You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abadan Shah, a 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 Clearview Today Studio. We've got another great conversation on the board for you guys today.
But before we do anything else, we got to welcome our host with the most from coast to coast. He eats butter toast. It's Dr. Abadan Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show. I don't know what to say.
I actually had butter toast today at Denny's. Butter toast was a nice addition. Yeah, I never, I never, I had some toast today. We went to Denny's. Dr.
Shah took us out to lunch. I had pancakes. Bacon. and toast, and then I did meet the bread. I noticed that you don't like bacon?
I do love bacon. I just wanted to make it. Not today. No, I had a cup of coffee. What'd you guys do?
I'm with hash buttons. Not very nice. What'd you get those? I forgot. Oh, I had that off.
Uh fish fry. Oh, did you like it? Yeah, I did. It has some broccoli with it. And then some fries.
I didn't finish my fries because trying to be good. Yeah, there you go. But then again, I had fried fish, so I don't know. Yeah, guys, before we get started, we just want to remind you about Dr. Shah's upcoming new book, 30 Days of Seeing Christ in Judges.
Yes, very excited about this book. We're excited about this devotional. You've heard us talk about the 30 Days Devotional Series: 30 Days Through Crisis to a New Beginning, Praying for America, and then this one will be a new installment, but also kind of a new chapter in the 30 Days series as we're journeying through Seeing Christ in the Old Testament. And we're starting out with the book of Judges. I hope it's not, I hope I'm not saying anything out of line by saying this, Dr.
Shah, but we are in the editing phase. Yes, we are. Everything edited out. It has been written. Everything has been written.
Now we are fine-tuning things and adding material, taking away material, making sure that everything holds together. There are no distractions. There's no spelling mistakes or grammatical mistakes that would distract or detract from what God has to say through that devotional.
So we're working on that, and it should be very soon.
Some of the pacing, some of the pacing as well. That's one. of the things that we've been because we've been announcing it for weeks now so we wanted to kind of update you where we are in the process there's 12 judges right but but not all of them you know some of them are like and this guy judged for a year that's it i mean there's nothing else nothing about him so you're like okay you've got 30 days split of apart like eight or nine judges so you want to make sure that everybody gets kind of like a marvel movie everybody gets their moment yeah everybody gets their their time in the in the spotlight in the focus hey uh before we start today i did want to ask you guys i don't know how in the world you guys have done this for years on and dr sha you don't have kids in school anymore but this whole well you got kids in school but not like living at home they're in college they're in college your youngest is in college that's right uh This whole getting kids out of the bed thing. I really thought that Gavin's excitement about going to school would last, but less than six weeks in, and he's like really difficult to get out of the bed. He didn't want to go to school.
Not this morning. No, I was trying to get him out of the bed, and he was like, oh.
Well, I just want to sleep. And I was like, not an option, buddy. Come on, let's go. Yep. And it just, I've never, it's been something to where I'm now having to coax him out of the bed.
And I knew that was going to come, but I didn't think it was going to come six weeks in K-4. Yeah. I thought that would be like in the middle school days. I thought I had years of him excited to go to school.
Now, my middle schoolers, I have three middle schoolers now in my life, three middle schoolers in the Hill House, and they're. They're pretty good about getting out of the bed. The one that's the hardest to get out of bed is the youngest one. The youngest. Just turned seven.
Our youngest boy, Asher. He is hard to wake up in the morning. He just takes a long time to get moving. Unless he gets up on his own. If he gets up on his own and his feet hit the floor, he's good to go.
But if you have to go and wake him up, It's gonna be difficult. Did any of your kids give you trouble in the mornings? Were they like hard to get out of the bed? That's a hard one to answer. Yes, yes.
Pretty much all of them were like that. All four of them were like that. Rebecca was, but because she stayed up late working on her stuff, Abigail. Again, stayed up late. Nicholas, same thing.
