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 to the studio today. We got a great conversation.
Some more of your user-submitted questions getting answered today on Lightning Round Questions Part 2. This is the first time we've ever done a two-part Lightning Round 2. Part 2. Huh? It's two in French.
Eh? Yeah. Yes not. D-E-U-X. What is it in Hindi?
Do. Do you know? You know, the heartland. De. My son is learning French on Duolingo, so I'm like picking up the film.
That's a pretty stinky point. Does he want to learn French? I have no idea. I think he just did it to be different because the rest of us are doing Spanish.
Okay.
So he's like, I'm going to be different. I'm going to do French. French has lots of vowels. The. Yeah.
I've heard him like talking into the phone. He's not bad. He's picking up some stuff. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome 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.
Staff. Any French? Any French you've ever taken? The only French that I Had any interaction with was a nun in our school. I went to a Catholic school and she was a she was French.
Okay, okay.
So, so. Growing up as a kid. English? Hindi, Marathi. You learned Urdu or French?
Urdu was more spoken around me because my dad's family background was Muslim. Right.
So he had some of that. You know language but not in hip hop in the school. No, definitely not. Got you, got you. And then now we're learning Spanish.
Yeah. And then reading. Hebrew and Greek. I can read Hebrew and Greek. Of course, Latin, but it's not the same.
Reading is no problem, but. You got to understand it. That's a whole different game. True.
So, I would say seven or eight languages in the old Nagan. Does that ever get confusing? At times. Really? At times, sometimes it's an asset to learn new languages.
Because I mean, the conjugation today we were doing, you know, we have a Spanish class here, learning Spanish. Yes.
So we can minister to people who are coming from Spanish background. Conjugation, I can see the similarities between. like the past, present, future, first, second, third, singular, plural, I can see the the the comparison, the similarities between the Spanish verb conjugation and the Greek verb conjugation. But uh they're they're also it's it's not that simple. Yeah, true.
And and like I think like with us learning Spanish in high school, it gives you a little bit of a head start. But once you're kind of on that level of like, okay, this is like baby's first Spanish sentences, I think pretty much we're on even ground. But that's a really great, we didn't plan to talk about this today, but that's a really great ministry if you're looking because there's lots of native Spanish speakers who are just coming and it's not going to slow down anytime soon. And so one of, you know, Dr. Shah's ideas that I thought was a great idea was to get the staff learning to speak Spanish so we can better relate to people who we're not fluent by any stretch.
I mean, it would take a while for us to even approach that. But we're able to hold our own in conversations now. I mean, people who walk into the church and maybe they are from a Spanish-speaking background, we're able to, you know, to us to some degree, speak to them in their heart language, which is absolutely. And as an American, you know, I believe that If you're here, you need to learn English at the same time.
So I also always believe that, and I think that's very important. English is our language, not English and Spanish and English and other languages. English is our language, and that's okay because we should be united. I know some people may disagree with me, and that's fine, but we should say this is our language. And uh But at the same time, why can't we learn other languages?
So that when we do meet people, we can relate with them. And when somebody sees you talking to them in their native language, it's sort of. Brings a sense of, I don't know what's a good way to say that other than it drops the guard. Yeah, I agree.
So that's what we are doing here at Clearview: is learning Spanish so that we can reach people. Not to say that, oh, we need Spanish just as much as we need English in America. No, I don't believe so. I believe we need English. And if you're here, learn English.
But if you're here And you come to church, and we extend that hand of fellowship and welcome with Spanish. That draws you in, and it takes away the barrier. It takes away the. Yep. you know, that that that that sense of This is separation.
Yeah, you're right. Welcome. Come on in. Coming to another nation where you don't speak or the native language of that nation is not your language, even if you know English. I think seeing that, like for me personally, because I started, you know, we're doing Spanish now as part of the ministry.
But personally, I wanted to start learning Hindi just to connect with you and your sister. And to me, I think it just shows people that you respect them. Yeah. Right.
