Numbers 4:1-5:31, Mark 12:18-37, Psalms 48:1-14, Proverbs 10:26
Today is the 5th day of March, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you today just about back…just about back from this jet lag from our Israel pilgrimage, feeling stronger and stronger every day. I just love it when I’ve like…I’ve turned the corner and my heart, my soul, my spirit, my body, we…we’re pretty much in the same place now which is good and I’m excited to see what's…what is in store for us today in the Scriptures. So, we’re reading from the English Standard Version this week. Numbers, chapters 4 and 5 today.
Commentary:
Okay. So, Jesus is talking to some Sadducees who have come to Him today and the distinction between the Sadducees and the Pharisees was that the Pharisees believed in a resurrection and the Sadducees did not. And we can see that Jesus…Jesus falls on the side of the Pharisees here, completely affirming the resurrection and the ongoing life of the soul. And one of the scribes is listening to all this and he kinda heard this dispute going on. So, he comes to Jesus and is like, “what’s the greatest commandment?” And Jesus recites that, “the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Th scribe then responds to Jesus affirming that he and Jesus are in complete agreement about this that and he offers his interpretation. He’s like, “you’ve spoken well. You’re right teacher. You have truly said He is one, there is no other besides Him and to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding with all the strength and to love one’s neighbor as oneself is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices,” right? So, like Jesus never said anything about sacrifices. This is the scribe’s interpretation of the greatest commandment. And a very fascinating thing happens here. When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, He said to him, “you are not far from the kingdom of God.” It was that distinction in interpretation, that add on, that loving God with all that you are is much more than sacrifice. So, like, all that you are is much more to God than anything you could do. So, there we have more clues about what this kingdom of heaven that is within us and among us is like. All your activity that you believe is on behalf of God does not equal a relationship with God. And Jesus response, “you’re not far from the kingdom of God.” In other words, “you are a scribe well educated in your religion, but you seem to have eyes to see, which is fascinating indeed because we’re seeing that we need eyes to see everywhere.
Prayer:
And, so Jesus we thank you for this, for another thing that we’ve learned today about your kingdom, it's…it’s that we give ourselves completely to you. It’s not about what we can do. It’s about how we can offer ourselves completely and holy to you and be completely and wholly available to you. So, come Holy Spirit and allow us the awareness that we need today, the eyes to see today about how we can be available to you by giving ourselves completely to you and to your service. Come Holy Spirit we pray in the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.
Announcements:
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And that’s kind of getting back into the saddle and…and…and moving…moving into this month. Man…I can't…March how did it get to be March? What happened? Didn’t we just celebrate New Year’s day? It’s crazy. So, we’re just kinda getting settled back in but I want to take the time to remind you of the community section in the Daily Audio Bible website or in the app. The Community section gives you all the different links to all the different social media channels that we are interacting on so you can back and take a look at the entire Israel journey that we were…that we’ve just concluded as well as all kinds of different ways to…to interact.
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That should do it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.