Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Good morning and welcome back. And we're gonna start off with a question Wednesday. It's Wednesday the 15th, and we're gonna start off with a question for Wednesday. We're gonna start off a question for Wednesday. Here's what it says. Okay dear. Well, it doesn't say dear, actually says this, prosper Podcast Pastors. It's a triple P. I like the alliteration. Do you re. That husbands and wives pray together regularly. And if so, what does that prayer time look like? Nuts and bolts. And it goes on to say like they want to do it, they're thinking about how to approach it, not best or not sure how best to structure that yet. So how do you do that? How is it different than individual prayer? Whatever tips and tricks you can provide. Life hacks, shortcuts, power plays. One ups, anything at all? I'm adding some things that he didn't say, but that's what he meant. Short answer is yes. I think it's good for husbands and wives to pray together. And the key there is the question regularly. And I think if you're like the majority of people who are married, and especially once you add kids to the mix, you, your schedule, your routine gets pretty crazy, pretty fast. Kids have different. Times that they're getting up, getting out, out for school, and maybe you've gotta be out and at the office at a different time than she does, or she has to be awake. And so it's hard to necessarily schedule that devoted time together. Can you do it? Yeah, you can do it. But to make a hard and fast rule to say it has to be scheduled at this time each and every day. And I know that's not the intent of the question or what it's asking, but that regularly, I think is, more of. You should be cultivating a marriage where prayer is a regular part of the response that the two of you have to life. That as it happens it doesn't take much of living together as husband and wife to find occasions and needs to pray. And so praying together is a good thing to do. And I don't think, this is something that a lot of couples probably do really well. I think it's easy for this to fall by the wayside and become an afterthought, and we can think, well, we're doing it individually and we're doing our one-on-one time with the Lord individually. So then corporately or together we're okay. And I would just say I think it's an area to, that we could all stand to grow in and all stand to excel more in. But it's a good thing. Marriage is. A sanctified relationship. Marriage is for the Lord. And so as such, I think it's good for a husband and wife to be approaching the Lord together and praying together, and that's gonna change what that looks like and what you're praying for is gonna change as you grow older together. But even a. For a couple, that's a newlywed couple. You can be meeting together. You can be praying for your future children. Should the Lord give you children, you can be praying for their salvation, praying for their wives, praying for their husbands, praying for things along those lines. You can pray for your marriage to be in keeping with. Ephesians chapter five, the roles that God has for a husband and wife you can be praying for. Just the first Corinthians 13 love that we're supposed to have, even just for one another within the church to be shown in your marriage. You can be praying for patience with one another, praying for each other's needs. Just like you would ask your brother in Christ or your sister in Christ and now Women's Bible Study or Men's Bible stay. How can I be praying for you? We should be asking that of our spouses saying, Hey, how can I be praying for you? And be praying for them that way together and individually. So, I guess it's different than individual prayer because. I feel like it's more rhythmic and in the flow of life versus individual prayer is probably you're gonna be waking up in the morning, you're gonna be doing your daily Bible reading, and then maybe you're praying afterwards or you're gonna carve out that specific prayer time throughout the day. I've found this in my marriage at least, to be more in keeping with the rhythmic flow of life that it just naturally happens to where there's times for us to set aside time to pray together. Thoughts. I would offer something related, not so much to the specific practice of praying with your spouse, but more along the lines of doing anything in the Christian life that you sense, God wants me to do this thing, whatever it happens to be. And the first thing I would say to you or anybody who's trying to implement some new thing in their walk with Christ is to don't overthink it. Don't overthink it, just do it. I did it. That makes a lot more sense. I say that because I know that lots of people get hung up on the particulars about, well, how many and how long and what's the actual format that you should use, what's the most helpful way to approach this? And those are fine questions in and of them. So I'm not poo-pooing your parade here, and I'm not a little bit, I'm not telling you that you shouldn't have emailed. That's a great email. I'm saying for most people what we need to hear is not, here's a strategy to do this, three steps, those kinds of things, but more so just. Just do the thing and trust that you'll figure it out as you go along. There's something sweet about just saying, look, this is so delicate. Right now we're not in the pattern of doing a thing. I haven't gotten to the place where it's almost guaranteed that I'm gonna do this particular habit or discipline of grace. And so it's important just to get rolling and just trust that the Lord will get you through it and that you'll learn things about it as you go through the process. But on that note, if the first thing is don't overthink it, just do it. The second thing I would add to this would be at some point, as you make progress in this to add. Small but maybe regular steps to improve it. And that doesn't have to be any major jump or major progress in your faith or in your prayer life. It's just a matter of saying, okay, what can we do better? And you'll notice this as you go along, like if you're reading your Bible. One of the challenges that I had as a young Christian is that I never knew where to start. I never knew where to open my Bible. I did the thing that most people do probably, and I have a devotional which take me. To would take me through all the Bible, different parts of the Bible that