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 another great week here in the Clearview Today Studio. Welcome to our space.
Welcome to our conversation. We got a great conversation on the docket for you guys today. But before we do anything else, we want to 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. Shah, welcome. Welcome. Thank you so much. Good to be here.
Before we go any further, I just want to say a big thank you to you guys, David, who's behind. the controls to Nick to add-omboral. doing such a fantastic job. With the Clearby Today show. how day after day, week after week, Uh you guys are ready with with with the content, or I bring the content, but really you're ready with the the topic and with the discussion, with the questions.
I mean it's Amazing what y'all are doing, and I don't want to ever lose sight of that.
So, thank you for doing that. Thank you, thank you for saying that, and thank you for giving us a platform to be able to do this. I mean, it truly is a labor of love. I didn't expect to fall so in love with what we, what we three, or what we five and all of us do on a day-to-day basis, being able to have a daily show where we can talk to people, uh, talk. And when I say talk to people, I mean, speak into their lives, speak your wisdom, the wisdom that God has given you these past 20, 30 years as a pastor.
Absolutely. Just a reminder to you guys before we dive into the conversation today, make sure if you're not already, go follow Dr. Shah on Pray.com. We just recently crossed 50,000 followers. Wow.
Incredible. Incredible. 50K, and we're climbing up from there. But at pray.com, you get the access to lots of other Christian voices, but specifically Dr. Shah's content and some content that's exclusive to pray, some devotionals, some resources to help you grow in your faith and your knowledge of how to handle the Bible, how to think about biblical history.
So make sure it's totally free. Go subscribe to Dr. Abadan Shah on Pray.com. That's right. Right, guys, we are back with Million Dollar Monday.
Dr. Shaw, I want to ask you for $1 million. We just got back from Greece, right? We just got back from Greece just a week ago. I don't want to ask.
You get a million dollars. But you've got to produce, and we already kind of did this once, but you have to produce a documentary on the Apostle Paul. It's fully funded, it's not gonna come out of your million. And the documentary is sure to go global.
So you've got to guarantee that it's going to be seen by. All sorts of Christians in the world, but every date that you mention has to be completely nonsensical, like demonstrably untrue.
So I'll give you a date. I'm lost here.
So you have to make a documentary about the Apostle Paul and give false dates.
So you have to say something like: the Apostle Paul was born in the year 12,000 AD, a time when the Roman Empire was at its peak. Peak. Though historians disagree on the exact date, we do know that Paul embarked on his first missionary journey sometime around 400 BC. You know, he took a direct flight with Aromiles to Macedonia, but by 5000 BC, he was already walking down the Via Ignatia. Like, you've got to just give nonsense dates.
Absolutely, completely hilarious. Yeah, all the doctrine can be correct, but the dates have to be just nonsense. Would I do it for a million dollars? Yeah, you get a million dollars. The documentary is fully funded, it doesn't come out of your million.
I would Here's the funny thing. I would actually do it. Come on. And make it a funny, funny satire. There you go.
And then say, okay, now here's the real deal. Yeah, there you go. I'm saying, lean into it. I keep trying to find scenarios that are just over the top that he wouldn't do.
So you would release it as a joke. As a joke.
Now, I would not do that with like the cardinal doctrine, like denying the deity of Christ or something. I will not do that. Yeah, this is more about just. Funny stuff like Paul was, uh, you know, uh, in 2026, Paul decided, or like in the year, like 12, you could make it really nice. You could say, like, he was born in the year 12,000 AD.
You can do that if you want. 12,000 AD. Yeah, clearly hasn't happened yet. Yeah. Yeah.
I'll do it as a funny. You know what, though? I haven't ever seen a documentary do that.
So that could be a great thing. I'll give you this. I'll give you this. It will be the most stunning-looking documentary ever. You can make your own afterwards if you want to, but it will be like really cinematic.
And then I'm going to add at the end of that, now watch part two with the accurate date. There you go. Okay. Would you do it? Would you produce a completely false?
I mean, like, all the other stuff could be right. Just if it's a date, if you're saying Paul came here sometime around 1770. 1774. Yeah. Yeah.
Should we do it? And then I would even do it having walked down with you know like a powdered wig and you know stuff like that. Then he's in like in the 1970s. He's got he's got the bell bottom pants. Yeah.