I think it shows people, like, even though I'm speaking in extremely. Elementary vocab to this person. I think the effort of, hey, I see you, and you're not only are you welcome here as an allowed in, but you're going to take steps to make sure you're part of our family. I think people recognize that. But personally, I commend you all the time because you're doing a great job, I think.
When it comes to learning languages, I'm very impressed.
Well, thank you for saying that. Very impressed.
Well, I've got a great teacher as far as Hindi is concerned, and that's you and your sister. Your sister, she gets a little impatient with me at times. Yeah. But I think deep down, I think she likes that. That's right.
All right. Yes.
Proverb or noverb.
So this is a great game that we do. It's called Proverb or Navarb. Basically, I'm going to give you guys a group of biblical proverbs, and then I'm going to give you some ones that Chat GPT has decided are biblical proverbs. And I want you guys just to tell me if these are real or if they're false. All right, Ryan, I'm going to start with you.
I'm going to give you an easy one. When in doubt, Always follow your heart. That's a nover. Yeah, chat GPT. Gotta be a novel because that's not GPT, let me down on that one.
All right, Dr. Shah: better a dry crust with peace and quiet. Than a house full of feasting with strife. That's a proverb. That is a proverb.
Proverbs 17:1. Ryan. Are you serious, Chad? I almost kept that one. All right, Ryan.
Iron sharpens iron.
So one man sharpens another. Proverb. Proverb, yes. Proverb 27:17.
So I didn't think that was Proverbs. Seriously, I thought that was Paul. Really, I never thought that was a proverb. I remember people, there was a man in our church who used to say that all the time all these years. I thought it was Paul.
I thought it was in like a few. We're not going to mention the name, but every time, every time he would get like, I need to do something with the men's ministry. And he would start with, well, you know, iron sharpens. Iron sharpens iron sharpened. I've been thinking about the subject for the message, and I'm thinking iron sharpens iron every time.
Not most of the time, every single time. All these years, until, like, seriously, until a few hours ago when I put this, I thought, I always thought it was Paul. Nope, it's a proverb. You learn something every day. All right, Dr.
Shah. Wisdom is like honey, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. No verb. That's a pro.
So I'll get to you. It's paraphrased. It's paraphrased. It's Proverbs 24:13 through 14, but it is not the exact verb. It's checking is betraying me today.
The bones got me. Yeah, I was like, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
All right, Ryan. The early bird catches the worm. But the second mouse gets the cheese. I don't know what is going on with ChatGPT. Gotta be a novel.
Okay, okay.
Yeah, you're right. Dr. Shah, last one. He who digs a pit We'll fall into it. That's a proverb.
That's a proverb. Proverbs 26, 27. Today was not good. I'm thinking about cutting Proverb or Navarre. I'm struggling.
Chat GPT. You know what it is?
So Chat GPT now has chats. It has like, you can log all your chats. And so I have one that was like for like for like for some of the scripts that we do. I have one for just like stuff that I'm doing like with school or other stuff, like learning languages and stuff like that. I think I've put it in a chat that does not belong to like the and so it's trying to pull from previous chats that I've had because none of those were right.
I have one saved for Proverb or Navarro. And usually it does a pretty good job of getting really close and stumping us. Chat GPT was not good today. All right. Let's jump into the verse of the day.
As we've learned, there is no substitute for the word of the Lord. There you go. Here is the word of the Lord for today. The verse of the day comes from Mark chapter 8, verse 29. He said to them, but who do you say that I am?
Peter answered and said to him, You are the Christ. You know, we give Peter a lot of grief. Peter is, I think, every Christian's favorite punching bag. But when it really came down to it, Peter understood. Peter got it.
Peter was no slouch. That means that against his knowledge. He was no dummy. That's the right answer. If you're going to give an answer to Jesus, that's the answer you give.
A couple of years ago, we did a series on 1 Peter. And in that, we first examined who Peter was as a person, where he came from. And once we did that study, we came to realize that Peter came from a. Very um um Strict Jewish background. He was not just some ignorant fisherman who You know, said things at the wrong time, in the wrong place.
