Steve Webb  0:00  
In the beginning

Steve Webb  0:09  
This is the Lifespring family Audio Bible coming to you from Riverside, California and podcasting since 2004. I am your OG God caster Steve Webb, welcome. How are you? I'm glad to see you today. This is the daily show where we're reading through the entire Bible in a year. Today, we're going to begin the book of John will read the first two chapters. And as promised, this will be a complete show. I'll have the reading. I'll have some comments afterward, we'll have an on this day in church history segment. We have an associate producer today, we've got some comments. I've got some prayer requests. And I think that pretty much does the show. So today, I think we have all the elements, I guess what we ought to do is get started.

Steve Webb  0:50  
John, chapter one.

Steve Webb  0:53  
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God, all things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John, He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world in the world was made through him, yet the world did not know Him, He came to His own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive Him who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory is of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness about him and cried out, this was he of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me, for from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace, For the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one is ever seen God, the only God who is at the father side, he has made him known. And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites, from Jerusalem to ask him, Who are you? He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, What then are you Elijah? He said, I am not. Are you the Prophet? And he answered, No. So they said to Him, who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself? He said, I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said, now they had been sent from the Pharisees, they asked him, then why are you baptizing if you're neither the Christ nor Elijah, nor the Prophet? John answered them, I baptized with water, but among you stands, one you do not know. Even he who comes after me, the strap of who sandal I am not worthy to untie. These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing. The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, After me comes a man who ranks before me because he was before me. I myself did not know him. But for this purpose, I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel. And John bore witness, I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, he on whom you see the Spirit, descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God. The next day, again, John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, Behold, the Lamb of God. The two disciples heard him say this, and they follow Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, what are you seeking? And they said to him, Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying? He said to them, Come, and you will see. So they came and saw where he was staying at. They stayed with him that day, for it was about the 10th hour. One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew Simon Peter's brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him

Steve Webb  5:00  
We have found the Messiah, which means Christ. He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, You are Simon, the son of John, you shall be called Sisyphus, which means Peter. The next day, Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, Follow me. Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter, Philip found Nathaniel and said to him, We have found Him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph, that Daniel said to him, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip said to him, Come and see Jesus on Nathaniel coming toward him instead of him. Behold, in Israel light indeed, in whom there is no deceit, that Daniel said to him, how do you know me? Jesus answered him, Before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree. I saw you. Nathaniel answered him, Rabbi, You are the Son of God, you are the king of Israel. Jesus answered him, because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe you will see greater things than these? And he said to him, Truly, truly I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man. 

Steve Webb  6:21  
John chapter two.

Steve Webb  6:24  
Two days later, there was a wedding in the town of Cana in Galilee. Jesus mother was there, and Jesus in his followers were also invited to the wedding. When all the wine was gone, Jesus mother said to him, they have no more wine. Jesus answered, Dear woman, why come to me? My time has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, Do whatever he tells you to do. In that place, there were six stone water jars that the Jews used in their washing ceremony, each jar held about 20 or 30 gallons. Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars with water, so they filled the jars to the top. Then he said to them, now take some out and give it to the master of the feast. So they took the water to the master. When he tasted it, the water had become wine. He did not know where the wine came from. But the servants who had brought the water knew the master of the wedding called the bridegroom and said to him, people always serve the best wine first, later after the guests have been drinking while they serve the cheaper wine. But you have saved the best wine until now. So in Cana of Galilee, Jesus did His first miracle. There, he showed his glory and his followers believed in him. After this, Jesus went to the town of Capernaum, with his mother, brothers and followers. They stayed there for just a few days. When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover feast, Jesus went to Jerusalem. In the temple, he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, he saw others sitting at tables exchanging different kinds of money. Jesus made a whip out of cords and forced all of them both the sheep and the cattle to leave the temple. He turned over the tables and scattered the money of those who were exchanging it. Then he said to those who were selling pigeons, take these things out of here. Don't make my father's house plays for buying and selling. When this happened, the followers remembered what was written in the Scriptures, my strong love for your temple completely controls me. Some of his people said to Jesus, show us a miracle to prove you have the right to do these things. Jesus answered them, Destroy this temple and I will build it again in three days. They answered, It took 46 years to build this temple. Do you really believe you can build it again in three days? But the temple Jesus meant was his own body. After Jesus was raised from the dead, his followers remembered that Jesus had said this, then they believe the Scripture and the words Jesus had said, When Jesus was in Jerusalem for the passover feast, many people believed in him because they saw the miracles he did. But Jesus did not believe in them because he knew them all. He did not need anyone to tell him about people because he knew what was in people's minds.

