Lottie Moon Christmas Offering

Today is Tuesday, November the 15th. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com, or if you'd like to write in what topics you'd like to hear about on the show, you'd like to hear Dr. Shah discuss on the show, send us a text at 252-582-5028. You can also email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com. Be sure to follow Dr. Shah's content on his blog, AbbadonShah.com, and you can support us financially by also visiting that same website, ClearviewTodayShow.com. You'll find a button there to donate, and every contribution that you make goes to support this partnership that we're seeking to develop with you as we seek to bring the gospel to the nations.

Amen. And you can help us keep this conversation on the airwaves by leaving us a rating and a review on iTunes or any other podcasting platform where you listen to the show. It really does help keep the discussion alive. Be sure to share those episodes with your friends and family members as well. Encourage them to listen to the show and hop on and give us a review and a rating.

All of that's helpful. We actually like to go through and read the ratings out loud to each other. It's like a fun little thing where we hear all the nice things that people say. To the haters, I got to tell you, man, you got to stop making it so personal. I don't like it, and it's mean to me. I don't like it. Positive feedback only, please.

Let's do positive feedback only. It really, really does something to my self esteem to read all the hate. And there are a lot of you. It hurts.

It hurts. And I was like, no, there's, there's, there's no haters. There's no haters. I mean, look at us.

How could there be haters? I mean, you know, hit them with the verse of the day, man. Verse of the day. The verse of the day today comes from Joshua chapter 24 verse 15.

And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day, whom you will serve, whether the gods, which your father served that were on the other side of the river or the gods of the Emirates and whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. I feel like every meemaw had that in their kitchen. I've got it hanging up in my house.

You got it in your house? I'm not a meemaw, but I have it hanging up in my house. That's cute. That's cute. Yeah. Not only meemaws have it, but my meemaw definitely had it right above her. When you go in the, when you like go in the patio, you come on the front porch and it's up there. My, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. I'm struggling this morning.

Why, why are you struggling? So the, the, again, this is something where you guys really need to go watch the video podcast because if not, this is just going to be, you're going to be riding in your car and thinking I'm making a big deal over nothing. But Ryan's wearing like the most vivid green. I didn't really didn't know what you were going to say for a second. Like brilliant neon. It looks like you just spilled highlighters all over the sweater. It's not quite neon.

I really like this sweater. It is, it is bright green. It's very bright. It's lime green. It's very bright. It's a little bit darker than lime. It makes your arms look good.

Thank you. But I don't, why the color? That's so, so vivid. Well, for two reasons. Number one, green is my favorite color in any and every green. I don't really discriminate. So I just love it. You're like a Luigi guy. I'm a Luigi.

I got you. Okay. Given the choice between Mario and Luigi, Luigi for me every time. Only cause he's green? Green and he's tall. Okay. So you, you, you identify with Luigi.

He's my spirit and a man after your own heart. The second reason is because green, you know, points to one of my very favorite holidays, which is of course Christmas, right? And so you're now, so today is November the 15th and you're excited for Christmas. Thanksgiving hasn't even happened yet.

I am, and I, I'm positive I'm going to get some hateful comments for this, but I'm also going to get some people on my side. I fully believe that because I'm firmly entrenched in the Christmas season. Now I have to give you credit where credit is due. You've been this way since November 1st, November 1st. You've been doing this around the office, annoying everybody, playing the Christmas music out loud. But on the podcast, you've kept it pretty contained.

So I do have to, I do. I don't want it to always be a bash on Ryan. Right.

I've been furious, but I know that contained here. I know that some people like are adamant, like Christmas does not begin until after Thanksgiving and that's fine. I respect that.

That's fine. I disagree with you, but I can respect that. I would say Christmas doesn't begin mid December, like mid December is when you start thinking about it. A holiday shouldn't be months long. Christmas for me, and this is for me, I realized that I'm, I'm the exception, not the rule. Christmas is a season.