No, he knew. Yeah. He knew scriptures. He was raised that way. He was part of the minority Jewish population in a predominantly Gentile community.
And so what happens is those people tend to be more stringent about their beliefs and they have more convictions than those who are majority in a minority culture. When Peter said those words, they're not just coming randomly. Of course, God has revealed it to him. Jesus says that, you know, it's not flesh and blood, but my Father in heaven has revealed it to you. But it was not revealed in a vacuum.
It was revealed because Peter grew up in the Old Testament tradition where he knew that this coming one was going to be the Son of God. That's right. This coming one was going to be God's anointed king. Yeah. Yeah.
A lot of preachers, especially like I think country preachers, they like to pretend like they relate to Peter. Yeah. Good old boy. He's just a good old boy. He stuck his foot in his mouth.
But I remember when you started that series, one of the very first things you did was you read the opening, like first. Few verses of 1 Peter and said, Now, seriously, imagine like some country bumpkin fisherman oaf writing that. It doesn't make sense. That's not who Peter was. He may be country, but that does not mean he was ignorant.
No, not at all. Yeah, brilliant, brilliant mind. Absolutely.
Well, gentlemen, it is time for part two of our lightning round questions.
So, a couple of days ago, we did lightning round questions with Dr. Questions here in the studio, and we said we want to get back to user-submitted questions.
So, we put the word out. You guys had two days to send them in, and these are your questions for Dr. Shah. Dr. Shah, I'm going to go ahead and ask you the first one right now: what is your most treasured possession?
And why? Oh wow.
Well, I have several things like that. It's not just one thing. One thing I have is a tie. Yeah. Yeah, it's a tie.
It's a tie that. I hardly put it on now, but it's still hanging in my closet. And I used to put it on during special occasions that were like mile marker occasions in my life. Yeah. But I haven't done that in a while because it's a little older tie.
But it was a tie that I. war in nineteen uh ninety three. After God sort of gave me that upswing, oh, that was in 1994. I bought it in December of 1993. And this was after that, my telephone booth incident.
Yeah. And then. Finally, my brother came and picked me up. I spent some time with him, went to. Uh the big mall in Philadelphia is called the King of Prussia.
mall. Is it still there, you think? Oh yeah, yeah, the mall is still there. Yeah, it's a huge, huge mall. One of the biggest malls in the world.
And anyway, so we went there and um went by a kiosk and I saw this tie and I was like, ooh, I like that tie and I put it on. And It was sort of a marker for me that That that God was uh Bringing in a new phase in my life. And so every time there was a big occasion in my life, I would put on that tie. It's crazy. I've known you 12 years.
Never knew that story. Yeah. Never knew that. Yeah, I have that tie. I'll bring it one day.
Yeah, bring it. Did you wear it when you walked across the stage to get your dissertation? I don't think I did that. I didn't. Because it's a nice tie, just a little older looking.
So, what does it look like? Could you describe it? Yeah, it's a red tie, silk tie. And uh and it's still It can, it, it, it works. Yeah, yeah, that's really awesome.
One of my favorite one of your possessions, I don't know if you can say that sentence structurally like that, but one of my favorite items that you have is a Bible. That's older than America. Yeah. Golly, that's old. Yeah, I love that thing.
I love it. Because sometimes we break it out for special occasions. We have a display case that we show all our manuscripts. We have several Bibles here that are older than America. Yeah.
We have several that are older. We have more than one now. We have more than one now. Oh, yeah. At one time, we only had that one, the really, really big one.
Yeah. You've gotten more than that. That was 1590. You have a Bible. Here, that's from 1590, is Beza's Greek edition.
Wow. Yeah, that's really cool. And then, but we also have some other Bibles from. Pre prior to that, then we have uh um pieces of um Like paper coming from works from the 12th century. We have that as well.
That's really awesome. Crazy. Uh When I'm reading the Bible, how do I keep from twisting verses out of context? Wow, that's a great, great question.
So, when I study the Word of God, I first read commentaries. I know there are people who will tell you otherwise. They will say, Do not read commentaries. You need to sit down and just write out this and write out that. I disagree.
