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Daily Transcripts
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09/01/2015
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Job 40:1-42:17 ~ 2 Corinthians 5:11-21 ~ Psalm 45:1-17 ~ Proverbs 22:14
Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. Today is September 1st. Here we are. A brand new month to unpack and unfold before us and live out together as we continue the journey through the scriptures this year and so, of course, today we begin our 9th month together in the year 2015. It is good to be here with you today. Lots of fun stuff to talk about. I’ll get to that in a little bit, but first we’re reading from the New Life Version this week. We’re, of course, reading from the book of Job and yesterday God began to speak into everything everyone has been talking about. We’ll pick up today where we left off yesterday.
Commentary:
We concluded the book of Job today and it is a very dramatic conclusion. As we were filming for the Reframe Film Study, we used Job as the backdrop for one of the films and we filmed that one when we were in Australia last time. So coming to this conclusion again of this book reminded me so much of that. There are so many layers of humanity wrapped up in the book of Job. Hardship and suffering came to Job's life and he wanted answers. Everyone was trying to give him answers, but even through all of the advice of wise and trusted friends, he intuitively felt like there was more to the story. So he kept pressing into his own justice. He kept pressing into the fact that what he wanted was God. What he wanted was to be able to bring his accusation or his case before God because that was his understanding of the situation. If he could just find God, then he could present his case and get his answer.
But there was even more to it. He needed to vent. He wanted to vent to God. He was doing all this venting to his friends, things that he would say if he could just find God. “This is what I would tell him if I could see him.” We’re still like this and we can see it in all kinds of ways. You perceive your spouse to do something wrong and you want an answer. You want an explanation, but you don’t go and just ask for an explanation, right? Eyes turn red, fire comes out of the mouth and you go after it, demanding.
We’re just exposing what we really want which is justice and we alone are the judge in that. So we’ll attack with demands and accusation and any number of hurtful things, trying to pronounce sentence and execution all at the same time. Of course, that just turns into a terrible scuffle that doesn’t really get anywhere. What are we exposing, though, is that we want to be right. At some point we all reach for things that we don’t really fully understand, but we’re not comfortable in not understanding so we want to demand answers when sometimes it boils down to do you want to be right? Do you want these answers or do you want God? I don’t mean that in some sort of platitude way, like ‘here's a nice little band-aid explanation.’ I mean that in a very deep and literal way.
Difficulties that we face in our lives absolutely press to the surface of our lives how we really feel about being in a relationship with God. They force the issue and they expose the truth inside of us, sometimes even revealing the truth to ourselves, things we didn’t even know. When we’re mad at God for not showing up or not being our squire and jumping to action whenever we tell him or we can’t figure out how it is that we got to where we are and why it is he won't help us, we’re exposing ourselves. As I talk in Reframe, we begin to look at God like the rich, drunk uncle of the family. We need his money. We need his influence. We’re trying to steer clear of his rages and what we don’t understand. We’ll say whatever he wants to hear, whatever we think he wants to hear to get what we want and in the process it has nothing to do with intimacy or relationship. It is what we can get from him and it is not reciprocal. It is not what we can give back to him.
Relationships are 2-way streets. They are give and take, so when we find ourselves frustrated, we’re exposing ourselves. If we want God, then that means he is invited to walk through everything with us. We don’t immediately throw him into a new category when things aren’t going well and then start with the accusations, like we’re going after a spouse that we’re upset with or someone else that we’re upset with, eyes flaring, nostrils blowing smoke and all kinds of things that we shouldn’t be saying coming out of our mouths. This is what Job concludes and he says something fascinating. “I had only heard about you before, but now I see you.” That says a lot.
Is what we think we know about God mostly fed to us by things we’ve heard before about him? What do we know of him for ourselves? That reframes the paradigm. What Job realizes is ‘what I knew of you is what I had heard of you, rumors of you.’ All of the wisdom of this entire discussion that we’ve had with our friends, right? The entire book of Job is all of the things that everyone has heard about what God does and doesn’t do. The whole thing changes when God is actually a part of the conversation.
What Job concludes is “I had only heard of you before, but now I see you and I throw my hands over my mouth and shut up. I hate the things I have said about you. I'm putting dust and ashes on myself to show you how sorry I am.” That is a radically different posture that Job ends with than when he began.