It's a mindset. Wouldn't it be odd if I was getting super patriotic in February gearing up for July 4th, that would be odd. That would be odd. If I, if I showed up to the Valentine's day banquet here at the church in like full uncle Sam apparel, firecrackers and pistols, please.

I really want to see that now. It would be odd. People would be like, that's not normal, but you could wear a Santa hat in November and people like, Oh, he's just in the spirit. Yeah.

It's inappropriate. Well, November is a little closer to Christmas than February is to July 4th. Yeah, that's true. I guess I should have said like April, April or may or something. Plus, I mean, I've got the benefit of the stores are on my side now.

Like before we're all the way through October, we've got Christmas decorations out in the stores. So I've got that added, you know, to my side. Yeah, that's, that's a good, I mean, that's a good way to make money cause they know people like you exist. Yeah. Oh yeah.

They're out there. And it's the second they see them Christmas trees and the garlands and the mistletoe and stuff. Have you ever seen the movie you finding Nemo? Yeah.

You remember in the scene with the sharks where Dory bumps her nose and gets a nose bleed and the blood drips up. That's me. That's me.

When the Christmas decorations you see the mistletoe stuff with candy canes, you're like, Oh, that's good. Yeah. I can't help myself.

Let's see if I can get deeper. Oh, that's good. That's, that's, that's a good representation of me when Christmas decorations at the stores. I can't help myself.

I'm truly so sorry. Does your wife feel the same? She does actually, which works well for us.

Cause if that wasn't the case, babies are all about it. Oh, absolutely. We've already been watching Christmas movies. Y'all are good.

Y'all are all set. A hundred percent. See, I'm a Grinch. My wife is like you, but I'm a Grinch.

I'm a, I'm a straight up like bah humbug. Not that Christmas is bad, but keep Christmas in its place. That's kind of my, that's kind of my heart. Well, my hope this year for Christmas season 2022 is that your heart will grow three sizes on that day.

Like we can only hope we can only hope. Well, listen, today's topic is actually, it's very linked to the Christmas season. We're talking about Lottie moon and you know, the Christmas offering that goes along with Lottie moon contributing to international missions. Um, and we're going to talk about why that's important. You know, obviously most of us who are listening to the show would, would agree that international missions is important, but how did the Lottie moon Christmas offering come about?

Who is Lottie moon? Why does this matter? Yeah, there's, there's people that like weren't raised. I got, for instance, I was not raised in church.

I wasn't saved until I was 15 years old. I have no clue. I mean, I do now, but I had no clue who Lottie moon was. And, and people in church just ranted and raved about it and they were like, this is Lottie moon. This is a big deal. I'm like, who is this? Who is this woman?

Why should I care about this? Right. We're going to talk about that today, but if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, text, text us at two five two five eight two five zero two eight, or you can send us an email at contact at clearview today show.com. We're going to go get Dr. Sean.

We'll be right back. Are you looking for some new worship music to go along with all these amazing shows here on the truth network, but today's your lucky day because Dr. Shah and myself and a lot of the rest of the Clearview staff have been hard at work writing for the last few months. And we're very excited to share Clearview's new EP with you Together Forward. Not only do these songs sound great, but each and every single one of them were born from a place of genuine worship and prayerfully written by our team right here at Clearview church.

It's available right now on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, anywhere digital music is sold. So make sure to pick up your copy today and let us know how these songs are helping you, whether they're helping your worship band in your church or just in the car or around in your everyday life. Email us at info at clearviewbc.org. You can also support the ministry here at Clearview church by visiting us online.

That's clearviewbc.org forward slash give. Thanks for listening. Now back to the show. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You can visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com or send us a text to 252-582-5028. Dr. Shah is with us in the studio today. Dr. Shah, happy Tuesday to you. Thank you. So good to be back on the show and good to see you guys today.

Absolutely. Good to see you too. If you guys are just joining us for the first time, never heard the show before. Unfamiliar with Dr. Shah's work, Dr. Abbadan Shah is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism.

