2 Kings 4:18-5:27, Acts 15:1-35, Psalms 141:1-10, Proverbs 17:23
Today is the 23rd day of June welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian. Welcome. It’s good to be here with you. Got my seat here around the Global Campfire. And any time we come to the Global Campfire, we’re never…we’re never ever…like…it doesn’t matter when we push play somebody else is listening too and the word of God is being heard nonstop 7 days a week 24 hours a day. And I’m glad these particular minutes we get to be together as we move deeper and further into the Scriptures. So, we’re working our way into and through second Kings in the Old Testament. And, of course, the book of Acts in the new. We might notice that in first Kings we dealt a lot with the prophetic voice of Elijah. Now that we’re in second Kings we’re hearing a lot from the prophetic voice of Elisha who succeeded Elijah as essentially sort of the chief prophet. I’m like making that distinction. He wasn’t named…there wasn’t an office of chief prophet, but he was a senior prophet at least portrayed here in the book of Second Kings. And, so, let’s pick up that story. Second Kings chapter 4 verse 18 through 5 verse 27.
Commentary:
Okay. So, in the book of Acts today we come to what is known as the first church council. And there have been church councils over the years. Some church councils lasting for years and years and years to really search out and determine specific theologies. This first church council that’s recorded in the book of Acts deals with a very important, very important issue at the time and the decision of that counsel changes the complexion of the growing faith forever from this point forward. So, it’s important that we at least understand the lay of the land here. Basically, we’ve been reading the story of the Hebrew people, right? This is what we read since Genesis, and we continue to read of the kings of Judah and Israel right now. So, we’re traveling along with this specific family - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, all of their progeny forward. We’re following along with this family. And when Moses came along and became their prophet, they…they were freed from slavery and set apart as holy to God, separate…separate. They were not to intermingle with all the nations that they were going into, right? They were to be separate and the ultimate goal was that they would be a people that would be a light to the world, that they would be separate and live separate not because they were better but because they were set apart to be an example to the rest of the world about how…how life could be. In other words, this group of people were being set apart and given a different reality and they were living into that completely so that it would be an example to the other nations, that would bless the rest of the nations of the world. Well, that’s part of their DNA. That’s been part of their understanding of who they are. Jesus came and was one of them. He was a Hebrew, and He…His ministry was done within a Hebrew context. It was done within the confines of that story. So, when Jesus taught, He taught from the Torah. He taught within the ancestral homeland of this people where they were…well…where they were, at that point part of the Roman Empire, but they were still there and were still practicing their religion separately from the pagan religions of the Roman Empire around them. And within Judaism there were plenty of people who followed different rabbis, their specific way of teaching ore their specific way of understanding. They followed rabbis and no one ever thought they were leaving Judaism. Their rabbi was teaching them maybe their understanding or interpretation of it and ways to understand it more deeply, but they weren’t leaving Judaism. And, so, when Jesus came along and people began following this Rabbi and maybe with signs and wonders and everything, He was very popular for the time, but even those who were following Him, they weren’t thinking, “I’m following this Jewish rabbi who has signs and wonders from God accompanying them indicating that their anointed of God. Maybe a prophet of God and who knows maybe even the Messiah.” Like, they followed for all of these reasons, but they weren’t conceiving that what Jesus was doing was creating a brand-new world religion that they would need to then convert to in order to be a part of it. Jesus was Hebrew, was Jewish. He was teaching as a Jewish rabbi. He was teaching in synagogues, which are Jewish. He was moving around among the Jewish villagers. He indeed did interact with Gentiles. He indeed did interact with Samaritans and made Samaritans the heroes of His stories at times. So, He was definitely speaking inclusive type language, but His entire contract…His entire context of ministry was with inside that the Hebrew context. So, after Jesus died and was resurrected and ascended to the Father His earliest followers were Hebrew people that He had ministered to. To our knowledge the entire New Testament was written by Jewish people. That we know of there’s not a specific Gentile voice that is a writer in the New Testament. And, so, people could follow Jesus, not leave their…their entire