Thomas, I remember Thomas's final year. And and you know it's He should be leaving home at 7:40, 7:45 maximum to be at school and not get a tardy. And Seven o'clock, he's still in bed. Wow. Seven oh five, still in bed.
Seven ten, I'm like, Hey man, you you and and mom usually would you know, Nicole would usually wake him up. Yeah. Say, Come on, you gotta go, you gotta go. Oh And then once he's up, he's got to lay there for a few minutes and think on things. Yeah, awake.
I got to get my eyes open. I remember senior year, especially that latter half of the senior year. It's tough to find motivation. 100% that whole like laying there and looking at the ceiling thing, trying to get woke up, that's you trying to figure out a way to get out of school. 100%.
I remember doing that. I would lay there and be like. I got a little scratch in my throat. There's some way I can spend this. I probably.
I probably could muster up a cough. Yeah. Yeah. Now, Nick, now he's up at 6 o'clock in the morning, headed to the gym. I think David knows that, right, David?
You see him at 6 o'clock in the morning. He's at. The gym. He's dedicated, man. He's dedicated.
I love it. A big change there. Yeah. I'm glad he's not going at night anymore. We were going, I was going with Nicholas at night, and David was going at night.
And something happened to where, like, it was, it was really cool. Like eight, nine, 10 o'clock, I was feeling really good.
Now it's just like, I cannot. Like at nine o'clock, I'm pretty much looking to go to bed.
Now you're waking up a four-year-old every day to go to school. That's a significant change. Yeah, it could be that's the case. Could be that's the case. And boy, howdy, he did not want to get up today.
Like, I got him out of the bed. And then the other one, the younger, the younger son, my middle son, who sleeps on the bottom bunk, he wakes right up. He's like, I go with Gavin. I go with Scoob. I want Pop-Tart.
I want Peppa Pig. I won't go to nursery. Like, I'm like, lay back down, buddy. Lay back down. He's up, and I can't get this one to get down.
So if only they could flip-flop. Oh, it's funny. Yeah. Well, our verse of the day today is coming to us from Acts chapter 7, verse 59. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God, saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
You know, we've been talking about Stephen a little bit this week in the light of Charlie Kirk's assassination. We've been kind of looking at the parallels between these two. And we typically like to think of the injustice of Stephen's story, right? This righteous martyr for the gospel whose life was taken. But then there's this weird realization that you kind of realize without Stephen, there is no Apostle Paul.
Yeah. And so it's like, in a way, I'm grateful that that happened. Is that a weird thing to say? You know, what I'm saying. Yeah, in a sense, it is.
Someone had to die for someone to live. Yeah. So, what you find in the book of Acts is these parallel storylines that are running. One is the life of Stephen. And then parallel to it.
Halfway through is a life of A man named Saul. Mm-hmm.
Now, what do we know about Stephen? The church was growing by leaps and bounds, and there was a complaint. Mm-hmm.
Among the early church people between the Hebrews and the Hellenists. Hebrews, meaning these are. more proper Jewish background. Who spoke Hebrew or at least claimed Hebrew as their language.
So these are not like Jewish people, these are Jewish believers. Oh yeah, these are Christian people, but I'm saying they're not believers. The first church was. Christian, right? And then um The Hellenists are those Jewish people who came from the diaspora, the dispersion.
You know, Jewish people were or people of Israel were dispersed starting from the time of Solomon, and they were all over the world. And Some of these people, these Hellenists, are these Greek background Jewish people. Still Jewish ethnically, but more Greek. And there was a conflict between them over the distribution of food. Among their widows.
It always comes back to food. Most church fights. Everybody's going to argue about the potluck. Everybody's going to argue about who brought the red casserole. Big church splits would be over like doctrine, like inerrancy, you know, like atonement.
Atonement, like we got to get this right, church. It's like, no, she didn't bring the right pot. Salad. And yeah, she didn't bring nothing. She didn't, not the right thing.
She didn't bring nothing. I saw her pile on her plate. And then she and her family get right up in the front. I saw them fixing boxes to take food home with them. Yeah.
