Join Alan J. Huth as he shares a personal testimony that underscores the transformative power of daily Bible reading. This episode of Add Bible blends scriptural exploration with personal journaling, offering listeners a unique perspective on living a life enriched by God’s Word. Discover how consistent Scripture engagement fosters spiritual growth and strength even amid life’s challenges.
Welcome to Add Bible, an audio daily devotion from the Ezra Project. Allen J. Huth shares a Bible passage with comments from over 35 years of his personal Bible reading journals and applies the Word of God to our daily lives.
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Today we are in 2 Corinthians chapter 6. We will listen to the 18 verses as recorded by Faith Comes by Hearing. 2 Corinthians 6
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Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, Behold, now is the favorable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.
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We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry. But as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way, by great endurance in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights. hunger, by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, by truthful speech and the power of God with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left, through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as imposters and yet are true, as unknown and yet well known, as dying and behold, we live, as punished and yet not killed, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing everything. We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians. Our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. In return, I speak as to children, widen your hearts also. Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols?
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for we are the temple of the living God. As God said, I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing. Then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.
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As I looked at my journal in 1994 concerning this chapter, I noticed there were two days between 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and 2 Corinthians chapter 6. Those two days were a Saturday and a Sunday, indicating that I sort of skipped those in my daily quiet time. Now again, this is 1994, 39 years old, so let me explain. On Saturdays, I usually go to a Gideon prayer breakfast, where we always read about a chapter of Scripture. So I did get my daily time in the Word there on Saturday. And then on Sunday, of course, I went to church, and there we heard, probably read, a passage of Scripture. And then I picked up my Bible reading on Monday. Now, I’m not making excuses, but some of us as Christians do. So let me explain it the way somebody told it to me a few years ago. They said, if you skip two days a week in your Bible reading, you’ll miss 100 days a year, right? 52 weeks, if you skip two days a week, that’s over 100 days a year that you’ve missed spending time in God’s Word. This friend of mine that shared that with me, when he got that revelation, it was startling to him, but he decided to stop taking the weekends off. Well, I’ve decided that a long time ago, and very rarely do I substitute a Gideon prayer meeting or church for my own time in God’s Word on the weekends. And probably I should say right here, my daily Bible reading is not a ritual. It’s not a checkoff. It’s not a have to. It’s a want to. I get something from the Lord each and every day that I’m in the Word. Why wouldn’t I want to do that? So if you’ve been taking the weekends off, I hope you’d reconsider after this Ad Bible podcast. Now on to my journal entry in 1994 on 2 Corinthians 6. I wrote, Lord, allow me to be a credit to the ministry, giving no cause for offense in anything, in order that the ministry may not be discredited. Then I also wrote, be careful about serious association with unbelievers, which means associate with believers. In 1994, 10 years later, I was reading again chronologically, so I read 2 Corinthians 5 through 9. I made some notes about chapter 5 and some notes about chapter 8, but I don’t have any notes on chapter 6. In 2015, you might remember I was in Australia. on a Gideon assignment, and I was reading a couple of chapters a day, so I read 2 Corinthians 6 through 7 on this day, and I did write, Paul is all in, and I refer to verses 4 and 5 and 8 through 10. Let’s step aside from the journal, and let’s read those verses. Verses 4 and 5 say, But as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way by great endurance in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights. hunger. Skipping down to verse 8, he continues, through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise, we are treated as imposters and yet are true, as unknown and yet well known, as dying, and behold we live, as punished and yet not killed, as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing, yet possessing everything. Yeah, I would say that Paul is all in. I continued in my journal. Nowhere does the word of God say following God is easy or without persecution or suffering. Yet God also provides purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, the power of God, and weapons of righteousness. He says to us in verse 14, separate from lawlessness, darkness, unbelievers, idols, unclean things. Let’s focus in on verse 14, this part about being unequally yoked. The Word of God says, Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? If you’ve been a Christian for any length of time, you’ve probably heard this principle, that Christians should not be yoked with unbelievers. Most often it’s referred to with regard to marriage. The illustration Paul is using is a yoke, something that would hook two animals together. In his context, remember he’s writing to a Corinthian church that is divided. So he’s saying to the believers, don’t hook up with the unbelievers, the ones that are criticizing Paul. We seem to have broadened that application again to marriage and to business relationships. Most Christians, most pastors would say it’s not a good idea to get married to someone who is not a believer. So often, love blinds and we think, well, we’re strong enough that we can convert the unbeliever in the marital relationship. Yes, that can happen. Yes, it has happened. But so has the alternative, where the unbeliever has taken the believer away from their beliefs, out of the church, and neutralized their faith. It’s the same in business relationships. Oftentimes, Christians say they should not partner with someone who is an unbeliever. Surely partnerships between unbelievers and believers have worked, but also so many of them have probably run into some significant problems, differences in philosophy as to how to run the business. So both in marriage and in business, I tend to agree with this statement. Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. Though the illustration is agricultural, we realize it’s the same. When we’re yoked together with somebody, one person’s conduct and direction of life can strongly influence or control the others. So the application from 2 Corinthians chapter 6 may be, if you’re a young person, be careful. Be careful who you’re hanging with, who you’re yoking with. Be careful who you are allowing influence your character, your direction in life. Pray that God would bring you a believing spouse, someone who shares your Christian values and hopefully can grow with you in your lives together. And for young business people, you might want to be careful who you go to work for or who you work with. Be careful about the influence of the unbeliever on your life. And though some of us are older, and maybe we’ve already had bad experiences where we’ve been yoked together with unbelievers, might we just heed the same warning at whatever stage we’re at in our lives? Be careful who we let influence our lives. I believe there’s godly wisdom in the scriptures, and this is one of those places where this is biblical godly wisdom. It may not be culturally popular, but I believe in the long run, it will pay off. Father, help us to not become unequally yoked. Help us be careful who we associate with in this life. Protect us, Lord. Bring good people into our lives. People that can influence us to the good in our Christian walk. Lord, help me resist any temptation to become unequally yoked. Guide and direct my steps, Almighty God. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to AdBible today. You might wonder how I became a daily Bible reader. When I was 15 years old, a buddy and me stole his father’s car. We could steal his father’s car because his father was in Vietnam, serving in the war. So he was never home. So we took the car that day. Neither one of us with a driver’s license, and we took off out east of Colorado Springs on a dirt road. We were flying down this dirt road at 60 miles an hour, and he lost control of the car. We began to spin, and we were going down the road, fishtailing, and he spun the wheel of the car 60 miles an hour. The car tumbled, crushed the top, tucked the wheels under, totaled the car. I was on a dirt road. I don’t know if I was thrown out of the car or crawled out of the car, but I looked at that car, and I thought, am I even alive? Am I broken? Am I bleeding everywhere? And I began to pat myself down, and I felt like I was okay. So I stood up, and I was uninjured, amazingly. The sheriff came to draw up the accident. He said, it’s a miracle you guys are alive. I got home that night, went down into my bedroom. My mother came to me and said, you ought to thank God you’re alive. I was laying on my bed, and I was thinking about the day’s activities. And I just thought, wow, I could have been dead today. I wasn’t the driver. I was the passenger. I wasn’t in control. But God was. At that moment, I figured out at 15 years old, God could take my life any time. He could have that day. So as I laid there, I thought, okay, you could take my life any day. So you saved my life today for a reason. For whatever reason that is, I’m going to live for you and that reason. As I said that, I heard a voice say to me, there’s a Bible on your bookshelf. Get it down and read it. I must have heard something, because I got up, I went over to the bookshelf, and I pulled down a Bible. I opened it to the first page, just like I would any other book, and I began to read God’s Word. I read Genesis chapter 1. The next day I read Genesis chapter 2. The next day I read Genesis chapter 3. And a chapter a day, I began to read God’s Word at 15 years old. If you do that, by the way, it’ll take you about three and a half years to finish reading the Bible a chapter a day. And that’s a good plan. So that’s how I became a daily Bible reader. And when I finished going through the Bible the first time at 18 years or so, I just started over because I thought that’s what Christians did was read their Bibles every day. So that’s how I became a daily Bible reader. I know you’re going to like it and want to share it with others.