He's a professor at Carolina university, author, full-time pastor and the host of today's episode. That's right. And today's episode, I've already said, I've already said I'm excited because it's related to one of my very good things in the world.

Yeah. We talked about that a little bit up at the intro and how excited you were with the green. You were a little antagonistic towards the color of my sweater. I just thought it was too much. I thought you're doing too much. I feel like now you're kind of stepping on Dr. Shah. It just looks like you filled up a tub with highlighter fluid and splashed around. Because of the color of my sweater? It's just too much.

You're just doing too much. I mean, I don't know, Dr. Shah, what do you think? Um, I like it. I mean, kind of like Steve from Blues Clues. From Blues Clues.

It does kind of have a Blues Clues vibe to it. And that's the thing is like, I don't want to bring the word professionalism into this, but we are hosting a radio show. We're not looking for a missing salt shaker. Oh my goodness. You know what I'm trying to say. And you know, I don't want to be that way. Obviously start the episode off on a sour note.

Cast judgment with you over there. Too funny. Well, today's episode, like I said, is related to Christmas in that we are talking about the Lottie Moon Christmas offering. Now there may be some people who are listening who are unfamiliar with the Lottie Moon Christmas offering, who Lottie Moon even is.

Maybe they didn't even know that was a person. Um, but we're going to, we're going to dive into this topic today as we're headed toward Christmas. Dr. Shah, can you just kind of fill us in for those who are listening or who those who are watching who may be unfamiliar with what this Christmas offering is, who is Lottie Moon? Why is this something that churches do every year? Just give us a little bit history of where this offering came from.

Yeah. Now I didn't grow up in Southern Baptist life. I grew up in Christian missionary alliance. But then when I came to America and met my wife several years later, um, her dad was a Southern Baptist pastor. So that was my introduction, uh, into Southern Baptist life and into the cooperative program.

And of course the Lottie Moon Christmas offering that if you grew up in Southern Baptist church, you know, every Christmas there was a Lottie Moon Christmas offering and still is today. And all the monies are put together and, um, already designated to go to international missions. And there's something really good about the cooperative program and Lottie Moon Christmas offering is that our missionaries can be at any corner of the world, but they don't have to come back and raise their own funds. Right.

Number one. And number two, they don't have to worry month by month if they're going to get their check because some missionaries have to, you know, they have to come back and raise their own funds, go places here, there, everywhere and do that. And you know, it's tough. Secondly, uh, if a pastor is really passionate about missions, but then leaves the church and go somewhere else, does the church keep supporting, keep supporting that missionary wherever they are in some, some really dark part of the world, dangerous part of the world or, or is the check going to come? So supporting them through the cooperative program, through international missions, through the Lottie Moon Christmas offering, it ensures that God's work can keep going and people can keep supporting and keep working and keep doing what they need to do without worrying about is the check going to come in. So I'm grateful for the Lottie Moon Christmas offering. Now, Lottie Moon was a very, very interesting character. I mean, some of y'all have heard me talk about her. I've always been fascinated with her life. You know, we're living in a culture of feminism, women's rights, and this young girl in the 1850s to 1860s was passionate enough about God's kingdom to go to the other side of the world, to China. Wow.

Of all places, China. Yeah. Especially back in those days. Wow. Yeah. Can't imagine.

Imagine her going there and living in that culture, immersing, immersing herself into that culture, learning the culture, wearing the clothes, eating the food so that she can win them to Christ. Yeah. And that is not a environment that's friendly towards Christians. No, it wasn't back then either. Yeah.

You know, so definitely not now, but back then it was tough. So she did it. What is her story? How did she get led toward missions?

I know she was a missionary to China, but what led her in that direction? Well, I mean, she is, her story is quite amazing. I mean, this young girl, she grew up in a sort of a Presbyterian background up near Charlottesville, Virginia.

Okay. When I say Charlottesville, we're talking about the same area where Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, you know, the presidents lived, you know, Monticello, Montpelier, Ashlawn. And according to some historians that her, the home she grew up in was sort of purchased from the estate of Thomas Jefferson. Really? Yeah.

