I’m really thankful for all of you Bible readers and listeners! I hope that you are staying healthy. Gale and I are fine.
I am thankful to see that DBRP listeners are a faithful bunch. I can tell from the download statistics that many of you have kept on listening daily even in the worst of the Covid19 epidemic. Some of you skip listening on the weekends because you listen while commuting to work, but you catch up again during the work week. Keep it up, friends! In our troubled times, knowing God’s Word is the rock and anchor we need.
For some DBRP listeners, especially for any listeners who are not in sync with those who started listening on January first, you might have difficulty finding your next episode at certain times of the year. (This has to do with how episodes are rescheduled for broadcasting.) If it ever happens that you can’t find the day number you want, you should always be able to find that day’s episode at our website, dailybiblereading.info. Another cause of the problem could be the podcast app you are using. It will help if you choose a podcast app that allows you to track your position in the calendar and automatically download a certain number of episodes in advance. Please share your favorite app for that with me, so that I can add the information to our website.
I want to express thanks to my volunteer secretary, Vicky Pool, who does the queuing up DBRP episodes every week.
After I have my Bible reading time in the morning, I listen to a podcast I hope you have heard about called The World And Everything In It. It gives world news from a Biblically-based world view. If you haven’t listened to it, I recommend that you give it a try.
I want to apologize to all those who are listening to the NLT Daily Bible Reading Podcasts. I have been listening to those again this year, one day ahead of people who started on January first. I keep finding mistakes and have fixed quite a few of them, and I have made notes for fixing some episodes later. But here is the main problem: The NLT series was recorded when I was new to podcasting. The initial recording quality was awful for half of the year. So when I now record little improvements (perhaps a sentence or two), the voice quality is significantly different. Some episodes have become a patchwork quilt, with corrections or improvements made over time, which make me sound like five different men. Oh, and by the way, back in 2014 when I first made those podcasts, I was using an older edition of the NLT.
This leaves me with a problem: I am very focused now on my Bible translation work for Indonesia. I cannot take the time this year or next to re-record the NLT Bible series, either in part or all of it. Someday, I hope to record the whole Bible again, but not now. But I have thought of the solution!
How about if YOU record a 20 minute podcast episode for one of the days in 2021?! How about if there were voices from all around the globe that would do this, and we could look forward to hearing from different people every day? We have time to make this happen for 2021 if we start now. But I will need several volunteers who will be willing to act as editors and organizers for this. If you want to hear more about this opportunity, I will give more information after the close of this podcast.
Some of you have been interested in what I have shared in the EveryWord podcast series, for which I have published just 4 episodes and will soon publish the 5th. This is the podcast where I read from Wilbur Pickering’s translation of the NT which is entitled The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken. I have had a difficult time making the 5th episode, making several starts, then scraping that material and starting over. After praying about it, I have decided to cover the ending of Mark 16 in this next episode. Verses 9-20 of Mark 16 are enclosed in brackets in most Bibles today, but should they be?! Recently a fellow missionary serving in Indonesia heard me mention that we support using the Majority Text for Bible translations, and he fired back the question, “Do you think that Mark 16:9-20 was part of the original text?” I feel that the answer to that question is vitally important.
Here are a few verses that have stood out to me in Ps 119 recently:
Ps 119:89: Lamedh
Your eternal word, O LORD, stands firm in heaven.
Now I wasn’t thinking of textual variants in Greek when I marked that. We can be comforted in our time that there is one thing that can be an anchor for our hearts and minds in this troubled time. God is in control and He is causing his purposes to be fulfilled. Let’s recommend God’s unchanging Word as the answer and source of truth for this world which has lost its moorings.
Ps 119:105: Nun
Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.
These verses comfort me in a time when we all seem so vulnerable and the world seems to be falling apart:
Ps 119:114,116: 114 You are my refuge and my shield; your word is my source of hope.
116 LORD, sustain me as you promised, that I may live! Do not let my hope be crushed.
Ps 119:123: 123 My eyes strain to see your rescue, to see the truth of your promise fulfilled.
Let’s pray:
Lord, we call out to You, and we seek at this time to more sincerely put all our hope in You. Be our strong tower, our place of refuge, and the source of our quiet confidence. Please open our minds to be able to find treasures in your Word that will give us new hope, not just for ourselves, but also to share with others. At this time our eyes strain to see your rescue, especially to see Jesus coming back again. No matter how You choose to rescue us today, please let your Word and your presence with us be our source of joy.
May the Lord bless you, ‘real good’!
Now if you are staying around to hear more about what I am hoping for next year, here is what I hope some of you will want to participate in. I love the way the podcasts for The World and Everything In It start, with a new voice giving a greeting, telling who they are and perhaps a sentence about where they are and what they do. I would like opening greetings to be like that for each episode recorded by you and other listeners next year, and your voice would continue to read the day’s Bible readings. You could base your introductory comments and the prayer at the end on mine, or you could embroider and improve on what I have written down. If you want to, feel free to involve other members of your family in your recording. Another difference for next year: You can choose which version you would like to read from a list I will provide.
To do these recordings, we hope that you are someone who can read in such a way that listeners can follow the meaning. I freely admit that I often have to record some sentences three or more times before I get them down without mistakes and carrying the intonation I am aiming for. So if you are someone who makes mistakes like me, then I hope that you can edit your audio file yourself, or be willing to learn that skill. It isn’t hard, and someone else will help polish the file you give us. I hope that next year we will hear old and young voices, voices that reveal different ethnicities, and speaking with accents from various regions and countries.
I need several people who will be able to help me put all this together. One would be someone who could manage the audio polishing process I just mentioned. We will give more pointers about how to make good recordings to people who express interest. The best way to contact me is to use the contact button at dailybiblereading.info.
And again, Gale and I say, May the Lord bless you ‘real good’!
