Daily GNT Bible Reading Podcast

Hi there!

I’m so glad you have clicked to listen to this trailer to the Digging Deeper Daily Bible reading plan for 2024. If you want to read the Bible in a great reading plan that will hold your attention and enable you to stay with the program, you are in the right place.

My name is Phil Fields. I’m almost 74 years old and happily married to Gale. We have three children, and five grandkids. In 1983, when our kids were still small, our family went as Bible translators to Papua, Indonesia. We finished a New Testament translation for the Orya people in 2005. Since that time I have been leading an organization which is translating the Bible into the national language of Indonesia. We’re hoping that the entire Bible in the Plain Indonesian Translation will be finished at the end of 2025. Our sponsoring organization is Pioneer Bible Translators.

When I started the Daily Bible Reading Podcast in 2014 the audience I had in mind was my grandkids. I wanted to make a set of Bible recordings for them, to leave behind what I would tell each one of them if and when they fall into difficult times.

Here’s a list of what I will cover:

• Remember this new Web address: DDeeper.today.
• Please Sign up for email
• Why it’s a good idea to use a good Bible reading plan.
• Choose a Bible translation that makes sense for you for daily reading.
• Different ways to follow the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan
• Pointers about podcast listening
• How to contact me.

Remember this new Web address: DDeeper.today. I realized recently how hard it is to find my websites when they are named DailyBibleReading.info. When I started podcasting in 2014, there were not many podcasts or blogs with that name. So I am hoping that the oddity of the new web address will help everyone looking for information on the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan and podcasts. The site is DDeeper.today with two D’s. I figure most other podcasters won’t misspell Deeper like I have. Even though it starts with two D’s, I’m pronouncing it like it started with just one.

Please Sign up for email: There are times when I want to announce a special episode or a new feature in the YV Bible app. And listeners often like to hear about our Bible translation ministry. That is why I suggest that you sign up for my email updates. You will join a special list that is only for 2024. You will receive no more than 5 emails. I won’t ask for donations or try to sell you something. Please sign up by going to DDeeper.today, click the How-to’s link, and choose the menu item entitled 2024 Email Sign-up.

Why it’s a good idea to use a good Bible reading plan: If you start at the beginning of the Bible and attempt to read straight through, you will likely get bogged down somewhere in the Old Testament. The Bible is not organized like a novel. The Digging Deeper Daily reading plan will help you be successful. If you are looking for a reading plan that covers the whole Bible, I highly recommend you choose a reading plan that contains something from the New Testament every day.

For more information about the 3D reading plan, please click the How-To link at DDeeper.today and scroll down. I suggest that you view the short video on that page entitled How to Study the Bible.

READ in a real-book Bible: You’ll want to download the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. The link for that is found right on the front of DDeeper.today. It is labeled Plan.PDF.

READ the 3D reading plan using Bible apps on your smartphone or tablet: Subscribe to the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan in the YouVersion Bible app. This app is available for Android and Apple devices.

LISTEN to the DDeeper.today podcasts. The podcasts have an introduction to each of the three daily readings. The introductions remind you of what you heard yesterday, and the podcast ends with a prayer that I normally don’t close with an Amen, hoping that you will continue to pray.

How about READing and LISTENing?! Open your podcast player and start the introduction to your next episode. While listening to my greeting, you’ll have time to open the YV app to your next day in the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. You’ll get way more out of each day’s readings if you have time to do it this way, reading and listening.

When you sign up for a YV reading plan, you are given an option to do the plan privately or share it with your friends. If you share the plan with friends, at the end of each day’s readings, you will be given the opportunity to share something you gleaned from the readings. This is fabulous and a great way to connect with your friends through the Bible app. But since the Digging Deeper Daily plan is for the whole Bible in 365 days, I suggest you share with a select group of close friends, or maybe 1-2 other people, or just do the plan privately.

Choose a Bible translation that makes sense for you and for a year-long reading program. Many of you will be using a translation like the ESV for taking to church. My own church uses that translation. But it is not very well suited to a year-long reading program, especially if this is your first time reading the whole Bible. I strongly recommend the NLT or the GNT for following the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. Please take my advice as a Bible translator: Using a translation like the NLT or GNT is even more important if you will be Listening to the Bible readings while doing something like driving to work. See more information about Bible translations under the READ heading in the How-To’s.