I'll do it. All right, I'll tell you this. And then I will say. You see, he was a man for all times.
Now, let's go back to the actual historical, accurate day. It's cut to black, and it says continue for part two. And people are like, I kind of want to see what he's going to say. I've got to come back for more. Yeah, I would even dress him up like that.
Absolutely. Paul walking down like that. We are going to find. I promise you, before this show's in, we are going to find a scenario where Dr. Shubb will not take the million.
Well, I did one time. You did one. Yeah, you did one. I can't remember now. I think I remember what.
I did one time. I was like, I don't know if I can do that. It was something to do with doctrine, I think, or it was something to do with. I can't remember. I'll have to go back and find.
If you're listening and you know which episode we're talking about, write it in and let us know. Write in and let us know. 252-582-5028. That's right. Verse of the day today is coming from Acts chapter 17, verse 19.
Speaking of Paul. Yeah, speaking of Paul. Acts chapter 17, verses 19 through 20. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears.
Therefore, we want to know what these things mean. You know, we think about Paul's missionary journeys through Greece and we think about like the opposition, like in Thessalonica, that he, I remember we were talking about this in Greece. Like the thess, the Thessalonians were so again, or some of them were so against what he was saying, they like chased him out of the city and then he goes to Berea. And then those people follow him there. It's not funny.
I know that was that was messed up, but they like followed him there and then ran him out of Berea.
So you think that this pattern is going to continue. And then the Athenians are like, hey, we actually want to hear this. And there's such a difference in, I guess, mindset there.
Well, do keep in mind that when we're talking about people chasing him, they were not Greeks who were chasing him out of town. Oh, that's a good point. They were his own people, the Jewish people, who were Who were opposing Paul because they considered him to be some kind of a turncoat, a radical among their own. Faith, who had all of a sudden had this weird experience, a change of heart, and now he was. He was destroying their own faith.
So they thought it is better to kill you than to let you live and mislead Other Jewish people.
So the That We need to make sure we clarify. That's a good point. Yeah, that's a good point. They were not Philippians or Thessalonians or Bereans or whatever. No, they were actually Jewish people who were living.
Living in Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, they were diasporic Jewish people. You know, diaspora began. As far back as the time of Solomon. That's when people left Israel. and went into different parts of the world, even Iran.
You know, uh Iranian Jewish people have been claiming Iran as their homeland. Going all the way back Even to the time of Solomon.
Now, I know the Babylonian exile was a big migration of forced migration of Jewish people like Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and all them into. into Iran. Evidence is showing, right? Historical evidence is showing that there were Jewish people there even before that. Yeah.
But not to the number it became during the Babylonian exile.
So in Greece, there were Jewish people there. You know, kind of awesome to be sitting in this room with you guys because all of us have been to Greece. Yeah, that's true. That's true. All of us now have been to Greece.
David and Ryan went with me in 2023. And of course, Nick win in 2023 as well. And then in 2025, just about a couple of. Weeks ago, a week ago, John, you and your wife went, and Nick went again. And I've been there several times.
All of y'all know Ms. Eugenia, who is our guide, and she explains often that this synagogue was here. Uh five hundred B C Oh, this synagogue was here and, you know, so-and-so acknowledges that this synagogue was here in in in. Tesla Nyka. What is she saying?
She's saying that these Jewish people came here for either business purposes or they were dispersed for some reason and they came to Greece. There was a museum that we went to. I'm trying to remember what city it was in, but there was a museum that we went to that showed the menorah. Remember, it had the menorah on it. That was Corinth.
That was Corinth, yes. And it had it showed that the Jewish presence was here, I guess, long before. Paul killed them. Yeah. So, why do I say that?
I want to make sure that there is a distinction maintained between these oppositions. In Athens it was not Jewish people who went after him, but Because he did go to the synagogue to the Jewish background people and to the Gentile worshippers, means they were the God-fearers. They were believing in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Paul went to the synagogues in Athens and witnessed to them and dialogued with them. They did not come after Paul.
Right. Then he went to the Agora and talked to the Greek. People. Greek background people, and even some foreigners. Athens was already like a university town.
