Daily Bible Reading Podcast

Today’s GNT Bible readings are Micah 3; Micah 4; Isaiah 51; Revelation 3.7-22.

MICAH 3-4:
In Micah 1 yesterday we heard one of the sections of Hebrew poetry which is virtually impossible to translate and capture the same impact as the original. Micah— expressing his deep sorrow at God’s coming judgment, concatenated many place names— using them in a compound figure of speech based on the meanings of the names. For instance,

Mic. 1:10b NLT You people in Beth-leaphrah,
roll in the dust to show your despair.

The name Beth-leaphrah means ‘house of dust’.

For those following this plan in the GNT, Micah 1 would be a good place to open the NLT. The NLT footnotes do a good job helping us with the meanings of the names. That holds true until the reader gets to Adullam. No footnote for that one! Say, we’ve heard that name before, haven’t we? Who else hid there?

ISAIAH 51:
If you have time, go back to review Isaiah 50. God showed the thoughts of our Savior in advance of his coming in verses 4-6. Jesus’ resolve (alluded to in Luke 9:51) is shown in verse 7. And verse 9 might have been Paul’s inspiration for the last part of Romans 8! Verse 10 has been an amazing comfort to many with incurable disease or in hopeless situations.

REVELATION 3b:
One of the rewards given to the victorious from Philadelphia is this as NIV translates it:

Rev. 3:12a NIV The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will they leave it.

That gives the wrong impression to me. “Oh, no, I don’t want to be made into a pillar and not be able to move!” NLT gives the right idea with neat economy of words like this:

Rev. 3:12 NLT All who are victorious will become pillars in the Temple of my God, and they will never _have to_ leave it.

Another part of their reward is this:

12b And I will write on them the name of my God, and they will be citizens in the city of my God—the new Jerusalem that comes down from heaven from my God. And I will also write on them my new name.

People get very concerned about the mark of the beast in Revelation 13. Observe here something that you will see throughout this book: EVERYONE gets a mark of ownership upon them— including all the saints, and even Jesus has a mark on his forehead.

GNT Translation notes:
Rev. 3:7 “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: “[I am the one who is holy and true. My message to you is this://This is the message from the one who is holy and true.] [I have//He has] the key that belonged to David, and when [I open//he opens] a door, no one can close it, and when [I close a door//he closes it], no one can open it.
12 I will make those who are victorious pillars in the temple of my God, and they will never [have to] leave it. I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which will come down out of heaven from my God. I will also write on them my new name.
14 “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: “[I am the Amen//This is the message from the Amen], the faithful and true witness, who is the origin of all that God has created.

Today’s NLT Bible readings are Micah 3; Micah 4; Isaiah 51; Revelation 3.7-22.

Today’s GNT Bible readings are Micah 1; Micah 2; Isaiah 50; Revelation 3.1-13.

MICAH 1-2:
The name “Micah” is a shortened form of “Micaiah,” which means, “Who is like Yahweh?” A different Micaiah, the son of Imlah, served as a prophet in the Northern Kingdom during the reign of King Ahab of Israel (874-853 B.C., 1Kings 22:8-28; 2Chron. 18:3-27).

Micah prophesied during the reigns of the Judean kings Jotham (750-732 B.C.), Ahaz (732-715 B.C.), and Hezekiah (715-686 B.C.). This makes him a late eighth-century contemporary of Isaiah. While Isaiah was ministering in Jerusalem, perhaps Micah was more of a country prophet. Amos and Hosea were preaching at the same time in the Northern Kingdom. Micah’s message is similar to that of Amos, and Micah spoke at a time when conditions in Judah were much like those in the Northern Kingdom while Amos was preaching. Both prophets denounced social sins and the unfair treatment of the poor by the rich. The Northern Kingdom was taken into captivity during Micah’s lifetime— fulfilling Amos’ prophecies.

Micah contains three notable passages about Christ:

• Bethlehem will produce the ultimate Ruler 5:2— the information quoted to Herod in Mat. 2.
• Christ will be the King 2:12-13
• Christ will reign in righteousness over the whole earth 4:1,7-8

ISAIAH 50:
As we heard yesterday, Isaiah 49 includes these words that are quoted in 2Cor 6:2:

Is. 49:8 NLT “At just the right time, I will respond to you.
On the day of salvation I will help you.

And these next words are frequently repeated by the Lord elsewhere, therefore, IMPORTANT:

Is. 49:23b NLT Then you will know that I am the LORD.
Those who trust in me will never be put to shame.”