And I mean, people get upset when they see you, you know, saying, Well, I got two more people at home. Do you mind if you all have any carry-out boxes? And this is just people in the back, just personally. Yeah. You know, I've been to a lot of small churches.
Back in the day, before I became a full-time pastor here, I used to do a lot of revival meetings.
So I would go to all these small country churches, and I found that very funny because they would have a big fellowship dinner on that Sunday, the first. Revival You know, service would be the Sunday morning. And then they would have a dinner or lunch. It's funny, the same situation. You can feel the tension sometimes between certain people and and/or certain groups getting in line and the other groups are wondering who are these people?
Why are they in the front? And not always, but you will see that it's like Wow.
Now imagine that happening at your church and it's immortalized in the Bible. Yep. I mean, it did right here. Yeah. But the apostles were so discerning that they recognized right away that the enemy had come in.
And so they told the people in the church to pick out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit, and wisdom. Means we need people who have a good reputation, credibility. Secondly, full of the Holy Spirit, because how can you have somebody who is going to be in charge or managing the church who is not controlled by the Holy Spirit? And thirdly, wisdom. Wisdom is also a very important, I would say, you know, characteristic of somebody who's going to help lead the church.
Right. That's right. And they found seven. But the first one Who is mentioned is a man by the name of Stephen, and the other six are not. Mention anymore, but this first one is really becomes the star of the show.
And God begins to use it. In another sense, there was a special anointing on Stephen. He begins to do signs and wonders. He begins to preach. And there's a lesson there for us.
That when it comes to ministry in the church, don't be embarrassed, don't be ashamed to do those menial tasks that others don't want to do. Right. me okay with um you know plunging the toilet if he had to, be okay with wiping down the tables, be okay with picking up chairs. Be okay with taking the trash out after a fellowship dinner. It's okay to do that.
Don't immediately think that you need to have a class. Don't immediately think that your testimony is so amazing that pastor needs to give you the pulpit.
So you can have your moment in the sun. That's not how Stephen operated. Yeah, he didn't come in looking to preach. He didn't come in like looking to do wonders. No, he ended up doing all of those things, but he began waiting tables.
That's right. And God's anointing was upon him, and very quickly he was he was kind of pinpointed by the synagogue of the freedmen. These were people who were anti Christian, and they began to dispute with Stephen. But Stephen had the anointing of God on him, full of Holy Spirit and faith. he began to argue with them with such impeccable Knowledge and wisdom and logic and rhetoric that they could not respond back.
They could not counter his arguments. And it made them angry.
Sounds familiar. Yeah, it does. Does that sound like what happened to... Charlie Kerr? Oh, 100%.
Absolutely. 100%. It's really. Interesting, and I say that lightly because a man just died, but it is really interesting to see how people react to being backed into a corner verbally. Like, instead of just instead, like, I don't know why it's so hard.
Like, yeah, it's embarrassing, but I don't know why it's so hard to just say, you know what? That's a good point. I need to think on that some more. And then actually go and think on it. But it will drive people to murder.
I think not all people, but it will drive some people to killing. I think what we're seeing too is a lot of the clips that make it the most popular online are people that walked up to the microphone at these turning point events and didn't actually want to debate. They just wanted to insult Charlie Kerr and with words. hit him. That's what they were trying to do.
Not with logic, not with reason, not with knowledge. But with words they wanted to hit him. And when they could not use words strong enough to hit him, you know, this one man, Holler Robinson. He murdered him. Yeah.
And so What happened to Stephen is very similar. To what happened to Charlie Kirk, or vice versa. What happened to Charlie Kirk is very similar because this is what happened to the first martyr of the church. I've seen some back and forth about this online, Dr. Shaw.
Is it a stretch or is it inappropriate? to consider Charlie Kirk a martyr. Um I I would say It's not a stretch. I would call him more of a 21st-century martyr. Yeah.