And so Paul is talking to the Greek background people, and again, they didn't drive him out, they actually took him up to the Areopagus. this Supreme Council, and said, Now speak to us and tell us about Eesu and anastasis. What is the implication then that we should draw from this? That it was, you know, this was the response of the Jewish people living in Greece. This was the response of the Athenians.
What is the, is there any sort of theological or practical application to dividing the difference between those two? Yes, absolutely. The Greeks built their culture, one of their foundational values was reasoning and dialogue. Talking about issues Debating issues. I mean, even the book of Acts says that in chapter 17, that, and Luke is the one who's a writer of the book of Gospel of Luke in the book of Acts.
And he says that Athenians love to talk about things. I mean, he says that in Acts chapter 17, if I can find that very quickly. Acts chapter seventeen. And um Uh let's see right here. In verse twenty-one, for all the Athenians this is Acts seventeen, verse twenty one, for all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.
Oh. They were all about the discourse, all about the dialogue. This culture, this civilization was built on dialogue.
Now, the reason I'm bringing that up in light of Charlie Kirk's murder. Is that one of America's foundational value, Mm-hmm. Is that we reason, we talk. We debate issues. We debate policies.
We want to know why you believe the way you do and we want to bring up counter arguments and allow you to explain yourself.
Now there are other European cultures that do that. Other people across the world do that too. To misunderstand me, I'm not saying the Greeks were the only ones who did that, and now Americans are the only ones who do it. No, other cultures do it too. But a foundational value Was very Greek.
That's true. You lent me a book once, 1776, by David McCullough. And I remember reading that book and. It's funny because when you learn in elementary school how the Revolutionary War started, it was like... The crown was the Britain was doing all these things.
The Americans didn't like it, the colonists didn't like it.
So they dumped some tea in the river. The Britons got mad, sent soldiers, and it was violence. You don't realize how many months and years of discourse and back and forth and dialogue and debating was going on between them. You know, you just hear the story and you think that's how it happens. It's very choppy in the history textbook.
Like this event happened, this event happened, this event happened, then we got here. But you lent me that book, and I remember reading it and be like, golly, these guys went back and forth so much. Like it's no wonder it eventually turned out the way it did because there was just no conversation happening on the other end. Right. They were like, these colonists just need to grow up and just be quiet.
The mother country is doing a lot for you. Yeah. And that's where The colonists We're not going to be treated with disrespect or in a condescending way, and they fought back, which was a shock to the mother country. Like, how dare you? How dare you do that to your own mother.
You know, that's how they were looking at it. You are us. We gave birth to you. And you're doing this to us? And they're like, yeah, we're not going to submit to King George.
No taxation without representation. And like, what are you talking about? How dare you?
So disloyal, so disrespectful.
So, so that, so then I guess the implication is that that American value did not come from Britain. That's that we that we value dialogue, we value. back and forth.
Well, it was there in England, but England existed for hundreds and hundreds of years At this point. America was going to be founded on a very different system. You know, I've talked about this in a previous show. What makes America America is the foundation. Our founding fathers took the best of the Greek ideals, Took the best of the European Enlightenment thinking.
The philosophers like Montesquieu and John Locke and William Blackstone. And they took the Bible, especially the book of Deuteronomy, to help lay down. this document we call the Constitution. And uh That can be found anywhere. On the face of the earth.
I think it's so interesting to hear about how the founding fathers. Borrowed from so many different, really the best of human history and writings and documents, especially the Bible, and established a very young nation. I mean, in comparison to other nations in the world, America is very young. Right. But.
Quickly became the dominant, the premier nation, the greatest nation on earth. Because a foundation is so unique and so. um you know just just amazing Meant to foster growth. And I want to spend the next couple of days, if we can. Yeah.
and talk about these big foundation stones, especially The Greek ideals. Yeah, you're that way, though. I mean, as a scholar, I've noticed that you're that way, or even as a pastor, where it's like, I'm not going to buy into one camp. I'm going to take the best that you have to say, the best that you have to say, the best that you have to say, and I'm going to start basing my opinions around the best. Of all these different sources.
Did you is that naturally how you are? Or did you look at the Founding Fathers and say, that's how they did it? And they came up with something pretty good. I want to base my research. I want to base my leadership around that style as well.
