Genesis 37:1-38:30, Matthew 12:22-45, Psalm 16:1-11, Proverbs 3:27-32
Today is the 18th day of January, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible, I’m Brian and it’s great to be here with you, like it is every day around the Global Campfire together, a nice place to keep warm as we move through the winter months at least those of us who live in the northern hemisphere and those of you in the southern hemisphere who are experiencing summertime what’s summer without a good campfire? So, it is great to be here wherever you may be, I’m just here in the rolling hills of Tennessee and let’s dive in today. We will pick up where we left off yesterday. We have been traveling alongside Jacob, whose name is now Israel and his family, the children of Israel. And as we enter our reading today, we’re going to zoom in even further and focus on one of those children of Israel and his name is Joseph and the Bible will have us zooming in on Joseph’s life for a while. So, let’s dive in, Genesis chapters 37 and 38 today.
Commentary:
Okay so, in the book of Genesis, we are entering the story of Joseph, one of the children of Israel or Jacob, his beloved son, his favored son. If you remember Jacob’s story right, he gets married to two sisters and there’s a lot of conniving and trickery going on but the woman that he truly loves is Rachel and for the longest time she had no children, she was barren. Joseph was born to Jacob and Rachel. He loved this boy; he favored this boy and the rest of his sons knew it and there was a lot of animosity there. So, we’re meeting Joseph while he’s like a young teenage boy and we will be following Joseph’s story all the way through his life to his death. But as we begin the story, we can see that Joseph is acting like a teenage boy right, he as these big dreams, he’s kind of arrogant about it. He knows he’s the favored son, probably because of the circumstances, has a pretty big chip on his shoulder. We’re just entering into the story and we heard about the special coat of many colors that he has but even in the first day of reading through this story some pivotal tragic things happen to Joseph. He’s in search of his brothers to find out how they’re doing with the livestock and report back to his father, his brothers see him coming and they decide he should die, they should kill him. They’re not all in complete unity about this but the majority wants to kill him and then they figure they shouldn’t just kill him; they should just throw him into a well to die and all this. As it turns out though what they do is not to kill him, but rather to traffic him, so he is sold to some Ishmaelite traders and then he is taken to Egypt, which is not an insignificant journey, where he is subsequently marketed and resold to another person, Potiphar, the captain of the guard for Pharaoh. So, there’s a whole lot of twists and turns in this story before us, but where we sit right now, we could probably all agree that no matter the arrogance of Joseph, it’s probably not fair that he was human trafficked by his own family. So, we have to imagine this sheltered boy who is favored by his father, who had a really good life out in front of them with plenty of authority and plenty of resources. So, he’s protected and feels like he knows everything and he’s just a teenage guy untested. The next thing we know he is in Egypt being sold as a slave so, his world has gotten rocked and he would have to be dealing with the emotions of being betrayed by your family, by your brothers, a total sense of shock. He’s in a land he’s never been to before and his station in life is gone from freedom to slavery and he’s just a young kid to process all of this by himself. So, what we’re being invited to do through this story is to watch Joseph, to watch the way he conducts himself and believe me when we do that, this story becomes a mirror so, we have a lot to learn from Joseph in the days ahead.
Prayer:
Father, we thank You for the Scriptures. We thank You for Your word, we thank You that we can immerse ourselves in it each and every day together. We thank You for this Community. That we can do this, that we can take this journey through a year and through the Scriptures. But even if we did that as an exercise without opening our hearts to what the Scriptures are telling us and opening our hearts to surrendering to You and Your leadership in our lives, we will have simply systematically read a big book. And so, we’re asking come, Holy Spirit, lead us into all truth. And as we engage with the stories that we’re in right now, the story of Joseph, open our hearts as we open the Scriptures. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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And that’s it for today, I’m Brian, I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Prayer and Encouragements:
Hello, this is Michael Gene Elmore aka The Greatest Trucker. And that’s my identity but my identity has been stolen and quite literally. I’ve been a trucker for a long time and I hauled heavy equipment out of Oregon, the West Coast, hauled it into Canada quite a bit. And I felt like I needed to carry a lot of ID and so I did and carried my ID around with me. And I carried it in a backpack, kept it close to me. And the other day I flew into Phoenix and they picked me up and brought me to where the truck was and just before we went there, we stopped in this little place to get something to eat and while we were in there the truck was stolen, the pick-up the guy that picked me up at the airport, his pick-up was stolen. And long story short, they got the pick-up back but they got my back pack with all my identity on me: social security card, passport, driver physical card in there, I had all this identity, even had my birth certificate in there. So, my identity was stolen. It’s almost as if I feel like now, I don’t know what it means. The devil knows who I am as if he didn’t ever before. So, I ask you to pray for me for whatever this means, my identity to be in Christ and for it to not matter, what my identity is stolen and out there.