How to listen to podcasts: Please see the Listening How-To’s by clicking the How-To’s link at DDeeper.today. I recommend you use a podcast aggregator app that

• makes it easy to see the episode notes,
• that remembers your place and will automatically queue up your next episode,
• and that lets you speed up my reading to 1.20% speed.

If you use smart speakers to play the DDeeper.today podcasts, please help me improve the instructions found in the How-To’s.

My favorite way for you to contact me is via the contact button at the top of all my websites. If you are using an Alexa device, I recommend controlling the playback with the Amazon Music app.

The three older domain names for my two Bible-reading websites will still take you to the same pages. The main old website isdailybiblereading.info.
Also: dailyNLTbiblereading.info
dailyGNTbiblereading.info

For any long-time listeners, I believe that the change of the name of the podcast to DDeeper Daily and the new domain name will not change the way your podcast player is interacting with the podcasts. If you find otherwise, please let me know.

When I chose the odd extension for the DDeeper site, not dot Com, or dot info, but ‘today’, I thought of two places where the word ‘today’ is highlighted in the New Testament. One is

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭6:2‬ ‭NLT‬‬

[2] For God says, “At just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you.” Indeed, the “right time” is now. Today is the day of salvation.

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭4:6‭-‬7‬ ‭NLT‬‬

[6] So God’s rest is there for people to enter, but those who first heard this good news failed to enter because they disobeyed God. [7] So God set another time for entering his rest, and that time is today. God announced this through David much later in the words already quoted: “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts.”

That last quote is one you will need to read in context to really understand. My point in sharing those two verses is to encourage you. Each day that you read the Bible with the goal of reading all of it, the Holy Spirit will be helping you experience the amazing spiritual transformation that God wants for you. Find salvation, and enter the place of rest and safety God has for you.

Please Sign up for email by going to the How-to’s at DDeeper.today.

Here is the link to the Digging Deeper Daily Youversion reading plan: https://www.bible.com/reading-plans/1314-digging-deeper-daily-by-daily-bible

Here is a link to a fuller explanation about how to duplicate the experience of the Read To Me Daily reading plan:
https://sites.google.com/clarinetpages.net/read-the-bible-in-a-year/listen/using-the-youversion-app?authuser=0

I am releasing this episode number 12 of Joysightings at the DBRP feed in order to let you know about my recordings of Tales of the Kingdom and Tales of the Restoration, by David and Karen Mains. You can find the other chapters of these two books at joysightings.info.

It was perhaps in 1989 that a precious friend sent the two books to us, when we were living in the rainforest of Papua, Indonesia. Our children were at just the right ages to enjoy the full impact of these stories. It is a joy for me now to share these with you also. Each book consists of 12 chapters written as allegories. You will enjoy the deep symbolic meanings that underlie the story of characters with names like Caretaker, Mercy, and Hero.

At the Joysightings.info site, the first chapter of Tales of the Kingdom is episode 12, and the first chapter of Tales of the Resistance is episode 25.

When I made the podcast recordings, I was reading from the first edition of the two books of Tales, published in 1983 and 1986 by David C. Cook. The books have beautiful color pictures (one per chapter) by Jack Stockman. I tried repeatedly to reach out to David C. Cook to ask for permission to share these recordings on my podcast. In 2019 I reached out to David and Karen Mains via their Facebook page, and David answered giving his permission for my podcasts. Now in 2023 I discovered that the copyright for the books now belongs to Mainstay Ministries. In February I attempted to more formally re-confirm the Mains’ permission for my podcasts. However I found that the Mainstay Ministries website is not currently working and both numbers given for contacting them have been disconnected. If any of you listeners can connect me with the Mains family, I would appreciate it very much.

The two sites I find for Mainstay Ministries are
https://www.sundaysolutions.com/
https://kingdomtales.com/

Today I would like to give pointers for understanding Jesus’ parables. I consider the parable to be one of the greatest of all teaching devices, and a legacy of the Greatest Teacher. I will end this episode by sharing a non-Biblical parable.

