You're listening to Clear View 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 Clearview Today Show. We got a great week of content planned for you guys.
We're so glad that you're joining us 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, welcome to the studio, my friends.
So glad to see you. Thank you. It's going to be a great day of conversation. Oh, yeah. I'm looking forward to it.
You want to do it? Yeah. Just think we were going to do the same thing. We're excited to remind you. We're excited about this update.
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Shah, I got a question for you, my friend. I want to give you $1 million. Dr. Shah, you work so hard, man. You put so much into this ministry.
I just want to reward you with a nice million-dollar check. That's what I want to do. Briefcase to Benjamin. The only bugaboo, yeah, the only bugaboo is this.
So, anytime you refer to another scholar, And by that, I mean APHD. It doesn't matter if it's a biblical scholar, he could have a PhD in anything. You can only refer to him, whether directly or indirectly as Lil Stink. Lil' stinky. Little stink.
Or you can say a little stinky if you want to. You can refer to.
So, like, if you're, let's say, you're mentioning. Bart Ehrman. And you say, you know, in Lil Stink's work, misquoting Jesus. He actually blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we might say, hey, do you mean Bart Ehrman?
And you're like, Lil Snake, that's right. Or let's say you're talking about who's the who's the Astrophysicist guy, Neil deGrasse Tyson, he's got a PhD, right? Yeah. Yeah, you could say, you know, I watched that show, um, Cosmos with uh Lil Stinky. You can only, or, or if you're talking to him directly.
So, if you go to a conference. Oh, my. Lil'Sting. Excellent to meet you. Big fan of your work.
Lil Stinky. Hey, I'm Dr. Abadhan Shah.
Now, here's the question: Can I slip it in here and there? Do I have to, like, they have to know that I'm talking, that I'm addressing them? I'll say this. If you want to slip it in and then go back to calling them like by their actual name, you get a half a million. Oh, I'll do it.
You'll do that for happy. If I can slick, it's kind of slipping. It's like, hey, a little stinky day, man. I can do something like that. But I would not directly address all of them.
Now, some of them I would because their work does stink. They have ulterior motives, they have become woke. crazy.
So I would not be That's afraid to call them stinky, yeah, or a little stinky, or whatever. Those we can do for free, yeah. But uh, some of them I would not do that. I got you, I got you.
So, so half a million, you can just slip it in, and it's like, What was that? And you're like, Oh, like I was saying, Dr.
So-and-so over here, you can go back to calling them by their name, and I can, you know, say, Ah, a little stinky, but let me tell you something, and then, yeah, by the time they're like, Wait, what? You just kind of barrel past it. Yeah, if you want to do that, we could say, Well, we'll bump it down to half a million, but if it's the full million, if you refer to any people. PhD, any scholar, it's directly or indirectly, it's always a little stinky for the full million. Yeah, that would be like a Career suicide at your point.
Academic suicide, I would say. But you would go with the half million and just try to slip it in. If I slip it in, then I can do it. And then kind of, you know, it's like, huh? Oh, yeah.
But I can.
Sorry, I sneezed. Excuse me. That's a bit of a tongue.
Sorry about that. Would you do it? I do the half mil. Yeah. The half-mill?
I'd sneak it in. I don't think I could do the like the. Here's the thing: like, that's me referring to Dr. Shaw. Like, I would never do that.
Yeah, true.
So, yeah, you have to refer to me as the money. Yeah, I would never do that. Yeah. No. But I might slip it in for half a million.
I would do that. I might consider that. 500,000 is still a lot of money. That's a lot. Yeah.
That's a lot of money. Pay your house off. Yeah. Yeah. Just like that.
Just like that. Just a free house. There you go. Free house. Boom.
I think I would also do it too. Yeah. The half mil? I would do. Um, yeah, I think so.
The half mil? I think so. I think I could work something out with Dr. Shaw. To be like, hey, listen, I'm just going to refer to you as a little stinky.
I'll give you $100,000 if we can just have this understanding. But you cannot do that with every PhD that you ever meet. Right, but. I feel like I could get away with just being like, hey, I'm just a weird eccentric guy, and you don't have to feel the need to talk to me. This is your like an autism or something.
I have to do this. This is my tick. And I feel like if I could work it out between us, I would give you $100,000 if it's just, hey, can I just do this for the rest of my life? I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it.
I think I would probably, yeah, I'd probably settle for the half. Yeah. Dr. Shaw, we got a check-in today. That's true.
They didn't leave a name, but the check-in says, Hi, Dr. Shaw. I've been thinking about what you said yesterday: that salvation is for the Jewish people first. I have to admit, I struggle with this a little bit, even though I know it's God's word. I think a lot of us here in America do because we kind of have this main character mindset.
We tend to assume the story is mostly about us. It's hard to remember that God's plan started with Israel and it's bigger than just our perspective. How do we wrap our heads around that without feeling like we're left out?