is, or I would just open up my Bible and randomly read where I felt like I needed to read, but that meant that I was leaving a lot on the table that I wasn't touching. And so. Introduction to a Bible reading program where I now have a plan where I'm gonna read this amount of scripture every day and I'm gonna complete the whole Bible in a year. And that happened over the course of time, and I got better at that as the years went on. So you can add complexity and layers to the disciplines that you're trying to grow in your life by baby steps. Don't overthink it. Don't try to do too much too soon. Add things to your schedule as time allows. And again don't overthink it. Just do it. Have a good time with it, enjoy it. But. Just like anything, it takes time to grow these things, especially when they're in the delicate stages. It does. Yeah. Yep. I'd agree. Yeah. Kinda an adjacent thought on this too, just for the men out there listening. I know a lot of times men, we can hear messages on being spiritual leaders of our home. And we talked even on Sunday about the priesthood of all believers and men should lead their homes. And I you heard me say, yeah I agree with that. I think they should. And there can be a lot of shame that comes if maybe we haven't been doing that very well, or you haven't been doing that very well or whatever. And you can sit there and think, man. I want that, but I, it feels hypocritical for me to start just doing that because I've spent so long, or it's been so long since we have, or we've never done that before. And I feel like my wife is gonna look at me like I'm some sort of fraud. If I say, Hey, we're gonna do family devotions now, or We're gonna pray together, now we're gonna, do this now. And that's where I would come back to what you're saying. I, it's better to say let's do the thing, even if it's gonna at first feel a little bit awkward. Push through the awkward and force your way through the awkward then to sit there and think, I feel like I should do this and I'm not doing it. And so don't let shame, or the fact that you haven't done it to this point, or the fact that you have started and stopped in the past, keep you back from saying, man, if I feel like God is putting this on my heart, I should do it. We should. We should be doing this. It's a good thing to do. Amen to that. I think there's a lot of starts and stops in the Christian life. Yeah, and I think God is gracious with us. He continues to be patient with us and hopefully we can pass it along even as we try to do the same when we start, stop, start, stop, start again. At some point we're trusting it'll stick and often that is the case if you're willing to stay with it. Great. I agree with everything that, I say the Bible says period. No, just say that again, but this time. Say this. I agree with everything Pastor Rod says all the time, mark four through five is what our DBR is today. That's what I'm saying. Mm. Mark four through five. We're back in with the gospel of Mark in, in chapter four. We're dealing with the parables again, and so we've read the parable that. Leads us off here, the parable of the sower. And again, remember these parables were a form of passive judgment and mercy, as you pointed out last time from Jesus in that he was hiding things from the people that were there listening, because in, in part the mercy is he didn't want them to be held to account for more information than they had already been exposed to. So this is both a mercy but also a judgment because he is. Hiding these truths from them at the same time. And so this is a parable that we've talked about, the four different soils. He goes into the purpose why he's teaching in parables and what this is all about. But if you'll jump down to verses 26 through 29, we do find a parable that is unique here to Mark and or at least to, to what we've read so far in the gospels. And that is the parable of the growing seed. And here you read about. Who really is behind the growth. And so this is one thing to note here. Jesus was a master at what he did because he's speaking all of these parables. And you might be thinking, man, there seems to be a theme. There's the parable of the weeds, the parable of the sower. There's now the parable of the seed growing. Jesus was speaking into an agrarian culture. That is a culture that was largely based on agriculture, on farming. And so these would've been. Illustrations that would've been very relevant and easily understandable by his audience. If he was preaching today into, downtown Dallas. He's not gonna be using these illustrations because it's not an agrarian culture. And so Jesus is going after the hearts of his people by appealing to their context and what they're facing and the situations that they would've easily understood. Here he talks about sowing. And yet he says, then the farmer goes to sleep. And what happens is that seed grows even while that farmer is sleeping. And so this is a reminder to us of who it is that causes the growth. And this is an encouragement to us as we share the gospel, as we as we pray for the lost in our lives, that it's ultimately God is the one that is behind the growth of these seeds that are being planted. And so here's a parable that we don't find in Matthew 13 that does show up here in Mark's gospel in Mark chapter four. That's a good word. From here you've got the mustard seed, which is a testimony to the fact that the kingdom is gonna start small. And you think about the fact that here's Jesus in his band of followers right now, but before too long he's gonna go to the cross, he's gonna rise again. And then in the Book of Acts, there's gonna be thousands that are being added. To the church every day. So the seed is gonna expand, the kingdom is gonna expand and it's still expanding today. And then he has the calming of the storm included for us at the end of chapter four as well. And I think the calming of the storm is one of the few miracles that's recorded in all of the different gospels, the Synoptics and John as well. And so we see in mark 4 35 through 41. Or maybe it's not. Is it not? Maybe it's not in John. I think you're right. I should know that it's not in John, is it? I think it is. Is it? Yeah. Wait, walking on the water? Yeah, walking on water is, yes. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, they are separate accounts calling. Yeah. I don't believe it is. You're It's not. It's only in the, it's only the three. You can put your email away. Synoptics, you were about to correct us. That's my bad. Anyways. Yeah. Chapter five, democ in the Pigs. We have hit this one a couple times before in other ones, but here again, the pigs are 2000 of them sent over the cliff and into the water. And then you've got the faith of Jairus and the faith of this woman with the discharge that Mark is gonna give us this account. And remember Mark's account is via Peter. This is Peter's eyewitness account of what's happening. And so we read earlier that. Jesus is gonna take Peter, James and John with him into this room where this little girl is. And so here we get the added detail that Mark provides of the words to Letha Kumi which means little girl arise. And so he's giving us what Jesus said to this girl who had died at the time, to bring her back, to resuscitate her, to bring her back to life. And that would've been a detail that Peter would've known 'cause Peter was there with Jesus at the time. Whereas the other, the rest of the 12, aside from James and John were on the outside with the rest of the people. I have a question about one of the parables that you skipped back on. Can I go backward a little bit? Yeah. No, please. Yeah. Okay. Verse eight of chapter five. Mm-hmm. The demon called Legion. There's many of them. It says here that Jesus said to them, he said verse eight, for he was saying to him, come out of the man you unclean spirit. So it looks like in verse eight, Jesus was repeatedly telling them to get out of the man or the men. Why is it that in verse eight, it looks like the demons resist Jesus successfully? I think there's a teaching opportunity that Jesus is carrying out with those that are there and with his disciples. And I don't think it's a, an inability of Christ to be able to do this. I think Jesus. 'cause the demons plead, the demons are at the mercy of Jesus. Later on, they're gonna say, please send us into the pigs. Right? And so, they're not. Exercising any power over Jesus here, but I think this is Jesus probably teaching his disciples and showing his disciples the gravity and the seriousness of what's happening. if there's 2000 of these demonic beings, think about that. There's 2000, well, no, there's 2000 pigs. At least there is. Somehow they. Are able to over overcome 2000 pigs. But if they're able to overcome 2000 pigs, he's says, we're, our name is Legion for we are many. I think he's distressing the gravity of the situation, the seriousness of it for those that are watching and nearby him. Yeah, I would agree with that. Clearly Jesus has authority over them. In fact, let me just point out to your attention here in chapter five, the word begged, B-E-G-G-E-D, begged, there's lots of begging happening and you'll see that the spirits the demon demonic spirits at his legion, they're begging him earnestly not to do what. What Jesus is telling them to do. So it's not that Jesus doesn't have the power, clearly Jesus is allowing them to resist in some small way, but not because he doesn't have the ultimate authority to do with them what he pleases when he chooses, but they beg him not to send them out. And so then the, which is also interesting, the demons inhabit. The animals. Yeah. Isn't that fascinating? Yeah. It seems to me that demons desire to inhabit something Yeah. Whether it's a person or whether it's an a person would be ideal. 'cause then they can defame the image of God. Mm-hmm. But they can inhabit an animal, which is interesting to me. I don't know when you know that for sure, but certainly it's possible here and you see that and beyond that. Okay. So they, the demons beg, and then the great herd of pigs was feeding there on a hillside. They begged him saying, send us to the pigs. And then the people begged him down in verse 17. They began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. And verse 18, the man who was delivered, the one who's focused on begged that he might be with him. Mm-hmm. So there's lots of begging happening. Mm-hmm. I think the point is Jesus is the one in control. Mm-hmm. He's orchestrating great all of these things. And you see that even in the demonic the Demon Act who's previously released. You see that in the demons themselves. You see that in the people of the town. Everyone's begging Jesus because he holds all the cards. Yeah. That's a great observation. That word begged is the same word in the Greek where we get the word exort. We're gonna see it even, I was thinking about it 'cause we're gonna see it on Sunday when Peter says, I urge you, it's the same word there. Urge be, plead, exhort. That sounds the same. Which sometimes we can think of. It doesn't, the reason I bring that up is when somebody is saying, I'm exhorting someone, we can kinda be like, oh, okay. Whatever. Yeah. But when, if they were saying, I'm begging you. To do this I, yeah. Begging. It's from Pero to come alongside of, right. Yeah. Which the demons are pleading and begging and Peter's pleading and begging with us as we're gonna see in one Peter to live in a certain way in response to what Christ has done for us. Mm. So strong, strong words. Strong language. Yeah. Let's pray and then we'll be done with this episode of the Daily Rebel podcast. God, we thank you for your mercy that you've shown us as we at one point had to cast ourselves on that mercy and beg and plead that you would forgive us our sins as we repent from our sins and put our trust in Christ as our Lord and Savior and you mercifully acquiesce to us and. Allowed us to become your sons and your daughters as you caused us to be born again and brought into your family. And so we're so thankful for that. We're thankful for the the health that we have in you. Even as we look at this woman who had been suffering under the discharge and that the doctor's not able to help her and everything else and until she finally turned to you and we see such. Encouragement there too, as we think about our own spiritual conditions and our need to turn to you in faith and repentance. And so I pray that you'd lead more to faith and repentance and use us as your ambassadors to call them to that, and we pray this all on Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Keep in your Bibles tuning again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you. Bye.

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Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said