And the same person who helped build George Washington's home or something like that also built their home. Wow. So it's quite an interesting story, but she grew up and just like any other girl with no desire for, you know, spiritual life, like he would think of Lottie Moon, but then through the ministry of John Broadus, John Broadus, the founder of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, was a pastor of this church in that area. And she came to know the Lord under his ministry. Wow. And in time, you know, she went and worked here, worked there, taught and all that. In time, she submitted the call to go on missions.

Wow. So I guess what, how does it, how does that, she, she goes to China, she sees all this lostness around her. How does that translate to her becoming like the face of international missions? Like did she do something extraordinary in China? Yeah, yes, of course. You know, just even, you know, even today to have a young lady leave her family and go off and do something like that.

Imagine this is pre-Civil War, post-Civil War period, really. Yeah. Leaving her home in the South and moving away to China, establishing herself, helping build the church, leading leaders, and making a difference for Christ. It was unheard of.

Of course you heard of David Livingston and all these kind of, you know, pioneers in mission or, you know, earlier William Carey, but a woman going off like this and not afraid to share the gospel and live in a completely different culture. Yeah. This is prior to the internet. This is prior to social media.

This is prior to Facebook. Yeah, that's true. She is out there doing God's work. Yeah. Wow.

It's just unbelievable. So definitely impacted people. What, is there an organization that she went through? I mean, obviously this is before like the, the, the sending boards and the cooperative program exists, but was there a church that sent her? Anyone that commissioned her or did she just on her own say, I'm going to go to China and be a missionary? Of course, she went with the Southern Baptist Convention.

Okay. By this time, the, the Baptist had split into the Northern and Southern Baptists. You know, of course, civil war was the catalyst towards that. So she was from the Southern Baptist side of the convention going off to be missionaries and Southern Baptist had many missionaries, you know, places like Liberia. Liberia was a place where, you know, a lot of people from the African American descent or slaves or, you know, descendants of slaves were given the opportunity to go back to Liberia or Liberia was a country that was founded would be their country so they can, they don't have to live in America. They can go there and start a life because that's where they came from. That's where they were taken from. Right.

So now they could go back and do that. So Southern Baptists send missionaries to Liberia to share the gospel with them. I mean, that's, that's quite a commitment to missions, right? So yeah, missions was very much at the heart of Southern Baptist life and she went to them.

Yeah. So she's in China and she sees like all this lostness around her. She sees all these like people who have never heard the gospel. And so she, so she starts sending letters back asking for prayer and financial support. So I guess that's kind of how it became the Lottie Moon Christmas offering is because of her, I guess her insistence really that people get involved here back at home.

Absolutely. And there were other missionaries as well in China and other parts of the world, but she just had that persona that really impacted people's lives. And like WMU, Women's Missionary Union, which is a kind of like that, that, that part of Southern Baptist life that, you know, ladies support missions and do those kinds of things.

They took that as their task, that they will raise the funds. Now today we don't rely on WMU as much because everybody wants to do it, but that's really was led by the WMU. I want to kind of, if I can, I want to kind of shift the conversation because this is typically the time where we would talk about the importance of missions as a whole. And yet at the same time, I know Ryan and I, you know, we've lived here in America all our lives. And so I've not really been impacted personally by foreign missionaries, but you grew up in a place where missionaries were, I don't know if they were common, but they definitely were around.

Oh yeah. You were, you were impacted. I think your dad, you told me was, was impacted by American missionaries.

Oh, absolutely. We had missionaries in and out of our homes all the time. I mean, it was not uncommon for me to come home and find someone in my room. Just to let you know, you're going to have to sleep with your grandma. So I had to go sleep with her because somebody was in my room.

Wow. And so the missionaries were all the time in and out of our homes, eating with us, living next door. We had a mission bungalow where they would go live or stay for as long as they were going to minister around there and then eat with us.