One little detail to understand is that the word ‘parable’ (Greek paraboles) had a wider meaning than we normally think of in English, and you may see this sometimes in the New Testament. In English, we normally think of a parable as a story that points to some deeper meaning. However, as an example, the word ‘parable’ is used for a one-sentence figurative teaching in Mark 7:17 where it refers back to Jesus’ statement in verse 15: 

GW “Nothing that goes into a person from the outside can make him unclean. It’s what comes out of a person that makes him unclean.”

In verse 17, the disciples ask Jesus to explain that ‘parable’. 

With that footnote, I want you to know that I will really just be talking briefly about what we normally think of as parables, the story type.

In the episode notes, I give links to more complete and scholarly information than what I will present to you. In particular, I recommend viewing the 6 minute video from bibleproject.com entitled The Parables of Jesus. Also in the episode notes, I have links to both a video and a good summary about Interpreting Parables by Bob Utley.  

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Bob Utley’s Special Topic page on Interpreting Parables:
http://www.freebiblecommentary.org/special_topics/parable_interpretation.html

Bob Utley’s video on Luke 15:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f76EvjGy7Jw

Don’t miss the cool video from BibleProject.com! Title: The Parables of Jesus

I appreciated the original thinking and humorous examples in this short article:
https://www.1517.org/articles/understanding-jesus-parables

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As I was thinking about what to mention to you, I was reading a historically-interesting commentary by Christopher Wordsworth from 1856, and I almost stumbled into a common error in interpreting parables, which is thinking of them as allegories. An example of this is Luke chapter 15, where we have the parable of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son. Wordsworth gives an allegorical interpretation, assigning an identity to all the characters. In this case, the shepherd is Christ, who searches for his lost sheep. That’s not too bad. But seeing the woman who loses one of her coins as a picture of the church, is definitely stretching things. Similarly in the Parable of the Lost Son, the father is interpreted as God, the younger son as the Gentiles who repent, and the older son as the Jews. 

One of the things that leads people to take an overly allegorical approach to the parables has to be Jesus himself, in his foundational teaching about the parables found in Mark 4, Mat. 13, and Luk. 8. In Jesus’ explanation of the Parable of the Sower, He might almost contradict my last point about allegorical interpretation. It just happens that the Parable of the Sower (also called the Parable of the Different Kinds of Soil) has clear allegorical elements (the birds, path, rocky soil, etc), whereas for many other parables it doesn’t help to seek an allegorical identity for the various participants. A second thing that is unusual in the Parable of the Soils is that it has clear multiple teaching points, whereas most parables have a single, simple point.

I have mentioned all this heavy stuff to bring us around to this simple point: When we get too fancy in our interpretation of parables, we tend to miss the main point, which is to ask, “How does this apply to me?” The cool thing about parables is that Jesus intended them to be multi-purpose. People who were ready to believe in Jesus would get one interpretation, and the religious leaders criticizing Him would understand Jesus’ meaning very differently. Both groups got a correct interpretation, as Jesus intended, even though the interpretations were different. 

This propensity of parables to be interpreted differently has a plus side and a negative side. On one hand, we must remember that parables are not good for determining doctrine. Let’s not decide the timing of Jesus’ second coming based on parables, but some of the parables clearly illustrate something about Jesus’ second coming. The plus side is that the Holy Spirit may use Jesus’ parables to say something very pointedly appropriate for you.

I have been amazed that in the Parable of Different Kinds of Soil I sometimes find that I am dangerously close to living amongst thorns, way too concerned with the cares of this life. But in a few months when I come across the parable again, I find that I have moved over to the rocky soil, meaning that I might glibly say that I love God’s Word, but on that day if I am honest, I have to admit that my roots are dangerously shallow.

Another illustration of a personal application for me is this, which I don’t think I have ever shared with anyone before: When I read the story of the prodigal son, I am reminded that I acted like the prodigal son, when I was young and thoughtless, by asking for part of my inheritance early. I didn’t realize that this was tantamount to wishing my father dead. How this must have hurt him! I wish I could tell him how sorry I am that I ever did that.