REVELATION 3a:
The churches of Pergamum and Thyatira (chapter 2) were enduring and remaining loyal to Jesus. But both were allowing the corruption of false teaching that promoted adultery and idolatry. Jesus warned of severe punishments including death for those who failed to repent, and also wonderful promises to those who are victorious. I especially love the last promise to the church in Pergamum because it shows how intimately Jesus knows us and how his rewards will be appropriate for each of us:

Rev. 2:17b NLT And I will give to each one a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one understands except the one who receives it.

GNT Translation notes:
Rev. 3:7 “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: “[I am the one who is holy and true. My message to you is this://This is the message from the one who is holy and true.] [I have//He has] the key that belonged to David, and when [I open//he opens] a door, no one can close it, and when [I close a door//he closes it], no one can open it.
12 I will make those who are victorious pillars in the temple of my God, and they will never [have to] leave it. I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which will come down out of heaven from my God. I will also write on them my new name.

Today’s NLT Bible readings are Micah 1; Micah 2; Isaiah 50; Revelation 3.1-13.

Today’s GNT Bible readings are Obadiah 1; Isaiah 49.13-26; Revelation 2.12-29.

OBADIAH:
At the end of Amos, the clouds of judgment broke and there were wonderful promises about the restoration of Israel. God would shake the nations like a sieve and not a single kernel (child of Israel) would drop through the cracks and be lost. And Israel’s crops would be so rich and fruitful. Then, did you notice?— Isaiah said the same thing in chapter 49.

Obadiah’s name means “servant of Yahweh” or “worshipper of Yahweh.”  There are 13 men who have this name in the Old Testament, and it is very possible that the writer of this book is not one of those mentioned. Only two Old Testament prophetic books lack any information about the author: Obadiah and Malachi.

Obadiah refers to a time when the Edomites had gloated over a successful invasion of Jerusalem (vv. 10-14, 16), but this does not help much in dating the book, since invasions of the city happened at least seven times in Old Testament history. The Edomites lived in the inaccessible rock fortress of Petra— which is famously seen in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. From our vantage point, we may see the Edomites as being symbolic of all the proud enemies of God’s people.

ISAIAH 49b:
In our first reading in Isaiah 49, I hope you noticed many poetic prophecies that remind us of Jesus. It is fascinating that most of these can be understood to refer to Cyrus as well! After all, Cyrus did release the captives of Israel to return again to their land. Alternatively, some of the prophecies may refer to the nation of Israel or even Isaiah, as the Lord’s servant.

REVELATION 2b:
Yesterday we heard the letter to the church at Ephesus— the church that lost their ‘love’ (in a literal translation). So the question is, they lost their love of who? The GNT specifies the implicit object ‘Me’ (meaning Jesus). NLT chooses another good option: It makes good sense to say that the love was for Jesus and for one another, since the two go hand in hand!

Secondly we heard about the poor and persecuted church in Smyrna. Their church is exceptional because there was no word of rebuke for them. Jesus just urged them to keep on being faithful.

Jesus ends each letter just like he ended his parables— which I paraphrase: “Ya’ got ears, don’t ya?! Well then pay attention …”

Remember what Isaiah said about people who have grown deaf!

You can help! And information about my new YouVersion plan.

Hi, and Merry Christmas!

I have plenty of information to share this time. I hope you are not too distracted while listening to all this!

Would you like to see more people find the Daily Bible Reading Podcast? If so, here is a quick way you can really make a difference: Some time ago I made a channel for the DBRP on YouTube which is linked here in the episode notes. Please, even if you never intend to listen to an episode on YouTube, please click the link to subscribe to that channel. The more people that are subscribed, the higher our channel will appear in search results.

At the beginning of 2019, I hope to be able to make Youtube playlists of episodes a month at a time, so that it becomes easier for people to actually listen to the DBRP using that platform. Youtube is the second most popular Internet search engine. So please help some people who are searching to discover the DBRP. Just click the link above and click to subscribe to our channel. Currently, there are only 8 people subscribed.

The DBRP got off to a rough start in 2018. This was due to my not observing how the new update to the Apple podcast app ruined the way the many episodes of the DBRP were being displayed. People--- including my son, David, were having difficulty finding the next episode they wanted to listen to. This is important because, around half of our audience are listening on Apple devices and primarily using the podcast app. So we lost many listeners at the first of the year.

