Daily Bible Reading Podcast

AMOS 3-4: As I said about Amos yesterday, he was wise in his methods. He condemned Syria, the Philistines, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, and Moab before coming around to Judah and finally the northern kingdom, Israel. We also heard some of the wonderful word pictures Amos used. ISAIAH 45:22-46. Remember that in the last chapter Cyrus' name was repeatedly mentioned. God's motivation for making such bold predi...

AMOS 1-2: If you are new to reading the Bible, I hope that you will remember the events and expressions that Joel used. One or two ideas were repeated by Jesus in the Gospels, and we will soon see how important Joel's predictions are in Revelation. We turn now to Amos, whose name means 'burden bearer'. Amos— like David and Gideon, started out as an ordinary guy going about his business as a shephe...

JOEL 2:28-3: An attack by an army of locusts must be so frightening! What descriptions! And even worse when God is bringing the attack as an act of judgement. Yet Joel offers hope. He encourages the people to come back to God and beg for the Lord's help. We will pick up today re-reading the famous part of Joel 2. ISAIAH 44b: In the first part of this chapter God said: Is. 44:3 NLT For I will pour...

JOEL 1: I feel the need to comment about chapter 9 of Esther and how the Jews "got rid" of their enemies. Remember that those Jews were not Christians. (I know how silly that sounds, but it is actually a common supposition among naive Christians.) The revelation of God's will did not come all at once, and the Jews did not have the pleasure of knowing what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount or o...

ESTHER 9-10: We have heard how Esther's request was granted, the king and Haman came to the second banquet, where Esther revealed her identity. The eunuch Harbona just happened to have pertinent information about Haman's plans for Mordecai, and Haman was killed and impaled/hanged on the pole he had planned to use for Mordecai. Mordecai, coming into possession of the king's signet ring, wrote an ed...

ESTHER 7-8: In Esther 5 Haman planned to impale Mordecai on a pole in the NLT, or just hanged in the GNT. (Given the period of time, I think that the impaling method is more likely to be right.) But on the same night that Haman planned for that murder, God caused the king to have a sleepless night and read in the annals of the kingdom about Mordecai. Haman came before the king at just the right ti...

ESTHER 5-6: In Esther 3-4 Haman cast lots (purim) to find out that March 7 was the lucky date to exterminate the Jews. Mordecai requested that Esther intercede directly to the king. And since she hadn't been called for, the only way to do that would endanger Esther herself, since no one was allowed to approach the king in the inner court uninvited. ISAIAH 41b: Did you notice in yesterday's reading...

ESTHER 3-4: Yesterday we heard how Esther became the queen, and how she continued to keep her Jewish background a secret. We also heard how Mordecai, her uncle, was promoted to a palace official after uncovering a plot to assassinate king Xerxes. Today we are introduced to the villain of the story— Haman. The Jews always read the book of Esther in the celebration of Purim. Whenever Haman's name is...

ESTHER 1-2: In the final two chapters of Nehemiah, we heard of the culmination of Nehemiah's work— the ceremony for the dedication of the wall. The people proved that the wall could stand up to more than just a fox walking on it. Then Nehemiah went back to Babylon. When he came back to Jerusalem, he needed to right several wrongs, as the people had allowed a deterioration in the temple worship. We...

NEHEMIAH 12-13 In yesterday's chapters in Nehemiah, we heard the names of the various religious and civil leaders who signed the statement of commitment to follow Moses' Law, which was almost certainly penned by Ezra. Then there was a listing of the various leaders and clans that volunteered or were chosen by lot to live in Jerusalem. ISAIAH 40a: I am always very disappointed with Hezekiah when he...

NEHEMIAH 10-11: The returned exiles showed how sincere they were in following the Lord! They gathered together for the express purpose of hearing the Law. By this time their language had changed so much that they needed 13 Levites to explain what was said in the readings. The people wept because they realized how far they were from obeying the Law of Moses, and also for joy in hearing it. One mont...

NEHEMIAH 8-9: Nehemiah 7 dealt with listing the various families and temple workers who came back after exile. The last phrase of verse 73 in that chapter is the transition to the next events in chapter 8.   7:73 NLT   So the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the Temple servants, and some of the common people settled near Jerusalem. The rest of the people returned to their own to...

