Month: October 2020

Jeremiah 35:1-36:32, 1 Timothy 5:1-25, Psalms 89:14-37, Proverbs 25:25-27

Today is the 20^th day of October welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is wonderful to be here with you today. It is a joy to come around the Global Campfire and take the next step forward, which is what we do every day. And, so, let’s dive in. We’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. Jeremiah, chapters 35 and 36 today.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for continuing the journey and…and taking us deeper and deeper and deeper into it. We thank You for the admonition to respect those who are older than us, who are before us, who are wiser than us, who have lived longer than us who are brothers and sisters in Christ. We see them as Fathers and mothers and that we should see those that are contemporary with us as brothers and sisters, with all purity, that this is the posture that we have toward one another, the posture of a family and we thank You that You have made us a family, Your family, not just any group of people who have decided to bind themselves together in some sort of family apparatus, Your family on this earth. And, so, Father, it’s been a tense year and we’ve had every opportunity to do anything but treat each other like family. Or maybe we’ve treated each other like family in our darkest moments but when we’re really after each, when we’re really, really perturbed and the gloves are off but You have invited us to be unified, that You are the head of this household as it were, that You are the Father and that we are Your children and that we submit to You. And, so, as we move forward in these times, these pretty tense tenuous weeks that we find ourselves in, that You bind us together in love, that we treat each other in love, that we do what we do in Your name, that we stop and consider whether or not what we’re doing can be done in Your name because we represent You upon this earth. We are Your children and we are in this together. So, we represent the family, the family of God. And, so, Holy Spirit come and help us to behave appropriately we ask in the precious and mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Community Prayer and Praise:

My name is David Browning from Savannah Georgia and this is my first time calling in and I’m calling in because on October 12^th I heard God’s Smiles and I heard her prayer request and I felt…I heard the agony in her voice and I felt the agony in her pain and it brought me to tears and I just…I just prayed for her, I just prayed in agony and…and in tears for her for the relief of her pain. She is…her attitude is so phenomenal, and she is so positive and upbeat and blesses me so much every day. I pray for you God’s Smiles, every day I pray for you and for relief from your pain and for healing for your condition. I love you all DAB. I thank you Brian Hardin and your family for everything you’ve done. The DAB has brought incredible changes in my life in the last six months. I love you all and keep on keeping on. Good night.

This is Valerie calling for the first time from __ Arkansas and I am calling in regard to our 35-year-old son. He is a very good-looking intelligent boy going to respiratory therapy school at the time. He’s had asthma all his life and wants to help others with breathing difficulties but right now he’s in a very dark place mentally. He’s always struggled with anxiety and depression most of his life but right now he says he sees no light at the end of the tunnel and he says his quality of life is so, so bad that he really wants to take his own life. He’s socially isolated taking online classes. His brother has quit having anything to do with him and he just feels like he’s totally alone in this world. He’s not found a suitable woman yet to be a wife. He would love to get married and have children and he’s given up all hope on that. He’s telling me that any day now is going to be his last. As you know, as a mom this is very, very distressing, it’s heartbreaking, it’s crushing. I just appreciate everyone’s prayers for him, and I thank you so much.

Hi DABbers this is Kira from Denver and I put this on Facebook already but I wanted to lead my DAB family know that I did make a huge, huge leap and confronted my boyfriend and said I didn’t want to fornicate anymore but also I didn’t want to get married and I can see us being together forever. He got really really upset. I said…he said I’ll do anything. What can I do to make it better? And I said we need help. But then he switched, started gathering his stuff, and he’s been out and coming back. So, we want prayer for that. But to avoid him yesterday I went on a solo outing myself and I was walking along beautiful area outside Denver sort of mountainous doing a stretch and this woman came…saw me and came up to me and apparently was warning me about stretching like this. Was rare, but you could get hurt. She had torn her clavicle and she was in so much pain for years and years and years, so bummed she couldn’t do yoga anymore to make it better. We started crying and I started telling her about my testimony and my story and my beliefs and we walked together and talked together for a while. I asked her if I could pray for her and she said yes. She said her mom had prayed for her for years and years. She’s a little older…older woman. So just older than me. Anyway, please pray for Tammy. I was thinking a lot of God’s Smile when she was telling me about her pain. Anyway, it was nice to share my testimony through this grief and really hard stuff I’m going through. I love you DABbers…

