2 Samuel 20:14-21:22, Acts 1:1-26, Psalm 121:1-8, Proverbs 16:18
Today is the 3rd day of June welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian, it’s a joy and a privilege and an honor and all good things to be here around the Global Campfire with you today. As we take the next step forward we are still working our way through 2 Samuel in the Old Testament, so that will be the next step forward. When we get into the New Testament reading today we will be entering brand new territory as we have concluded the gospel the story of Jesus’ life and ministry yesterday. And so now we kind of move into the church era and what happens next after Jesus ascension as we begin the Book of Acts but we’ll talk about that in a few minutes. First, we need to read from 2 Samuel. We’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. 2 Samuel 20:14-21:22.
Introduction to the Book of Acts:
Okay so, here we are at the threshold of a brand-new book but also the threshold of brand new territory. The Book of Acts will reveal to us what happened after Jesus ascending back to the Father and the voice, the writing voice in Acts will be somewhat familiar with us because the author of Luke is also the author of Acts. And so, some would call like Acts: 2 Luke or other scholars combine them together: Luke-Acts. But either way we are kind of in the second volume of this writing the Gospel of Luke, of course, dealing with Jesus life and ministry and death and resurrection and then Acts, kind of picking up with the story and continuing on forward after…after Jesus ministry. So, one thing we’ll see in the Book of Acts as we get going is that it mostly deals with 2 specific people; it’s the Acts of the Apostles but there are 2 specific people that are dominant in the Book of Acts. The first we’ll meet first, the Apostle Peter, who we’ve all met in the gospels. But he goes through quite a transformation when the Holy Spirit is sent, as Jesus promised. And then after the ministry of Peter we’ll begin to see a zealot Pharisee named Saul who is determined to wipe the name of Jesus from the thoughts and hearts and lips of anyone who would dare speak it. And he’s in the process of doing all of this when he meets Jesus and his name is changed from Saul to Paul and we know him as the Apostle Paul. So, we’ll meet the Apostle Paul in the Book of Acts, kind of the second half of the Book of Acts, we’ll deal with Paul’s ministry and then after that we move into some of the letters and we’ll be camping out with Paul for quite some time. This is the beginning of what we know as the church. Like the capital C church, the body of Christ. This begins what we would know theologically and historically as the church era and we’re still in that era. And so, what we have is a really fantastic opportunity. Because we can look all around at all the traditions of the Christian faith and all the different ways that people believe and all the different things that they focus upon and all the different things that we battle about and so often when I hear those kind of discussions myself, they’re usually included with some kind of dreamy desire, like ‘I wish we could just go back to when it all began, I just wish we could go back to the Book of Acts when it was all really going on’, well here’s our chance, we’re going back to where it all began. And if we’ll look very closely, just pay attention, we’ll see that some of the rose-colored glasses that we have on… have on about that time, they need to be taken off. It wasn’t as if they didn’t have disagreements or struggles. So often when we’re referring to the time of Book of Acts and we want to go back to that early church time, it’s like, because that’s because it was perfect. It’s never been perfect. And they had very similar struggles to the kinds of struggles that we still have with each other. And so, let’s pay attention to that as we move forward, as we go forward in the New Testament and examine all these things because there’s so much there for us. So much to reshape us and reshape our thinking but also, so much for us to examine in ourselves and in the world we live in. So, with that we begin the Book of Acts today chapter 1.
Prayer:
Father we thank You for Your word. We thank You for bringing us through all the different territories, all the different sections that we can see. And so, we thank You for the gospels. And now as we turned the page and have moved into the Book of Acts we look forward with great, great anticipation for all that You will reveal and speak to us through the scriptures and all of the growth and transformation that is yet in front of us. And so, as we seal this day we take to heart the voice of wisdom at every crossroads telling us which way to go, she says pride comes before destruction and we know that, we can even quote that but we don’t think about it a lot. Pride precedes destruction. And so, we humble ourselves under Your mighty hand and ask Holy Spirit that You lead us away from Pride. We don’t want to sign up for destruction and so, come Holy Spirit and lead us on a narrow path, a humble path that leads to life. In the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com home base, that’s…that’s the Global Campfire, that’s where we go every day no matter how we get there to listen. We come through all that infrastructure. And so, that is where you find out what’s going on around here and how to stay connected. So, check out the Community section, check out the Daily Audio Bible Shop and if you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if this Global Campfire mission that we sit around every day and allow God’s word to wash into our lives and inform our lives and our weeks and our days and our months, if that is life giving to you than thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is P.O. 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 up at the top 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.