So although there are many layers to the book of Job and many angles we could come at it from, I think one of the things over the years that has become most endearing and precious to me about Job is not an examination of suffering and trying to figure out why. It is rather the difference between trying to figure God out on our own terms versus being with him, actually allowing his presence and the power of his Holy Spirit to speak into where we are and where we are going.
May we invite God into everything. I mean, consciously, literally invite him into everything and not settle for rumors about him when he wants to be with us.
Prayer:
Father, we are all guilty of that and this has been going on for thousands of years because this is found in one of the most ancient writings of you. This has been a predicament for a long time, but you have clearly shown mankind your willingness to be involved and we have continually shown us we are only partially willing for that to take place. We prefer something we can understand and manage and control. That says a lot about our willingness to be in a first person, collaborative relationship with you. We haven’t done so good with that, but that isn’t how we want it. That is just how we understand it, so we are inviting you to reframe the way we’re looking at us and you and the relationship that connects us. We’ll need your Holy Spirit's guidance because it is into unchartered territory that you are inviting us. You're inviting us out of the cozy and into the wild. You are inviting us out of the cage that we feel safe in and into the grand adventure of a beautiful world and an eternity that you have created and placed in our hearts. We are so bound and driven by what we can see and what we can control and what we can process and what we can manage and you are far ahead of us in all of this. Yet you want to be with us in all of it, leading, guiding, directing which is invariably going to force us to throw off so many of the parameters that we’ve placed on you and ourselves and our faith and everything we think we know. O God, we need you because this is not enough and we will never be fulfilled without you. So we invite you fully, absolutely 100% fully into everything that we are, every cell that makes up our bodies, every thought that is processed between our brain and our heart, every motivation, every ambition, every fear, every anxiety, every doubt, all of the depression, all of the exhilarating experiences that we have in life, the highs, the lows, the in betweens. There isn’t another step we want to take in our lives that we are not in lockstep with you, with you because you have come for us, God with us. It is about time that we reciprocate, us with God. So come Holy Spirit into all of this right now. We ask right now, not that we’re going to think about this anymore. We open ourselves fully and ask you to come right now. Let this begin right now. Come Holy Spirit, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Announcements:
Today is the 1st of the month and so there are a couple of really important announcements. One month ago today was August 1st and we announced Reframe, the book that is a month away from now. I want to talk about that and then I want to talk about something else and then I want to tie it all together.
Reframe did go up for presale last month and thank you so much for your support of the Reframe effort. I’ve had so many meetings in the last month just trying to make sure everything is done and right. It is so fascinating the places that it has taken me in my heart. It has liked pulled me back into my music business days and reminded me why I don’t miss those days, but it has also clarified for sure in my own heart and mind that the efforts are worthwhile, what I have been given to write in Reframe is important.
I need to get it into the hands of as many people as I can, as I possibly can, so earlier in the year, several months ago we were looking at what we can give away that would sort of balance it out, so that it was like to the best of our ability we were giving Reframe to as many people as we can. How can we offset the value? And we came up with some things. There was one thing that I wanted to do that wasn’t possible that now is possible.
In the month of September, if you will preorder Reframe, we are able to immediately give you the audio edition, so the audio book download for my first book, Passages that I'm very excited about. If you preorder Reframe, I’ll give you Passages as well as the first chapter to Reframe, so definitely something that can get you started as we await these few weeks until Reframe releases.
I was told in a meeting last week you may not even have to wait until October 1st. There is no 100% guarantee on that, but from what I learned, once everything gets into the warehouses at like Amazon and Barnes and Noble, they will begin fulfilling and shipping so it could be just a couple of weeks from now.
So for September it is just a little different. Last month we were giving away some other things. That is done now. We’ve gotten everything in a row to be able to give Passages away, so if you get a copy of Reframe or maybe even a copy for yourself and someone you want to go through it with or someone that would need this, you will get the audio edition of Passages immediately.
Now, that is only one part of what I'm going to tell you. Today also launches something that we’ve been working for months and months and months on, actually even years on. Last September we released something that was really involved and had a huge learning curve for us and also became something that was very valuable to so many of you. It was a film that we called Promised Land – An Intimate Portrait of the Land of the Bible. It is beautiful but I knew when we finished that film there was more.
