Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Nine Months of Silence | The Gospels | Luke 1:57–66

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

What happens when God asks you to trust him in the middle of uncertainty? What do you do when faith and doubt collide? And what does John’s birth reveal about God’s unfolding plan? In today’s episode, Tanya shares how Luke 1:64 reveals how God’s promises break through seasons of silence. Read the Bible with us in 2026! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passage: Luke 1:57–66

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. Do you ever wonder now what would your life be like without the internet? Like, what would you do to occupy yourself while you're in the grocery line or while you're sitting in your car at the traffic light waiting for it to turn green? What would you watch at night when you're done with your homework or when the kids are in bed? And how would you find answers to all your burning questions? Like, how do you cure an ingrown toenail? is this actually an ingrown toenail?

See, in the days before Jesus was born, it's quite obvious that people didn't have the internet. But how did they occupy their time? And more importantly, how did Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist, whose mouth had been closed whenever he didn't believe what the angel said about his wife having a child? How did someone like that occupy their mind for several months while his wife was pregnant? Well, maybe he had the same worries we do. Maybe he worried about the future of his country. Maybe he worried about what the world would be like when his son was born.

Maybe he worried about how good he would be at being a father or thought about the kind of father he would want to be. Perhaps he thought about what the angel said about the child being filled with the Holy Spirit and wondered what that meant and if it would really come true. He probably worried like we do, like something is wrong with the world. why are so many people fighting? Why is there so much suffering? Maybe he prayed God, your people are suffering. Do something quickly. He appears to be winning, Lord, as wicked people are coming from far away to oppress. Where are you, Lord? Luke's story of the day John the Baptist was born echoes both the personal hopes and fears of ordinary people, like Zachariah, and his wife Elizabeth, and the people who came to be with them when the child was born.

All are somewhere between faith and doubt. All are called to trust God at a turning moment in history. Is this the moment when light is going to come around the corner at last? When everything the scriptures have told about a coming Messiah will start to come true, will start to make sense at last. Let's go right into the scripture for today, Luke 157, begins. The time arrived for Elizabeth's child to be born, and she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had increased his mercy for her, and they came to celebrate with her. Okay, let's stop for a minute and look at this from Elizabeth's perspective. Here she was, an older woman who had been waiting much of her life to have a baby. We know that when Elizabeth first heard that

she would have a baby, she withdrew to her house and she kept herself tucked away. But Luke tells us now that her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her and they were rejoicing with her. No longer is she alone. This is the community of God's people who are believing and putting their trust in God with her and praising God with her. Romans 12 tells us that we are to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. And we do that so we are united both in our joy and in our sorrow. This is a picture of the people of God coming together to celebrate with Elizabeth and her husband on this momentous day. Do you have those people in your life that you can share your sorrows with?

Are you someone who can bear someone else's sorrow and sit with them in their grief and pain? It's not just that we celebrate with one another, but also that we carry the burden with our friends and neighbors so they don't have to go it alone. Luke continues, when they came to circumcise the child on the eighth day, so time has passed between the day that he was born and now the circumcision. They were going to name him Zachariah after his father, but his mother responded, nope, he will be. be called John. They said to her, none of your relatives has that name. So they motioned to his father to find out what he wanted him to be called. Okay, stop. Remember, Zachariah hasn't been able to speak since the angel visited him with the news about the baby. So picture a game of charades going on between the people and Zachariah over Elizabeth's announcement that they're going to not call them

by the family name, but call them John. And so then Zachariah asked for a writing tablet and wrote, his name is John. End of story. At that point, Zachariah showed that he was not going to follow the custom of the day, but he was choosing to believe and follow God. And immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue was loosed,

and he started praising God. Now, when that happened, Luke says the fear came upon all their neighbors, and this isn't like the scary kind of fear, but the fear in awe of God. And they were talking about these things all throughout Judea. everyone who heard laid these things up in their hearts and wondered, who will this child be? Now we can feel the long years of quiet prayer and trust that the people had been through

as they waited in silence for God to fulfill his promise. See, God had made a covenant with Abraham, promising to send a new David, and God had spoken about a prophet who would go ahead to prepare the way. All these things were known to Zachariot and Elizabeth, and they were known to their friends and neighbors. They were known to all of those in Judea who heard the scriptures. These were things they heard and they believed in their hearts, things they prayed for and longed for,

and now they were all to come true. Zachari's own story of waiting nine months in silence for a promise to come true and his wife to deliver a baby are a reflection on a smaller scale of an entire nation waiting for the promised Messiah. God had been silent for almost 400 years, and they must have lived in the balance of faith and doubt and hope as they waited for something to happen, for God to show himself faithful to his promise to bring a Savior. But on this day, light was coming around the corner and breaking through the darkness. What the ancient scriptures said about Jesus will begin to make sense and come into the light. eventually Jesus himself will say in Luke 2444

These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled. The hand of the Lord was with John the Baptist on the day he was born and it was with him as he grew up, it was with him as he was baptized at the Jordan River and as he went to prison and even on the day he was martyred.

the hand of God was always with John. Luke is a brilliant writer because he brings together the personal stories of Zachariah and Elizabeth and John the Baptist and weaves it with the bigger story of Jesus. The big story of the Bible. Jesus coming to earth to rescue his people out of darkness and bring them into the light.

Both the big picture and the smaller human stories matter. This is a story of how God will come earth as a baby to fulfill his promises to his people. Have you felt the hand of God in your life? Have you felt his nearness when you were afraid or alone? When you were waiting? Have you felt his spirit comforting you with his word and through the people that he puts around you while you're waiting? We can be sure that God is with us, even as we wait for light to break through the darkness, and for sin and death to be defeated forever. Each promise fulfilled in the Bible reassures us that God is the keeper of promises. He will never leave or forsake you, and he has a

plan and a hope for your future. Will you put all your trust, all your hope, all your doubts in his hands, and ask him to be with you and to lead you each moment, knowing that even when you don't know the future, which is pretty much always, he has no uncertainty, and he will guide you wherever he wants you to go.