Dear DAB family this is Dove from Northern California calling on October 14^th, 2020. I’ve been a listener for seven years and this podcast has truly changed my life. I suffer from excessive self-reliance and a reluctance to ask for help but God has brought to me my knees with my son’s opioid addiction over the past 15 years. I admit my powerlessness over my son’s addiction. My son has not had faith in God, and he is also felt that he could solve his own problems despite his addiction. However, he has been in jail for the past 18 months and will go before a judge on Monday, November 23^rd for sentencing. Since being in jail my son has been a problem the communicative, intelligent, and thoughtful person that he was prior to his addiction. He has expressed gratitude for Bible verses that I send to him. Please pray with me that his court appointed attorney will prepare for the court date thoroughly and will represent my son to the best of his ability. Please also pray that my son will be able to express his remorse and that the judge will find that my son is worthy of a chance at rehabilitation through his placement recommendation after his sentencing. Primarily I ask you DAB family to pray for my son to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior for him to humble himself before the Lord and for him to accept the forgiveness Jesus offered…offers and for his ultimate redemption. This is a lot to ask in my first call, but I trust that you will include him in your prayers. Thank you DAB.

Hi Daily Audio Bible family this is Stanley from Maryland. I just wanted to shout out Brian for writing of the book…oh…what’s it called? The God of Your Story, yeah. One-year adventure with the God of Your Story. Man, it’s just incredible to kind of see words on page. I know Brian does a good job of explaining a lot of what we are reading like day after day but I just want to kind give praise for this book because it…it reads less like a book and more like a…man…just…I don’t know how to say it…just a kind of explanation….not an explanation but expanding on the reading and it’s so encouraging to just read after listening to the actual reading. It’s something I can…I can ponder for the rest of the day. I’m a visual person…person, I’d like to think. I learn more visually. So, for me and if you’re…for me it helps and if you’re like…like me and you like to see the words on the paper it helps a lot. And, so, I really appreciate it and…and just want to encourage you as you continue to go through this journey with…with…with the community, pick up the God of Your Story or buy it maybe for a Christmas gift so you can start it next year. It’s not too late and it’s definitely been a blessing in my life. I…I love it and I love the gold little placeholder in the middle, the ribbon. It’s…it’s just…it’s beautiful…it’s a beautiful, beautiful design. All right. Stay humble.

Hello DABbers, this is Kristen Brown at __ Louisiana I’m calling to say we’re about to have a double DABber baby. First, we had a DABber baby __ then we had we had the first grandbaby now we’re about to have a double DABBer baby. Congratulations Jill and Ben. Family I’m calling for prayers for my sister. She’s in the hospital with the virus and she’s in critical condition her name is Janice. Please lift Janice up in your prayers. She desperately needs it because she is in critical condition. Secondly, there’s a gentleman who called in, I think the other day about his abdominal pain after having a surgery and it felt like gas pain __ and I identify with that. Immediately my prayers went out for him. Family I desperately still need prayers…

Jeremiah 33:1-34:22, 1 Timothy 4:1-16, Psalms 89:1-13, Proverbs 25:23-24

Today is the 19^th day of October welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is a joy and a deep, deep privilege and honor to be here with you today as we just come in, come in out of whatever’s going on, come in out of the storm. Come in its…there’s a roaring Global Campfire here and we’re all seated around it, we’re all here together and we’re all coming in out of the storms of life to just reorient ourselves to God, just let His Scripture, let the word of God wash over us, wash into us transforming us little by little, day by day. And, so, it is always a joy and a privilege to be around the Global Campfire. And, so, let’s dive in for today. This week we’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible continuing our journey through Jeremiah. Today chapters 33 and 34.

Commentary:

