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Now let's get started. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abhinav Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill.
I'm John Glantis, and we're coming at you live once again from the Clearview Today studio. It's Wednesday. You've done a good job of getting through the week so far. Just breathe. Take a deep breath. It's all going to be okay.
You know why? Because we're here with our hosts with the most. That's Dr. Abhinav Shah, who's a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show. Dr. Shah, welcome to the studio. It's good to be here.
Thank you, my friend. I can see from coast to toast. Listen, I can see from across the way the light from the way the light from this, from the, um, the key light is hitting that cup of coffee. The steam looks so appetizing. I don't know if you can see it on camera.
You can't. The steam out of that coffee looks so appetizing. Play an ad that, yeah, I know, right. It looks like we just poured it for a commercial and it's not even a fresh coffee. It's from like what?
All an optical illusion. I'm telling you, a percolator can make even a, well, they can't make it taste good, but it can keep it hot. I'll tell you that Dr. Shah, new segment, uh, uh, written in by a viewer submitted as the word I was looking for submitted by one of our viewers. Now, unfortunately they did not leave their name, but I could see from their email, they are from Texas. This is, this is from a, one of our Texas listeners fight vacation roast. So I'm going to give you three Bible characters.
I know it was a weird title. I'm going to give you three Bible characters. One of them, you have to fight like, like challenge to a fight. One of them, you have to take a week long vacation with, and the other one, you have to roast, like just, just insult the pants off of them. All right. Fight vacation roast. One of them, you have to fight.
One of you take a vacation with and one you roast. Okay. Jonah, Simon Peter, the apostle Paul.
All right. Jonah, Simon Peter, apostle Paul. Go on a vacation with, I would say, Oh, it's tough. Cause, Oh my goodness. I would say Peter go on a vacation with Peter cause Peter being a fishermen. Of course he was, Peter was more than just a fishermen, right? He also knew scripture very well. Just read for a second. Peter behind Mark's gospel is Peter. So you know that he was not just that, that big old burly guy, fisherman. He didn't have any sense.
No, that's not true. But if I went with him on a vacation, let's say on an Island, I know we're going to eat some good fish. You like fish. I love fish. Some good fish on a fire, man. You're, you're one of the few people I've seen that goes to Israel and order.
Where is it? St. Peter's fish. You order it like on purpose, knowing full well what it is. My wife ordered it and she was like, Oh, I don't know if I knew. And she was like, well, I guess I gotta, I guess I gotta eat this. Yeah. But you're like every time I was like, no, I'm eating it. Yeah. I mean, I'm here. I'm going, it's coming out of the sea of Galilee. I'm eating that. So I like fish by the way. Right.
Vacation with Simon Peter. Right. You're going to roast and fight either Jonah or apostle Paul. That's tough.
I know. Roast or fight. I'll probably roast Jonah. That's what I was thinking because it's easy to roast him. You know, it's because he ran from God and, and then fell into the belly of the fish.
And then I can see him back flipping off and then getting like vomited up on the land. Not looking good. He just never comes out of that story.
Looking good. Right. And also you don't want to roast Paul. People roasted Paul.
You don't want to be one of those. Fighting the apostle Paul. Now you didn't clarify. So this could be fighting in the sense of fist fighting, or it could be fighting in the sense of arguing theology. Like debating him. You know what for you, I would say, yeah, we can, we can debate him if you want. But I'm not going to ever win in that debate because the apostle Paul, man full of the Holy spirit, his words are the word of God. Yeah. I'm going to lose, but I will still engage him.
Why not? All right, Ryan, I got one for you. Okay. Fight Vacation roast, Moses, King Saul, Adam.
Moses, King Saul and Adam. I feel like that's a pretty easy one, but I want to hear what you say. I want a vacation with. Vacation to anywhere you want, by the way, you can go wherever you want. All expenses paid. Okay. I want a vacation with Moses.
That's what I figured. I want a vacation with Moses. Cause he can bring water or the rock whenever we might get in trouble for it, but he'll bring food from the sky and quail like bird sandwiches.
Like you save a lot on, on fair. I would roast, be careful. Who is it? Who is it again? King Saul, Adam. Yeah. Be careful.
I would roast, I would roast King Saul. Is that the way you were saying? Be careful. He is going to have you put to death, man. Oh, wait. No. Cause he's God's anointed, right?
No, not that. But King Saul was head and shoulders above most of them. He was a big, he was a big dude. He was, but I feel like, I feel like I can roast him. If I, if I'm fighting Adam, it's not a genuine fight. Like I was just want to kind of wrestle, grapple with Adam. Just kind of like, you know, mess around, not, not fighting. Yeah.
That's what I would pick too. I thought you meant like you were going to fight King Saul. I was like, no, no, no, no. I wouldn't physically fight King Saul. Cause there's no way he's so you don't have to fight him. Yeah.
I would say I would roast. Yeah. I agree with it. Cause I feel like, I mean, he kind of made himself an easy target. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely roast and fight Adam, which I don't know.
I mean, if he was the progenitor of our race, he's ideal man. So I don't think if I genuinely go up against them there, I'm going to win, but I think we could like kind of good-natured like buddies wrestling around. Like when he was in his 800s, maybe it would be like, maybe close to an even fight. If he was like eight 50, I might be one more.
What if it still beats you? Oh yeah. He probably would.
He's like a ninja, like jumps back and forth. I'm like Adam, please. Yeah.
He liked the ideal man. I don't know if I'd want to fight, but then the only other alternatives is you fight Moses. You don't want to do that. So John, does that mean this last one is for you? Sure. Sure.
Yeah. So the one for me is Isaac, Ruth and Daniel. I would probably, well, I'm married. I can't go on a vacation with Ruth. I would say I would roast Ruth.
Hmm. Roast. I would roast Ruth. Yeah. Cause I don't want to fight Ruth, but I'm married.
I can't go on a vacation with her unless I could take Ellie. But even then that's kind of weird. So I would say I would roast. I think that's a good way.
Yeah. I would. Daniel. Daniel stood up the lines. I don't know if I could fight him. I don't know if I could fight Daniel. I think I would go on vacation with Daniel and probably fight Isaac. I think I could fight Isaac if I just threw a cheeseburger at him.
I think he would be food. What's up? Look here. I think that's what I would do. I think that's what I would do. Daniel. I don't know if I could take Daniel. So you would do what again?
Roast Ruth, fight Isaac and go on a vacation with Daniel. Yeah. That's, that's what I would do. Sure. That's what I would do. Hey, that's a good one. I would, I would say if you, if you're the person in Texas who wrote in and sent us this, please give us your name.
Cause I want to thank you. That's a, that's a good game. How about we give David a shot. Do we have one?
Yeah. I don't have another one, but I'll tell you what, I'll make one right now. I'll make one right now. How about for you?
Go for it. Are you ready, David? All right. So three, what is it? Fight.
Fight, vacation and roast. Okay. So you have Samson, Barnabas. Okay. Okay. Barney from the new Testament. And then give me one. Let's say, let's say Zacchaeus.
What'd you say? I said David. Yeah. Let's do King David. King David. Yeah.
David, David. So for sure I would fight Barnabas. He seems like a soft guy. Barnabas? Yeah.
Son of encouragement. He seems like a solid guy. Okay. Okay. Okay. I would probably roast David. Good.
And I would, yeah, vacation. I would definitely vacation with, with, um, Samson. Yeah.
I don't, I don't think you want to cross Samson in any way. Yup. David could stand to get roasted. Yeah. David could. David, I think I've been trying to convince David, our David to, to, to, you know, to roast King David.
David. Yeah. I think you're right. Your namesake could probably stand to get roasted.
Yeah. I think, I think he, I think he needed it. Nathan roasted David a little bit. He did. That was more than a little roasting. That was full of flamethrower.
Understatement of the century. All right. If you listen, if you're the person who wrote that in, they did not include their name, but please, I would love to give you some credit. That was a great, great segment.
Dr. Shutt, do you have any, so it's Wednesday and we did not do the weekly wisdom segment from Monday, but do you have anything our listeners could just be, be thinking about or praying about this week as we are going through the rest of our week? Oh, absolutely. So we've been going through the book of Romans, especially Romans chapter seven is where we are camped right now. And in the Romans chapter seven, we hear about, and maybe we can talk about it today on our show, how, uh, Paul gives this metaphor of this woman married to this man. And as long as she is married to this man, that, that, that marriage is valid and is, is binding and she cannot marry another.
If she does that, she is an adulteress, but if the man dies, then she is free to marry another. All of that was to help people understand that previously we were married to Mr. Law and then because Mr. Law will not die, we had to die. And so not only did we die indeed to sin when we died with Christ, buried with him, risen to walk in newness of life, not only did we die to sin, but Paul also extends that imagery to the law. So we also died to Mr. Law and we have risen now and we are married to Christ. That's what Paul says that.
Yeah. Now all of that, we maybe we can unpack that a little more for our listeners is to help us understand that even in the Christian life, there is legalism. Law shows up. Satan, sin, flesh, death will use the law to bring about legalism in the Christian life set of rules. And those rules may not necessarily be biblical commandments. These are rules that you make for yourself, like this is who I am and that's what I don't do or this is what I do and it works for me. And what happens is legalism not only, it not only takes away that relationship with Christ, but it also substitutes the power of Christ in us.
So now we are more eager to keep a set of rules to please Mr. Law than to let Jesus live through us. Yes. Okay. So I sort of explained it already, but are we going to hopefully unpack this later?
I want to. Yeah. The two lethal enemies of genuine biblical Christianity. One is the L, liberal, liberalism and the second L is legalism. Would you say that those represent two extremes?
So here's, here's what I mean by that. There's a, there's an exclusive series that we do only on pray.com called discerning doctrine with Dr. Abadan Shah. And in one of them, I think the very first episode you lay out five false gospels. One of them is the liberal left gospel.
One of them is the, the, Oh gosh, I can't remember. I think it's the far right gospel, but like the extreme right or whatever. But you said that in extreme right churches, that's where you find legalism, right? Do you see those two L's liberalism and legalism as two polar ends or do you see them as just distinct problems that sometimes kind of cross the aisle? I haven't taken the time to really explore them on a continuum or like a, um, what do you call spectrum, spectrum, perfect word spectrum. I haven't really taken the time to see if they're really the bookends or extreme ends of a spectrum. But the same like it that liberalism could be one end and legalism could be the other. But I definitely know that they are posers. They are, um, they, they, they are the false, um, um, understandings of Christianity and both of them are lethal.
Both the L's are lethal. By the way, what John mentioned a few moments ago about this liberal left and this far right Christian that's coming from Bill Hull's book on discipleship. Yes. And I know there's a bunch of people out there who want to access that series. It's exclusive on pray.com, but here's the good news.
It's 100% free. You can go download that app right now and get complete access to that series, discerning doctrine. And you talk about Bill Hull's book in that same exact episode.
I would love to explore that picture that you gave us of the woman who is married to Mr. Law, but that has to die. I mean that when you gave that picture in a service that was transformative for people. It was good. You could see light bulbs going off and you could see people kind of being freed from this sort of like a locked in pattern of trying to be good enough or trying to be the best version of themselves.
It was so helpful. Yeah. And the thing is sometimes people don't realize that that is the problem, right? They think something else is the problem. I need help. I don't know that, that what you just told me is not my problem. This is my problem. And you have to help them understand.
No, that is your problem. The legalism does not necessarily have to come from laws or commandments coming from the Bible. The legalism can be your own set of rules. You know, Paul talks about the law as in the Torah, but he also talks about the law as in the conscience for the Gentiles. We will create a system of laws that will sort of soothe our conscience. Right.
And that may be okay for the functioning of a society, but that does not mean that will save us or even help us live the Christian life. It was, I think that was, I was, I remember sitting under that, sitting in that service and listening to that message. And I thought that was one of the longest, like the longest running illustrations that you had ever preached.
I think the only comparative illustration you ever did that was that long, but also that complete was, I don't know if you remember, but it was the one where like someone gets angry and then they get upset with this person and then they get upset with this person and it causes this massive like city, like this massive, like citywide shutdown or whatever. But I was, Oh yeah, Mr. Kendall, that was the name of it. But I thought it was really interesting you comparing the law to a marriage.
And I remember coming up to you after and be like, you know, I never thought about it that way. And you said, well, I didn't write that. Paul wrote that. Paul compared the law, obedience to the law as being married to someone who's kind of emotionally unavailable, unwilling to help. Well, Ryan, if you want to read for us Romans chapter seven, starting in verse one, because that's where Paul explains this entire scenario. And for those of you who are not aware of it or have not really been following us in the series on the book of Romans, when you fail to properly understand Romans chapter six, that's when you launch into Romans chapter seven, right now you need Romans chapter seven.
Yeah. So Romans chapter six is all about knowing that you died with Christ. You were buried with him. You have risen to walk in the newness of life. That's what it's about. In essence, there are other things Paul talks about in Romans chapter six. If I can quickly pull it up over here, he talks about, if I can find my chapter here, he talks about many other things like do not let sin reign in your mortal body. He talks about presenting your members as instruments of righteousness. He talks about we are not under law, but under grace, all of these things are in the context of you died, you were buried, you have risen to walk in the newness of life. So wrecking yourself, indeed dead and wrecking yourself to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus, our Lord means just believe it.
You died, you have risen. Okay. So when you fail to understand this very fundamental doctrine of Christianity, okay, when you fail to understand this fundamental doctrine of Christianity, then we have to now take you through another lesson, which is Romans chapter seven, right? If you don't mind reading us Romans chapter seven, starting in verse one, and you're going all the way to verse four, at least for now.
Absolutely. So Romans chapter seven, verse one starts, or do you not know brethren for I speak to those who know the law, that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives for the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. So then if while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress.
But if her husband dies, she is free from that law so that she is no adulteress, although she is married to another man. Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ that you may be married to another to him who is raised from the dead that we should bear fruit to God. So very interesting the way Paul lays out this imagery. Now some people will say, man, it's too confusing for me. It's too confusing.
I don't understand all this stuff. And I tell people that, please, please, you cannot dismiss this. This is not an optional part of Christianity. This is the heart of our faith. In fact, for those of you who will be attending Digging Deep Great Britain this summer, 2025, one of the first things that I will be explaining in this series is how these concepts were very instrumental, very important for the conversion of the people in the Anglo-Saxon world. Do you think that's because Paul wrote to the people in Rome and then people in Rome went and sort of founded Britain or the UK? Does that have anything to do with it?
No, no, no. I don't think that's necessary. We need to necessarily go that far. What we're talking about here is more when Christianity came to the people that we know now as Anglo-Saxon. They were already there.
Okay. So, I mean, if you understand the history of Britain, you have the people known as the Britons. They're living there under Roman rule. Well, they were there before, but then Roman rule. Roman rule goes away because Rome falls. And then for a brief period, there is peace. And then the Anglo-Saxons show up.
These are tribes coming from the northeast of England and they come in, they invade and it dishevels everything. It throws that society into chaos, but in time they are converted. Their conversion took place because they understood these doctrines.
They understood what this means. This is not just something that a certain tier of Christianity enjoys and appreciates and that people in Britain got saved or the Anglo-Saxons got saved or then later on you have the Vikings coming over. How did they get saved?
How did they merge into the Anglo-Saxon world or the world of the Britons? We think it's just like very cut and dry. It's like all political, all just power and control. Now, many of those Kings and even Queens were converted because they understood this. What we're talking about here was the heart of Christianity that is part of our gospel that changed their lives.
And later on you see that, but you got to put on a certain set of glasses. When you study history, it's not just names and figures and people and dates and places. And most of this history is written by secular historians.
So they're not going to talk about these things. But when you look at some of their names, like why that name? That name has to do with this life with Christ. They had no great benefit from becoming Christians.
They had no benefit unless you read their names and see what they tried to do. Then you go, Oh, could it be that they understood what it means to die with Christ, be buried with him? And now you have risen to walk in the newness of life. The power of Christ is in you enabling you to live the life. That's what got them.
Oh, we get it now. But you see for so many years, I would say centuries, secular history has so changed the narrative that it just seems like a bunch of barbarians. And then all of a sudden Christianity here, there, then invasion, and then all of a sudden chaos.
And then maybe they all become Christians. Why? Why?
Why are they all becoming Christians? What's the benefit? Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. So this is what I was trying to get at is that what we're sharing here is not optional.
This is what shaped our Western civilization if we truly understand history. So law will not die. The whole imagery is based on this marriage where a woman is married to a man named Mr. Law and she cannot leave him because leaving him would mean adultery, but she is miserable in this marriage.
Mr. Law, all he can tell you is right or wrong. She like bakes him a pie. She like brings it to him. He's like, you baked a pie. That is good. I did this for you. Are you grateful or not? You did the right thing. This is a pie you have done well.
Imagine being married. It's not even you've done well. It's like, it's the right thing. That was correct.
You've done correctly. Tell me something that's wrong. Like, uh, Hey, uh, I didn't get a chance to take the trash out today.
You didn't take the trash out. That's wrong. I tried to get the kids in bed by eight o'clock, but it ended up being about nine 30.
The kids should be put to bed no later than eight o'clock. That's wrong. You failed. Yeah. That's not, that's a miserable marriage. So you failed. There's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's probably a lot of people be like, Hmm, this is, why does this sound for? They're joking, but this kind of sounds familiar. I mean, that's all the law can do.
Yeah. The law will never say, Oh, you didn't get to take the trash out. Let me help you. Law will not do that. It reminds me of that red light in 2010, the space odyssey, where it says, I can't do that, Dave.
I cannot do that, Dave. It's kind of funny too, because it's like, even the, when you live your life like that, even the stuff you do, right. Kind of doesn't feel like you've done something good because you're not getting praised for it.
It feels like you just never do anything right. Yeah. And there's no power because it's all you doing it.
Right. And that's life with Mr. Law. The only way to leave Mr. Law is someone has to die. But here's the thing about law. Law will not die. Law is the word of God. Law is, and we're talking about not just the law of conscience, we're talking about law as in the word of God, the commandments of God, right? As long as God is God, the commandments will stand in eternity. The commandments will stand.
So the law will not die. So guess who has to die? We have to die. We have to die, which means that woman has to die. I like the way you put it in your sermon. You put it this way because anybody could be listening to this and you're saying, wait, wait, wait.
Are you trained? Are you trying to say that the law of God, like God's word is going to make you miserable. And you said in your sermon, it's not that the Mr. Law is a bad husband. We're the wrong wife. Right. We're the ones that have to die. Right.
We have to die. And that's exactly what happens when we are saved. Not only do we die to sin, but we also die to law.
Right. And that's exactly what it says in verse four. So would you read verse four one more time? Romans chapter seven and verse four. Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. So now you are with Christ.
And when, because when you, when you get saved, in a sense, you died with Christ buried with him, risen to walk in the newness of life, you died to sin and you died to law so that you could be married to Christ and married to Christ. That metaphor implies that he serves you. He lives through you. He does everything for you.
As long as you are submitted to him. Right. That's the whole essence of marriage. The husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church, wives submit to your own husbands. This is all connected. And so as long as that wife is submitted to her husband, then he does the work.
Right. Now in many marriages, all it says, you know, people do is like, submit to me, you have to submit to me. Well, you have to serve her. It's a very interesting relationship, but it's really depicting the mystery, which is Christ in the church. So when you submit to Christ, then he lives through you. So it's no longer, I am doing it.
He is doing it for me. And that's what Galatians 2 20 is about. That's right.
That's exactly right. For I have been crucified with Christ. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me and the life that I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the son of God who loves me and gave himself for me, gave himself for me.
It means he not just gave himself for me on the cross, but he gives himself for me every single day. Great point. Great. And so when it comes to your daily walk, everything should be God.
I can't, but you can. Yeah. And it may seem like, oh yeah, yeah, definitely for serving God. It's like, you know, when I'm serving in church, God, I'm not, I can't do it. I can't be teaching these children because I need your power in me. No, you have to do that also when it comes to dealing with sin in your life.
That's right. Combating sin. It may be that certain sins may be easy for you to deal with. But I'm talking about that sin that is very hard and the place where you fall again and again. And you don't even see it as a sin.
You don't even see it as somewhere you fall, but it is the one that Satan gets you. For someone, it may be pornography. For someone, it may be a bad habit. For someone, it may be insecurity.
For someone, it may be how, I don't know, just, just a low self-esteem. That is that sin where Satan gets you. So you have to come to Christ and say, I can't fight this feeling. I cannot, sounds like a song. I cannot deal with this in my own strength because in my own strength, I already know the path I'm going to take, but that path will only lead to more death.
So I'm giving it to you. And sometimes it's a long battle. Sometimes it takes days.
Sometimes it takes overnight, but God always comes through. Sounds like a worship song that could be written maybe by some of us here at Clearview Worship. I think we should. Go ahead and write that down. That's worth writing on.
Yeah, I agree. That's worth writing on. Guys, make sure to join us for tomorrow's episode. Lots of great content coming your way. Thanks again to our sponsors for making today's episode possible. And don't forget that you can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes. And you can always support us financially at Clearview todayshow.com. John, what do you want to leave the listeners with today? You may be listening to this episode thinking I wish all of Dr. Shah's work was in one convenient locale. Well, let me tell you, my friend, it is.
It's actually in two, but that's going to ruin the continuity of my point. You can find it all on abidanshah.com. Very reworked website coming out in the next couple of days. Also also also pray.com. Shout out to pray.com for this clean t shirt.
It makes my muscles look really big, but also it puts all of Dr. Shah's work in one convenient place, including exclusive series like discerning doctrine and another one that we're about to announce is going to be called the lighthouse. We're going to have more information on that in just a couple of weeks. But thank you to everybody who's giving on pray.com and supporting us through pray.com. We're about to hit 5k. We are so close.
We're getting hundreds more every single day. We're about to cross that finish line. I think by Friday, which is, uh, which is two days from now, we can hit 5.3 5,300 followers. Let's make it happen. I believe in you guys.
Go follow dr. Sean pray.com right now. That's right. Love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on clear view today. This episode of clear view today is brought to you by Lebleu ultra pure water. When you drink Lebleu, you're only getting two ingredients, hydrogen and oxygen. Lebleu is the leading choice for hydration with a patented process that removes impurities and ensures the highest level of purity possible. Unlike other bottled waters, Lebleu's ultra pure filtration system provides water that is free from contaminants and infused with only the essentials your body needs. So whether you're at home on the go or working hard, Lebleu ultra pure water offers a refreshing, crisp taste with every sip. It's going to give you the hydration you need without the worry. So make the smart choice today and experience the difference of Lebleu ultra pure water. You can find out more and order online at Lebleu. That's L-E-B-L-E-U.com and make sure when you check out, you tell them the clear view today show sent you. You can use promo code T-O-D-A-Y at checkout to get 10% off your next order. It's going to save you money and it's going to support all of us here at the clear view today show. So stay hydrated, stay healthy. And without further ado, let's start the show.