society, not leave their communities, continue to practice Judaism obeying the Mosaic law while following Jesus. In fact, at this time in the earliest early church when everything pretty much is Hebrew centric no one would’ve really conceived of anything different. Jesus wasn’t inventing a new religion. He was the Jewish Messiah, the Anointed One sent by God, the fulfillment of it all, not the establishment of a brand-new religion. And that would’ve, generally speaking, been the mindset until… As the early church is beginning to rapidly bring people into the fold the Holy Spirit descends upon Gentile and Jew alike. This is like a rewiring of things. This is a bit of a new understanding. The…the Hebrew people following Jesus’ teachings, they would’ve had the understanding that, “okay, you can be God fearing, you can be a Gentile and follow Jesus, but if you…but Jesus is a Hebrew rabbi. So, if you really want to follow Jesus then you need to convert to…to Judaism, become circumcised, and begin obeying the law of God that…that came through Moses and then follow Jesus. Then you’ll be in.” And yet the argument, if it’s an argument, was that that’s not the distinction God made. God sent His Holy Spirit upon Gentiles in their Gentile-ness right where they were. They didn’t have to convert to Judaism to become a follower of Jesus. They could just follow Jesus. And this was a rift. This was a problem, a problem that not everybody who was a believer in Jesus agreed with. Like not everybody in the Jerusalem church in the Jerusalem Council agreed with this decision. We know this is a fundamental early problem because the problem shows up in the…in the letters of Paul when he talks about Judaizers, when he talks about people coming into…to the Gentile, to the mixed churches that he has founded, that they come in behind him and try to tell everybody that they’re not really followers of Jesus, they’re not Christian. Of course, this is a Gentile term, but that they’re not really…that they need to convert to Judaism and then they can correctly, rightly follow Jesus. So, what we have laid out in the Jerusalem Council that was decided that Gentiles were welcome because God was welcoming them. They were welcome just as they were. They were welcome to come to Jesus just as they were. They didn’t need to convert to Judaism, become a circumcised and, you know, obey the dietary laws and…and such. They were asked to avoid meat sacrificed to idols and sexual immorality. In effect what the decision became then is that you don’t come to Jesus through your adherence to the Mosaic law or even by trying to adhere to the teachings of Jesus. You to come through faith. All of this was a really big…this was a big deal. The Jews ultimately outright reject this teachings of Jesus. Well they have been rejecting the teachings of Jesus, but this is an outright distinction that is going to cause problems for the early believers. Up until this point it had been determined that followers of Jesus were just really following a Jewish rabbi, just kind of a sect of Judaism and then following the way of the Nazarene or following The Way. But as a way of observing and practicing Judaism. Once the Jewish people completely reject the inclusion of…of Gentiles then…then Christians will no longer be considered a sort of Jewish sect, which as they spread out into the Empire is going to really put them in some…on some hot seats because they’re going to be expected to…to worship the gods of the Empire. The only people who have a pass from that are the Jews because their religion is so much more ancient that they have been allowed to be separatists as long as they’ll obey the laws, the Roman laws. Everybody else is expected to give honor to the gods of the Empire. So, once the Jews reject that Christians are part of the Jewish heritage well then their pressed toward this idolatry and it becomes a problem that ultimately brings about tremendous persecution. So, what we read today is pretty important historically to the development of the church, but is a really really monumental distinction in how the church grew forward because although Christianity, although following the Nazarene, following the Rabbi Jesus, following the Son of the Living God, who was incarnated into human flesh as a Jew originated and was formed among the Hebrews. Today, it is almost 100% Gentile. And, so, it’s interesting to be able to look back and see some of the origin of how things became the way that they did and how things have eventually brought the faith to us today.
Prayer:
Father we thank You for Your word and we thank You for that, that we can look back, we can look into and begin to understand some of the things that were going on, we can begin to understand that so many of these types of things are still in the world going on and we face them. They just look a little bit different, but Your word gives us counsel into so many of the different issues that…that present themselves on any given day. And, so, we are thankful for Your word. We are thank…thankful for the examples that we have in Your word of how to live. And, so, come Holy Spirit, we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.