Okay. In the letter that we are reading known as first Timothy instructions were given to Timothy the one who this letter is written to, that he should…that he should basically train, work himself out, like train to be godly. And training to be godly, I mean, all…aren’t we all on that page? Like, I want to train to be godly. How do you train to be godly? And we have to begin with a what…what is what is it to train for anything? And to train means to practice, right, to receive instruction on proper form or whatever it is we’re gonna train for, to receive instruction and then to practice until mastery and then to keep practicing and to see just how far we can take it. That’s what training is. And, so, for we who are believers in Jesus then to train to be godly would be to do whatever we need to do to practice being Christlike, to practice being like our Savior. That’s kind of the goal of this Christian faith, is to receive this precious gift of eternal life and then to live into it by becoming essentially, according the Bible, a mirror image - to be Christlike. So, how does that training work? And this is so good. This is so good for us to consider at this point in the in the year because every time we come to a new week we call it a shiny, sparkly, new week and we think about the fact that we get to live into that week and how we’re gonna live into that week is what’s gonna make our week. Like, we said that yesterday, right? So, here we are now in that week we were talking about and the choices and decisions and motivations that we are employing today are telling the story of today and they are also one of the chapters telling the story of this week. So, we string these weeks together, living into being Christlike and things begin to change. We might’ve thought it was gonna be like a magic when it was actually going to be just like training for anything else - hard work, endurance and sacrifice, right? You’re training for a marathon, that’s what’s going to be required. If you’re training in the gym, that’s what’s going to be required. If you’re training to get your masters then that is what’s going to be required – sacrifice, endurance, hard work. And then practicing what we have learned over and over and over and over until it’s like we don’t even think about it anymore, we have become masterful at what we’ve trained to do. So, instead of like going back to yesterday and looking into this shiny, sparkly, new week or going back a month ago, let’s go back to the day we started our journey. If my calendars right, including leap year than that was 293 days ago. We started…we got on this ship and we set sail with the intention of voyaging together through the entire year, an entire year together every day making the Bible the center of the rhythm of our lives around this Global Campfire. And then what we found out is that there was so much more this journey. There were other people on this journey. This is not a solitary journey and we’ve fallen in love with each other. This is what happens as we take this voyage in the same direction. There are some who are not hearing me say this today because they did not continue to train, right? Like somewhere along the path who knows who they are or where they are now but somewhere along the path they drifted off this voyage and they are doing whatever they are doing, but some of us are hearing this and we have voyaged, we have traveled the entire amount of days to get here and we can see that it makes a difference, likely because this is the way we are. Likely we had other goals 293 days ago on New Year’s Day. Likely we had some fitness goals, most people do, some dietary goals, most people do exist. It’s like we get between Christmas and New Year’s and we start thinking about all of the things that we are going to change to have a more productive love filled, joyous year. And, so, we’re gonna make some of those changes, we’re gonna work on the marriage, we’re gonna…we’re gonna try to do, you know, get the promotion, whatever. We have these goals that we set, and usually spiritual goals are one of the goals and fitness goals are one of the goals. So, maybe we bought a whole new wardrobe to work out, we’re 293 days into this year. Have you continued? We can all go, “yeah, not so much because Covid. I mean like the world shut down this year. So, instead of losing 19 pounds for Covid 19 I gained 19 pounds.” But some people actually pressed in, found alternative ways to continue the journey that they had committed to for the year. And, so, have worked on their fitness, and I’ve worked on their spirituality and are feeling drastically different than they did 293 days ago because they trained. They practiced and practiced and practiced until change came. And change isn’t an immediately noticeable thing. If you gotta ose 50 pounds and you lose 10 maybe people are starting to notice maybe not, but there is no doubt about how you are feeling. You may be discouraged that it’s not happening fast enough but there’s no doubt that you are feeling more healthy because you are eating more healthy and you are giving your body things that your body knows what to do with instead of junk that it’s not certain what to do with and so it will put it wherever it can. If you stick to that training if you practice change will come. It’s inevitable. Why do we not realize that that is a spiritual reality as well? If you train if you practice if we center ourselves in God’s word, and then start watching ourselves watching like when we become angry and how a switch can be pulled and that anger ratchets up to like rage, how does that happen? We have to train to watch ourselves so that in the moment at the crossroads when wisdom is saying go this way and don’t go that way, we have trained ourselves to listen and obey and catch ourselves. And this can be about any aspect of our lives. This is how we submit ourselves to God. This is how we train to listen to the Holy Spirit. And if we will continue to practice change is inevitable. This is kind of what is being said to Timothy, “train yourself. Train yourself to be godly, to be Christlike.” May we all take that one on board and carry it forward into this week because we’re still at the beginning of the week and we still have the story of this week to tell. And maybe we can train, we practice being Christlike. And maybe, maybe if we keep doing that, maybe we can master it because the Bible seems to indicate that that’s where this is all going. That’s where we’re headed. Will we master it in our own strength? No. We’re not on our own though. We never have been. We do have to endure. We do have to practice. We do have to train. We do have to stay focused. This is what training is but it’s possible. What do we have to lose? Like how many times have we said that this year? Look in the mirror. Just look around. Like, is everything perfect? Is it how you want it? If not than what is there to lose by trying to be Christlike, which is the goal of our faith?

Prayer:

Father we invite You into that. Jesus come. It is Your face that we seek, it is Your life, Your character that we read of that we are trying to live into and Your Holy Spirit has promised to lead us into all truth to reveal this narrow path that leads to life that You spoke of. And, so, we are here, we are open, we are once again resetting, we are once again repenting. Your word continually presses in upon us to show us the way to go and here we are, and this is the way to go. And, so, come Holy Spirit, well up within us as we start to train as we pay attention to what we are doing and how it is we lose control in any way, how we lose…when we relinquish control of ourselves we have abandoned what You are doing in our lives. And, so, we don’t want another day like that. It’s counterproductive. It’s leading us in the wrong direction. And, so, lead us forward as we pay attention as we train ourselves to be godly in the name of Jesus we as. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it is our little presence on the World Wide Web. Does anybody even call it that anymore? It’s our little spot out there in…in the…on the Internet and virtual community like ours that’s spread out all over every time zone and every continent, well we need a place…we need a place to call home and this is our place. So, check it out.