No different than. you know, um, Jim Elliott. Elizabeth Elliott's husband, you know, Jim and his buddies who went to the Indians in Ecuador, I believe it is, and they were witnessing to them. And you know how they were trying to build relationships with them, the Aka Indians, and they were trying to bring them food and supplies. And other men, like Nate Saint and others, they went down there.
And one of these. Um Um Trips. They were killed, brutally speared to death. And what people said about them was: these are martyrs. They went there to share the faith.
They could have easily carried guns. They could have defended themselves, but they did not. Right. They did not do that. And later on, Elizabeth Elliott and I believe Rachel Saint, Nate Saint's sister, they went down there and they stayed among the Alka Indians.
And one of them, the killers, actually became a Christian. Wow. Praise God for that. Yeah. Yeah.
He became a Christian. And there's a movie, you know, I think it's called The End of the Spear or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. End of the Spear.
Yeah. That was the movie. About this story. And it came out, I believe, somewhere in 2006, 2007, somewhere. They're a powerful movie.
Yeah. Wow. And so we're seeing the same kind of thing happening now, although in a different landscape. And what's even more scary here on our own home. Home turf in our own nation, this is happening.
But I would definitely call Charlie Kirk a 21st-century martyr.
So, what do you think that implies? Because we were talking about, and maybe we can kind of go back to this, but we were talking about how there is no Paul. without. Without Stephen.
So, what do you think without Charlie Kirk? There is no what? Like, what do you see on the horizon? I mean, there's a lot of people who are coming to know the Lord. I mean, we had a baptism right here at Clearby Church of a lady that I've known for many years who just went into an overwhelming sense of grief when.
when she heard about Charlie Kirk and she didn't know much about him. But it really shocked her. But it did not just shock her in the sense of grief or pain. Pain, but it shocked her in the sense of, wow, this is how evil evil is. Yeah.
Brought her closer in her relationship with Jesus Christ. I think we're seeing that all over the nation where people who weren't even close to him are being moved by this. I followed Charlie Kirk before this, and I mean, followed him fairly closely. And his videos on his page were getting about 115,000, 120,000, maybe 150,000. Like, he was popular, but.
But Now, like by no me like Each video on his pages in the. Hu like tens of millions. Yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, it's, it's, Really, really insane. It's tremendous.
I mean, it's skyrocketed his. I mean, not tens of millions, millions, but still. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, just look at the report of the turning point chapters. There was before Charlie Kirk was assassinated, I think there was something like 900 requests to have a turning point chapter at various universities.
And now it's like 54,000. Wow. So, I mean, unbelievable, exponential growth of what he set out to do. And this is what you see typically on the right that when something like this happens. Like to someone on the left, not that it really ever does, but when it does, there's a lot of spite.
You know, people the left will act out of spite. Nobody is joining these turning point chapters out of spite or to stick it to the left. Like, this is a genuine transformation in people's hearts that we're seeing. And I think it's not just this lady. But it's hundreds of thousands of people all across the land who are either coming to the Lord or they are.
being revived in their faith, In their walk with Jesus Christ. And We, as pastors and church leaders, and believers, should be grateful that God is using a horrible situation to draw people to Christ. Just like in Stephen's situation. Stephen is preaching and it seems like, man, this guy is the next great Peter, right? Billy Graham wasn't there, so I cannot say the next great Billy Graham.
But Stephen was the next great. Peter, he's a phenomenal man of God. He is impeccable. in his character, he is impeccable in his logic, in his rhetoric, in his ability to reason with people. But then all of a sudden he is killed.
stoned to death. And guess who the perpetrator was. None other than Saul, who was the future. Paul the Apostle. And Saul was consenting to his death.
Means Saul was after killing Stephen. Imagine that. Saul was after killing Steve. Yeah, we don't think about. The Apostle Paul as a murderer.
We really don't. We really don't think about him as the bad guy. We think about him as like, yeah, he had a rough start, but then, man, picture what he became. But it's like, yeah, but that's that's still the rough star we're talking about. Yeah, he was kind of the chief bag guy.