Hi, my name is Jesse, I’m in New Jersey. And this is my second year trying the DAB. I didn’t make it through the Bible last year and I thought I should start over. So, I started over and I’m actually keeping up, which is cool. I’m a pretty new Christian and God’s putting me through a season of hardship right now and I’m struggling. And I’m praying and I’m doing what I can but I need some prayers. I’m going through some financial hardship and I’m struggling and I need some prayers. I’m having a really difficult time. And I have a wife, I have a daughter, they’re incredible people but I’m struggling and guys I’m a sinner. I struggle with, I struggle with a lot of things. And I’m trying to work through it and I’m repenting each day, I’m trying. But I’m struggling. I love the DAB, I love the DAB family, I love this but I just need prayers because I’m really, really struggling. Thanks everyone. Love you DAB family.
Hey my name is Eric. I’m calling from Tampa, Florida. I’ve been listening to the Daily Audio Bible podcast on and off for a number of years and this is the first year that I am consistently listening. Sometimes I miss a day or two but I go back and I continue on the journey and I’m really grateful for it. I’m calling for prayer for two reasons. One, my dad, he’s been in the hospital in ICU for the past few days and we’re really hopeful that he’s gonna come out of this. He is a believer you know, we’re just hoping that he gets the strength to fight. And the second reason for the call is, you know, I’ve struggled for over 20 years with heavy depression and alcoholism. I’m 41 and I’m just so tired of the cycle of defeat and I really want to overcome this so I can fulfill my purpose, right. So, yeah, if you guys could lift us up. My name is Eric my dad’s name is Angelos. Pray for the Crews family and prayers for all of those that are struggling in similar ways. And pray that we find a community of people that can inspire us and encourage us to move forward and to fight the good fight and to do so with unity and love. And so, I really appreciate it, thank you so much. Praise and Peace, Love and Life. Bless up. Thank you.
Hi Daily Audio Bible family, my name is Larissa, I’m in the UK. I’m new to the community, I’m new to Christianity but I, there’s a faith in my life and I’m hoping that this year I will, I will fill it with faith. So, I’m calling today for a prayer request for myself because I’m 26 and I’m going through some medical challenges at the moment. And I’ve had an appointment today which kind of really threw me. And having lots of tests and it’s all moving very quickly. So, I’m feeling really blessed to live in the UK where it’s all free. But yeah, I’m just struggling a bit. So, if you could pray, I would have the strength to carry on with all these tests and investigations and not lose faith while doing it and that the outcome would be positive, that would be great. Thank you so much.
Hi ya’ll, this is Taken With Love from Louisiana. This call goes out to Western Wyoming Woman. Girl, you just touched my heart just now by listening to your plea going to see your mom. You know girl, when your mom is gonna be gone into eternity, she’s gonna be gone. So, you are doing the most awesome thing to travel across the country to go and bring accolades and honor and just celebrate your mom, this really touches me. I lost my mom five years ago. And I would, anything, anything thing to have her sitting right here with me so I could tell her how wonderful she was. Oh, did she have faults? Yes, we all do and I remember all of my faults. It’s hard to be a mom but I think it’s such a picture of how God loves us. He forgets our past, remember He cast it into the sea of forgetfulness and He redeems us and you have the opportunity to redeem your relationship with your mom and this is gonna catapult her into eternity. Have that hard conversation with her while you’re there of knowing Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior, but it won’t be hard because the Holy Spirit will be with you. I’ma be praying for you that you’re gonna come back with a great report of all the celebration and all the good things that God did, not only inside of your mom, but inside of you. God bless you girl, I’m praying for you.