Jeremiah 51:54-52:34, Titus 3:1-15, Psalm 100:1-5, Proverbs 26:18-19
Today is the 28th day of October, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is wonderful to be here with you, just hanging out here around the Global Campfire. As we come together and offload the burdens and cares and concerns of life, kind of leave them, I don’t know, back at the beginning of the path that leads out here to the Global Campfire, I don’t know. Just leave them, we can go get them, they won’t go away. They are the cares and concerns of life. So, it’d be great if somebody stole them, or they did run away, but we can go back and get them so let’s not worry about giving ourselves permission to be at peace for a few minutes because this is our place right, this is the place would come around this Global Campfire and we’ve come to seek wisdom from the Scriptures, we’ve come to take the next step forward together. And so, often when we take just a little time, even though we might think this day is crazy or this week is crazy or my life is upside down and it’s crazy and I don’t have time for anything, we do though, we do, we have time for peace because it’s been given to us as a gift and if we can get quiet, the way we’re looking at things becomes significantly less frantic and we don’t feel the need to just keep reacting. We can begin to be proactive; we can begin to think about where we want to be heading, in the directions that we want to be going as the Lord leads us and we do this by showing up every day, in part, allowing the Scriptures to wash into our lives, into our minds, into our hearts and give us direction and clarity. So, it’s awesome to be here with you today, awesome that we can take this next step forward together and today’s step will lead us for the final time this year into the book of Jeremiah. We will conclude the book of Jeremiah today. We’re reading from the New International Version this week; Jeremiah 51 verse 54 through 52 verse 34.
Commentary:
Okay, a couple of things to pay attention to today or take note of. We concluded the book of Jeremiah today and the way the book ends is with the capture and destruction of Jerusalem. Now, we’ve been moving along with kind of exile language and battles and we’ve sort of known that this is coming and even known that it happened but let’s take note of it here because we’re once again seeing the end of the Israel we’ve been following since the book of Genesis. This whole family of Abraham and all of their journeys. Their 400 hundred years in slavery, their formation as a people, the giving of the law, the conquering of the promise land that is the land we’re talking about here and the holy city of Jerusalem and God’s temple being built. We’re reading of the destruction of that and it’s never whole again. We’ve watched his family, the family of Abraham become 12 tribes and then we watched the tribes split into two nations who were at war with each other some of the time. And then we watch the northern kingdom be carried away into exile and now Judah is destroyed, as well as the city of Jerusalem. It’s over. There will be people who get to come back, but they’re never in charge again, even in the time of Jesus ministry. They weren’t in charge again right. That’s why they wanted a Messiah; somebody to go into Jerusalem and storm all of these government buildings and take over and take charge again. Obviously, Jesus was revealing the kingdom of another kind. But the point is what we read today is the end of the kingdom of Judah. We also concluded Titus, Paul’s pastoral letter to Titus today, which means we have concluded the pastoral epistles and in tomorrow’s reading we will encounter the final letter from Paul in the New Testament and actually, it’s a very short letter, we’ll talk about it tomorrow, but we’ll read it in one day, so we have one day left with the apostle Paul for this year and then we will be moving forward into to other letters of great significance. But let’s also look at what the voice of wisdom is speaking to us from Proverbs today. We talked about grabbing a stray dog by the ears yesterday and that that is like inserting yourself into a conflict that isn’t yours to insert yourself into. Today’s Proverb is no less poignant. Like a maniac, right, can we just take this slow, like maniac, shooting flaming arrows of death right. So, this is a person that you don’t want to be in proximity to, because this is a maniac shooting flaming arrows of death. I don’t want flaming arrows of death being shot at me by a maniac and I don’t suppose that you do either. Let’s finish this, like a maniac shooting flaming arrows of death is one who deceives their neighbor and says I was only joking. So, a person who lies and then says it was a joke, who belittles and then says it was a joke, who is deceptive and then says it was just a joke. We’ve probably encountered scenarios like that. Maybe we are the offender and what’s being pointed out in the Proverbs today and typically if this happens right, and then the persons like it was just a joke, I was just joking and they get called out on it then what’s the response, to place all of the shame back on us by