Check out the resources that are available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop. Check out the Community section. This is where the Prayer Wall lives. This is where links are to get connected on social media. So, check it out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com as well. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address, if that’s your preference, is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, there are number of ways you can reach out. If you’re using the app, you can press the Hotline button, the little red button at the top and just share from there no matter where you are on this planet or if you prefer dialing the telephone there are a number of numbers that you can use depending on where you are. If you’re in the Americas 877-942-4253 is the number to call. If you are in the UR K…UK…if you are in the UK or Europe 44-20-3608-8078 is the number or if you are in Australia or that part of the world 61-3-8820 5459 is the number to call.

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:

Yeah, my name is Joel Maddox and I was just calling in because I need prayer. I have a lot of stuff going on in my life and I’m ready to give up and throw in the towel. I’ve lost everything because of stupid choices and decisions in my life. I lost loved…a loved one that I cared about more than anything and I can’t stand to see myself in the mirror anymore. I don’t know what to do. Everybody has kinda left me and then, you know, you get these scriptures where they’re trying to say, “hey, you’re still gonna make it, you’re gonna make it” and all I want is a hug and then to be told that I’m loved and actually be loved. So, I need you guys to pray for me. I need it so badly because I’m some so ready to just give up. I’m so tired. I’m just so tired. Please God help me.

Good morning everyone this is Joyful J in the Everglades. I just listened to October 11^th, 12^th, and 13^th kind of doing a little catch-up and there was a gentle man I believe is…he said it was the Mosher family who’s nephew’s life was taken by the hands of another person on October 2^nd. Oh, my goodness my heart is so going out to you and your family and your sister. Lord I just thank You so much that You do care enough that we can come as a family before You and we can lift up this family who is hurting so bad. To lose four family members in four years, oh my, I can’t even imagine. But my heart is crying for this family, for this sister. Lord, You know what they need. I can’t even…like to have a family members life taken from them at the hands of another person. Oh. I pray for protection for all of the people in this country, in this world. Protect us from the evil that lingers out there in the streets. Protect us from the evil that wants to knock on our doors and wants to knock on our souls that wants to take over our minds Lord. I pray Lord that You are just push that away, let us learn to come into Your hand. Let us learn to put on the armor of God. Let us seek You, let us get comfort sitting in Your hand Lord. I just have no words. There are no words. Lord but my heart is crying for this family…

This is Candace from Oregon speaking specifically to God’s smile. You’ve been in such deep waters, floods threatening to engulf you. Sister we love you so much. I feel God leading me to lead all of us in prayer for you. From Psalm 69 is where most of these words and thoughts have come from. Lord for all that God’s Smile must endure we pray to You Lord in the time of Your favor in Your great love oh God answer God’s Smile with Your sure salvation. Rescue her from the mire. Do not sink. Deliver her from those who hate You Lord. We rebuke all foul spirits who torment her in any way and ask You to lift her from the deep waters. Do not let them engulf her or the depths swallow her up. Answer God’s Smile Lord out of the goodness of Your love in Your great mercy. Do not hide Your face from Your servant. Answer her quickly when she is in trouble. Come near and rescue her Lord. We think about that time Lord when You were dying for us on the cross and they put vinegar up to Your lips. Oh Lord be with God’s Smile afflicted and in pain may Your salvation protect her. She presses Your name along she glorifies You Lord with Thanksgiving. It pleases You. Thank You so much for how she has blessed us all.

Good morning everybody. Hey this is Annette Allison from Oklahoma City actually in the middle of nowhere east of Amarillo Texas coming back from a wonderful vacation with my sons in Colorado, Durango. It was wonderful. It was great to see them both. God’s Smile this morning you were on my mind. I was listening to your heart just pouring out paying that you’re going through, and I wanted you to know sister that I am praying for you and that I love you. I understand how it feels to go through pain that’s just unmanageable and I do I do I do, I lift you up and I want you to know that when you were on the…on the prayer request line, I’m a few days behind, I’m trying to catch up today I was praying for you and something crazy happened. I was driving down the road and I’m sitting here praying and praying and I come over this rise and there is this giant cross on the…in the middle of the highway. When I get off the road, I’m going to send this picture to you. It’s like crazy. I…I…I just have to take it that that’s a sign that God says He hears you. I know, I know every time that the Lord hears I know that He always like gives an answer, doesn’t He? And, so, I don’t know what His answer and His plan is for you, but I just have to say that I think, I know that the Lord hears you. I know that He does. So, I love you sister. I hope you feel better very, very soon and I just want you to know that I love you very much. All right? Have a great day. Bye, Bye.

