Isaiah 45:11-48:11, Ephesians 4:1-16, Psalm 68:19-35, Proverbs 24:3-4
Today is the 25th day of September, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it is fantastic to gather again around the Global Campfire and take the next step forward on our journey, and our particular leg of the journey right now has us moving through the book of Isaiah, which is one of the longer books of the Bible. In fact, short of Psalms, which has 150 chapters, Isaiah’s the longest book with 66 chapters. We are well underway. Today we will read chapters 45 verse 11, through 48 verse 11.
Commentary:
Okay, so, when you were a kid, did you ever, did you ever wonder what your life would become, what you would be? Did you ever daydream about it or pretend, or like say when I grow up, I’m going to be a doctor. Or when I grow up, I’m gonna be a pastor or whatever. When I grow up, I’m gonna be this thing. Paul’s talking about what we get to grow up and become in this faith, in our reading today. And it’s pretty compelling because if we remember Paul is imprisoned as he writes these things, he’s pouring his heart out and pleading, even though he’s in chains, pleading for maturity, for us to grow up. And he starts by saying, with all humility and gentleness, with patients bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. So, if that’s what we’re aiming toward and we look around the body, we would probably have to at least admit there’s a level of maturity that Paul is talking about that we don’t normally exhibit toward each other, even though we’ve grown up into human adults. We have quite a bit of growing up to do. And for Paul this wasn’t just like a solo adventure trying to figure it out or that spiritual maturity would just happen by chance. You actually have to desire this, and God gave gifts for this, according to Paul, those are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers and their role was and still is, to equip and build up the body, God’s people.