I don't think I consciously sat down. And did that. Right. But it really helped me when I did my research in our You know, early American history to see that these were brilliant minds. I spent a lot of time studying them because the, the, Average person thinks that these are just old white men who lived.
250 years ago or 300 years ago, what do they know about our times? They were so prejudiced by their racism or their having slaves that they how could they understand that? I mean, come on, they didn't even have indoor toilets, plumbing. They didn't even have air condition. They didn't have cell phone, they didn't have Google.
How could they ever understand? Until you go and read their writings, until you spend some time reading their biographies. And you're blown away. You know, ignorance is bliss, but I like to say now ignorance is fatal. Look at this life.
Uh when you read their writings and you read what they studied and how they spoke on other issues, you go That person is Kind of like me, or I know someone just like that, they are not that different than us. Take away this technology and a few amenities we have today, or how we dress or what we eat. Other than that, they are very much like us.
Well, it does show a pattern of looking for the humanity in people. You know, even people that lived four or five hundred years ago, once you find the humanity in them, you start to see how they think and how they think. Plays into the decisions that they made. And so those decisions they made now that have shaped our country, you start to see, okay. I see why they made that decision because they were thinking like this.
Well, that's one of the most captivating things about the Bible, and you've brought this out several times, Dr. Shaw, is that the Bible doesn't Present its heroes in a very polished light. It shows the heroes of the Bible the good that they did, but also their flaws. It shows their shortcomings. It shows their ineptitude at times.
And in doing so, it reminds us that the people in the Bible are just that people and the people have always been people. Yes, things change, and yes, technology develops, and yes, you know, there are cultural shifts that we need to take into account. But at the end of the day, human nature is human nature. Absolutely. So, when they came to laying down the foundation of our nation or crafting this document that we know as the Constitution, they turned to three major sources.
And one is the big one, which we already covered: the Bible. No other book is quoted as much as the Bible. That's true. One-third of all the quotations found in the Constitution are coming from the Bible, specifically the book of Deuteronomy. And people still want to say that we don't have a biblical foundation.
Yeah, and that's funny to me. And I mean, you can claim all you want to, just. Facts are not in your side. Are not in your favor. That we already covered.
The other thing that they used was European Enlightenment thinkers. These were brilliant men of their times. When you read their writings, you realize how dumb you are. They were not. Outdated people.
They were discussing issues and cases and legislature that. are still impacting us today. And the other thing that they used The founding fathers used were classical writers. When we say classical writers, we're talking about Greco-Roman writers. I want to be a little more specific.
Primarily, they were leaning on Greek. Democracy. How did they operate?
Now, previously, I've covered the Lycian League, right? I've been to Lycia, by the way, and been at the place where the Lycian League was formed. But I want to spend maybe a couple of minutes talking about the Athenian form of democracy. Since Paul went to Athens. Right, right.
How did the Athenian form of democracy impact us today.
Well, you find the ideals of democracy Especially in Athens. You find that reflected in the speech given by a man by the name of Pericles. Pericles was a general. Of Athens. Pericles was a statesman.
Statesman means he's like when this. really respected political Icons. And Pericles fought in the Gra uh in the Persian wars. We read about them against Xerxes and all that. He fought in the Persian Wars.
But he was now engaged in the Peloponnesian Wars. Peloponnesian War is the war that took place between Sparta. And Athens. We only know about the Sparta that Leonidas, you know, and his 300, you know, they go out there and they start. Howard Butler saved the world, yeah.
Yeah, that's right, fighting against the Persian army at Thermopylae, you know, blocking them in that pass and then killing them. And even though they died in the process, they're still. Made a mark in history that this is where free men died, you know, kind of thing. But later on, the same Sparta, Also, it was very oligarchical, and they wanted to control Athens. I promise you, Sparta, as inspiring as it is.
They were not the place that you want to move to. Yeah. Unless you were a natural born Spartan, you were a slave. Yeah, no, it was not like the dreamy Hollywood image that we see in movies. Yeah, yeah.
So Sparta by this time, this is after that Persian War, was trying to control Athens.
