Today is the seventh day of May.

Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible.

I am Brian.

Awesome to be here with you today.

Grateful to be here with you today.

Grateful that we can be here around the global campfire.

To gather yet again, once again,

for the next step forward on the journey never-ending journey

well it's not quite true like there isn't ending to it right like we we take a voyage through a year

and we get off and then we get back on and keep going and keep learning.

But I'm grateful to be here on this day, at this point in the journey moving forward,

because we are going to move into a new era.

At least we're going to start moving into a new era in the story of the children of Israel,

the Hebrew people. As we begin today, the book of First Samuel. And if you have the new Daily

Audio Bible app, you'll see that there is an introduction video to the book

of First Samuel to sort of get us into the headspace of where we're going. I love this so much.

But we'll first learn about Samuel's mom is mommy, Anna, and the remarkable story of Samuel's birth and calling.

But then Samuel will grow up and eventually lead us to Israel's first monarch,

the first king, King Saul. And so we really are changing complexions now. Israel has never,

never had a king. They've never been a monarchy. We've just gone through the season of the judges

where everybody does what's right in their own eyes, and that has taken its toll. and the people now want a king like they need to

get organized in a way that they understand like all the people's around them so samuel is actually

...