I disagree. I read commentaries. And I know who those commentators are. I don't just randomly read any commentaries, I make sure that they are scholarly. Best possible.
Make sure that they are conservative, like in their theological orientation. Make sure that they are. Grammatically, historically accurate, and at the same time pastorally. And and you cannot find a commentary that will have all of those things in one.
So I have to go to different ones and I know the weaknesses, the pros and cons of each one of them. And once I have done that, then I begin to sort of Craft out What do you think? What do I think that those scriptures are saying?
Okay, now I have an idea. But I I'm not uh sold out on that idea until I've done my research and then I draw my conclusions.
So I will suspend my view. For a while Until I see how everything is panning out, and then I will. Um I will draw my conclusion.
So I tell people: don't immediately jump in and try to force your view on a passage. Because It doesn't have the blessing. That's right. And if you are like, if you're driving and you're like trying to furiously scribble that down, let me just go ahead and set your mind at ease on Abadanshah.com right now. There's a free, it's 100% free.
There's an exegetical checklist. You can get that as a download. We put that on there just as a thank you for people visiting the new site once we overhauled it. But man, we've gotten a ton of downloads. People are really loving that exegetical checklist.
Yeah, and it is a great resource for you as you're doing your own personal study, or maybe you're in a ministry context and you're preparing messages or short talks that you're going to give is a great resource for you as you're studying God's Word. It's kind of crazy how much effort can go into like a single verse. Like Dr. Shaw, some of the papers you've written. We're Revolving around one verse.
Yeah. And there's so much that can go into just analyzing that one. Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And and that's how I want to be. Those are the kind of scholars I read and I study and that inspires me. Many times I read articles and I I just kind of shake my head. It's like Just when you think you're smart. Just when you think you are so good at what you do and then you go read somebody from fifty years ago without any internet or Google or or chat GPT or whatever and you see their work and it's like How was the last paper you did, Acts eight, ch verse thirty eight?
Thirty seven, yeah. How how many how many pages did that article you write end up being? Do you remember, like ballpark? Uh that article ended up being about I want to say 15, 16 pages. I may be wrong.
I may be wrong. But a lot of that is data because it's text-critical paper.
So a lot of data is there.
So if you take away the data, I would say maybe 12 pages.
Okay.
Still, that's a lot for one verse. Yeah. And I'm still pursuing that. I will still, I'm working now on my Ephesians paper, the flesh and bones paper, but I'm also going to, which I'm trying to publish.
So I'm trying to clean it up and get it right. And then I'm also going to work on that Acts paper, clean it up, get it right, and get it published in a theological journal. Very cool. Love it. How do I motivate people or employees who seem uninterested or discouraged?
Oh, okay. That's a great one. While you're getting that answer, I did want to just say most of these, if you're not recognizing your question, it's because most of them came with a story: like, hi, Dr. Shah, here's my situation. But since it's lightning round questions, we did kind of truncate y'all's questions.
So if you're listening, I know you'll probably recognize that one. Your questions might sound a little different. Yeah, that's a great, great question. How do you motivate people who seem uninterested or discouraged?
Now, in different contexts, if it's like. Church or coming to church, and they don't seem interested or discouraged. That's a different issue. Employee, that's a different issue. Yeah, true.
So I'm assuming this is for an employee? That's what it says. It says people/slash employees.
So people who assume this is directly responsible for that. I can go back and look at the original email, but I think it was in a work context. In a work context, as you know, how we do it here, we spend a lot of time with each other. At one time, I didn't do that. And having gone to work in the school system and becoming a principal of a Christian school.
Taught me the value of interacting with people because I used to think that's a waste of time. Why are we talking? We got work to do. Go do the work. Go do the work.
You know what to do? Do it. If you mess up, come to me. I'll fix it. We can go back to doing the work.
And then I realized watching s others and reading and listening to people like Jon Maxwell and others, the value of spending time together. Because this is where There is a conversation happening, but much more than a conversation is happening. This is where you're connecting with people. This is where you are. Um Realigning the vision that you have with the vision they may not have.