We had set up a system for trying to capture the beauty and the essence of the places where the stories in the Bible actually happened because so many times we can read these stories and a window opens in our minds so we visualize what we’re seeing or what that must have been like, but it is living in our imagination. Although you can find documentaries about any kind of biblical topic and even documentaries that take you there, there is so often a person really dominating the screen. They are telling you what you need to know and then you get some glimpses of a place, but never really an immersive, 360-degree view that is really focused on the land itself. We knew as we went into filming Promised Land over the course of 3 years at that point we wanted the focus to be on the land. Even as we were editing Promised Land last year it was like we had footage, additional footage, but not enough footage to show some other places. There are some other places that I would love to film, so we’ve been back since then with a huge, I mean massive amount of research behind us and have finished the job.
So today we announce Promised Land – The Essential Pilgrim's Edition. This is the final edition that is planned. We’ve pretty much captured every archeologically sound, identified, protected, and even obscure place that is known and compiled it into a 2-DVD set. So what is different about the Essential Pilgrim's Edition versus Promised Land that we released last year is a couple of things. Number one, it is twice the content, just about twice the amount of locations. Number two, it includes some very interesting places that no one either can go or will go that have tremendous impact on the stories of the Bible. Places like Shechem. Shechem is one of the most important cities in the Bible. It is the place where Abraham, Abram got the promise from God about the land. It is the place where the northern and the southern kingdoms revolted against each other. It is the place that sits between the mountain of blessing and cursing, but it is today a city called Nablus and it is not particularly a good idea to take a group in there. In fact, we can’t.
So there are places in Shechem like Jacob's Well where Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman or Joseph's Tomb where his bones were brought back when they came out of Egypt. These places are contentious places. When we filmed in Nablus, when we filmed in Shechem, we had special permission and we were treated unbelievably graciously and kind but it was altogether different. We were able to go to the top of Mount Gerizim, the Mount of Blessing, the hub, the center, the high place of the Samaritan people and see the ancient ruins from so long ago that exist from up there and film up there. The views from up there are amazing.
Or important biblical cities like Samaria, another unbelievably beautiful place that really no one goes to anymore just for safety concerns. We were able to go there, film it, bring it to life, show it to people who, even if they’ve been there, haven’t seen these places.
Places like Jezreel where so much in the history of Elijah happens, where Ahab and Jezebel hung out, where Jezebel was thrown down. Remember the story? She was thrown down for her persecution of God's prophets but also because she killed Naboth and got this vineyard right there because her king husband was sulking over it. You remember these stories – these places are real.
And other places that you just can’t get to like Bethel. Bethel is an important city throughout the Old Testament history. It is the place where Jacob saw a stairway to heaven. When you see that place, when you actually see it on the film, that whole story starts to make perfect sense. It was a holy city, an important place.
We even filmed the archeological dig that is happening right now at the ancient city of Ai which was the second city conquered when the children of Israel came into the Promised Land, but it was a city that defeated them. So they defeated Jericho, the walls came tumbling down, and next they went after AI and were defeated. This place has been found and is being excavated.
Or places up in The Galilee like Magdala where Mary Magdalene came from, the next-door-neighbor, adjacent city to Capernaum where Jesus lived. There is a synagogue in Magdala that sat underneath the ground undiscovered since the time of Christ. A lot of these archeological places that have been found that are associated with Jesus have been protected and built up and venerated and become holy so that there is some sort of additional building and restoration. It may have happened 1600 years ago in the Byzantine Empire, but it has still been built upon. Magdala hasn’t been because it has just been sitting there since the 1st century. So a synagogue has been found in Magdala that is as it was. It was one of the places we can go to where Jesus spoke, where Jesus ministered. The tiles and the flooring and the outline, it is as it was which was remarkable to look at, to think Jesus stood not just in this place, but on that floor, that exact one.
So we filmed and edited and worked and researched and developed narratives and have now really the most profound and exhaustive library of the places where the Bible happened that exists anywhere in the world. That is now Promised Land – The Essential Pilgrim's Edition. It is a lot of things. It's a travel log, for sure. It is definitely a master class in biblical history and geography, without a doubt. If you got Promised Land last year, then you know what we’re talking about and how it is great reference, but even what we shot before, the films that were in the original Promised Land, only a handful of them have been unchanged because we filmed more. We looked at everything we had shot and went back and got what we didn’t have. And we have some of the most beautiful aerial cinematography of these places that has ever been filmed. Some of the places have never been filmed in this way. So almost all of the aerial cinematography in all of the films has been changed. So if you have the first Promised Land, most of what was shot from the air is new and so many new scenes. It is quite different and in some cases… I mean, the only ones we didn’t touch were the ones I looked at and I was like, “this is perfect already.” That was just a handful where there was nothing to add to it, we really got it. That was just a handful. Almost every one that we had shot before we have inserted a generous amount of new footage and replaced most of the scenes that we filmed from the air just because of better technology, better shots.