Prayers and Encouragement:
Hi Daily Audio Bible family my name is Enee, I live in Nigeria and I’ve been listening to the DAB for a year and a half now, I think. The encouragement I get from here is so wonderful and I’m so thankful for it. I’m calling today to ask for prayers, I just need priority in all areas of my life. I really pray for discipline to be stronger in my faith. There are so many moments where I go through, it’s almost go through a rollercoaster with my faith and with my emotions and I know we don’t worship God based on our emotions but when you’re not in the place to worship God you almost, to like, oh I don’t feel like, so you don’t want to do anything. I also just need prayers against temptation it’s a daily struggle and I’m just needing to be better. I want to thank Brian and Jill for everything that they do and the whole community honestly like it is very life changing for me and I’m so thankful. So, everybody have a good day. Oh, and today is the 29th, I just finished today’s podcast. And I pray everybody has a good day. Bye.
Hi, everyone my name is Kalolito’s I’m calling from Irving, California please pray for my soccer coach, Coach Andy Barnes and his family. My coach has cancer. Please pray God make him well again. Thank you. Bye.
Hi Daily Audio Bible, this is Rebecca from Michigan it’s May 31st, Memorial Day. You know what, I wanted to just pray because I have been really stressed with anxiety and it paralyzes my mind and does stuff to me. And, like this woman at my job came up to me and got in my face and told me I should find another job. Somebody I work with, I feel like I’m being harassed and bullied at my job and I’m kind of getting tired of it cause it’s been going on for years. I want prayer for this to just stop. Please pray for me that the harassment and bullying would stop. I usually don’t complain about this because what it is (inaudible) still is. So, I don’t know why people harass me and bully me it seems like all my life has a curse, I don’t know why, maybe because I don’t stick up for myself enough. But um, I’m kind of getting tired of it so, could you just pray for me that God would just touch my mind and help me get through this, I want to find some friends and friends to talk to. Thank you, have a nice day, bye.
Hi, this is Trinity in Southern California and today is June 1st of 2021 and I was listening today to the message and all the prayer request. And, I heard a gentleman call in today and he’s back in jail and having…it sounds like he’s having a real hard time with life in general with his family and everything and it just shattered my heart and I really felt the need to call in and pray. So, dear Heavenly Father, please, I lift up this gentleman to You and his family and ask that You heal wounds God and that You relieve the pain and the stress of choices that have been made God pray God that You would shine through in all of this no matter what happens God that Your will be done and that the glory be to you God. That You will bring good of this God. I ask that you bring comfort God, comfort to everybody involved in this situation. I can’t imagine the hurt and the fear that everybody must be feeling right now God. Please, just comfort them and heal them God and know that…let them know God that all things that happen can be turned to You God and will be turned to You God. In Jesus name. Amen.
This is Vye from the farm. I wanted to reply to the fellow who called about the difficulty of achieving forgiveness. I’ve found in my own life, the first thing is to, when I can’t forgive well, look to see what needs to be healed within myself and from that healing, after that I can begin to forgive. I find I may need to be healed of envy of jealousy, wounds to my own self-esteem due to my own pride. Wounds from feeling that I have been cheated or slighted, which again can go to my own pride and my own insecurities. My lack of understanding and realizing I have put expectations on others without remembering that they also are sinful and that they cannot be perfect and that I need to get out of my sense of betterment and reduce my expectations of others and realize that they are just people. Sometimes it’s lack of insight and realizing I need to be healed of perceived wrongs but look first, if you can’t forgive, look first at yourself and ask God to heal you, to show you where you need healing and as that healing comes then turn to the task of forgiving others. I pray that these words are helpful.