Built on the Rock

About Built on the Rock

Join Austin W. Duncan as he examines and dives into scripture. Each Monday at 5:00 AM CST, we will take a verse from scripture, look at it in context, and learn how to accurately and biblically apply it to our lives. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp

Publisher

Austin W. Duncan

Category

education · education · religion & spirituality

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

1 Oct 2021

Latest episode

2 Jan 2023

Latest episodes

63 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   2 Jan 2023

   Matthew 17:20

   Today we're looking at this verse in the context of Matthew 17:14-21. In this section, we find Jesus and three of His disciples returning from the Mount of Transfiguration, where they find a crowd gathered around the remaining 9 disciples. It's in this crowd that a desperate father is pleading to the disciples on behalf of his demon-afflicted son. As seen as well in Mark 9:14-19, the disciples could not cast out the demon. The disciples' public failure prompted both an argument from some Jewish scribes, as well as an exasperated response from Jesus about their "faithless and twisted" generation. "...I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.' And Jesus answered, 'O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.'" Matthew 17:16-17 ESV After Jesus heals the boy, we see in the two verses immediately preceding today's verse that the disciples want to understand what went wrong. When they asked Him privately, away from crowds, Jesus responded to them directly, but in this verse, we see that it was relatively kindly. The heart of their failure was having "little faith." This answer from Jesus indicates one of two things: They did not trust the power previously given to them by Jesus (Matthew 10:8). They did not believe such power could be exercised through them. So what can we learn from this lesson? Well, part of what we need to take away from this is the potency of genuine faith. Christ once again mentions the mustard seed as a metaphor for having a living, active faith (Matthew 13:31-32). With even a sliver of faith in His power and authority, nothing is impossible for them. Jesus says that with the faith of a mustard seed, that the disciples will be able to tell a mountain to move and it will do so. This is an incredibly important lesson for the disciples, as they will eventually come to perform miracles that could easily seem impossible. It's this lesson with Jesus that they understand that the power to do these things will never come from their own ability or goodness or status with God - but rather it will only and always come through what was granted them by Jesus (Matthew 10:8), which is enabled by their faith in Jesus. As you go about your day, think about this promise from God for those with the faith of even a mustard seed (Matthew 17:20): "nothing will be impossible for you." How did you respond? Was there lightning-quick and loud unbelief? I'm not talking about the word-of-faith movement, as it can be tempting for this verse to be twisted. But rather, recognize that if we aren't exercising our faith on the promises from the Lord, then we're living beneath our means. "The faith of Christians is the channel through which God chooses to manifest much of his glory that results in the conversion of unbelievers. If we have little faith, then little glory is seen through us. We must not be content with this." Jon Bloom This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp

2. 

   26 Dec 2022

   Psalm 9:1

   Today's verse begins Psalm 9 - in which David is praising God in a song which actually follows an acrostic pattern: meaning that the psalm is divided into phrases which begin with consecutive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Further, this pattern continues through the next chapter, Psalm 10, which lends to some suggestion that they were intended as a single work. The subject of this Psalm is David promising to praise God for His great works and deeds, including the awesome victory over evil. David goes even further asking God to further rescue him from those who continue to try to kill him, praising God's eternal justice in doing so. Now that we have some context, let's dive into today's verse, Psalm 9:1. The focus of this Psalm is on Israel's victory over other nations that had previously attacked them (Psalm 9:3-6). The reference that David makes to having a whole-hearted thankfulness foreshadows Jesus' indication of the greatest commandment in all the Law (Matthew 22:34-40), which is originally found in Deuteronomy 6:5: "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." Deuteronomy 6:5 ESV David shows time and time again throughout his life this practice of crediting the Lord with victory, rather than himself. For example, when battling Goliath, David approached the Philistine giant and said: "I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel...This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand...For the battle is the LORD'S and he will give you into our hand" 1 Samuel 17:45-47 And as such, the Lord continues to give victory to His people today. Paul tells us in Romans 8:37: "We are more than conquerors through him who loved us" Romans 8:37 This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp

3. 

   19 Dec 2022

   Colossians 3:2

   In this chapter of Colossians, Paul is giving clear instructions to the Christians of Colossae about living out their faith in Christ. More specifically, verses 1-11 are an encouragement for Christian believers to focus on godly, spiritual things. Those who are saved, thanks to their faith in Christ, and are spiritually free, should not live in the sins which used to be their habit. Paul goes as far as telling believers to "put to death" such behaviors in their own lives. Today's verse repeats a theme found in verse 1: "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the hand of God." Colossians 3:1 This passage is meant for Christians, and we're told here that rather than looking to the earth around us, our minds should be focused on "above" - the things of God. Something we find in the New Testament is this phrase of focusing on "above," in which this is referring to God (John 3:31; 8:23; Ephesians 4:10) or heaven (James 1:17). So, in light of this context, what would be "things of earth?" Anything associated with ungodly activities. Let's look at an example of what the Bible says about seeking earthly wisdom, specifically James 3:15: "This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic." James 3:15 And in contrast, what the Bible says about wisdom "from above:" But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. James 3:17 You may be wondering at this point, "am I supposed to abandon earthly concern?" And the answer is: no. This isn't what these verses mean. However, it does mean that as believers, we ought to give our time and attention to things that are pleasing and acceptable to God, rather than things that are pleasing to men. If those things happen to coincide, that's great. But our primary concern and attention are on that of pleasing God. As believers, and therefore we are all unified in Christ, we should act as people committed to our Savior. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp

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