So what happens? A lot of uh Athenian soldiers died in the first year of the war, many died. And the Greeks had a tradition of um honoring the dead at the end of that year, after a war we're talking about. And so they asked Pericles to give the honorary To give the oration, the funerary oration. And so Pericles talks about that.
I may not be able to finish all of it today, but I want us to. Read his speech. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. That's okay.
This is Perikalise. Honoring the dead, At the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War, which is the war between Free people of Athens and The oligarchical Spartans.
So listen to his words. He says, for our system of government does not copy the systems. of our neighbors. We are a model to them, not they to us. Our Constitution You see that?
We have a constitution. Our constitution is called a democracy because. Power rests in the hands not of the few, but of the many. And that would be one of the things that we're doing. That's exactly right.
Our laws guarantee equal justice for all in their private disputes. And as for the election of public officials, we welcome talent to every arena of achievement. Nor do we make our choices on the grounds of class, But on the grounds of excellence alone. What's happening in our country right now with the whole DEI situation, you know, much of that is going away. And thank God for that.
Amen to that. Is exactly what Pericles is saying here. We don't honor people based on class, but on excellence. Yeah. It's kind of funny because if you listen to this, knowing that this is a Greek Person speaking about Greek culture, it makes sense.
But if you pretend that this is an American speaking about American culture, every sentence works just as well. It does. 100%. It sounds exactly like what we value today. Exactly.
Exactly. Then he goes on to say: And as we give free play to all in our public life, so we carry the same spirit into our daily relations with one another. We have no evil looks or angry words for our neighbor if he enjoys himself in his own way. That's true. You know what American being an American means?
That's right. Like you have the freedom to live your own life, right? And we even abstain from little acts of rudeness That though they do no mortal damage, leave hurt feelings in their wake. I mentioned that How America I've been in America over 30 years now. I came in 1991.
This is 2025.
So how many years is that? 35 years? 35 years. I have seen America become more rude. Ugh.
Then when it was when I first came here. Really? Wow. Oh yeah, yeah. The way people talk and act and behave.
Uh people have become ruder. I'm not saying people were always polite and every single American was like just this this this modicum of of respect and all no none They've always been jerks. Right. But overall, as a culture, we have become. More rude and hateful.
Yeah, I agree with you. What do you think is a contributing factor to that? I mean, for one, the loss of biblical values. Also, just the divisiveness that has been brought into our culture. that now we hate each other based on Name it.
Political views. Um sports. Sexuality? Religion, I mean, every way, male, female, social class. Every way we can, we Are divided.
Yeah, I agree. There doesn't seem to be any category in which we don't divide ourselves right down the middle. Right. I mean, so it's very tragic for me to see this because instead of being one nation under God, or United We Stand. We are very divided.
So, I want to keep reading this speech, but our time is running away.
So, hopefully, next show, I would like to pick this speech up again and walk through it and see the parallels between Athenian World? Mm-hmm. Of Pericles. In our modern American society. Real quick before we go, why do you think that will help our listeners to see those parallels?
I want us to really understand where we are getting our values from. Of course, the Bible is the main foundation stone. We already established that. European Enlightenment thinkers are also very important because they were reasoning and studying and arguing and making a case of what makes a good, successful, prosperous society for everyone. But then they were also looking For an ideal, and the ideal they found was in Athenian democracy.
Yeah. Yeah. And in the Greek people.
Somehow the the Greeks Especially the Athenians, they they were able to touch or at least have a window into what a good society looks like And so our founding fathers were trying to create that society Using the best of the best. Taking the ideals of the Greek. taking the reasonings of the European Enlightenment thinkers and taking the Bible as a foundational stone, a foundational value, a foundational stone to create a society for us.
Now, There's also some major issues there with the Greek Democracy, Athenian Democracy, we'll talk about that next week. There you go. Guys, make sure you join us tomorrow, 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 on iTunes. If you want to re-listen, you can always support us financially at Abadanshah.com forward slash give. John, what do you want to close with today? Definitely just want to remind you guys to check out all the original programming over on the Truth Network. You know, Clearview Today is only one of the great shows that they have over there.
They've got lots of great Christian talk radio on the Truth Network. And also, you can follow Dr. Abadan Shah on Pray.com. That's right. We love you guys.
We'll see you tomorrow on Clearview Today.