Don’t look to parables for decisions about moving to another city, quitting your job, or selling your house. That’s not what I mean by a personal application. 

Finally, here are three final pointers:

• Understanding the context and the audience Jesus was speaking to is key to understanding what Jesus was saying.
• You can see a progression in Luke’s Gospel that leads from more general parables about the Kingdom of God, to Jesus’ identity as the king who will return, and to whom everyone will give an account.
• Look to see if the Gospel writer or Jesus himself tells what He was driving at. And also take note of any surprising twist in the story. Such twists often give an important clue to the meaning.

Let me illustrate that idea of a surprising twist found in some parables. One of my favorite booklets that we printed to display our translation in Indonesia is a collection of 25 parables. If I am in Indonesia, I like to have that booklet handy in my bag. There was one devout Islamic taxi driver that took me to my home at least six times. Because of frequent traffic jams in Jakarta, a 20 minute trip can take two hours on bad days. So I started reading the parables to him. He was interested, and it was way better than trying to debate with him about our religions. After many of the parables he would say, “OK, yeah. I think we Muslims could agree with that one.” That continued until we got to the Parable of the Vineyard owner in Matthew 20. That’s the one where the vineyard owner gives all the workers the same pay for a full day’s work, even though some workers only worked for one hour. He responded, “What?! He did that? That’s crazy. That’s unfair!” This gave me an opportunity to talk about God’s kindness. We call it grace. God wants to be generous with us, because none of us can manage to earn our salvation. God designed this counterintuitive situation so that all glory would go to our Savior, and none would go to us.

As I will not be living in the same place in Jakarta when I go back (in July 2022), it is not likely that I will take that route again with the same taxi driver. It is not appropriate for me to share his name. But you can join me in praying for that taxi driver that I read

Greetings everyone!

I am hoping that all of you who are in different places in the 365 episodes of the DBRP will get this news. I’m going to use the initials DBRP for Daily Bible Reading Podcast several times in this message. At around 12:01 midnight GMT on February 1st, I am going to flip a switch that will probably change the way both the Daily NLT and the Daily GNT podcasts will display in your podcast app. It is likely that you may notice a change in the ordering or appearance of the podcasts. However, there should be no problem in finding the podcast that you want to play next.

For many years now, my podcasts have been scheduled to be re-released each day according to my Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. (By the way, if you want a PDF of the reading plan, it is always available on the front page of dailybiblereading.info.) So one podcast was released every morning as if everyone started the 365-day plan on January 1st and never missed a day. So if you went to the dailygntbiblereading.info website on January 31st, episode 31 would be at the top. I thought that this would be the most user-friendly way to release the podcasts. But it turns out that it is not like what other podcasts do, and is not what is expected by most podcast apps.

Now, starting on February 1, when a new listener subscribes to the Daily NLT Bible Reading podcast in a podcast app, he/she will probably see episode 365 and need to scroll down to find episode 1. After that, the podcast app will most likely play them in ascending order. OR some podcast players give you the option of reversing the order, so that you can listen to the podcast going downward in the list instead of upward. The new organization of the podcasts will also help people who like to download all or many podcasts at home, so that their cell phone doesn’t need to be streaming them while they are commuting to work.

However, the new organization may make it so that using the two websites for the DBRP will be less efficient. You won’t want to scroll down 365 episodes at dailygntbiblereading.info on a cell phone. You certainly would not want to do that daily. 

HOWEVER, there is a problem here I want you to be aware of. Most podcast aggregator apps will forget your place in the DBRP episodes if you also use the same app to listen to other podcasts. So this is what I do each morning. I listen to my daily Bible reading  first, then I listen to The World and Everything in it. (I highly recommend that podcast!) But if I do that on the same app, then my place will be lost in the 365 DBRP episodes, and I will have to scroll and search again the next morning. So the answer to the problem, at least for me, is to dedicate one podcast app to the DBRP, and use another good app for your other podcasts.

