the bigger birds like the eagle or the hawk looking for pray and something to eat. And just stop and think, you are more precious than a bird and you’re more precious than a flower. Your heavenly Father wants to provide for you, and He will supply all your needs according to your riches and glory in Christ Jesus. So, I pray today Father that…that everybody out there, that all their needs will be supplied according to the riches and glory in Christ Jesus because they are more important than a bird or a flower and yet You feed them and You cloth them….
Hello, my DAB family this is Mark Street from Sydney Australia today is Wednesday the 9th of October and I’m just calling because I was really excited at the end of the podcast today. I heard Sinner Redeemed. Sinner Redeemed, I certainly remember you and I’m excited to hear that you’re back on the prayer line again and I’m hoping that we will all hear you a bit more. And I want to pray for you because you said that you wanted some prayer as well. So, heavenly Father, der heavenly Father we come to You offering Sinner Redeemed up to You. You know what he needs, You know what he wants, and You know what’s best for him Lord. So, we offer him to You, that You will help him the way that You want him to be helped Lord. Lord we ask this in Your name. Love you family. Talk to you again soon. Mark Street from Sydney Australia. Bye.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible family this is Dorothy from Dustin and I just listened to the podcast this morning on October 10th and Brian’s prayer at the end, “don’t mistake challenge for abandonment, challenge spread the gospel.” And I’m thinking today particularly for those who are going through a struggle or difficult time especially for Carl and John and anybody else. And this is something that I read in a book and I want to read it to you. It’s called my identity in Christ. “Because of Christ’s redemption I am a new creation of great worth. I am deeply loved, completely forgiven, fully pleasing, totally accepted by God and absolutely complete in Christ. There has never been another person like me in the history of humankind nor will there ever be. God has made me an original, one-of-a-kind, really somebody.” And this verse Jeremiah 31:25. “For I will satisfy the weary soul and every languishing soul I will replenish.” God bless you everyone. Thank you, Brian and the Hardin family for this wonderful podcast. Have a wonderful day.
Hello, my name is Mary Jane I’m a Pilipino nurse calling from Saudi Arabia. I’ve been here for almost 7 years. I’ve been listening to Daily Audio Bible for one year now and I finally caught up with the daily readings. So, I just wanted to call and say that I think this this program is really, really good. It gives you encouragement for every little thing that you need strength with, strength in life. I wanted to ask for prayers from everyone. I’m trying to get back home to Hawaii. I got deported back to the Philippines when I was maybe 25. And, you know, I did a bad…I did lot of bad things when I was young, didn’t know of the Lord, nothing. I guess when you get older you realize what you did was really, really wrong. And I’m asking for prayers to reapply back to Hawaii so I can be with my family. I think this program really helped me a lot to give me strength. And if I could ask for prayers when I refile again. Thank you.
Hi this is Andy from Birmingham I’d like to leave a message for Cindy the Sinner from Seatle. So, I heard you went through the performance management or performance improvement process recently and you’re still in it right now. And I went through that back in 2016, 2017 and it got me to some of the lowest points in my life, points I’d never thought I’d get to, places I never thought I’d get to sort of mentally. It was awful in many ways. But the main point is, I was told by boss to stop work because what I was doing was so bad. Ironically what I was doing has ended up being something which now I’m using and actually only using in my job. So, it was…I felt there was a spiritual element to it all but more importantly than that, when I was told to stop where I spent a lot more time with the Daily Audio Bible, three times a day listening to the Daily Audio Bible, praying on the Prayer Wall and watching Him literally give me things for my job when I was doing nothing and that…that really blew me away. So, I just wanted to encourage you. That was it. And I want to say keep going. Just wait for Him. Wait for His…the doors He’s going to open for you in your life and watch how He blesses you despite what seems like a really awful time. Just…just hold on and know and that people like me are praying for you. So, God bless.