He was the sword that was against the way. Like, he's the villain. Like, he's full-on the villain in that story.
Well, absolutely. It's just incredible to think, like, in the wake of Stephen. We have Paul in the wake of Charlie Kirk's murder. What enemy will now be used? What enemy force will now be used for good and for good?
For the kingdom of God. Absolutely. In Stephen's situation, Saul is consenting to his death. He is still wreaking havoc in the church. He is using every dishonest means to arrest men and women and to drag them.
Anybody who claims the way, you know, Christianity was known as the way, the way, which is very powerful. I like that far better than just Christian because the way means Jesus is the way, the truth, the life. It emphasizes the exclusivity of the gospel. Uh That The early church was persecuted because the Bible talks about a great persecution came over the church. We have a lot of misunderstandings.
Some people think the early church was persecuted because they believed in a crucified Messiah. And that the Jewish people did not believe that, man. What they believed was a Messiah was going to come and free them from the Romans. I've heard that so many times. Yeah.
They were so shocked that he didn't overthrow the Romans. And that's not true. Because the early church was made up of Jewish believers, and Jewish believers were familiar with. Isaiah 53. In fact, right between the account of Stephen dying and Paul.
Being knocked to the ground and Blinded and called by God, there is an account of the Ethiopian eunuch. And what part of the Bible is the Ethiopian eunuch you're reading from? Isaiah 53. Mm-hmm.
And he cannot understand it. And as he is on this chariot heading back home, he is reading from Isaiah and he doesn't know who it is. And then God sends Philip the Evangelist to run and catch up with him. and get on the chariot with him, and explain to him who this one was. And he explains to him about Jesus Christ.
So, Jewish people knew about Isaiah 53. They knew about the idea that one person will have to die for many. Mm-hmm.
That wasn't the reason. Crucified Messiah was not the reason. Why The early church suffered persecution. And you understand these things when you read Paul's. description of persecution.
He was um Lashed thirty-nine times minus one, five times. And lashes were given by Jewish. Synagogues, not by Rome. Not by pagan cities. It was a specifically a Jewish Punishment that could be rejected.
You could say, I don't want to be Striped by You know. By lashes. By lashes. So Paul could have walked away from that. Yeah, but he chose not to because he still wanted to witness to them.
Wow. Then it is, Paul describes his suffering as being beaten by rods. And um Yeah. He talks about three times being beaten by rods. Rods is a Roman mode of punishment.
Mm-hmm.
Paul was beaten by the Romans.
So, Jewish synagogue people. Punished him? persecuted him. Roman rulers punished him, persecuted him, but then he was also stoned. many times he was stoned and left for dead.
Who did the stoning?
Now you can say, well, the Jewish people did, or the people of Israel did, as you see in the Old Testament, they were told to stone the adulterer and all that. That's true, but in these cities, they were not just Jewish people or Hebrews who were doing the stoning. Many of them were idol worshippers. Like pagans? Pagans.
So. Pagan city dwellers were persecuting the church. Of course, persecuting Paul, but that's what we're learning about how the church faced persecution.
So, Jewish synagogues. Roman rulers pagan city dwellers. But then Paul also mentioned in Second Corinthians Uh about false brethren. Who were the false brethren? These are people who claimed the gospel, but they were also requiring circumcision.
The Judaizers. Judaizers? False brethren. Paul faced persecution at the hands of the false brethren.
So, Jewish synagogue. Roman rulers? Pagan city dwellers? And false prophets.
So, this is really a persecution coming from all sides and all people groups. Yeah, because I see what you're saying. If it were just, oh, the Jewish people. didn't believe in a crucified Messiah. That wouldn't explain why all these other peoples are piling on and crucifying, persecuting Christians as well.
And it's a false understanding because Isaiah 53. Or some people say, oh, it's not the Jewish Messiah thing. It is really the scandal of. Devotion to Jesus. How could you worship a man?
