1 Kings 3:3-4:34, Acts 6:1-15, Psalms 126:1-6, Proverbs 16:26-27
Today is the 8th day of June welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is great to be here with you today. Ahh…today would’ve been…would’ve been my mother’s birthday. So, you know how certain days of the year are important to you and you might not realize that until you realize it’s that day. This is kind of one of those days. It’s my mom’s birthday. So, thinking of her as we move into the day and grateful. None of this would be happening if it weren’t for her. So, I’m grateful. So, let’s jump in and take the next step forward. We’re working our way into the book of first Kings now. And, so, in yesterday’s reading we said goodbye to Israel’s second king and his name was David and we followed his story from his youth until his death. And we followed the drama about his successor. But as it turns out, his successor is his son by Bathsheba, which is…I mean…ironically the woman that…that he took. She was another man’s wife. He took her and…and…and they…they got pregnant and David had Uriah, who was Bathsheba’s husband, he had him killed in battle and…and David to Bathsheba to be his wife and the child they had conceived died. But they had another child, Solomon, who has become the king of Israel. And, so, we pick up that story. We’re reading from the Good News Translation this week. First Kings chapter 3 verse 3 through 4 verse 34.
Commentary:
Okay. So, now we see that King Solomon is certainly in full control and is the king of Israel. And we had this famous passage today where…where Solomon is worshiping In Gibeon before the Lord and he has a dream and the Lord asks him what…what he wants, and Solomon asks for wisdom to lead the people. And then God responds that He will give him more wisdom than anyone’s ever had before as well as all of the things that he could have asked for, which is kind of what the book of Proverbs tells us, right? Like if you gain wisdom, everything else will follow. But if you try to do it opposite and achieve all these things without wisdom, you won’t be wise, and you won’t be able to control these things and you won’t be able to have these things. Wisdom is the thing that can guide our lives on the correct road. And even as we were getting into the book of Proverbs, we heard the voice of wisdom telling us this, that she would be at every crossroads. These ideas would end up being documented by Solomon. And, so…so, what we see is that Solomon asked for wisdom, but he was a very wise man, which is kind of the point of the narrative here. He was wise beyond his years. He was a wise man, and then the Scriptures turn us into an immediate example of this and that’s the example of the two women who were prostitutes who each had children and one of the child…children…one of the baby boys died and how it was that Solomon went about, you know, kind of teasing out the truth of the matter. That kind of became proverbial in its own way throughout Israel to…it was an illustration they used to give themselves rest in their king, that he was just and that he was a wise and that he could see how to bring justice to the land. So, basically where we leave the reading in first Kings today is that, yeah, Solomon is a very respected person who is reigning over a vast kingdom. Many other kings and kingdoms are subject to Solomon. He is at peace. He has all of the resources he could possibly need to do whatever he could possibly imagine. The people are at peace. There is prosperity and a huge amount of development, a huge amount of building and growth is happening. And what we’re seeing is all of King David’s work in establishing his kingdom passed on to Solomon, all of those resources combined with wisdom and the blessing of the Lord is leading this people to their greatest ancient moment, which we will see in the coming days.
And then we flip over into the New Testament in the book of Acts and we see the formation of something that still exists in the church world today. So, basically what’s going on is that many people are coming to accept Christ. Many are coming in every day as the gospel is spoken and at this point the book of Acts tells us the people who believe in Jesus are respected. Like not a lot of people want to be around their group because they’re afraid of getting thrown out of the synagogue, which is to kinda be ostracized from your community, but they’re respected, they’re spoken well of, persecution hasn’t really broken out because nobody really knows exactly what’s going on right now. And we will explore how tensions arose in the weeks ahead. But because kind of everybody is coming together in common as much as possible to kind of all be together, caring for one another, and in particular caring for like widows and people in need, just making sure everybody’s taking care of, a rift broke out between Greek Jewish people and native Hebrew people that the Greek people were being…the Greek widows were being treated differently than the native Hebrew widows. So, this is like one of the very, very, very first issues that we see crop up at all. And what is this issue? Well, it’s the accusation of favoritism, that the Greek widows were being suppressed in favor of the Hebrew widows and they weren’t being treated equally. And, so, often that’s still an issue in our world today. So, the apostles and…and all the people got together for…for a meeting about this. And the apostles are like “man…man….we need to keep…we need to keep spreading the gospel and keep telling people and educating people about Jesus and if we have to stop that and kind of figure out how to count…figure how to do finances, like we need some help. Appoint some people that are honorable. Bring them. Pray for them. We need some help here.” This model, this example here would one day grow up to be called the diaconate. This is where the idea of deacons or the office of a deacon comes into play. And we briefly meet one of those men. I man we…we met them all. We heard all of their names, but we briefly met one of them in a little more detail and his name is Stephen. And we’ll get to know Stephen in the coming days but Stephen will also allow us a bit of a review of the stories that we’ve found in the Bible that we’ve immersed ourselves in this year. So, that is coming in the next days.