Steve Webb  9:16  
Well, John one is, in my opinion, the clearest declaration of the deity of Jesus there is, it begins as the book of Genesis does with the words in the beginning. Genesis says, In the beginning, God created the heavens in the earth. John says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God, all things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. And then further down there in the chapter, it says, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Obviously, John was saying that the word was Jesus, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Steve Webb  10:00  
That's Jesus. Could it be any clearer? These words thrilled me every time I read them. And I've been a believer for over 50 years, the chapter never gets old. And then in chapter two, we read of Jesus first miracle, and of his driving out the money changers from the temple. We're going to talk about that for just a couple of minutes here. The Bible talks about two instances of Jesus doing this. The first was this time today here in John at the beginning of His ministry, and then also he did it during his final week before his crucifixion. So why did Jesus have an issue with the money changers? According to Exodus 30, verses 11 through 16, a temple tax of half a shekel was required of Jews and visitors from other nations when they offered their sacrifices, and the tax had to be paid with temple coinage. So in order to pay the tax, all money had to be exchanged for temple money. The problem was that those who provided the service of exchanging foreign money into the temple money did so at highly inflated profits. So they were taking advantage of those people who came to the temple to make sacrifices to God. Also, there were some who sold sacrificial animals to people who didn't bring their own animals to sacrifice. Again, they sold those at inflated prices. And then there were the inspectors of animals to see if they were of high enough quality to be sacrificed. They would often disapprove of animals that other people brought in, which forced those people to buy approved animals for, you guessed it, inflated prices. These were the people that Jesus drove from the temple. They were extortionists. They were taking an unfair advantage from those who came to worship God. These people were operating from a motive of greed, not service, not ministry. Please keep in mind that God established in Mosaic law, that the priests were to be supported by the sacrifices that came into the temple. And Paul said in First Corinthians 914, that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel, meaning that they should be supported by the people who hear the gospel. I bring this up because over the years I've been criticized for asking for donations to help support Lifespring media, and for selling my book Webb ZZ Bible names Pronunciation Guide. And I can very confidently say that the donations I've received for Lifespring media and the royalties for my book combined, would not even approach $1 an hour if I totaled up the time invested in producing more than 2700 podcast episodes in researching writing the book and recording the audio of the nearly 7000 names in the book that itself was about a two year endeavor. So if my goal was to extort an exorbitant profit, I have failed miserably. It is true, though, that there are those who have gotten wealthy from preaching the gospel, but I am certainly not one of them. And it's never been my goal. And I will rush to say thank you to those of you who have helped support Lifespring media and who bought my book. But as Adam curry has said many times and only half in jest, that being a podcaster, is tantamount to taking a vow of poverty. Well, what do you think? Do you have a comment on what I've said today? I'd love to hear, please go to Lifespring media.com/s 12 e to 13. And leave your comment there at the bottom of the page. Our reading tomorrow will be First Thessalonians chapters four and five. Here's your cue to boost.

Steve Webb  13:45  
We have an Associate Producer today. Yes we do. And this is a very special one, Sean of San Pedro

Steve Webb  13:53  
sent $100 via Zelle with this very, very, very special message. He says Brittany and I are excited to announce that we're expecting our first human resource in mid October. So Shawn and Brittany, congratulations, and what a wonderful way to announce it here on the show. Thank you for your donation. And we rejoice with you. I know this is your firstborn, and we're going to pray that this is going to be an easy pregnancy and that this baby will be a tremendous blessing in your lives. 