To address the problem, I have taken three categories from the DBRP podcast and moved them to two different new podcasts. This makes it so that menus and search results are less cluttered. So here’s how it will work for next year:

• If you want to listen to the NLT podcast series, starting on January 1st, use our first web site, which is dailybiblereading.info. You will find complete information about listening apps and how to subscribe in the ReadMe PDF file linked at the top of the site. New episodes of the NLT will be released every day. Links for everything I am talking about right now are given in the episode notes.
• If you want to listen to the GNT podcast series, those are no longer being released daily at the first site, but at the new one: dailygntbiblereading.info. Every day a new GNT episode will be released to all the podcast apps and will be available at that website. Complete information about listening apps and how to subscribe are found in the ReadMe PDF file linked at the top of the site.

• If you enjoyed the JoySightings series of podcasts, I have moved those to a new location: joysightings.info. See podcast subscription information at that site. The Joysightings.info site also is host to the DayStarters series. The Joysightings podcasts are for sharing Parables of all kinds, but especially those of Safed the Sage. The DayStarters podcasts are GNT NT readings which were prepared for our daughter Hannah, so that she could start homeschooling days for Ava and Joel by listening to grampa read and pray. The readings are just the NT portion from the GNT readings, and they do not cover the more difficult readings in the New Testament. See the table of contents for both the DayStarter and JoySightings podcasts at joysightings.info.

Again I ask for your help! If you are an Apple device user and are still using the native Apple podcast app to listen to the original DBRP (not the newer GNT podcast), please tell me if you are more easily finding your episodes now. If there are problems, please send me a screenshot and tell me the difficulties you are having.

In looking forward to the new year, I never encourage people to listen to my podcasts for two years in a row. If you’ve listened to me for one year, it is time to find a different voice. But this year I have something new to suggest to you! I am releasing a new 100% audio reading plan for the YouVersion Bible app called Read To Me Daily. This will be almost like listening to one of my podcasts--- almost, but not quite. You’ll only hear my voice for the first 3 minutes reading the devotional introduction. But after you play the audio on the devotional page, then the YouVersion app will automatically play the default audio recordings for the two OT portions and one NT portion in whatever version you are using. This obviously won’t work for Bibles which don’t have recordings. The translations I recommend using for this plan are the NLT, GNT and NIV. For those who have read the NLT and GNT recently, I suggest following the NIV this next year. Just to let you know: That’s the version I plan to read in 2019.

One thing I like about this new RTMD YouVersion reading plan is the flexibility and the ease of use. Some people will choose to read on their own without activating the audio on days when that is convenient for them, but listen to the readings on days when they are commuting to work. Or, someone might listen one week to the readings in the GNT, and next week use the NIV recordings. Some people who delve deeper might choose to listen to some daily readings twice, perhaps once in the ESV and once in the NLT. Everything will be easy to do using just one app, the YouVersion Bible app. This Read To Me Daily reading plan will follow the same Digging Deeper Daily reading calendar as the DBRP. So on any day you might want to, you could jump to listening to your day number in one of the DBRP podcasts.

The reason I recommend using the NLT, GNT, or NIV for the RTMD plan is because those three translations are easier to understand in audio form. This plan will be released in 4 semesters to cover the whole year. Please help me spread the word about the new RTMD plan. I will release an audio invitation soon. Please share it with your friends.

Let me shift the topic back to the podcasts now: Recently I was talking to a man who has a ministry to the elderly in our town. It seems to me that the Amazon Alexa devices are the easiest way for elderly people to listen to the DBRP. I have already registered an Alexa skill for the DBRP, and I am applying for an Alexa skill for the Daily GNT Bible Reading podcast as well. Alexa devices like the Echo Dot start at just $29, but to use it, the person also needs to have a Wifi connection. By the last week of December, I will have new information in the ReadMe PDF file linked at the top of our websites that will tell you how to get things set up for using Alexa devices. Once you initiate the podcast on the Alexa device for your elderly friend, they can listen any time they want by saying, “Alexa, play the next episode of Daily Bible Reading Podcast.”

The initial idea for the Daily Bible Reading Podcast was to leave the recordings as a legacy for our grandkids. So far none of our grandkids have made it through a whole year’s worth. They currently range in ages from 16 down to 3, so there is still hope that they will listen to grampa someday. With the help of our podcast publisher, the DBRP is able to be subscribed to in almost any podcast aggregator app (and there are many), plus Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, GooglePodcasts, iTunes and Apple podcasts, Facebook, YouTube, and soon in Pandora.