And you try to inspire them to join you on that vision. You're right. This is where you're trying to take away their fears, their doubts. This is where you're trying to uh motivate them.
So At one time I was I used to think of this meetings and meetings as waste of time. Until I saw the best of the best doing it and I was like So that's why they're doing that. You're exactly right. I remember a conversation I had with a friend of ours, with a friend of ours who used to go here, and he was in the army. And I remember making a comment once about, it must be really nice working in the army because you, like, you specifically, I can't remember what his rank was at the time, but I was like, you give an order.
And people do it. There is no questioning it. They just carry it out. And I remember him, we were backstage in the back hallway or something. He was like, it's not nice.
I would take what you guys have here any day of the week. Because he said, when Dr. Shah, like, like, quote unquote, gives an order. Everybody's following because they trust him. Because there's built trust, and you guys talk things through.
He said, I would take this over any other job any day of the week. But unfortunately, you know, people sometimes, and not our team right now, but at times they looked at it almost like a waste of time. You're wasting time. Yeah, I could be doing so much more, you're wasting time. If if that's how they see it, they're not going to last long.
And They didn't. Right.
That's true. They got disillusioned and it was over.
So my encouragement to people, whether they're employees, pastors, or employers, pastors, or employees, staff, is value that time Spend with each other. even if at the moment it may seem Kinda like a waste. Why are we talking? How long are we going to talk? We got so much to do.
Just know that. that in the long run, It will build longevity, it will build vision, it will build a s sense of direction, focus, In those difficult moments, you'll be less likely to. To bail out or just Up and leave because you know, hey, we have a connection here, right? We have a connection here. Same thing in the family.
Yeah, 100%. When people are uninterested or discouraged in the family, spend time. With each other. Have meals together. Go to places.
Go on a vacation together. You build memories. That's right. Yeah. You've said it before, it's difficult to hate up close.
Yeah, and that's that's very much true.
So uh It's not just by saying here, like, hey man, you can do this.
Okay, bye. That's not going to do much for me. Yeah, and if you need some encouragement in that direction, Dr. Shush's sermon from last week, so by the time you're listening to this, the sermon that he just preached is really about that exact thing. You can't hate the people that you're serving alongside week by week.
That's right. It can't happen. That's right. I'm a pastor, but I'm struggling with doubts about my faith. How do you face doubt when you're the one leading a congregation?
So, in the early years of my ministry, I went through a season of doubts. The doubts were sometimes they were about the credibility of the Bible. Because I was reading a lot of PhD books who were written by people who didn't believe the Bible. Right? I mean, this is part of PhD work.
You read scholars who, some of them are not even Christians. That's got to be tough. It's tough. That's got to be tough. It's tough.
So, here I'm trying to prove the credibility of the Bible, but I have to read this work. But when I read this work, I'm left reeling, going, I don't know what to believe because. I base some of my reasonings on that evidence, but this person has just told me that the whole evidence is faulty. What do I do with that?
So I have to Continue doing things that are no All right Even if right now I'm not totally convinced. Wow. That's a great point. I have to keep doing it. It's like you're driving a bus.
Right? You're driving a bus, you're the driver. And you are Um doubting the integrity of the bus. Like this this bus is gonna break down. I can feel it.
What do you do then? Just jump out the door? You keep driving it. Keep driving it. Because you got passengers.
Mm-hmm. Don't give them your doubts. Sunday morning, I wouldn't get up and say, Let me tell you, folks. Right now, I'm struggling. I'm struggling, struggling, struggling with.
John's intent in the Gospel of John. I just don't know what he's doing because he seems to be saying stories that don't line up with the Synoptic Gospels. I don't know what to say about that, folks. I mean, I'm wondering if it's the Johannine community that came up with all those stories and hundreds of years later, I just don't know.
Well, I didn't do that. I was like, no, I'm going to preach on. On the miracle at Cana. I'm going to preach on how Jesus cleansed the temple. I'm going to preach on all these things.