I found a new favorite app for my podcast listening! It is Podcast Republic, and that app is available for both Android and Apple devices. This app checks all the boxes for me, except one. Podcast Republic is very customizable, and the programmer did a brilliant job of giving popup hints that help you learn what to do. Podcast Republic allows you to set the order you want your podcasts to play, and whether you want the app to stop after playing each one, or whether you want it to keep going to the next episode. You can easily set the playing speed for individual or all episodes. (I like 1.2.) Podcast Republic makes it easy to see episode notes and episode artwork. It does show Google advertisements at the very bottom of the screen, and I felt it was worth $4 to turn them off permanently. The one thing I haven’t found in this app is how to keep it from forgetting my place if I switch to play The World and Everything In It. So I use Antennapod (my previous favorite app) for all my other podcasts.

When I release extra podcasts on the 7th day of each month and at other times, you will find them in two places. I will release them according to the reading plan calendar location where I suggest listening to them, and also as the most recent podcast. So for the February 7th Reader Take Note podcast, you will find that as numbered the same as the Bible Reading podcast for day 38, the episode that falls on February 7th. You will also find that same extra episode temporarily posted as the most recent one, in other words, somewhere after the Bible podcast for day 365.

The Reader Take Note podcast for February 7th will be entitled, “What most people don’t know about Bible translations. By giving it that title, it means that I think the topic to be very important.

I am so thankful that you have listened to this announcement. 

I picked a new verse to post on my office door the other day: Deuteronomy 8:3 in the GNT:

He made you go hungry, and then he gave you manna to eat, food that you and your ancestors had never eaten before. He did this to teach you that you must not depend on bread alone to sustain you, but on everything that the Lord says.

This verse goes along with what I keep noticing: That the Lord has a plan in the things we each encounter, with difficult work situations, and all kinds of suffering, and not having things we need. In the end, may we be thankful that God uses these things to bring us back to the sustaining power of his Word. As you read ‘everything that the Lord says’ this year, may the Holy Spirit make your heart glad.

Gale and I send our greetings: May the Lord bless you ‘real good’.

Hey there! It seems like we are off to a good start this year in the Daily Bible Reading Podcast.

In this extra podcast, I am trying to give answers to frequent questions.

First I want to ask you to share the DBRP NOW with your friends. If you started listening to the podcasts just a few days ago, then perhaps it has occurred to you, “Hey, this podcast would be perfect for …” this or that friend. If so, please share with them right away. This first week of the yearly plan is a great time to start listening, and if your friend wants to, he/she can easily catch up with you. Then you can discuss the readings together.

I invite you to contact me if you hear mistakes in my podcasts or if you would like to send a comment. My favorite way for you to contact me is via the Contact button at dailybiblereading.info. It’s in the upper right hand corner of the screen. If you write about a problem in accessing a certain podcast, please tell me what device you are using and what podcast player.

But hey, before writing to me, please check out the Read This First pages linked in the banner bar at dailybiblereading.info. That’s the place to go for information about Bible apps, podcast apps, Bible sites useful for digging deeper. and also information about me (Phil) and Gale.^[a]

After a break in listening to my own podcasts, in 2022 I came back to listen to them again in a concentrated way, looking for things to improve. I ended up making improvements to 154 out of the 365 episodes among the NLT podcasts, and I will continue making improvements to the GNT series in 2023. But now I am afraid that I may have introduced new errors in the NLT series. So for you listening to the NLT series in 2023, please let me know if you hear mistakes or if a certain episode has inferior recording quality compared to the others.

YouVersion now has an audio play button at the bottom of every page in the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. Because that reading plan is sponsored by the Daily Bible Reading Podcast, some people will think that the play button is giving them the recordings for the podcasts. It does NOT. If you hit the play button, you get a Siri/Alexa-like voice that reads the devotional content page, and after that page, the app will play whatever voice is bundled with the translation you have selected.

If any of the people who have recently subscribed to the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan in the YouVersion app are confused like that, then they won’t get the message about their mistake, since they will never see the extra podcast that I release like this one. However, when the voice pronounces the name of Job as job, I hope that they will figure out that they are not listening to a podcast. Actually following the 3D reading plan that way is not too bad. I’m just sorry that those who do this will miss out on the extra information that I sometimes give in the podcasts, and also they will miss the prayers at the end of each podcast. For more information about my two full-Bible reading plans in the YouVersion app, please visit the Read This First pages linked at dailybiblereading.info, and look for the page that is about Listening to podcasts.