I dropped the subscription to the dedicated Android and Apple podcast app, but I see that at least the Android app is still available in the Play Store. On my tablet, I noticed that the Android app is still working just fine. So for some of you, that may still be a hassle-free and advertising free way to listen. I still recommend the Podbean aggregator app for both Android and Apple devices, but it does show advertising while the podcast plays.

There are two more apps from YouVersion (also publishing under the name LifeChurch) that I want to tell you about. The first is Bible Lens. This app makes it easy to put Bible verses with any pictures that you have in your mobile phone or tablet. You are given multiple ways to creatively format the verses, and the output is more artistic than is possible using the verse-image feature that is available inside the YouVersion Bible app. (You see the Image option whenever you highlight a verse.)

The second terrific app from LifeChurch is Bible app for kids. This app is a very engaging way for kids from about 4-8 to listen to and watch Bible stories. The interface is like a game, and your kids will be able to navigate through and play the stories they want themselves.

One of my spiritual fathers, Richard Burson, gave me Sam Shoemaker’s book, Extraordinary Living for Ordinary Man. In that book was Shoemaker’s poem, “I stand by the door.” I will read that poem at the end. [I have edited the poem, and it was already slightly modified by the one who posted it at the website I link to the episode notes.] But here I give just the first lines:

I stand by the door.
I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out,
The door is the most important door in the world—
It is the door through which people walk when they find God.

Not just a few times I have been tempted to be envious of people who have such wonderful ministries to overflowing audiences or who are invited to lead organizations. Somehow, no one has ever chosen me for anything like that. This poem has encouraged me, because it seems like to me that God has called me to take my place near the door Shoemaker talks about. And truthfully, it has surprised me that God gave me an audience through my podcast. And guess what! We find now that ‘the door’ has moved. At the time Shoemaker wrote, the door might have been to a church or an organization like the one Sam Shoemaker founded, where people might come and find answers. Now the door is more often via YouTube, or Stitcher, Facebook, or the app called Whatsapp. God is still calling many people to come to Jesus. So many people are spiritually hungry and searching for answers. Please join me in standing near the door!

Before I read the poem to close this podcast, I want to remind you to follow the link at the top of the episode notes to go to YouTube and subscribe to that channel. Let’s pray that this will help some find ‘the door’.

 

I stand by the door.
I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out,
The door is the most important door in the world—
It is the door through which people walk when they find God.
There’s no use my going way inside, and staying there,
When so many are still outside, and they, as much as I,
Crave to know where the door is.
And all that so many ever find
Is only the wall where a door ought to be.
They creep along the wall like those who are blind.
With outstretched, groping hands,
Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,
Yet they never find it . . .
So I stand by the door.

The most tremendous thing in the world
Is for people to find that door—the door to God.
The most important thing any one can do
Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands,
And put it on the latch—the latch that only clicks
And opens to one’s own touch.
People die outside that door, as starving beggars die
On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter—
Die for want of what is within their grasp.
[While others//They live,] on the other side of [the door//it]—live because they have found it.
Nothing else matters compared to helping [those on the outside//them] find it [too],
And open it, and walk in, and find Him . . .
So I stand by the door.

Go in, great saints, go all the way in—
Go way down into the cavernous cellars,
And way up into the spacious attics—
In a vast, roomy house, this house where God is.
Go into the deepest of hidden casements,
Of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood.
Some must inhabit those inner rooms,
And know the depths and heights of God,
And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is.
Sometimes I take a deeper look in,
Sometimes venture a little farther;
But my place seems closer to the opening . . .
So I stand by the door.

The people too far in do not see how near [some others//these] are
To leaving— [those far-in ones being] preoccupied with the wonder of it all.
Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door,
But would like to run away. So for them, too,
I stand by the door.

I admire the people who go way in.
But I wish they would not forget how it was
Before they got in. Then they would be able to help
The people who have not even found the door,
Or the people who want to run away again from God.
You can go in too deeply, and stay in too long,
And forget the people outside the door.
As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place,
Near enough to God to hear Him, and know He is there,
But not so far from people as not to hear them,
And remember they are there too.
Where [are they]? Outside the door—
Thousands of them, millions of them.
But—more important for me—
One of them, two of them, ten of them,
Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch,
So I shall stand by the door and wait
For those who seek it.
‘I had rather be a door-keeper . . .’
So I stand by the door.