saying, can’t you take a joke right, and then this becomes a circle. It’s just like craziness. It’s the person who hurt you on purpose and then says I didn’t mean anything by it. When you know they meant everything by it. Sometimes this is the norm. The kind of norm that happens in certain kinds of relationships that they can be abusive. So, if…if you’re the person that’s always hurt by people who make you feel like you can’t take a joke or they didn’t mean it, then you have this Proverb here telling you, you’re not the crazy one, you’re in the proximity of a maniac shooting flaming arrows of death. How’s that for a stark analogy. But if that’s you, and that is the way you do things is to kind of snipe at people and then say you were just joking and they should be able to take a joke and you didn’t really mean it the way that they took it, even though you know that that’s deceptive and you did mean it. Well, if you want to be a maniac shooting flaming arrows of death, then continue on the path that you’re walking. But if it’s a stark enough analogy to get our attention. Then, once again, we should examine ourselves and the way that we behave, the way that we try to hurt people and then get away with it and make it their fault, because it was just a big joke. Just a big misunderstanding. You didn’t mean it that way. And look, sometimes we don’t mean it that way. Sometimes, something gets misunderstood and some feelings get hurt in a relationship or whatever and we actually did, that was not the purpose. That’s not what the Proverbs is talking about here. The Proverbs talking about intentionality and just like yesterday, like I seriously don’t know like if we could all raise our hands and see each other. Nobody’s going to say yeah I want to be a maniac shooting flaming arrows of death with my words. That’s my goal in life. None of us want to be that, none of us would confess to being that, but we may need to own up to the fact that we have been that by hurting people and then pretending that it was just a big misunderstanding.
Prayer:
And so, Father, even as we conclude Jeremiah and conclude the letter to Titus and prepare our hearts to move forward into new territory. Tomorrow, we are right here right now and wisdom is speaking loud and clear these last couple of days and so we invite Your Holy Spirit into this. We want to walk in wisdom, we will have to be willing to be self-reflective enough to own our stuff. If we want to become wise and so we are inviting Your Holy Spirit to help us see the ways that we, in big or small ways, participate in behaviors that are not going to do anything productive. Holy Spirit, come we pray, in the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com is home base, that is the website, that is where to go to find out what’s happening around here, or the app the Daily Audio Bible app will get you there as well by pushing the drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner. Check out the Daily Audio Bible Shop. There are a bunch of resources in there, some of them just centered around the idea that we come around the Global Campfire together each day and so there’s a whole Global Campfire section in the Daily Audio Bible Shop. But then there are also resources for going deeper, things to read, things to listen to, The God of Your story, which is a written 365 day, it’s kind of written in devotional format, it’s 365 day dated book, but it is, well, it is in written form what was mined from the first 13 years of the Daily Audio Bible and written down, which is totally a different way to engage with the material than an auditory, than listening. So, yeah, it works fantastic as just taking each passage that we read each day deeper. Like, maybe listen in the morning and review kind of the God of your story in the evening to help it sink in a little bit deeper. Or, if you’re ever away from the Internet and you have to go old school and crack open the Bible and want to kind of continue that Daily Audio Bible rhythm then God of Your story is a resource for that. They’re all kinds of resources in the Shop so, check out the Daily Audio Bible Shop.
If you want a partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if what we’re doing here, around the Global Campfire this rhythm that is constant, that is daily, bringing the spoken word of God read fresh daily and given to whoever will listen to it, wherever they may be in life or on this planet, no matter what time it is, no matter what’s going on, it’s there. If that is life-giving and meaningful to your life than thank you humbly 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 Springhill, Tennessee 37174.
And as always if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, that’s the little red button up at the top or there are a number of telephone numbers that you can dial depending on where you are in the world: in the Americas, that would be 877- 942-4253, if you’re in the UK or Europe 44-2036-088078 is the number to call, and if you are in Australia or that part of the world 61 3 8820 5459 is the number to dial.
And that’s it for today I’m Brian, I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.