So sometimes even stay in our home and then go off. So missionaries were always part of our lives. My dad, although he was not witnessed too by a missionary, he came to the Lord kind of very unique way. And many of y'all have heard that testimony, but a missionary by the name of Dr. Fred Schillander took him under his wings and helped him, helped him, mentored him. And it made a big impact on his life. And ironically, you know, you've heard the story about how he went to that small church. Right next to the small church was this mission bungalow where Dr. Fred Schillander was based. Okay.

Wow. So how God works in, I mean, there's so many things I can talk about that happened because of my dad's obedience to go to the small church. Because if he hadn't, they were still, he would have still known Dr. Fred Schillander, but they would not become as close as they did. Because he, you know, he heard about my dad through a family in Pune and left a letter for him and said, hey, let this young man know that he needs to go to seminary and I'm already working towards his admission, blah, blah, blah. And my dad got to meet him. All that is well and good.

But when he chose to go to that small church, not realizing next door, what was the mission bungalow, right where Dr. Fred Schillander was based. That's amazing. I didn't realize that connection. Oh yeah. There's so many connections that are nothing but the providence of God.

Amen. And so they became even closer. Not just that he sponsored him for his tuition, but he became a father figure in my dad's life. He wasn't a father figure. I mean, why would he be a father figure if just because he left a letter for my dad to go to seminary.

No, it's because of now day in and day out he saw him. And Dr. Fred Schillander was an amazing man. He translated or he helped update the translation to the Marathi Bible. The Marathi Bible was translated by a woman, Ramabai Mukti. Ramabai was a, Pandita Ramabai was a Brahmin convert who was a widow who was kicked out of her home. She came from a higher caste, kicked out of her home and because her husband died. So she wandered the streets and then finally heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, got saved, founded this mission. And so anyways, that's how Pandita Ramabai did what she did.

But tying it back towards my dad, he was impacted by Dr. Fred Schillander because he took Pandita Ramabai's translation and updated that to modern Marathi language. Now, was that part of his just being a missionary or was he just a scholar and he was already doing that kind of thing? His parents came to India as missionaries back in the late 1800s. Okay. Wow.

Wow. So Dr. Schillander was raised in India, I guess? He was raised in India, but he came to America for his education. And I forgot what, I want to say Wheaton maybe, but I'm not quite, it's not coming to my mind what college he went to, but he studied Hebrew, Greek, biblical languages. And I remember going to his library. I mean, imagine an old British bungalow.

Yeah, I can't imagine what kind of books you'd find. Yeah. Kind of like what we were taking the pictures yesterday.

We were just taking the pictures. Yeah. It looked like that except it's wall to wall books, ancient dictionaries, you know, all that kind of stuff. If you guys want to see what that looks like, just look at the cover art of this podcast right now. That's right. You can see it. That's right. That's kind of what it looks like. I remember walking through that library as a little boy and just looking at all these books and high ceilings, because these bungalows had high ceilings too, because you know, the heat rises.

You've got to make sure there are high ceilings so the heat will rise and the rooms would be cool. And that's where he lived. That's where he translated the Bible or updated that translation. And you know, I saw the dedication in him and I would sit in his lap.

He would read books to me. What a missionary's heart though, to go to, to be raised in India, come to America for your education and then come back and go back because God has put on your heart. And I mean, I think that's such a unique thing because like I said, we just don't have that missionary experience. We just hear stories about it.

You growing up and seeing it. I mean, that's crazy. And he was a dedicated missionary. I mean, I've met a lot of missionaries.

Some, I don't know what to say about it. Not as dedicated. No, they were not as dedicated. And I don't know how they ended up on the mission field, but many of them that I met were very dedicated and sold out to the gospel.

And he was one of them. He would constantly dig into his pockets and give money to people, help people. All his salary was going to support students in seminaries, Bible colleges in India to the point that sometimes he had to borrow money from my dad. And my dad made like one 20th of how much Dr. Fred Shellander got being a missionary, you know, as a salary. So my dad loaning money to Dr. Shellander, many times he would say, nah, it's okay.

You can, you can just, that's just, not worry about that. I remember hearing my dad say that to Dr. Shellander. And in time, you know, when my brother was born, he was named Fred after Dr. Fred Shellander. Wow. That's why he was named Fred.

Wow. You know, so needless to say, I have great appreciation for Lottie Moon. You know, she, she had such a life of dedication and conviction as well. You know, many of y'all may not know she was engaged to a scholar who was a professor at, you know, Harvard, right? C.H.

Toy. But prior to that, he was not at Harvard. He was a Southern seminary and he went sort of liberal. He went away from the truth. You know, the German higher criticism really worked on him. And he began to deny the Genesis account and all that.

She broke off the engagement with him. Keep in mind, we're talking about the 1860s, 70s, right? And to have somebody who is a strong scholar, well up and coming, well known scholar, teaching at a Southern seminary. And of course John Broadus fired him for doing that. Goes off to Harvard. Now she had a choice.

She could have still married that man, lived the life and she broke it off. Wow. A woman doing that at that time period was probably also pretty unheard of. Yeah.

Amazing. So I've always admired Lottie Moon's life. In fact, I, Nicole and I went and visited the place in Northeast Georgia where she got the call to go to missions because that was not in Charlottesville, Virginia. That was in Northeast Georgia. So we went to that place years and years ago. And then I think about three years ago, four years ago, we actually went by her graveside.

This is up in outside of Blackstone, Virginia. And stood there and it was just an amazing experience just to stand there and see, this is the lady, this is the place where she's buried. Of course she's in the presence of the Lord. But it was just amazing to see that.

And then also went by the church. Of course it's all been updated through the years, but just to stand there and go, this is a place where an icon was born. Yeah, absolutely. I want to get those pictures and let's put them up on the Facebook.

So everybody, you guys make sure you're following us on social media so you can see those pictures. And what a great reminder for us that the Lottie Moon Christmas offering isn't just, Oh yeah, it's that time of year, you know, drop some money in the offering plate for that. But it enables us to stand in this tradition. This, you know, maybe not all of us can hop on a plane and go overseas. Maybe not all of us are called to go to a different country and completely change our way of life, but all of us can give. That's right. And we should. All of us can give and stand in this tradition of international missions. Well, God commands us to, but I think that there's a blessing behind that as well. He's always going to bless that obedience. That's right.

He's all, I mean, he did in your life and Dr. Shalander's life and your dad's life because that man was obedient. Look at everything that we have here today. Yeah, absolutely. Man, what a great discussion.

If you guys enjoyed today's topic or you have suggestions for future topics, let us know by sending us a text at 252-582-5028 or you can always email us at contact at Clearview today show.com. That's right. Don't forget. Oh, good. I was going to tell him on the, on the website, clearly today show.com.

There's also a donate button there where you can give support us financially support the show as we seek to take the gospel to many people as many people as possible. Right. Really quick last minute advice.

Yes. Last minute advice for me would be when you when you take your shoes off at the end of the day and you are getting ready to, you know, do whatever you need to do, go to bed and you know, wherever you put your shoes, if you will take those shoelaces instead of just like kicking your shoes off as some people do and just toss them, you know, here and there, take them and just lay them neatly. It takes two seconds, lay them neatly and loosen the shoelaces a little bit. It'll save you a fraction of time in the morning.

I didn't know where in the world I was going. I was just, cause sometimes like you kick your shoes off, but they're still tight from when you had them on. You try to put in there in the morning, just loosen them up a little bit. All right. Loosen your shoelaces.

Take a little extra time at night. It'll save you time in the morning. There you go. There you go. That's broader advice that I think is good, but loosening your shoelaces is not.

The shoelaces are what I latched on to specifically, but there's a broader principle. I got you. Take a little extra time at night. It'll save you time in the morning. There you go. That's cool. I agree. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow and clear you today.