Prayer:
Father, we’re thankful for that but we are in this day and this is happening now. And, so, we thank You for Your word in our lives and the way that just begins to build up and accumulate in our hearts and affects the way that we live in. And, so, we invite that today. May we go from this moment and into our day or into our evening or whatever time it is knowing that You are within and around us, that You are surrounding us, that we are in You, that we are hidden with Christ in God, that we are intertwined and that You are leading and directing our steps. Come Holy Spirit into this we pray. In the 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:
Hello, DABbers this is Sharon in South Carolina I’ve been listening for a lot of years, but I’ve never called in. I was recommended by a good friend of mine __. And, you know, I’ve lost two children before and I’ve heard different ones calling in grieving so much. And she said I should give my testimony about how God showed His loving kindness to me and took away inordinate grief. So the time’s ticking away but the main thing is…well I may have to call back to give the rest of it. But I was riding along, I was a truck driver at the time, and I was riding along, and I had to tell my daughter happy birthday and it had been almost a year since she passed away from breast cancer. And I said, “Father tell her happy birthday.” And He said, “she didn’t have a birthday. She came out of me she came back into me. She always was and she always will be.” Now I know that didn’t come out of my mind. You know, I…every day I was praying, and the tears were flowing inside that truck. I had lost a son in 1986 and then lost her in 2000 and I thought am I gonna lose all my children, but I just want to encourage you today. I love all of you so much and I pray for you every day. I hear you on the radio and I repent for not calling in to encourage some of you. Our Father is so faithful. He…He is the I Am but most of all He is, He is ever present for every need and every concern. Be encouraged today so…
I am really so encouraged by Brian and the Hardin family. I just…this message is going straight to Brian and his family just because I really am just so thankful Brian that you just took the time the other day to actually really say something about what’s happening in the nation and about race and even you taking the time to…to really minister us even with about the pandemic. I really, really appreciate it because as an African-American, I don’t always feel loved, I don’t always feel accepted, I don’t always feel understood. And this is a space where I feel like I do feel loved, accepted, and understood and you made that very, very clear and it only makes me even more involved and committed to this ministry because I think it’s from the heart. And I really appreciate it. It really meant a lot to me that you took some time out to really address it. And I just thank you. Take care and God bless.
Good morning DAB family this is Vito from New Hampshire a first-time caller and longtime listener. I’d like to begin by thanking Brian and Jill and China and Benn and everybody else behind the scenes for making this happen. It’s changing my life. It’s changing people’s lives all around the world and what an amazing blessing and need at a time such as this. I’m calling to ask for prayer for my friend Bill Smith and his wife Jane. Bill and Jane were visiting my wife and I four months ago when Bill suffered a stroke during the visit. Four months later he still is paralyzed on half of his body. He doesn’t recognize the voice or image of his wife. Because of the COVID situation nobody can go visit him and it’s been like that for months. I am…I have a heart for my friend, and I ask for your prayer for him, not only for God’s healing grace, but for his salvation at a time such as this for Bill which is so desperate. I’m praying that there’s somebody feeding him the word of God and bringing him to a salvation in the Lord. I don’t know that he believes in Christ. I think he considers himself a Christian but I’m raising up Bill and Jane his wife, Sarah and Colby his kids. Thank you for your prayers for me. Lord, have mercy and thank you for your provision, your grace, your love, mercy and power. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Hi Sherry from Kansas I just heard your praise report which is what it is because you are able to accomplish something that you have not been able to do in a really long time. So, I lift you up to God and I pray that He continues to help give you the strength and the ability to get the things done and the simple things in daily life and I hope that things can continue to get better for you every day. I will keep you in my prayers. And again, thank you so much for sharing with us. I pray for you in Jesus’ name. Amen. And God bless you.
Hi DAB family I just wanted to ask for your help. This is Dorothy out in California. Wanted to ask for prayers. I’m embarrassed to…to admit I just…I just feel so lost. I feel lost in my personal life, I feel lost about the future or the state that the worlds in. I have a couple of inventions that I think will help society. I…it’s so expensive to fund I don’t even know what direction to take and I feel like I don’t have enough together in me. And I know we’re supposed to just lay it at God’s feet. I just don’t feel like I have enough together to be able to move forward with anything. And all I can do is get through today. Anyway, I’m sure a lot of…with the curfew in place and everything else going on it’s not just that. It…I just feel lost and I need your help. Anyway, just don’t feel grounded. So, your prayer is much appreciated. This song came to mind. I don’t want to sing right now but [singing starts] all that you are I want. all you’ll allow we’ll embrace. With your strength and compassion all that you are we need [singing stops]
All of my brothers and sisters in Christ, I am calling first time and my name is Wanda. We are living here in Spain and me and my husband we are trying to do ministry for Spanish speaker. We both work this media production, which is a documentary about __ evolution and creation and it’s already four years since we’ve moved here in Spain and it’s been very challenging for me because I am from Belarus and I didn’t know language and during this time we got two babies and now I’m asking you to pray for God to answer our prayers because it’s so difficult. My husband works only part time and __ expensive and we can’t pay many things what we need. And now I just took money from my son from his jar to buy diapers. It’s very difficult…
Hi
this is Gloria in New York City it is…it is Wednesday June 3rd and I
haven’t called in a very long time, a very long time. I’ve been listening
though, and I heard Bart from Kentucky, I think, mentioned me at the very end.
I was surprised, very nicely surprised to hear…to hear that you are praying for
people that…some that he hadn’t heard from in a long time. And thank you so
much. I have always been praying for a couple for serious things. And anyway,
last year, my mom, she did pass away. It’s almost a year ago now. I actually had
a pretty serious medical issue myself which…but I just want to give glory to
God because I’m doing very well just thank God so thankful because fortunately
the divorce I had been praying against did happen and I was not happy about
that. It was all this stuff in one month and now you know here we are in we’re
all going through a lot of…a lot of stuff but I have to say, I mean, globally
and nationally and here in New York City it’s, you know, obviously with the
rioting I live pretty close to one of the big hotspots, Union Square. And…but I
want to just tell everybody and encourage everyone, I…just…I mean…I just been
studying the Bible constantly and have been out there praying for our city, our
country. Praying for repentance and for people to…for those of us in the church
especially to really get out there and bring the message of the cross to…to a
world that’s just perishing. It’s also heartbreaking but through it all God is
good and thank you again for remembering me Bart. God bless you all and I’ll
try to call, not two years from now. Bye.