Now let me give you a selection of quick tips. 

If you have any questions about why I have recorded the NLT and the GNT for the DBRP, please see the Read This First pages. Those two are the most understandable English translations for those consuming Scripture in audio form.

If you started listening to episode 1 podcast on January 1st, if you don’t want to install a podcast app, you can simply go to dailybiblereading.info or dailygntbiblereading.info. Your daily episode will be near the top. Using that website is also a great way to listen if you are using a computer instead of a smaller device.

If you are somewhere in the middle of the year or are irregular in your listening, a good podcast app will make it easy to select the next episode without having to remember the day number or search for it.

If my reading is too slow for you, a good podcast app will let you choose to speed up the audio. My favorite speed is 1.20. I don’t recommend listening to Scripture at 1.5 speed if your aim is to understand it and think about it.

Two years ago, when I was reading the 3D plan and not listening to the audio^[b], I enjoyed using the MyBible app, which works on both Apple and Android devices. It has MANY options for customization. A simpler app that allows you to follow the 3D plan is called Quick Bibles. The Indonesian version of that program is the most popular Bible app in Indonesia. You can download and follow the Digging Deeper Reading plan in both of these two apps instead of using the more popular YouVersion/Bible.com app.

Please, if you are listening to the DBRP on your commute to work, have things set up with your podcast app so you do not need to touch your phone. If you commute to work with an Android device, I recommend that you check out using the Podbean app. If you sort the DBRP podcasts in ascending order (low to higher numbers), then the app will automatically move from one episode to the next without a touch.

One of the easiest ways to listen to the 3D plan using smart speakers. Please see the Read This First pages at dailybiblereading.info for instructions about using smart speakers, and also for more information about podcast apps.

At the first of each year, I frequently have received email questions asking me to explain what I said about the Orya people in the introductions to Genesis 1 and 2. I said this:

I have seen first-hand in my work in Indonesia that when a people group misunderstands and twists the story in Genesis 1-3, it will have far-reaching consequences for their lives. In the case of the Orya people, twisting the story of the fall caused much suffering and misery among families.

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It was about 1986 when Isaak Sasbe made a special trip to see me. At that time I and several Orya men were about to finish translating the Gospel of Mark. While I knew how to say lots of things in the Orya language, I usually couldn’t follow everything in an extended narrative in that language. So, on the day Isaak visited me, I am so thankful that I thought to turn on my little tape recorder. In the following months, I would carefully transcribe everything that Isaak told me. Isaak was the governmental head (or the mayor) of the village of Santosa. This is the story that he told, and that which the people there learned from his uncle, Daud.

In the beginning, Adam and Eve and other Orya people lived on Jadam mountain. They lived by the power of God. They even had glass in their windows. And they could just think about it, and food would appear on their tables. And they could just think about it, and all the dishes would be washed and put away. (They lived by the magical power of God and didn’t have to work.) But it all was ruined when Adam had sex with Eve. Until that time people lived without sex. So God got angry and told Noah to build a big boat. When the boat was finished and the flood waters started coming up, everyone who helped build the boat could get on. Those that got on included Jesus. As the flood got deeper, other people tried to climb up, but Noah hit them over the head with a hammer and they fell back into the water. Jadam mountain was the only mountain peak left above water, and the remaining Orya people stayed there until the water receded. But Noah and Jesus took the power of God with them in the boat, and they sailed away with it and landed in America. That’s why you Americans live with the power of God.

Then Isaak said something most significant: “I came here to ask you: How can we get the power of God back?” (The anthropology article that I wrote on this is published with the title Of Paradise Lost.)

Of course I tried to explain to Isaak that all this was twisted and wrong! I remember his disappointed look upon hearing my explanations. Years later I gained insight as to why he would have been disappointed. According to his belief, if I really had the secret of the power of God, I wouldn’t share it with anyone, because that would let others in on the secret. If I told other people how to share the power, the result would be less power and wealth for me.