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I mentioned yesterday something that I’ll continue to mention along the way here. Two weeks from today is the 7th day of July and that is holiday. You may be scratching your head and going, “what holiday is that?” But it’s a Daily Audio Bible holiday. It’s a little holiday we have within the community here that’s just ours. It’s called the long walk and it’s a day every 7th of July. We just try to take the day, whatever day it is, try to take the day off from all of the other responsibilities and obligations, take some time, like a couple weeks…we’re a couple weeks in advance and so we can prepare for that day. And it it's…it's…interesting because once you’ve done it, once you’ve been on the long walk it…it’s like a day that you want to protect. It’s a day that you want to guard because it’s a day to go out in nature and go for a long walk with someone who loves you more than you can even comprehend and spend the day saying what needs to be said, whatever it is, with no rush. And that's…that’s what it’s like when you’re in love, no rush, say what needs to be said. Allow the silence to speak. Listen. It’s a time, now that we’re in the center, like we’re approaching the dead center of the year here, it’s a time for us to look back at the first half of the year and look forward to the second half of the year, reprioritize, reorient, reconsider, invite God into all of it, invite God to ask us where we should aim our lives for the second half of the year. Instead of just going blindly into it and seeing what happens let’s ask. And those advanced words can save us a lot of energy that could be wasted otherwise. So, yeah, just go out somewhere whether you get in your car or jump on your bike and drive somewhere a few hours or whether you just go down the street to a local park, doesn’t matter, somewhere that you think is beautiful, somewhere where there’s nature and then go for a long walk and no rush and no agenda other than to say what you need to say and to hear what God wants to speak back.
And there’s a resource, I mentioned this yesterday. There’s a resource that’s really perfect for the 7th of July for the Long Walk. It’s called Heart, a Contemplative Journey. You can get that at the iTunes Store or the Google Play store, wherever it is that you can buy music. You have to purchase this record and not stream it. It’s not stream-able because there's…it’s prayer and music. It’s prayer and then music washes over us as we continue with that prayer and continue with those thoughts. And to stream it like means all the prayers are disembodied. So, they’re completely out of context and it’s just too weird. So, yeah, so it’s just…you can go get that resource and have it in its entirety wherever it is that you can download music. And it is a…well…it’s near perfect accompaniment for part of the journey of the long walk. It definitely orients our hearts and opens our hearts to God. So, that’s a resource for the long walk. The other thing about the long walk is we will post a post about the long walk on the Daily Audio Bible Facebook page and then when you get done with your long walk wherever you are you can come back to that post and upload a picture, or a little video or something and it becomes a…it’s a just a treat actually, to come back from the long walk and then go to the Daily Audio Bible Facebook page and just skim through all of the different long walks. For me it’s like this little mini vacation because we’re going to beautiful places wherever we are. And, so, it gives us just a little glimpse, a little tour around the world, a little mini vacation on top of it all, and real sense of connection to our brothers and sisters who have been out doing the same thing, using the day to reorient ourselves to God. So, that is the Long Walk. That is coming up the 7th of July. Put it on your calendars. And I can’t wait. I can’t wait to…to see all the pictures and I can’t…well…actually to have the day to walk with God. So, hopefully you feel the same and put that on your calendar.
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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:
Good morning Daily Audio Bible family this is Rosalind calling from North Carolina and today is June 20th. It’s Father’s Day and the Lord just gave me a wonderful image of a father holding a child and comforting the child and the child still being fussy although he’s in the arms of his father and he’s safe. And the father gently guides the child’s head back to his chest in a gesture that says, “I have you baby, it’s OK. You don’t have to worry about a thing. Just rest. Feel my love. Be secure in my love.” And I just imagine our Lord God, our heavenly father, our Abba doing the same thing for us. When we’re troubled when we’re fussy when we’re anxious even though we’re resting in His arms He still has to guide our heads back to his chest to feel His heartbeat to feel His warmth to fully feel His embrace and to rest in those things and to give it all over to Him. So, I don’t know who that was for, but I pray that you will give it all over too our Abba. He cares for you.