Hello Daily Audio Bible this is Duane from Wisconsin. All praise and glory to our wonderful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Calling in today for God’s Smile. All of us on the Daily Audio Bible know who God’s Smile is and her wonderful praises that she sings and gives out encouragement she gives out to everybody. What a blessing she is for this community as well a number of others of you, for all of…all of you. But today she needs us to lift her up. Dear Lord, we’re lifting up God’s Smile to You. The pain that she is suffering Lord, we pray, we’re on our knees. We’re begging, we’re pleading with You that You would take that pain away from her. Lord she is such a good and faithful Christian. We are asking, though we know we have no right to ask, but we are. We’re on our knees, we’re begging and pleading that You would please take away the pain. Allow her to sing for us Lord, to lift praises up for You, to encourage others Lord without any pain. Our heart is breaking for her. We’re reaching out to You Lord. Please Lord we are begging You that You would relieve her of this pain. We ask this in our wonderful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Brian and Jill, we again thank you for this wonderful podcast.

Hi Jeannie from Florida this is God’s Grace for Japan, my prayer for Japan. And I’m going to pray for you. You asked for us to pray for you to lose weight so I’m going to do that. Lord I pray that You take Jeannie’s hand and that You encourage her that she is fearfully and wonderfully made, that You love this beautiful glorious body that You have provided for her. You care for it You want her to care for it too. You want her to nurture it You want her to train it and make it strong You want her to feed it well with really beautiful good things that You have provided for her to eat. I pray that You encourage her to use her body as the temple for Your Spirit that You have asked her to use it for. I thank You so much that You encourage us and equip us with these beautiful bodies that You have given us and I pray that You will take her on a wonderful journey to learn how to glorify You with her body through how she uses it through how she feeds it through how she loves it and cherishes it. But I also ask that You encourage her to know that this is Your beautiful body that You’ve already given her. And You will heal the parts of it that need to be healed and You will carry her through the journey of healing that is necessary. So, if there’s something wrong or if there’s something sick or she has too much weight on it, something holding her down preventing her body from being the temple that You require it to be Lord I ask that You guide her through that journey of finding that and coming to a healing place so that she can glorify You with this beautiful temple that You’ve given her. Love you Jeannie. Bye.

Hello family my name is Chris from Florida. I’ve been listening about two years now out of a recommendation of a friend of mine. I listen to the reading. I listen to the explanations and I’ve gotten a lot from this community. I listen to everybody’s prayers after. Don’t always get to the community prayers just due to the length of time, how many there are. But today I come to you in need of prayer for my daughter. She’s 12 years old and her mom passed last night. So, if you could, keep us lifted up for peace and healing. She’s a believer so we know that she’s home, but I can’t imagine going through what she’s about to go through at that age and she’s gonna need everybody in her corner that’s willing to be there for her. Thank you.

Jeremiah 31:27-32:44, 1 Timothy 3:1-16, Psalms 88:1-18, Proverbs 25:20-22

Today is the 18^th day of October welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is great to be here with you today as we greet another shiny, sparkly, new week. And it’s all there waiting for us. We pay attention to that most every beginning of a new week. It’s all out in front of us. And we can look back from this vantage point and see what last week was about. It was the culmination of the choices and decisions that we made and how that worked out. And we’re here at a brand-new week and we can make some adjustments if necessary and live into this new week with new purpose. So, we’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. Jeremiah chapter 31 verse 27 through 32 verse 44.

Prayer:

Father we thank you for your word and we thank you for escorting us, pulling us forward, day by day step-by-step to this day, which is the brand-new sparkly beginning of a new week and we certainly thank you because there have been days where we didn’t know how we were going to swim across, or where we didn’t know how we were not gonna be stuck in the mud. And you have brought us here. You have been faithful even when we haven’t, and we are certainly reading the repercussions of that as we read Jeremiah. We’re seeing where the roads of unfaithfulness end up and we are choosing to not walk the road of unfaithfulness and idolatry. We choose to worship you and you alone and place our faith and hope and trust in you and you alone because you and you alone have brought us here and you have been faithful even when we haven’t. And, so at the beginning of another week we come to you, we repent, we change our minds, we change our direction and we begin to walk into this week with newness of spirit and ask that your Holy Spirit lead and guide our choices, our conversations, and the motivations of our heart. Come Holy Spirit, well up within and lead us into all truth we pray. In Jesus name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it’s the website, it’s how you get connected, it’s how you find resources that are available. It's…well…it’s where Global Community and a Global Campfire like ours…well…it’s month where we live. It’s home base. So, check it out. Check out the resources that are available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop. These resources have been crafted over many years and just tailored to the experience of going through the Scriptures. So, things to write in, things to write with, things to drink from, things to make to drink, things to carry around, things to wear, things to read to take the journey deeper, things to watch to take…to take that journey deeper and make the Bible come to life. So, check out the resources that are available in the Shop.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com as well. There is a link and it lives on the homepage and I thank you humbly and profoundly for your partnership. 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 mail, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button at the top, pretty tough to miss. I would say virtually impossible to miss if you’re looking for it. And, so, you can hit the hot line button, or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Jeremiah 30:1-31:26, 1 Timothy 2:1-15, Psalms 87:1-7, Proverbs 25:18-19