Eventually this story and another told by Isaak’s uncle resulted in what anthropologists call a ‘cargo cult’. Such movements are common in the Papua province of Indonesia (formerly called Irian Jaya), and the other side of the island in Papua New Guinea, and in the Solomon Islands. A cargo cult starts when a charismatic leader arises (like Isaak’s uncle Daud), and tells people, “Hey, we’re doing things wrong. If you do what I tell you, we’ll be blessed with cargo (health, wealth, and prosperity) from our departed ancestors.” Daud’s twist on this was that the thing the Orya people needed to do to unlock garden-of-Eden-like prosperity was to trade wives. That idea actually had almost nothing to do with

As I finish this podcast series, I am really thankful for this year-long experience. If you are one of the faithful ones who have listened through a year’s worth of daily podcasts— and no matter whether this has taken longer than a year, I say Way to go! I sincerely hope these podcasts have been a blessing for you— as they have been for me. I hope that nothing that I have said has caused you to stumble or decreased your desire to study God’s Word. I started this project in the hope that my four grandchildren would— in some future year, listen to this series of recordings. Now we have five grandchildren. If you are Luke Fields, Laura Fields, Ava Baughn, Joel Baughn, or Devan Baughn, know that Grampa loves you and that I desired to share spiritual treasures with you. I am proud of you and wish that we could have shared these readings in person. I urge you to stay centered upon God’s Word. And to ALL of you in the family of Christ Jesus our Savior, I send warm greetings and love. May the Lord bless you as you continue your journey with Him!

MALACHI 4:
As people like Simeon and Anna (Luke 2) waited for the Messiah to come, I am sure that they were thinking of verses like Malachi 3:1:

Mal. 3:1 NLT “Look! I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. Then the Lord you are seeking will suddenly come to his Temple. The messenger of the covenant, whom you look for so eagerly, is surely coming,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.

Re-reading ISAIAH 66:
Isaiah ends with blessings and promises  that foreshadow Revelation, such as these:

Is. 66:12 GNT The Lord says, “I will bring you lasting prosperity; the wealth of the nations will flow to you like a river that never goes dry. …
22 “Just as the new earth and the new heavens will endure by my power, so your descendants and your name will endure.

In stark contrast to the promises and blessings, Isaiah also ends with vivid warnings against judgments and punishments that are like those in Revelation. Jesus himself quoted that final verse about the worms and the unquenchable fire. (Mark 9:48) You can take that as Jesus’ stamp of approval on all that Isaiah said!

REVELATION 22:
In chapter 21 we heard the invitation to receive free life-giving water for anyone who is thirsty, and that invitation is repeated in today’s chapter. The culmination of everything promised and the healing of everything sick and broken occur here. God says, “Look, I am making all things new.” There is again symbolism in every aspect of the New Jerusalem— including even the shape of a huge cube. As noted above at the end of Isaiah, in stark contrast to the eternal blessings for God’s people are the vivid ending warnings of eternal judgment in the last two chapters of Revelation.

In Rev. 22:8-9, most translations make it sound that John made the same mistake twice— bowing down again to the angel that was showing everything to him. But the Greek in those verse in chapter 22 can be understood to be retelling that event that happened in chapter 19, and I think that makes better sense. The probable reason that John included the story twice was to emphasize that angels should not be worshipped. Let’s beware of such heresy! Because such false teaching keeps on resurfacing and some forms of Gnosticism remain to the present day.

Congratulations on finishing the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan!

GNT Translation notes:
Rev. 22:8 I, John, have heard and seen all these things. And when I finished hearing and seeing them, (as I told you before) I fell down at the feet of the angel who had shown me these things, and I was about to worship him.
14-15 [It makes better sense to me to include verses 14-15 in Jesus’ quote, which means I did not read those verse the way I would if they were John’s narration.]

MALACHI 3:
In chapters 1-2 yesterday, we heard how skeptical and sassy the Israelites had become. This came out in the way Malachi has the people of Israel talk back to God. The first is like this:

Mal. 1:2 NLT “I have always loved you,” says the LORD.
But you retort, “Really? How have you loved us?”