Steve Webb  14:23  
And I got an email a couple of days ago from John. He said congrats on taking the number 14 spot@fountain.fm slash 2022.

Steve Webb  14:36  
He said I'll keep streaming and boosting. Are you seeing the comments people are making using fountains new Lightning comments feature? I left one on the recent Ezekiel Gog and Magog episode that I didn't hear you mentioned just wondering if they're making their way to you. Well, first of all, thank you so much. I did not know about that. That number 14 spot at fountain. That's very, very cool. I had no idea and I did not know About the lightning comments feature over at fountain. I didn't get your comment and I didn't know that they had started using the comment feature. So I did check out the comment on the fountain app. And sure enough, it is there. I didn't get a notification about it. Like I said, it didn't show up as a booster gram. So I went to fountains website and I found out that I had to put fountain in as a split, which means every time you send a comment or a booster gram, they get a fraction of the Sachi send, which is there since they're providing the service. So now when you send a comment from the fountain app, I will get here in the studio within just seconds. I did test in it, it does work. And the comment that John left on the fountain comments was this may be interesting to some but a great resource on the identity of Gog and Magog is a recent episode of Chris artisans, iron sharpens iron radio podcast from March 18th. With Gary Damar. He makes a convincing case that it has nothing to do with Russia. And then John close with God bless and a link to the episode. I haven't heard that podcast before. So I'll have to take a listen to that episode. I haven't had time yet, John. But when I get some time, I will. Obviously having not listened to it yet. I really can't comment on what they said as to who the identity of Gog and Magog is. The one thing I have learned over the years though, is never to be dogmatic when it comes to things having to do with the times. It's always fun to conjecture. But I will listen. Thank you, John, for taking out the time to comment and thank you for the 1000 SATs you sent with that comment. God bless you, brother. And then also a huge thanks to those of you who are streaming and boosting the SATs. If it wasn't for you this this show would not be ranked as the 14th highest as far as SATs from fountain users go. So that's fantastic. Keep it up. I'm so thankful for your consistent support. And as cool as that is now get this over at podcast index.org That's where the whole podcasting 2.0 Thing is, is based well over their their website, they also show a ranking of all the value for value enabled shows of which when I looked this morning, there were 5298 shows that are value for value enabled. In other words, you can stream SATs and boost to them. Over there at podcast index. There are 3,980,368 podcasts. So out of those almost 4 million podcasts, only 5300 are value for value enabled. Now let me read the top five podcasts for you. I'm not positive but I think these are the top five in terms of value for value donations, screaming and boosting sets. Number one is no agenda. No surprise there. Right. Number two is pod news, podcasting news. It's a great show. I listen regularly. It's primarily for people that are interested in what's going on in the whole podcast industry if you want to call it an industry. Number three is the podcasting 2.0 podcast which Adam does with Dave Jones. Number four is Mo facts which is also Adam curry. So the top four are Adam curry. James Cridland who is the host of pod news number three with Adam curry number four with Adam curry, number five, the Lifespring family Audio Bible. Good believe that that blew me away when I saw that. And that's all thanks to you guys. You guys are amazing. Thank you so very much. I'm speechless. Truly Thank you. Now think about this. Who would have thought that a show where what we do is read the Bible would be number five when the pod father Adam curry is in three of the top five slots. Amazing. Thank you. All I can say is keep it up, please. And not just for me. I mean, it's very cool. I love seeing this ads come in. But the main thing is, this gives the show more visibility, which helps to bring others into the family to hear the Word of God. So how cool is that? That's you guys. That's God. That's the Holy Spirit. That's it. I have very, very little to do with it. I'm just so thankful. God bless you guys.