Today is the 17^th day of October welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is great to be here with you as we put the finishing touches on another one of our weeks together. And, yeah, we’re just moving along, and we will continue this journey every single day all the way until we dock on the other shore having spent an entire year together. And then we’ll grab some…well some stuff, whatever we for the journey and start over again. But this is where we are. And, so, we’re in the book of Jeremiah in the Old Testament and we’re reading to first Timothy in the New. We’re reading from the New International version this week, which is today. Jeremiah chapter 30 verse 1 through 31 verse 26.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for bringing us successfully through another week. We are grateful. It is kind of our custom to get to the end of the week and just acknowledge it, that You have brought us through, that we’re here, that You’ve spoken to us, that You continue to speak to us, that You speak to us in profoundly comforting ways, and then You speak to us in profoundly challenging ways. Like a Father You are Fathering us, You are leading us. And we pray Holy Spirit that we become more and more aware of Your guidance and leadership in our lives. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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Jeremiah 28:1-29:32, 1 Timothy 1:1-20, Psalms 86:1-17, Proverbs 25:17

Today is the 16^th day of October welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is wonderful to be here with you today as we continue our journey and, yeah, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover today. In the Old Testament we’re gonna cover, probably if not the most, one of the most famous passages in the Scriptures right now. And then when we get to the New Testament, we’ve got a brand-new letter in a whole new kind of series of letters that we’ll talk about when we get there. So, we’re reading from the New International Version this week. Jeremiah chapters 28 and 29.

Introduction to first Timothy:

Okay. So, now we come to our New Testament portion for today and we enter this new grouping of letters, three letters. They are known as the pastoral letters or the pastoral epistles, and the first one is known as first Timothy and the other two are second Timothy and…and then the letter to Titus. Now these are highly disputed letters of Paul. There’s very few biblical scholars who would affirm that Paul wrote these letters, much like we’ve talked about before, like the letter to the Hebrews. We…we don’t know who the author actually is. There are those that say these are letters from Paul, there Pauline in their kind of ethos, but this is not like a new debate. This is a centuries old thing that’s been going on for a very long time, whether or not Paul wrote these letters, which letters Paul actually wrote, which came from Pauline influences but maybe later than Paul. And that kind of debate is a vigorous thing until this very day. And, so, those that would favor that Paul didn’t write the pastoral letters would say that in these letters there’s church structure, right, polity church governance. There’s ways of things being done that…that’s being said in these letters that were later inventions after Paul’s lifetime. And as a side note, I mean Paul has only ever been a controversial figure, I mean from the beginning of his ministry. And, so, we’ve talked about why, especially the Jew, Gentile, kind of rub there, the tension that existed but Paul’s still controversial today. And if he’s controversial today, it’s around church governance things that get said in some of his letters that then get hotly, hotly debated and vigorously defended. And, so, for those that are like, yeah, these things that were laid down, they came after Paul, Paul did not put these in place then we’re looking at like just a little bit after Paul, how as the church grew, how structures were put into place. And there’s pretty much no scholars out there that…that don’t affirm the fact that the language in the pastoral letters is a bit different than the language in any of the other letters but then  those would be more persuaded to for Paul’s authorship would…would like, you know, they authenticate themselves, the author claims to be Paul in the letters, these letters were referred to by the early church fathers. And then maybe that the language differences are because these weren’t circular letters, like these weren’t letters to be performed in front of an audience at church to be sort of read as a word of encouragement directly to a church. These are personal letters. And, so, they weren’t supposed to be passed around even though they obviously were passed around or we wouldn’t have them today. But that’s kind of what's…what’s going on around these three letters, the pastoral epistles. They are correspondences to two different pastors who were very, very close to Paul, - Timothy and Titus - who had under Paul’s leadership become pastors themselves. And, so, they were directly caring for churches that…that had been established by Paul. And the churched needed leadership, strong leaders who understood the doctrine or the teachings of Paul regarding the faith, the faith itself and how to live into it in community. So, you know, we’ll talk about Titus when we get to Titus. But the very first pastoral letter is to Timothy. And Timothy is somebody we know. We’ve been hearing of his name a lot. He is a protégé. He grew up in the shadow of the ministry of the apostle Paul and we met him in the book of Acts. So, we know a little bit about Timothy. His mother’s name was Eunice, his grandmother’s name was Lois, they were from the city of Lystra, they were some of the early believers. And Lystra is now in modern-day Turkey. Paul introduced the faith the Timothy. Timothy received that faith, believed in Jesus and became a loyal follower and…and disciple of Paul. Paul loved Timothy enough to call him a son, like a spiritual son in the faith, and not just like a son in the faith that was distant. Like, Paul directly mentored Timothy in the faith and in church leadership for that matter. And Timothy was kind of Paul’s go to messenger. So, we hear Timothy mentioned in six of the other letters of Paul in the New Testament and often in the context of Paul sending Timothy with a letter or Paul sending Timothy to a church, and Timothy returning with news of how things were going. So, Paul’s kind of a stand in, a representative…or I’m sorry…Timothy’s a representative of Paul during his ministry. And, so, Timothy knows the churches. He’s been around church leadership enough to know people. So, he’s got some skill and he’s got some experience. And when this letter is written it is near the end of Paul’s ministry if…if Paul wrote this. I mean, the context of that it’s set in. And Timothy’s a pastor. He’s a pastor of the church in Ephesus a strong church where…where Paul spent a lot of time. And it’s just a spiritual father writing to his spiritual son, guiding him, giving him counsel, giving him encouragement. And there’s a lot of personal personality, like love and hope. It’s personal to Timothy, not just to the entire church itself. This is the letter where Paul says to his son in the faith Timothy to fight the good fight of faith. And, so, we begin the short letters, personal letters, known as the Pastoral letters. First Timothy chapter 1.

