Jeremiah
42:1-44:23, 2 Timothy 2:1-21, Psalms 92:1-93:5, Proverbs 26:3-5
Today
is the 23rd day of October. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m
Brian. It is an honor and a pleasure to be here with you today as we buckle up,
buckle in and take the next step forward in this adventure that we’re on
together through the Bible this year. And, man, we are getting down to it on
October already. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but how did we get so far
into this month so quickly? Well, no matter how we got here, we are here, and
our next step forward is gonna take us back into the book of Jeremiah. We’re
reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. Jeremiah 42:1-44:23.
Commentary:
Okay.
So, as we talked about yesterday, 2 Timothy is known to be the last letter of
the Apostle Paul’s life. And contained in it are many personal thoughts. But it
also contains instructions for Timothy as a spiritual leader. And these
instructions were of great importance to Paul because even though he was hoping
he could see his son in the faith, Timothy, one more time face to face, the
chances weren’t good. And that gives an urgency to what’s being said, and we
should pay attention to that urgency. In
our reading today, Paul encouraged Timothy to endure, which… man, that’s a
theme we are going to see over and over and over all the way until the very end
of the year. In fact, it’s like one of the defining characteristics of the
early church and one of the defining characteristics of the Christian
faith. But what Paul’s talking about
with Timothy is that this endurance isn’t a passive thing. This is an active thing. You actively participate in enduring. So, Timothy had proven himself to be a
trustworthy disciple of Jesus. And Paul
had passed the faith on to Timothy, and to many other people as well, but this
was going to likely cost him his life.
And, so, what he’s writing down, these are things that Paul needed them
to matter to Timothy. Timothy was expected
to endure, and he was expected to pass on the faith to other trustworthy people
like himself who could carry it forward because Paul was probably not gonna be
there. And, so, for Timothy to pick up
the mantle and carry it on, he was going to need the focus of a soldier or of
an athlete, which is why Paul brought up both of those examples in our reading
today. I mean, for Paul, in prison, in a
dungeon awaiting sentencing that had almost no chance of anything other than
execution, endurance was pretty much all there was left for Paul to do. The empire had begun to systematically
persecute Christians, and Paul was known as a ringleader, so he was likely
going to die. And, so, with all that in
front of him, Paul could see what the entire church might be facing, all of the
churches that he had spent so much time and suffered so much to plant. He could see the writing on the wall. They might all endure, they might all face
what he was facing. And, so, endurance
was gonna be essential. So, to drive
that point home in such a dangerous time, Paul quoted an ancient
declaration. It was possibly an early
worship song that they sang in the early church. We have to take a little bunny trail for this
to reveal itself and give us some context.
When Paul wrote this letter, there was nothing known as the New
Testament, right? All Timothy could have referred to would have been the Torah
as well as any of Paul’s letters- any his communications with Ephesus or any of
the letters that had been copied and passed around from the other
churches. And, of course, Timothy would
have had personal letters from Paul. And
most scholars agree that the first gospel, the gospel of Mark, was written
around the time that Paul was executed, which is right around the time of this
letter. So, we’re reading this letter,
and this is right around the time that the first gospel is being written. And even if this letter were an earlier
document, the New Testament as authoritative Scripture, this wasn’t formed yet. So, when Paul inserted a piece of creed or a
song into this letter, he gave us a glimpse of what our brothers and sisters
were declaring before any of the books of the New Testament had become a
collection. So, it lets us see a little bit about what Christians in a church
established by Paul felt was important before anyone could preach a sermon out
of the New Testament. So, this little snippet, this little creed or song allows
us to hear what the church was declaring before we had the New Testament, which
is pretty cool. If we die with him, we will also live with him. If we endure
hardship, we will reign with him. If we deny him, he will deny us. If we are
unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny who he is. So, as I
mentioned just a minute ago, we’ll see throughout the remainder of the New
Testament that Paul wasn’t the only one talking about endurance and revealing
that it was gonna be a key component of the faith. Our earliest brothers and
sisters felt the same. And they were saying this or singing this to each other
before there was a New Testament. Enduring until the end is a theme that will
take us all the way to the end of the Bible. And, so, we need to get to know
it. We need to get to know this concept and we need to apply this concept to
our lives because we’re gonna see it a lot. And as we can see from Paul’s
letter, Paul hoped that Timothy would understand that this needs to matter.
Prayer:
Father,
we invite You into that because endurance…ah, that’s not a word that we put
at the top of our to-do list on just about any given day, to endure. And yet it
is required of us every day. But we spend a lot of our energy trying to not
have to do it, right? To not have to endure anything. We arrange for our lives
to be as comfortable as possible. And yet endurance is such a central theme
throughout all of the early church and the early letters. So, Holy Spirit,
come. This is a concept that we need to understand. We need to be aware that it
is not purposeless, that it has…That it is not just hard times, but that it is
strengthening us for what comes next. And we need to be strong. So, come Holy
Spirit we pray. In Jesus name we ask. 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.