__ got a visit from an old friend who had just been released
from jail
he said he wanted to walk in the newness of life
but he had a mindset that was predestine to fail
he was shocked when he saw that I was now blind
but he was even more shocked when he saw that I didn’t really mind
and then when I told him that I also had cancer
he was so stunned with unbelief that he couldn’t even answer
I told him that I had taken my old ways and my old wife humbly before God
and asked him if he would be willing to forgive
and God gave me such a powerful reassurance of his love
that I now have profound contentment while I live
profound contentment powerful peace
joy and blessings that continually increase
a life built on giving in service to others
a life of which all men of all races can live life as brothers
the more that I give the more I receive
and the more I read God’s word the more I believe
and those of you who know me know I don’t need no validation
my resumes been written across this whole entire nation
and if God can change me he can definitely change you
in fact God is the only one I know who has the power to make a life new
I guess the question is do you really want change do you really want new
or are you just looking for some new way to make it do what it do
I’m going to tell you just like I told my old friend too
if God can change me he can most definitely change you too
blindtony1016@gmail.com. I’d like to give a shout out to Gigi and Melissa from Albertville it was good hearing your voices recently. And know that you’re often in my thoughts and daily in my prayers. And once again Brian and the Hardin family thank you for this wonderful podcast for God’s Holy Spirit to flow keep it flowing yo. Alright. Bye-bye.
Greetings Daily Audio Bible family this is brother Chad from Jomo calling you from my workplace taking a moment to respond to some prayers and to some new family that has joined us. First, I want to just let you guys know that I love you dearly. I’m blessed by your talents you share on here. Brother Blind Tony you’re a very talented man brother and I’m just very grateful for all the talents that you share with us on here. It blesses me on a regular basis. And so many others, your voices and just your poetries and you guys are amazing and I’m just another…I’m blessed to be a part of this wonderful podcast. Thank you, Brian and family for that. I’m calling specifically for Melissa from Kingston Jamaica. My…my father’s side of the family is also from Jamaica. So, a little inclined to say hi. Blessing to hear from you and for you to join us. I just want to pray Father in Jesus’ name I want to ask for a favor for Melissa and her son Joshua Daniel. Bless them Father with provisions with favor that…that her business pick up and do well. Bless her Father with the opportunities that she can grab ahold of that can help her to come take care of life’s demands and her family. Bless her son Joshua Daniel Father that he does well with his exams and just bless them all the way around Father and keep them safe. Keep us all safe Father from the evils that are attacking us these days and just the normal dredge of life. I just love your family and keep looking up. Your redemption draws nigh. Jesus is coming back soon. Love you guys. Have a blessed week. Brother Chad from Jomo signing off. God bless.
Hello Daily Audio Bible this is Duane from Wisconsin all praise and glory to our wonderful Lord and savior Jesus Christ. Today is June 20th.It is Father’s Day at least here in the US. So, I’d like to wish a happy Father’s Day to all those fathers out there. I ask that you continue pray for my son Nicholas, my son Nathan who is wayward and homeless and hanging out with the wrong people. I ask you to pray for my son Joseph. He’s doing well, has a job and actually is renting a house. So, he’s doing well. And then from my daughter Natalie. She just graduated high school this year, but I have not spoken to her in a number of years for a number of reasons. But I ask that you continue to pray for them. And I pray for all of you who have wayward lost sons and daughters and children that are doing well and praising God so we give praise to the Lord for that, but we ask that we come this time and for those of us who have children that are struggling and lost whether it’s physically needs, mental needs, financial needs or legal reasons Lord we lift them up to you. We place them in Your hands on this Father’s Day. Give us the words to say the…the directions that we need to go in to help our children Lord learn of you and become one of yours and find peace in that Lord. So, we lift this up to our wonderful Lord and savior Jesus Christ. God bless and amen.
Hey DABbers, this is Danny from Southern Oregon. I wonder if you could please pray for the wildfire that’s going on in my community right now. Last night it was 1000 acres in zero percent contained and I didn’t even find out about it until I was actually at the airport getting ready to board the plane to go down to visit my parents because my dad’s in the hospital and he’s not doing well and my 96 year old best friend was evacuated and she’s she staying with somebody I trust but I know this is gotta be so hard for her. She’s not used to being out of her own home and…and I can’t get ahold of her. So…and my son has received an evacuation notice too and he could come to our house but…so I don’t worry so much about that but so many good people have had to leave their homes. So, could you please pray for the bonanza wildfire and pray for my friend Alfie, just peace, that she would be well taken care of because I can’t be there for her. And could you please pray for my dad? I just visited him. It’s Father’s Day today and he’s in the hospital and he…he just does not look good at all, and I’m just scared. So, thank you for friends and family. I love you all. Bye.