We were down in Hebron, which is a pretty tense place but literally one of the most important cities in the Bible. Hebron is where David reigned after he became king after Saul's death. He reigned there, had children there. Hebron goes back way, way before David. Hebron is the place where the Valley of Eschol is. The Valley of Eschol is where Abraham bought a field so he could bury his wife and it became the burial place for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, their sons. That is still there. The Tomb of the Patriarchs is a very contentious place because it is a holy place for Jews, Muslims and Christians. Everything finds in some way its origin with Abraham in these three traditions and so it is a pretty contentious place. It is a place that houses a synagogue and a mosque adjacent to each other in the same building, separated by a wall. We were given permission to go in and film inside both the mosque, which is beautiful, and in the synagogue and the way that they share it. But we were also able to do something that this is the only footage of this that exists. We got permission, just being in the right place at the right time, from the Israeli military to fly over and around from the air the Tomb of the Patriarchs. Tyler, my son who is an amazing drone pilot, is flying this scene and we’ve got pictures of this with several men with machine guns in their military armor standing by and watching. They were nice, but they were watching. None of the individual soldiers could give any kind of permission like that. We actually had to go to the, I don’t know if he was a sergeant or what he was, his rank was above everyone, he was in charge of the protection of Hebron and he came down. A GI Joe guy, for sure, like “I’ll be nice to you, but don’t mess with me” kind of guys for sure, and he gave permission and let us do it. So we filmed Hebron, the ancient, ancient ruins of Hebron dating back to Abraham's time.
Oh, there is so much in this new Promised Land – The Essential Pilgrim's Edition. I need to space this over a few days because there is so much to tell, but we’re releasing that today. Here's how it is going to work. Last year when we released Promised Land, we released it on DVD and Blu Ray. This year because it is so much more content, we’re going to do it a little different. Promised Land is a 2-DVD boxed set, absolutely beautiful. It includes a lovely map that shows you every one of the locations and where they sit in the geography. It is an absolutely beautiful package without a doubt. When you buy Promised Land – The Essential Pilgrim's Edition, you will be getting that in the mail, but you will also be getting immediate download access to the hi-definition files. We did it this way for a couple of reasons. The Promised Land DVDs, they’ll play. They are long play. They work like a DVD does, but we also wanted to, now that we’ve completed this library, have it as individual files so that it could be used in your Bible study or in your church to illustrate like if you're talking about a setting in church or Bible study or in Sunday school or wherever, home group, whatever, you're talking about a certain story in the Bible that happens at a certain place, you can just go to that file and show it and bring context. Like “this is what that place looks like.” So we wanted them as individual files that were available as a resource so we’ve broken them down into individual locations all in hi-definition. They are available for download, so when you get Promised Land, it will be sent to you as 2 DVDs, beautiful, but you’ll also get media access to the download files. That seemed like the best resource, the best we could give you to further engage in the Bible, which is our mission. That is what we do as a community.
I can go on and I’ll go on and on over days, but Promised Land – The Essential Pilgrim's Edition is now available. Here’s how this all ties together. During the month of September, if you will go to www.ReframeBook.com and pre-order Reframe, you will not only get the audio edition of Passages and the first chapter of Reframe, but we will send you a $10 voucher to be used for Promised Land – The Essential Pilgrim's Edition. Now I feel like we’re following our model well, giving more than we ever ask. We’ll be able to give you more than double the value of Reframe if you will jump onboard with that and help get as many of these into the hands of as many people as we possibly can. Thank you for your help on that.
Okay, I think I’ve said enough for today. If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that the website, www.DailyAudioBible.com.
If you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253 is the number to call.