Jewish people did not like that, and so they persecuted anybody who would claim that we need to worship a man. Yeah, but the Romans wouldn't care about that, would they? Before you even do that, the Jewish people. Had beliefs where they venerated certain angels. They venerated certain saints.
So you cannot say that Okay. You know, the early church was persecuted because they prayed to Jesus. Jewish people did not really have that much of a problem with that. Because they knew that the Messiah would come in the form of a man, right? That's right.
Neither did the Jewish people have a problem with Gentiles mingling. We often think it's like, oh, that was that's the reason why they persecuted the church, because the church was allowing Gentiles to come in. Not true.
Solomon's temple had room for Gentiles. Synagogues were open to Gentiles. God fearers could come in. And God fearers did not have to abandon their pagan gods and goddesses. They could still worship Zeus and come into the synagogue in Damascus.
They could still worship Artemis and still come into the synagogue in Athens. No problem.
So, what is the reason? One more reason that often is used to say that this is why the early church was persecuted is that the Christians were going against the law. Or they were not keeping the whole law. Again, that's not true. Jewish people Based on who they were, they had different understandings of the law.
Pharisees had their understanding of the law, Sadducees had their understanding of the law, the Dead Sea community, the Essenes had their understanding of the law. There was already differences among the Jews. Right, there was no monolith when it comes to the law.
So law was not the reason why. The Jewish people were persecuting the first century Christians who were also former Jewish people. What is the reason? When you put it all together. Whether it is synagogue Jewish people.
Roman rulers Pagan city dwellers, False brethren, one thing they all had in common is: we cannot stand Christians. Why can't you stand Christians? Because Christians are bad for the social order. Christians disrupt the social order. Why?
Because they claim exclusivity for the gospel. They claim that Jesus is the only way, the truth, and life. Is because Jesus is the only way to the Father.
So Persecution rose Because Christians, the first century church, the This First church made up of Jewish believers, they were not going to compromise in their beliefs. Unlike today, where Christians are only too ready to compromise. One reason Charlie Kirk was murdered is because he claimed exclusivity for the gospel of Christ. And just like then, as it is today, that's an unpopular take. I mean, it does disrupt the social order because if Christ is truly king and he's the only way, then Our culture has to change.
Yeah. Well, somebody may say, Well, how about the Jewish people? They only worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and did not worship the emperors. Yes, they had struck a deal with Rome that we will do our thing, but we will be very supportive to you. We will support your causes.
We will not interfere. We're not going to preach against you. We're just. Yeah. People who worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
If you let us do our thing in peace. We will support you for whatever. We're not going to call you out. We're not going to condemn you. Very different from the Christians.
I was going to say Christians are like, eh. No, this is like, no. We're not gonna bow to the emperor because he is not God. And the Jewish people are like, shh, you can't say that. We got a good thing going here.
We got a good thing going. You're going to mess it up for all of us. We need to kill you guys.
So, I hope you understand that the persecution came against the church because Christians were looked upon as being the disruptors of society. I want to look at that a little bit tomorrow. Maybe when we have some more time. We're out of time today, but maybe we can look at how Paul comes into this whole. This whole um Disrupting of the social order.
How Paul gives the story here. Yeah, someone who was of that opinion that Christians are the ones disrupting society, and then he became the very disruption that's right. That's right. So good. 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, LeBlue Ultra Pure Water, and Mighty Muscadine, for making today's episode possible. Don't forget that you can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes if you want to re-listen. And you can always support us financially at Abadanshah.com forward slash give.
John, what do you want to close with today? A couple of real quick things. First and foremost, check out all of the original programming over on the Truth Network. That's the network that we are syndicated through. And it's your one-stop shop for Christian Talk Radio.
Lots and lots and lots of great original programming. Also, follow Dr. Abadan Shah on Pray.com. That's one of our main platforms today. That's where a lot of our exclusive content goes.
We're trying to close in on 60,000 followers. Closing in fast, so make sure you go follow Dr. Abadanshah today. That's right. We love you guys.
We'll see you tomorrow, completely today.