Community Prayer and Praise:
Good morning Daily Audio
Bible family, this is Leonora, I’m calling from the panhandle of Florida. It’s
been quite some time since I’ve called. I’m prompted to call because of the
people…so many people, that are in such need right now. I was blessed not to
have been in the path of Huricane Michael. I’m on the west side of where it
hit, just east of Panama City or right at Panama City and the area to the east
of it got the absolute worst. And I know so many people who live there or know
family or have family that live there. The Air Force Base is leveled. The
hospitals are gone. People have lost not only their homes and all their
possessions but their livelihoods. They are depending on food and water and any
help from a stranger. God be with them. Give them Your hope. Give them their
hope to keep the faith that they will be taken care of Father. We ask that You
provide for them and give them strength in their hour of need. We ask that
everyone who can help will reach out in any form or way or fashion Lord. If not
money, by prayer. The prayer alone will be so supportive and strengthening to
them. Please give them strength to continue Lord in this difficult journey they
have ahead. And I ask this in Jesus’ name. And I love all of you family. I do
not call often but I do love all of you so much, Brian, family, Jill and
support team. Thank you.
Good morning Daily Audio
Bible family, this is Wrapped in His Unfailing Love, Dorothy from Dustin, and I
just want to thank you all for who you are and for this community and thank you
Brian and Jill. I’m calling today about hurricane Michael. And it missed…it
missed the Dustin area but, you know, it just reeked devastation about 50 miles
to the east of us and so many people have been affected. And my heart is just
breaking for them. I’m asking you to please pray for all the people that have
lost their homes and just everything that they have. Please, please join me in
prayer. Heavenly Father, blessed Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit, please be with the
people that have been rocked by this devastating storm. We lift them up to You
right now. Please comfort them. Bring the supplies and the help that they need
Lord Jesus. Thank You for Your comfort and Your care for those who have
nothing. Keep them wrapped in Your unfailing love the Lord Jesus. Thank You for
each one. Thank You for the first responders, thank You for the people who are
giving, people that are making sandwiches and delivering meals. Thank You
Jesus. Thank You, thank You, so much for Your love and Your support and thank You
everyone for praying. Have a blessed day. Amen.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible
family, this is Treasured Possession. I haven’t called in a really long time. I
get my name from first Peter 2:9, that you are a chosen people, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, God’s treasured possession that you may declare the
praises of him called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. And my
story is a lot like Gee’s. Praise God, I too was overcome with guilt and shame
that the enemy put on me because I was raped at 17 as a virgin on a date that
my mother set up for me. And very odd circumstances but it caused me to see my
identity in that circumstance and I filtered everything I did through that
circumstance and God has blessed me and shown me and revealed to me that that
is not who I am. It’s a circumstance that I overcame and by the blood of Christ
I can no longer be trussed up in the enemy’s lies and self-pity but I can have
compassion, which means co-suffering. And I can share my story and help other
women that have gone through the same thing and give them courage and strength
and let them know that through Christ we can be overcomers, we can be stronger
so that our lives are not what has happened to us but our lives consist of what
He has done for us. And I pray for you Gee. I pray for all the other men and
women that have gone through this experience of trauma that the enemy has come
against your will. He has come against your lives to try to destroy you and to
try to get you entrapped in guilt and shame. Jesus despised the guilt and shame
and through him we can look at our enemy…
Hi family, this is Chenal in
Arizona. I was calling to give you all a quick update and just say a quick
prayer for pastor Gene. The last few times that pastor Gene has called in I can
just tell she has this resounded desire to honor God in the midst of trials and
yet she continues to call in and cover us all in prayer. So, I wanted to let
Pastor Gene know I am covering her in prayer. I wanted to give an update. I am
still taking classes and in this season, I’ve felt like…I keep getting the
Scripture hard pressed on every side. And, so, I finally looked it up and I
looked it up in the Message and I wanted to read it as an encouragement for all
of us followers of Christ because He will never leave us and He is faithful.
And, so, 2 Corinthians 4:7-12 says in the Message says, if you only look at us
you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious, precious message
around in this unadorned clay pots of our and individual lives. That’s to prevent
anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is there’s not
much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve
been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized. We’re not
sure what to do. We know that God knows what to do. We’ve been spiritually terrorized
but God hasn’t left our side. We’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken.
What they did to us, Jesus is faithful. And, so, I just want you guys to
remember that God is faithful. He will never leave us. We may feel like we’re
hard pressed on every side but Jesus lives. He lives in us, and he is faithful.
I hope you all have a blessed day and I will call back soon.
Hello Daily Audio Bible
family. I’m calling…this is Dorothy from Dustin…I’m calling about the
commentary today from Timothy and about pastors and deacons and things like
that. And this month, October is pastor appreciation month, if you didn’t know.
Some of us do. But anyway, I just wanted to encourage you all if you would
recognize your pastor because they do so much and they carry so much for us.
So, join me in prayer please. Father God, thank You so much for our pastors and
the people that You call into the ministry. We are so grateful. Thank You for
each one. I ask that You would bless them richly today and always and surround
them with Your angels within a hedge of protection for them in their family.
Give them strength and encouragement. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. Thank you
everybody. Have a great day. Bye-bye.