And I'm going to preach it with power and with. Integrity. And then in time, God will clear up the doubts. And He did. That's right.
He did. How do I make sense of the Old Testament without getting bogged down? I think we talked about this yesterday, like just like Old Testament scholars. How did, how in the world do you? Because I remember going like through devotionals.
It's real cool when you start because you start at Genesis, you get Exodus, you get to like the Leviticus. You get stuck in a Levitical law, you get stuck in a genealogy somewhere, and you're like, Oh, goodness!
Now, all of a sudden, this reading through the Bible in a year thing don't seem so fun. Yeah. Yeah, years ago I used to just read from the Old Testament. And just read it for the history or for the information, and it became very dry very quickly. And I realized, if you take Christ out of the Old Testament, It's over.
Yeah. It's over. Great point. If you take it out, take him out of Genesis or Exodus or Leviticus or. Kings Samuel, if you take him out of the Psalms or Proverbs or the prophets, it's over.
You have to make sure you look for Jesus Christ. And that's not Like Some Weird thing, this is exactly what Jesus did. On the road to Emmaus, he took the time to show. Those disciples who were discouraged, right? They were discouraged and disillusioned, he was showing them who he was in the Old Testament.
And their response was after Jesus vanished. Was didn't our hearts burn within us when he showed us from the Old Testament who he was? They didn't use the word Old Testament from the scriptures, but when they say scriptures, they are talking about the Old Testament, who he was. And that. brings joy.
The Old Testament comes alive. The Bible, Genesis to Revelation, all those 66 books, right? 39, 27. 39 in the old, 27 in the new. They are about Jesus Christ.
You take him away. Your faith is over. That's right. That's right. Amen.
One more question. I think we have time. Yeah, we got time. Do you preach on things you're still working through and working out in your mind, or do you get solid on it first? No, absolutely.
I'll preach on them. Even if you're still working at the moment, absolutely. I just want to make sure I'm headed in the right direction.
Okay.
On a particular doctrine or particular issue, I want to, I pride myself in research. If there's one thing that is really good about me that God has gifted me, when I say that, I'm not saying in just in me. Sure, sure. Everything I am is done is by the grace of God. If there's one thing I pride myself on, is in determining the credibility of a In research.
I know how to do that. Is that a process or does that happen pretty quickly? No, it's something I've been working on for 35 years. What I mean is, like, if you have pretty quickly, what I was saying is, for 35 years, I've been going through these. Books and articles to and people and names and theological systems to determine who is who, where does this land?
If this guy is quoting this person, there's a good chance he's coming from this theological system. Those kind of things. Yeah, yeah. What I meant was: like, if you get, if you get a book today, if you get a like, hey, here's this book, you've never seen it before. Can you, is it like, all right, give me a few weeks and I'll get you, tell you whether this is credible, or is it like, give me a few hours and I can a few hours, I can figure out, gotcha, I can figure out who that person is, where they're coming from.
And whether or not I'm gonna follow that book or It's nothing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's awesome.
So good. Dr. Shaw, thank you for jumping in on these Lightning Round questions. Thank you guys for submitting. Yes, I was about to say thank you for writing.
Those comment to that number 252-582-5028. We'll put them in our log and we'll bust them out on an episode of Lightning Round questions. Amen. Amen. Make sure you join us next week, same time, same station.
We're going to be diving into another great topic here on the Clearview 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, wherever you get your podcast from, iTunes, Spotify, Pray.com. You can also support us financially at Abadanshah.com forward slash give. John, what do you want to leave the listeners with today?
Definitely want to encourage you guys just to follow Dr. Shaw on Pray.com. We're seeing the follower count go up and up and up, which means more and more people are subscribing to the gospel of Jesus Christ through all of our ministries here at Clearview Church.
So we want to thank you for that. All of Dr. Shaw's exclusive content, you're going to find onpray.com. We got more news coming out about that in the coming weeks, but for now, we want to thank you and we love you and value you. Thank you for your support.
That's right. We love you guys. We'll see you next time. Thank you.