NEHEMIAH 7: Yesterday we read how Nehemiah stood up for all the common people in their financial difficulty. The nobles were rich, but everyone else was suffering— some even having no option but to sell their own children into slavery. Amazingly, he succeeded in convincing the nobles to forgive debts, and forced them take a solemn oath about that. The wall was finished in just 52 days, but Nehemia...

NEHEMIAH 5-6: Yesterday Nehemiah gave a listing of the people who rebuilt the wall. This included Shallum and his daughters, and two named goldsmiths, merchants, priests and Levites. The residents of the land opposed to the construction were threatening violence, so the people armed themselves and had men on guard at all times. Nehemiah and his men stayed fully armed at all times, and in the last...

NEHEMIAH 3-4: After Nehemiah's wonderful prayer for Jerusalem, more than three months went by before the king noticed him looking sad. He says he had never before looked sad, so he must have waited. God must have been in the timing, because the king wonderfully agreed to help Nehemiah in every way. And the leaders in Jerusalem also were enthusiastic in their acceptance of his proposal to rebuild t...

NEHEMIAH 1: Yesterday we heard how the returned exiles responded to Ezra's shock and demonstration of his sorrow, and his prayer of repentance. The book ended with the names of those who were found guilty of forbidden marriages. Note that these are not just names of the guilty, but names of those who repented and sacrificed to God. They are the names of the forgiven. In some ways— and not all, thi...

EZRA 9-10: Yesterday we heard how Ezra introduced himself. Note that he spoke of himself in the 3rd person, but finally resorted to 'I'. King Artaxerxes was certainly impressed by Ezra! Ezra was given  everything he could have wanted, guaranteeing full government support of the temple worship in every way. Note how methodical Ezra was, making sure that he took Levites and temple servants along. Hi...

EZRA 7-8: Yesterday we read of how King Darius completely sided with the Israelites seeking to reestablish the temple worship. Note that the letter to Darius from the government officials was rather complementary and not threatening loss to the king's interests as the letter from the earlier officials. Remember also that this King Darius is the one who was duped into putting Daniel into the lions'...

EZRA 5-6: When the Israelites returned from exile, they were determined to get worship started again, and they made great progress, not waiting for the temple to be repaired in order to start sacrifices on an altar built upon the old location. They made a fast start to building too. But then opposition developed, and several Persian kings later the progress was halted. ISAIAH 31: One of the great...

EZRA 3-4: Ezra, a scribe and priest, doesn't start speaking about himself until chapter 7. Ancient copies of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah were written on the same scroll, and Jewish tradition holds that Ezra wrote both of them. The dates of writing are somewhere between 458 and 420 BC. I kind of doubt that Ezra was the author for both books, because the writer of Nehemiah starts out right away u...

EZRA 1: Before going to Ezra, I want to say that one can do a whole lot of digging deeper in the last two chapters of Daniel. History tells about those kings, and we know from what Jesus said and what is written in Revelation, that God plans for history to repeat itself. The main 'take-away' points are clear, just as they are in Revelation: Blessed are those who endure and live wise and holy lives...

DANIEL 10:20—12: In yesterday's reading, we heard Daniel's sincere prayer. Note that he had been seeking the Lord with limited fasting for 3 weeks. Then the angel Gabriel is again sent with a message for Daniel. Note that the phrase 'anoint the Most Holy Place' is probably referring to what we read about in Hebrews recently— that which our High Priest Jesus did in heaven. Gabriel's message about s...

DANIEL 9-10: Yesterday in Daniel, we heard of the vision of four beasts representing four kingdoms. After the fourth would be the start of the rule of One whose kingdom would last forever. This vision was explained, then Daniel had a second and more detailed vision. It is a major amazing sign of God's sovereignty over human governments that Alexander the Great is so clearly portrayed, and after th...

DANIEL 7-8: In Daniel yesterday, we heard the famous 'writing on the wall' chapter. That is where that idiom in English comes from! While that was happening with King Belshazzar, the Medes and Persians were outside the wall and the prophecies of Ezekiel, Isaiah and Jeremiah all happened. Daniel was to be proclaimed the third ruler because Belshazzar was in fact the second ruler under his absentee...

DANIEL 5-6: Yesterday we heard two stories: That of Nebuchadnezzar's statue of gold and the exciting way God delivered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And the second story was Nebuchadnezzar himself sharing about his dream and how he was later humbled. ISAIAH 25: Yesterday's reading in Isaiah talked of the destruction of the whole earth, but here again as typical in Isaiah, the sun was allowed to...