Steve Webb  19:21  
On this date in church history, April 2 1827, William Holman Hunt was born. He was an English painter of religious subjects, and co founder of the pre raphaelite brotherhood. Hunt's most famous work called the light of the world represents Christ knocking at the door of the soul. If you care to see what that painting looks like, I'll have a picture of it on the show notes page at Lifespring media.com/s 12 e to 13

Steve Webb  20:00  
Prayer requests. Well, it's time for an update on Kathy. For new Lifespring family members Kathy and her husband Dell have been my dearest friends for over 50 years, Kathy was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when we were in our mid 20s. And she's been battling various forms of cancer over the course of the last 25 or so years. Right now she has bone cancer in various places that her body which I think started when breast cancer metastasized, I could be wrong about that. She recently had surgery to remove a tumor on one of her shoulder blades, and that surgery is healing nicely. And she went to City of Hope yesterday for a checkup. Dell said that overall, it was a good day, she got a prescription for physical therapy for the arm that was affected by the tumor and the surgery. But her cancer numbers went up from 97 to 122, which is the wrong way, we want the numbers to go down. Dell told me yesterday when he was giving me the report that her highest number was about 232. And when they started taking numbers, I guess they were around 40. Anything below 38 and a half is considered the safe zone. And her doctor said though that he has patients in the 1000 range. They'll said that the doc said that to just kind of make her feel better. Those patients that are in the 1000 range aren't doing well, but they are still alive. And like I said her number yesterday was 122. So like I said it was at 97. Last time she was in or time before last in this time it was 122. So the numbers going the wrong way. So we need to pray for that. Dale told me that she is getting a little stronger each day. So that's really good news. And on a lighter note, speaking of Adam curry, he and his wife Tina are on vacation right now. And Adam has mentioned on the podcast that he does with Tina called carrying the keeper by the way that he's taking the book Evidence That Demands a Verdict to read on vacation. They really are pursuing their interest in God, you can tell by the conversation they have on their podcast, and also what Adam has said a couple of times on the no agenda show. So let's pray that God will use this book to help Adam see that Jesus truly is who he said he is, as many other people have as a result of reading it. Evidence That Demands a Verdict has been around for many years now. We used to sell it when I was managing Christian bookstores back in the 80s. So it's a great book. And let's just really pray that God will use that book to touch Adam and Tina. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank You, Lord for John's Gospel. He so clearly explained how Jesus is God in such a beautiful way. Thank you for giving John the words. And thank you for the marvelous and surprising plan to save mankind from our sins. When we think about it, who would come up with an idea as unlikely as God Himself being the sacrifice, but that's how much you love us, Lord, you paid the price for a debt that we could never pay. All we can do is thank you, praise you and worship you. And we do that now. And Father, we pray for Kathy today. Thank you for the encouraging report yesterday but we ask you to please continue the healing. With the cancer numbers up we ask that you touch Kathy and just eliminate the cancer all together. Continue to strengthen our Lord. And Father I know that you love Adam and you love Tina, please use this time while they're on vacation to help them see that you are calling them and that you are God touched their hearts, Lord, Holy Spirit, speak to them and open their hearts in their eyes. They are searching. Help them to find that you are the answer.

Steve Webb  23:43  
I ask, God, that you bless the Lifespring family today. I thank you for each one and I ask that you hold them close today. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Steve Webb  23:54  
Well, Beloved, if you've got a prayer request or a praise if God is doing something spectacular in your life, we want to hear about it. Please go to prayer dot Lifespring media.com And leave a comment. Leave a prayer request or praise. I'll pray for you in my private prayer time and we'll share on the show.

Steve Webb  24:20  
Share the show with everybody you know. And comment on the show and Lifespring media.com/s 12 v 213. Email me at Steven Lifespring media.com support the show, please at Lifespring media.com/support. And until tomorrow may God bless you richly. Thank you so much for being here today. I've enjoyed our time together. My name is Steve Webb. Remember: in the beginning. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai