You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis, and welcome back to the Clearview Today Studio. We are here with our host, Dr.
Abadan 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, I'm gonna go ahead and give the air horns. I'm feeling good today, my friend. Air horns on the way.
Today is a good day. Welcome to the studio. Thank you. Welcome to you guys as well. We didn't have the balloon arch set up, but we'll do that today.
Yes, some interns at Clearview have been violently reprimanded. I'm in such a good mood today, Dr. Shah, because one of our episodes, our recent episodes, the one that we did responding to Candace Owens, has kind of blown up on YouTube. We were not expecting, I was not expecting, I was expecting for it to get a little bit of a buzz, but not 13,000 views virtually overnight. Yeah, that's crazy.
Which, I mean, I know there's people on YouTube who get like five or six million views on every video, but for us, man, that was a big jump. Yeah. And so I wanted to kind of talk about it. Maybe we could read some of the YouTube comments right here before we get started on today's topic. Because when I saw the comments start rolling in, I'm not going to lie to you.
They were negative. I didn't have a lot of hope. But look, I get emails from YouTube. Every time somebody comments, I get the email. And usually I don't check because they're just YouTube comments.
And most times it is somebody subscribing, so I don't pay attention. But I started paying attention when you see, you know, about 15 back to back to back to back. And I was like, what are they saying? And I was like, oh. Wow, oh, oh.
I mean, they were very insulting, very hateful. And I was like, wow. I am supporting um Jewish people, which we've always done because you understand what's going on, terrorism. Come on. It's a no-brainer.
We've been supporting that. all of a sudden getting blasted for doing that. Yeah. The first roll of comments was Pretty rough. And you get like one or two nuts on every video.
Yeah, we've seen that before. We've seen that before. But when they start rolling in like that, I wasn't considering like pulling the video because I was like, no, we're not going to do that. But I was like, golly, we wandered into the wrong neighborhood.
So then I kind of left it alone for a couple of days. And then one of our staff who does all the posting and monitors social media said, Hey, have you seen the video? I was like, Yeah. He's like, No, go look at it. And like hundreds of positive comments.
So I wanted to read some of them. A lot of the comments were blasting Candace Owens. As much as I wanted to be the bigger person, I didn't pick any of them.
So there's a bunch of comments, but this is a Christian radio. I already agree with you. Yes, yes, we agree with you, but this Christian radio over here.
So just know. I love your comments. I'm just not going to read them. The one that I really loved was someone said, I'm Israeli and I really appreciate you guys. Thank you.
Wow.
Someone says, Thank you for this.
So nice to hear a calm discussion than people getting shouted down, example, or e.g., Piers Morgan uncensored. It's so frustrating because you cannot hear both points of view and make an informed decision.
Someone else said, Thank you for your moral clarity and for defending Jewish people and their ancient homeland, the righteous and moral. Understand the historical connection of Jews and Israel. They're only defending their people and their land, which I thought, you know, that's exactly what you were saying. You have to understand these issues to be able to talk about them. That's right.
And we've been doing that not just as an opportunity right now to get these likes. We've been talking about these issues for. Years. That's right. I told our team, and in fact, I was getting ready to travel with our, uh, with my wife for our 30-year anniversary.
That's right. I said, look. I have barely an hour, but I think we need to do this show on Candace Obens. I'm getting so many calls or text messages, really, and Facebook messages asking to say something about this. I'm glad you pushed us.
And so we came in here. We had a funeral. That's why we were all dressed up. We were all dressed up. Not for the show.
We were dressed up because we had just done a general. We were walking out of the funeral, came up maybe 30 minutes before pressing record. Right. And we finished that. And then I had a service on Saturday nights.
And I said, no, we need to do this because. We cannot let this person say what she is saying. And actually begin to alter somebody's thinking because what she is saying is dangerous. What she's saying is not good, not helpful. Because once people go down that ugly road of anti Semitism, when they start saying things which Which is mind-blowing.
Okay, October 7th. Horrible. And today. We have people protesting against Israel. It's like.
This is the only comment that was like, that I, that I included that was marked, like, um, Directed at Candace Owens. I wanted to include it just because I didn't feel like it was really insulting. But you mentioned in the episode that it's really frustrating to hear her speak with so much authority when she doesn't know what she's talking about.
Someone responded, yes. She, meaning Candace, speaks with a lot of authority. I wish y'all could talk with her and shut her down if she would even listen. And I was like, golly. I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know that she would ever come on the show. But she did say that a lot of people on social media have been paid or something like that to respond to her and do all this. And I'm like, did we get paid? I would gladly check for that. Where's that shit?
I'll take a chat. We would respond to you for free, but yeah, I would 100% cash. No problem with that. There were no payments made. We don't have anything.
We'll get 10 or 15 more cameras with. Oh, yeah. We can do like for the next month talk about Candace Owens. But honestly, no, we did it out of convictions because this is wrong. Yeah.
This is not only biblically wrong, but also more. Morally wrong, ethically wrong for someone who is a public figure to support terrorism. It's evil. Also, people are getting paid to disagree with me. That's the Jesse Lee Peterson approach, Candace.
You don't want to do that. You don't want to go that route. That's not a good argument. Not a good look.
Well, our verse of the day today is coming to us from Proverbs chapter 14, verse 4. Where no oxen are, the trough is clean, but much increase comes by the strength of an ox. Proverbs, interesting book, Dr. Shah. A lot of people, when it comes to Proverbs, I think people have a low view of Proverbs.
You know what I mean? And I had someone, we actually talked about this in our Catalyst Sunday School when you guys went to Cozumel last week. I don't know what it is about Proverbs that people look down on, but no one would say, I look down on the book of Proverbs. Proverbs is a lesser book. And yet there's something in us that's like, Yeah, it's just problems.
I feel like people treat it like the reader's digest of the Bible. Like, it's just kind of like it's there. If you don't have anything else to read, you can kind of pick it up and rifle through it and find some little pithy statements that you can apply to your life. I got a better one. Yeah, go for it.
They think they're like fortune cookies in the Bible. There you go. Yes. That one cracked up on a Proverbs. Collection of fortune cookies in the book.
It'll be kind of fun. I've been reading a lot of Genesis. I've been reading Exodus and Isaiah and Jeremiah. It'll be fun. I want a little fortune cookie.
A little palate cleanser to read. Yeah, they're a little fortune cookies in the book. I'll read the numbers. I'll turn it around and go. You have great things coming your way.
Yay, that made me feel good. All right. Thank you, book of Proverbs. No, if you read Jeremiah 18:18, it tells us, For the law shall not perish from the priest. nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet.
Three categories of writings here. First is the law, the second is counsel. This is where. Proverbs comes in, and the third is prophecy. Three offices are mentioned here.
The priest? The wise And the prophet. Is it this passage that we get our three like our main genres of scripture? Not necessarily. Those genres were sort of assigned by the Jewish people or the people of Israel, the law, the prophets, the writings.
But this passage tells us that they are on the same level. We have no right to to You know, put them in some kind of a hierarchy and say the law is important and the prophecy is important, but counsel is down here. Why? Because, oh, we find that in other cultures as well, or we have a lot of pithy statements and. Proverbial statements all over the world, so this is no different.
No. It's in the Bible.
So it's it may sound similar. And it may even be taken from Surrounding cultures, but because it's in the Bible, it has a different level of inspiration because it's still God's word, it's the word of God, right? Yeah, and so going back to this uh proverb right here, Proverbs 14, verse 4: where no oxen are, the trough is clean, but much increase comes by the strength of an ox.
So You know, when you think about oxen. These are some powerful animals. We've been around them when we were in Edinburgh. We saw these Highland cows, and these are. Big animals.
Did they have like the Tom DeLong emo bang? Yeah, basically. Like, no. I wanted so bad to have that style of hairstyle in school, but it would never work for my head. I mean, they are powerful, intimidating creatures.
I mean, we were outside filming them just on my iPhone. And I checked to make sure the fence does go all around. Yes, it does. And the gate is just in case it decides to come out. I don't have enough time to run away through the.
the the lawn yeah into The big House, we were staying in. I'm like, I just want to make sure, just don't want it to come after me. But, um, In ancient times Farmers, once they had sort of climbed the ladder of success from just plowing with their hands, they would buy a bull or an oxen.
Now use somebody. Yeah. Now, difference between a bull and an oxen. Oxens typically were bulls castrated at three years of age, and now they are used as beasts of labor. They will help thresh the grain, plow the ground, or even hitch a cart.
That's what they would do. Bulls are used for procreation.
So these oxens were very helpful. Imagine pulling this yoke or or trying to plow the ground and now all of a sudden you have this massive tractor, right? What we would call a tractor today, pulling this. Life is so much easier. Yeah.
But Several problems you find out. In the first week. Number one, That thing eats everything inside. There's a reason it can move with as much force is because it's just constantly. Constantly taking in fuel.
Absolutely. I mean, it eats so much. It has their rumen, you know, the large part of their compound stomach can hold as much as 75 gallons. That's enormous. Wow.
That's like. How many cars is that? I said, like, at least three or four vehicles because 75 gallons. And they want that to be full all the time. Wow.
That's incredible. Secondly, um, Whatever goes in. It's going to come out. It's going to come out. Yeah, they're dirty, stinky animals.
Yes. So. Unless shoveling manure is fun for you. Yeah, that's going to be rough. It's just what it sounds like.
And if you've been on a farm, like I didn't grow up on a farm, but I've been to plenty of farms. Like it's everywhere. They don't have a little bathroom where they go and take care of their farms. No, they don't go off to the court. It's in your workspace.
What do you say? Right there. Whether it's, you know, you're using them to thresh the grain or you're using them to plow, it's going to be wherever they are. Yeah. So it's a mess.
And unfortunately, that means it's going to be wherever you are. Right. Wherever you are, because you're the one who's driving that oxen.
So it's a mess. So, I believe in a very short time, that same farmer goes. I might have messed up. I don't want to do this because everything that we are producing, this thing eats. Yeah.
And if it not, it doesn't, you know. It's not eating, it's pooping everywhere. And then you try to play the businessman: like, I think we're actually spending more on the ox than we were getting without the ox. Right. What's the ROI?
The what? Return on investment. That was kind of cool. Is that a real thing? Yeah.
R-O-I? Yeah. It is an ROI.
Okay, okay, cool, cool. Yeah. It's a banking term, right? Like a business term. Very nice.
So. The first part of the proverb says Where no oxen are, the trough is clean. In some ways, it's a reflection of what's going inside the farmer's head. You know, this trough used to be clean. I used to not have so much work.
But I didn't have old Mo over there. Old Moe. Yeah, because he goes. I'm shoveling behind old Moe all day long. I've been doing this.
I could be doing that. Mm-hmm, Mo. Eats everything and then leaves his droppings everywhere. Oh, my goodness. We need to get a clear view.
We'd be better off with a clean. We need to get a clear view, plushie. That might be one right up there by Dr. Shah's head. That's old Mo.
Old Mo. Old Mole Mo. Watches over our studio. Yeah. So.
That's probably what's going through. the farmer's head. Trough is clean. Where no oxen are like like Plural. Yeah.
But then the second part comes in, which helps bring some semblance of wisdom back into that former which is But Much increase comes. By the strength of an ox. Yeah, the trough will be clean. But now you don't have any harvest? True.
And you don't know how you can't plow the ground? And you you you can't hitch your wagon and go anywhere. Yeah, you're in trouble. Seems like a battle between short-term. What you call it?
Short-term cleanliness versus long-term reward. Yeah, yeah. And because short-term cleanliness can only lead to long-term sterility and barrenness because now you don't have anything in your harvest. Yeah. Your trough's clean, but.
There's nothing.
Now think about that. Apply that to life. Like in a business setting. Yeah, if you think about it, you need to have money, you need to have vision, passion, hard work, many other things, and all that is true. But.
A big part of business is the mess. Yeah, that's true. Is the mess. You have to deal with mess. You're in restaurant business, you're dealing with the mess of people.
I'm not coming in today. I'm sick. Uh uh I I I need more pay. Oh, I'm I'm you know whatever. Right.
And you have to deal with the mess. You don't see that a lot. You usually just see the CEO in his press suit and his money and his 401k. You're like, man, that must be the good life.
Well, I mean, translate it back to the farmer example: when you're on the outside looking in, you see the increase in the trough, or you see the harvest, you see the plenty. You don't see the mess that goes on that the farmer has to deal with behind the scenes. Absolutely. Whether it's a farmer, whether it's a car salesman, whether it's a restaurant owner, I mean, this is part of life.
So there will be mess, but without that mess, There is no harm. Harvest. Apply that to uh church life. You know, sometimes people see the church and they they like to preserve it. Preserve the carpet, preserve the walls, preserve the pews.
They want to keep it nice and pristine with no fingerprints, no scratch marks. But that church will be empty. Yeah. It's a museum. And by the way, I love old churches.
I love to visit churches that have the beautiful stained glass and history behind them for hundreds of years.
Some of them are thousands of years, like a thousand to fifteen hundred years old. I love them, but at the same time, I'm always saddened because there is no growth. Yeah, I mean, I understand there's a lot of beauty in those places, but fundamentally, you're walking through a corpse. You're walking through a dead body. No children are going to those Sunday school classes.
There's no lives being enriched by those churches.
Well, bodies always are dressed up well at a funeral. Yeah, great point. That's a great point. When you go to say your final goodbyes to your loved one, the funeral home does a great job of making sure they look nice. I mean, they look well-dressed.
They look great. Women have makeup done, their hair all done, but. They're dead. You know, one of the things about our church, and again, I'm not bragging on this church, I'm bragging on Jesus because he's the one who's blessing us, is that every, I would say, what, six months, we have to paint the walls. Oh, yeah, yeah.
If not sooner. Yeah, there's scuff marks all over the walls, most of them from my children. I mean, we have to do that. We have to replace things. We have to replace the carpet.
I mean, just about a month ago, we redid the carpet in the hallway. Of course, it was there for a good eight, 10 years.
So I'm happy for that. But still, we had to replace all that. We're expanding. We're growing. And it's because there is life there.
That's right. So the trough Can be clean. But then don't expect a harvest. Right. Yeah.
But by the strength of the ox, We see a mighty, mighty harvest.
So, just in the church's context, we see a lot of. Blessing comes when there is a mess. I remember one time you said that from the pulpit, and I think you really touched a lot of people because people, especially newer people, when the church was really growing, there's tons of new people who bring their kids and they don't know what to do with their kids. And I remember a baby started crying. I don't know if you remember that.
This baby started crying, and I could tell the mom was like trying to find out if she could get up. And I remember you said something from the pulpit that touched me. I hadn't had kids yet, but you said, Hey, by the way, that baby's not bothering me. I love that sound. There are churches all over America who would pay top dollar to have that sound.
And I think you, I can't remember who it was, but I think you touched that mother's life. You certainly touched my life. And I have even changed my view on. On children and family in the church. Once you have your own kids and you go.
Yes, exactly. I get it. Exactly. I mean, I think about family and home. Same thing.
You can have a very nice, beautiful, clean home, a living room that is pristine and perfect. But When you have children, when you have life, what's going to happen? That carpet is not going to stay clean. It's going to be scratched up. It's going to be marked up.
It's going to have spills everywhere. But this is part of life. You know, you're seeing that on First Hand. Oh, yeah, I'm seeing that, of course. Yeah, my carpet has ground-up Pop-Tart in it.
The brand new couches that we just got less than a year ago, all sorts of crumbs and stuff in it. The very first time we took Gavin over to Dr. Shah's house. I mean, when he was a baby, he was there, but when he was walking, the very first thing Ellie said to him is: Listen to me, Dr. Shah's white carpets.
He's got white carpets. Do not go in here acting a fool. But I was like, Ellie, he's going to drop pizza all over the carpets. He's going to spill juice on the carpets. It's going to happen.
It's going to happen. Kids walk in the door and they just sort of drop everything, like their bag and their ruffle bag and their lunchbox, water bottle, everything right on the floor, and you tripping over it as you're walking in the living room. Oh, I cleaned the room before I cleaned the house a little bit before I got here today. Guaranteed, there will be food all in the floor before I get home. I'm sure.
100%. And Ryan has five kids. Five. Yeah. Yep.
And they all have multiple bags for school. All of them are in school, so they come home with their book bag, their lunchbox. Many of them play sports, so they have their sports equipment. It's like it sheds, like an exoskeleton. You just drop it as soon as you walk in the door.
And then I have this mountain that I have to climb over to get to my own house. I don't know if Elizabeth will want you to answer this honestly on the show, but when was the last time your house was like clean, clean? Like tidy. When do we move in? 2016.
The day before. The day before that. But I mean, think about. what that house will look like one day when they're all gone. Yeah, true.
You know, I know some parents are like, Yeah, I'm ready for that day. And I get it. You know, there's a point where you go, Yes, it's time for them to go. But at the same time, you do miss that. You do miss that, those empty rooms.
And you walk by, and the bed's made and will be made tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, because they're gone. My mom climbing in to sleep in the bed. My mom said that to me. You know, she said she walked by because she didn't turn our mine and my sister's rooms into anything. They're just empty rooms with a made-up bed.
And she said, Sometimes I wish the mess was back. Yeah. Yeah. But she's got three now. Yeah, she's got three, four.
That was before yeah, that's that was before um that was before we had grandkids. But yeah, no, she I don't know if she misses the mess as much anymore.
Well, maybe once in a while. If I can give one more illustration, I mean, think about marriage. People look at marriage as complicated, and life is simple if I am single. Often people think that this generation doesn't want to marry. They don't think like we did about romance.
No, they do think about romance. I think because we have become so selfish and self-centered that I want my fun. I don't want anybody to spoil my fun. I don't want anybody to, that I have to be obligated to. to mess up my life.
I like my life the way it is.
So I'm going to have a little bit of romance on the Sabbath. I like my life like it is. And again, This proverb proverbs proverb applies to them as well. Yeah. That The trough is cleaned.
But by the strength of an ox, Comes the abundance of harvest.
So if you want to have that fuller life, you want to have that joyful life, then you should be open to messes. Does that verse hit differently from you after hitting your 30-year anniversary version? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. If.
There were times in our marriage that we felt like, man, this is so messy. We have our struggles, we have our selfish personalities, we have our stubborn will, and is it worth it? And looking back, the more I have grown In Christ, the more The Holy Spirit has worked in my life to see my wife as God's gift to me and as a blessing to me and as a good thing, right? The more I have grown in that maturity, the more I am realizing, wow, that Is Awesome. And the mess What you end up seeing is your mess.
Of course, the other person doesn't make a mess, but you see your own mess before you see, yeah, I love her, but so I have to take the mess that comes with her. No, the mess you see is more of you rather than the other person. True. That's also where God grows you.
So, this passage really. applies on many levels. It applies on the business level, work level, church level, family. Marriage, children, you name it. Life can be clean.
But it's through the masses. Through the oxen, the strength of the ox, we find Abundance of harvest. Amen. That's right. Amen.
So good. Such a good reminder for us. Dr. Shaw, as we are, as we're, you know, we got about five, four or five minutes left in the episode. I'm thinking about people who are listening with a messy life.
Maybe they're in the trenches of little kids and they feel like it's easy for you to say that, but you're not living the day-to-day that I'm living. I am in the thick of it. Or even, yeah, even like just a straight up difficult life. Like I was talking to, I went to get a haircut yesterday and I was talking to one of the one of the hairdressers and I was just complaining. I was just in a foul mood and I was like, yeah, we just had another baby and we're not sleeping and this and that.
And oh, it's just hard. And she was like, yeah, she was like, I understand. My husband left me and my kids won't talk to me. And he's taking that as I, oh my goodness. I was like, I'm sitting over here complaining about getting no sleep.
And there are people out there who are really, really in a mess. What would you, what would your word of encouragement be to them?
Well, when we talk about life. having to be a mess so that you can enjoy the abundance of harvest, does that mean that we're just going to be walking around all stressed out, anxious and kind of discombobulated? Of course not. There is simplicity there. In the midst of the messiness, there is simplicity, and that simplicity comes through the principle of love.
I mean, if you look at the Bible, how many times it talks about that simplicity of love? 1 Corinthians 13, verse 13. And now abide faith, hope, love, but the greatest of these is love is love. Right. So if you're willing to operate from the principle of love, you will see that Yes, the complexity doesn't go away.
The stress may not go away, but love gives you a totally different perspective on what is happening. Another passage is 1 Peter 4, verse 8. And above all things have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a Multitude.
So you could almost say, for love will cover the messiness of sins. Yeah?
So if that principle of love is there, then you'll be able to overcome the messiness that you have to deal with. Uh Mary and Martha. Remember, Jesus would often stay at their home, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. And One time he was there, and Mary was sitting at Jesus' feet. Martha was in the kitchen running around trying to do this and that.
And then she comes and she fusses to Jesus and she says, Jesus, Come on, talk to my sister and tell her to help me because I'm over there slaving on the kitchen and on the stove and trying to. work in the kitchen and she's over here. And Jesus' response to her is very, very instructive here. He said. Luke chapter ten, verse forty one.
Martha Martha. You are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part. which will not be taken away from her.
Now that's very important. Don't misunderstand. Jesus was not saying that hospitality does not matter or hospitality is less than Bible study. Right, right. That's not what he was saying.
The real question is. is is really who was she doing those things for? What is your motivation behind it? It's not that, hey, let's forget the food. Let's just sit at Jesus' feet.
That's not the point. The point is. What is your heart? Uh Up to is it working out of faithfulness? Then Bible study is just as good as being in that kitchen and cooking for all those people and Jesus.
That's right. Just as good. That's right. So we need to understand that when Jesus said those words to her, Mary has chosen that good part, is that faithfulness, the heart behind it, the love that she had for Christ. Martha could have had the same thing as she was working.
That's right. But she chose rather to look at The frustration of having to do this alone, the frustration of she's sitting there, she gets to sit, and I get to slave. She lost her focus. That's right. That's exactly right.
So, I would tell people today: if you're listening, don't lose the focus. Keep your eyes on Christ and let the Holy Spirit minister to your spirit. You know, that's what Romans says, Romans chapter 8. The Holy Spirit testifies to our spirit that we are children of God.
So, listen to that voice of the Holy Spirit. It's a still small voice, it'll tell you that God is working. Let him use you even in menial tasks. He is working. Even if he's shoveling manure, he is still there.
He is doing something good. Amen. Guys, make sure you join us tomorrow, same time, same station. We're going to be diving into another great topic here on the Clear V Today show. 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 or on Pray.com. We've got a lot of subscribers over there as well. Thank you for joining the Pray.com family. And you can always support us financially at Abadanshah.com. John, what do you want to close with today?
Just our time is very quick. I do want to just shout out Abadanshah.com. Everything that we have, our links, our giving, our resources, everything has moved over there. There's also a free exegetical checklist right from a chest list, a free exegetical checklist right there on the home pages from Dr. Abadan Shah.
If you've ever wanted to study the Bible deeper but don't know how to get started, that is a great free resource from you. You can go download it for free right now on Abadanshah.com. Still, still trucking along to 25,000 followers. We think we're going to get there by the end of the week, but only you can make it happen. That's right.
We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clear V Today. I'm not sure if I can do it.