Commentary:

Okay. So, you probably recognize the very, very famous Scripture that we passed through in the book of Jeremiah today and maybe even when you heard it in its context you were like, wow, that’s a different story kind of like the one I’ve been thinking or quoting. And if you’ve been, you know, one or more revolutions around the sun hear the Daily Audio Bible then you kinda know this. But this is one of the greatest examples of how context matters while reading the stories in the Bible as there are. And…and really, really one of the most helpful examples because this is one of the most famous Scriptures, “for I know the plans I have for you says the Lord,” right? “And there plans for good and not for harm or disaster. They are plans to give you a future and a hope.” Chances are you can quote that. It’s like one of the most memorized verses in the Bible, one of the most quoted verses in the Bible. And, I mean, those couple of sentences they’re actually lifted out of a letter that Jeremiah had sent. So, Jeremiah is in the holy city of Jerusalem that is basically a conquered land that is now deporting people. Many, many people, like all of the aristocracy, the royalty, the best laborers, the smartest thinkers, kinda like the cream of the crop best of the best, these people have already been sent away into exile in Babylon. And Babylon’s not like just a town, it’s an empire. So, people are being dispersed all over the place. Families are being broken up, people have died, there’s a bunch of stuff going on in the disruption and dislocation of people. There are those who are left in Jerusalem. Jeremiah the prophet is still in Jerusalem prophesying from Jerusalem. And there are those who are speaking for God in Babylon. There are people, prophets, who are speaking for God in Jerusalem. And since there are still people in Jerusalem these profits are like going, “you know, this is all gonna be over soon. This is all gonna be over really quick. Within two years all the stuff that’s been taken from here is coming back. It’s not gonna take that long. It’s gonna be a quick thing.” Jeremiah, on the other hand, has been saying all along, “it’s not. It’s not gonna be as quick of a thing as what you’re saying anyways. And there were all kinds of points where this story could have turned, the plot could’ve shifted. You were warned. You were warned.” Of course, we’ve already talked about how difficult of a scenario this is, the faith that the people would have to put into the surrender to the Empire that they saw as their enemy - Babylon. Babylon is coming. So, they looked at this invading nation, this invading Empire as the enemy, when Jeremiah is prophesying, “they’re not really the enemy. They will be your protector ultimately. They’re kind of going to be used in my master plan as a bulldozer. We are starting some things over. It’s gonna take a minute, we gotta build new foundations, we gotta start this thing over because the trajectory is only evil and I’m not putting up with it anymore. The covenant has been broken for the last time”, basically. So, this is what Jeremiah’s kind of been saying, but there are other prophets who are saying, “no it’s not gonna be like that at all. The mighty arm of the mighty God is gonna do some mighty arm mighty God things and He’s gonna use that mightiness and this is all gonna be over quickly even though it never had to happen.” And even though God’s saying through Jeremiah, “that’s not the plan. These quick fixes these Band-Aids, they’re not working anymore. You keep returning to only evil. So, we’re gonna do something different and it’s gonna take a little longer.” Okay. Are you with me? Because that’s the backdrop for this very famous passage. Jeremiah from Jerusalem writes a letter to the exiles who have already been taken away to Babylon. This letter is supposed to be distributed and…and move around kind of like Paul’s letters only much earlier. And, so, now I read from the letter placing our famous passage in context. “This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Build houses, settle down, plant gardens and eat what they produce, marry and have sons and daughters, find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there”, right? So, in exile. “Increase in number there. Do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it because if it prospers you too will prosper. Yes, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel says. Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them declares the Lord. This is what the Lord says. When 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” These people did not specifically particularly want this message. They would have very much preferred the two-year plan that other prophets were prophesying in the name of the Lord about how quickly this plague, this exile was gonna be over which ironically is…is sort of the general use of these famous sentences, “behold, I know the plans I have for you”, right? Somehow embedded into our quotation of this is a short time span, that God knows the plans that He has for us and they are coming quickly, which is not the context for this verse or what’s being said here at all. What God is saying to those people is it’s gonna take 70 years. So, basically a generation. And what God says is, and I’m quoting, “build houses and settle down, plant gardens and eat what they produce, marry and have sons and daughters, find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters.” In other words, like the next generation. “Increase in number there. Do not decrease. Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it because if it prospers you to will prosper.” And then basically goes on to tell the people. “Don’t let people lie to you. This is what I’m saying.” So, for those of us who like quote, “behold I know the plans I have for you” to ourselves or to others who are in or like basically feel like they’re in exile. Some of us feel like we’re just…we…we’ve been in exile forever, but this is not where we believe, we need to move out from here, we need you to be moving in some other direction, the path has to lead somewhere other than this. We feel trapped. We feel stuck and we keep telling us God’s got a plan. God does and He did have a plan here. What he told him was, “settle in. This is gonna take a minute. You don’t have to be upside down in all this. You don’t have to be only longing for what you no longer have. You don’t have to be all anxious and all uptight about what you…you don’t have right now. You can settle in. We are restarting something. It’s gonna take a minute. I have plans and they are good, and they don’t have to start in 70 years they can start now. You can prosper where you are while you wait. And then you will fully bloom and fully prosper later, right where you are while you wait, you can prosper.” That is the message of Jeremiah 29:11. That is not as flashy of a prophecy as some of the other prophets were speaking which is like “this is all gonna be over so quick. You’re gonna barely remember it even happened. Within two years all the exiles, all the stuff’s coming back.” The problem is that just wasn’t true and is not the context of this verse. God is giving His people though permission to thrive where they are, even if they don’t want to be where they are. They can thrive. The thriving doesn’t have to start when they finally get to where they want to be. It can start now and continue as God’s plan unfolds. Some of us, yeah, we’d still like the two-year plan, right? We’d like the six-month plan. We’d like the 30-day plan. Like we just want this all to go away when actually what’s being invited here is a shift of internal focus, a settling down, a ceasing of striving towards something that we just keep bashing our head against over and over and over. Maybe it’s gonna take a minute but maybe we can thrive. Maybe we can prosper where we are while we wait. I mean, if we’re honest isn’t this really kind of the backdrop of life itself. Like haven’t we come to a place of the now and the not yet? Haven’t we come to a place in our faith where we are living into it? And yes, we fall down, and we get up and we fall down and we are continuing to press forward. But ultimately, we’re waiting. We’re waiting. We’re waiting for God to do what’s next; we’re waiting for Jesus. Same as the people that we’re reading about in the letters in the New Testament. So, maybe we can prosper where we are while we wait.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit we invite You into that. We don’t like waiting. It’s hard. It can be really, really, really hard sometimes knowing that the best is out in front of us, but not being able to get anything but a glimpse once in a while. It’s hard. And, so, You are inviting us to stop worrying about what is out in front of us because that isn’t happening. It has not yet happened, but things are happening now. And when all of our focus is out in front of us on things that are not happening, we are missing what is happening, that You have given us permission to thrive. And, so, come Holy Spirit and help us appreciate with deepest gratitude where we are. And may we settle in as You have said and follow Your time and follow Your plan instead of the anxiousness of our own. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.

Song:

While I Wait - Lincoln Brewster

Deep within my heart, I know You’ve won
I know You’ve overcome
And even in the dark, when I’m undone
I still believe it

I live by faith, and not by sight
Sometimes miracles take time

While I wait, I will worship
Lord, I’ll worship Your name
While I wait, I will trust You
Lord, I’ll trust You all the same

When I fall apart, You are my strength
Help me not forget
Seeing every scar, You make me whole
You’re my healer

I live by faith, and not by sight
Sometimes miracles take time
I live by faith, and not by sight
Sometimes miracles take time

While I wait, I will worship
Lord, I’ll worship Your name
While I wait, I will trust You
Lord, I’ll trust You all the same

You’re faithful every day
Your promises remain
You’re faithful every day
Your promises remain
You’re faithful every day
Your promises remain
You’re faithful every day
Your promises remain

Though I don’t understand it
I will worship with my pain
You are God, You are worthy
You are with me all the way

So while I wait, I will worship
Lord, I’ll worship Your name
Though I don’t have all the answers
Still I trust You all the same