Topics for such exchanges included offering sacrifices that don’t show appropriate honor to God, breaking covenants of marriage through divorce, and not honoring God as the God of justice. Two more sassy exchanges happen in today’s reading.

ISAIAH 66:
I highlight verse 17 from chapter 65, as it foreshadows what we will read in Revelation today and tomorrow:

Is. 65:17 NLT “Look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth,
and no one will even think about the old ones anymore.

And I believe that these moving verses from that same chapter portray the torment of the lake of fire:

Is. 65:13 GNT And so I tell you that those who worship and obey me will have plenty to eat and drink, but you will be hungry and thirsty. They will be happy, but you will be disgraced.
14 They will sing for joy, but you will cry with a broken heart.

REVELATION 21:
In chapter 20, we read about the millennium or the thousand year reign of Christ, the defeat and imprisonment of Satan, his brief release following the 1,000 years, and his eventual eternal judgment in the lake of fire. Death and the Grave were also abolished in the lake of fire.

MALACHI 3:
In chapters 1-2 yesterday, we heard how skeptical and sassy the Israelites had become. This came out in the way Malachi has the people of Israel talk back to God. The first is like this:

Mal. 1:2 NLT “I have always loved you,” says the LORD.
But you retort, “Really? How have you loved us?”

Topics for such exchanges included offering sacrifices that don’t show appropriate honor to God, breaking covenants of marriage through divorce, and not honoring God as the God of justice. Two more sassy exchanges happen in today’s reading.

ISAIAH 66:
I highlight verse 17 from chapter 65, as it foreshadows what we will read in Revelation today and tomorrow:

Is. 65:17 NLT “Look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth,
and no one will even think about the old ones anymore.

And I believe that these moving verses from that same chapter portray the torment of the lake of fire:

Is. 65:13 GNT And so I tell you that those who worship and obey me will have plenty to eat and drink, but you will be hungry and thirsty. They will be happy, but you will be disgraced.
14 They will sing for joy, but you will cry with a broken heart.

REVELATION 21:
In chapter 20, we read about the millennium or the thousand year reign of Christ, the defeat and imprisonment of Satan, his brief release following the 1,000 years, and his eventual eternal judgment in the lake of fire. Death and the Grave were also abolished in the lake of fire.

MALACHI 1-2:
We heard a very difficult conclusion to Zechariah yesterday. Chapter 14 started out with horrendous news for Jerusalem. But the Lord himself steps in:

Zec. 14:3 NLT Then the LORD will go out to fight against those nations, as he has fought in times past.
4 On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem. And the Mount of Olives will split apart …

We will see the following from Zech 14 very soon in Revelation:

Zec. 14:5c NLT “Then the LORD my God will come, and all his holy ones with him.
6 On that day the sources of light will no longer shine,
7 yet there will be continuous day! …
8 On that day life-giving waters will flow out from Jerusalem, half toward the Dead Sea and half toward the Mediterranean,
flowing continuously in both summer and winter.”

We turn now to the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi. The name means, “my messenger.” There is debate as to the date of the writing of this post exilic prophet, but generally speaking it is true that there is a 400 year gap between this last Old Testament prophet and New Testament. It could be that Malachi prophesied in Nehemiah’s day. Both Malachi and Nehemiah dealt with priestly laxity (Mal. 1:6; Neh. 13:4-9), neglect of tithes (Mal. 3:7-12; Neh. 13:10-13), and intermarriage between Israelites and foreigners (Mal. 2:10-16; Neh. 13:23-28).”

Re-reading ISAIAH 65:
Note that the chapter starts with a verse that Paul quotes in Romans 10.

REVELATION 20:
After the judgment wreaked against Babylon (chapter 18), we heard songs praising God’s justice in chapter 19. Then we saw the appearing of Christ riding on a white horse. Typical of John’s reticence to name deity, Christ is not named, but is beautifully described. Note that even Jesus has a name written on his person which only He understands. And like in John 1:1, Christ’s title is the ‘Word of God’. It is possible that this account of His appearing may not be in chronological order in its position following the destruction of Babylon. Although Christ’s army is mentioned, note how the victory is won by Christ alone.