That’s it for this exciting day. I’m Brian. I love you. I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports:
Good morning Daily Audio Bible. This is Carolee calling from Connecticut. I want to thank Brian and Jill for this beautiful resource for all of the Daily Audio Bible family. Thank you so much. This is my first call into the prayer request line and I just wanted to communicate to you that this is so beautiful. I send my prayers up for the entire family and I want to make a mention for a prayer request. This Daily Audio Bible, listening to this this year has represented such a change in my life. I have the chronic disease multiple sclerosis and I’ve been fighting this for almost 30 years. Was hit in my late 20s before my husband and I were married. At this point I am still comforted by the Lord and the scriptures. Even though I’ve been doing Bible studies I’d say for 10 years, this has represented such a change in me that I'm able to fight this disease with the Lord by my side. But I would like to send a prayer request up for my husband. He is not faithful. He was not given the opportunity that I was to be raised in a church, so along with this, I wanted to pray for the woman that called in earlier this week for her husband.
Hi Daily Audio Bible family. This is Linda in New York. You know, in this life we will have some ups and downs but sometimes, you know, we just have to wait on God. God gave me this scripture for you today. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Oh they shall mount up with wings as an eagle, oh and they shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint and wait, I say wait on the Lord. You pray for me and I will pray for you. That scripture is taken from Isaiah 40:31. May God bless all of you.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible family. This is Carolee calling from Connecticut. This is the first time I’ve called in the prayer request line. This is my first year in the Daily Audio Bible and I would like to thank Brian and Jill and everyone behind the scenes to put this resource together so we can meet as a community to hear the scripture. It has been a beautiful part of my life. Although I have been involved with Bible studies for about 12 years now, this is my first year with you and what a change in my life and in my heart. To make a long story short, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis close to 30 years ago and I must say that I am fighting this disease with a warm heart as it elevated me above and above what this disease represents. So I thank the Lord for his grace and mercy so that I can shine above this disease. I do want to mention that my husband is a primary caregiver and he is so supportive of me, but he is not of the faithful and my heart goes out to the woman that called in this week as she…
Hello Daily Audio Bible community. This is Scott, the nurse from Michigan. Just calling in a couple of quick prayer requests. I start my new job on Monday in the ICU and I'm just asking for your prayers. I would like Jesus to be my main preceptor along with the human ones there. I want to do well. Another thing is I just felt compelled to call. I'm outside my karate place. I'm just doing a test tonight. I'm just asking for prayers to do well and not to get hurt, especially since I'm starting a new job on Monday. I know God doesn’t work in our time and space. Another one is I want you to continue to pray for my wife, her mood and stuff has been better lately. May be slight depression, but just keep praying for her, that she finds what she is looking for, direction. And one last thing, on a side note, I'm going to… If you want to keep a lookout for me, I'm going to put myself out there on the DAB Friends Facebook Page. I just realized I’ve been listening since 2009 and really haven’t made a connection with anybody. What prompted that is Chante, if you can look for me, because we’re in the same area and you were talking about in one of the community prayers starting a Midwest DAB Community since you didn’t know who was DAB and not when Brian talked at the Heartbeat of Plymouth, just on a side note. I hope everybody is having a good day. God bless.
Hi family. This is Pastor Gene from Bradenton, FL. Happy belated birthday to Zekey and thank you, Brian, for sharing one more time the testimony of his birth. I have heard it now twice and it always blesses me. This is the story of the Daily Audio Bible. We are a family so we need to support. We’re there for each other in prayer, supplication and that is just what makes this community such an amazing one. It is possible because you, Brian and Jill, had said ‘yes’ to the Lord __________ beyond that I'm sure has to __________ at times. Let's pray. Father, I pray for Lloyd from North __________, his mom has cancer, 80 years old. His dad is understandably very upset. I am lifting my voice to the heavens on behalf of his mom and asking you to do a miracle, O God, of healing, of encouragement, of supernatural faith. I join brother John from New York on behalf of his daughter, Phoebe, and I ask that she will be successful as she pursues a career in medicine, Lord, and I pray that you will soften her heart to Jesus Christ in the process. O God, I pray for Dawn from Canada. Her call back in July was so awesome. Father, thank you for her. I know her son is struggling with addiction and that has really impacted her family, but I know, O God, that you are with them. Please encourage them. Encourage them and give them victory over this situation. Father, I pray for Dave and Lisa, __________. I pray that you will encourage them as they have encouraged us. I pray for Tina from Knoxville. Thank for the words of testimony of what God is doing in you and through you. I join you in praying for Jordan __________ God's plan and their life prosper. Guide…
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Tamarie 09/01/2015 20:09 |
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