So, can I be honest for a second? I kind of, I agree. Not agree, like I think they're right, that's how it should be, but I do think that. It's a struggle. It's a struggle to Cope with the fact that I'm not chosen.
I'm not chosen in that sense. I'm not God's chosen people. They were, and it was for them first. I can understand that because there's a lot of, especially at least in my experience growing up, there's been a lot of me-centric emphasis on salvation. You ask Jesus into your heart, it's your relationship with God, it's a personal thing.
So it makes you feel a lot like you are kind of the center of that, of that experience. And in some ways, you are. It is your relationship with God, but God's plan of salvation does not hinge on you. Does not hinge on us in America. I also relate to what they're talking about: the main character syndrome.
I think that's a real thing, especially among millennials. I feel it a lot. And I think it's maybe because of all the TV shows we watch where the main character is the chosen one and everything sort of revolves around him. They're the center of the prophecy. I don't know what it is, but I definitely feel that sometimes.
So, for all the people who are listening right now. All over the world and watching right now. The question is. Did God choose the Jewish people? And the answer is no.
The answer is no. He didn't choose them. He didn't. I mean, he chose Abraham. Right.
And now the question is. Who was Abraham? He wasn't Jewish. He wasn't Jewish. That's very true.
He was a Babylonian. Babylonian? Yeah. That's true. Abraham wasn't a Jewish man.
For anybody who had an anti-Jewish bias, just think about it for a moment. Yeah, I mean I guess you're right. He called a Babylonian. Yeah. He was a Chaldean.
Yeah. Chaldean, not Canaanite. That's right. Yeah, he was a Chaldean. If you are let me be a little anachronistic right now.
Anachronism means you're trying to apply a later time to an earlier time or an earlier time to a later time.
So I'm being a little anachronistic here. But God picked an Iraqi. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I see what you're saying.
And Iraqi man. A man from Iraq So do you think that do you think that people Like like we talk about people who struggle with this idea that God still has plans for Israel. They say that Israel's done. The nation of Israel, as it stands today, is not who God was talking to in the Old Testament. Do you think that comes from?
Envy? Do you think it comes from just not understanding how God's calling works? Yeah, I mean some of that is envy, some of that is lack of understanding, some of that even a lack of understanding among Christian people. What does that really mean to be called? I mean, if we really understand the roots, even God at times called him an Aramian.
Aramian. You know, your father was an Aramian. Aramian means like a Syrian. Because Abraham and his family, right, Abraham and Sarah, or Abraham and Sarai and Lot. and earlier even his brother Haran.
You know, they and their father Terah they left Ur of the Chaldeans, they moved up in this place called Haran. I believe they were royalties, they were. Mesopotamian royalties. Right? I mean, that's another way to say that.
The first person that God called, yes, of course, they became Israelites and they became the people of Judah who became Jewish people. I'm playing with words, okay, folks, so don't panic. But he called a Mesopotamian man to leave all his gods and goddesses behind. He was not out there worshiping the living true God. God told him.
And, you know, when God. Later on condemns and and calls out the people of Israel. He says, you know, Joshua says that. Joshua tells the people, you know, we quote that passage often about choose for yourselves which gods that you will worship. The gods that your forefathers worshipped on the other side of the river, Which river are we talking about?
Not the Jordan River. Not the Nile River. We're talking about the river Euphrates.
So they were on the other side of the Euphrates. They were not inhabitants of what we know today as Israel. They were Over there worshiping other gods. And God called that kind of a family to leave everything you have and follow me. And they knew this is the living, true God, while they were also courting other false gods and goddesses of Mesopotamia.
And unfortunately, some of those gods and goddesses, I don't know how they got in there with them. Maybe Sarah kept them, maybe Lot kept them, maybe some of their people, their their servants kept those gods and goddesses and brought them in. And later on, God's people began to worship those old gods of the other side of The Euphrates River. Mm-hmm. I'm saying all that to say this.
That don't Don't be anachronistic. And saying that, oh man, you know, God picking the Jewish people, why? Just know that that's. a name that came much, much, much later. The idea of the land came later.
He picked a person. Who was a Babylonian, a Mesopotamian? family and said, come follow me. You know, we immediately put them in a Jewish garb, but that's not what Abraham would not even know. He would not even understand.
And of course, now he does being in the presence of God. But if you think about it, when he came, he did not understand. the commandments like we know them in the book of Deuteronomy or Leviticus. He didn't have those. Right.
Moses hadn't written them yet. Yeah. He he he doesn't understand Passover. Mm-hmm. The only thing he understands is his relationship with God, I would assume.
Yes, the living true God, and that this God wants to use me and my wife. We are up in age, we cannot have children, but somehow this God is telling me that He's going to bring a child. Through me and my wife. But then he momentarily he lost Touch with that and allowed his wife to bring one of their Egyptian slave girls. to to have sex with him so that The line could come, forgetting that God did not just call Abraham, He also called Sarah.
Mm-hmm. So, I hope people understand that everything that God did there was out of mercy, and it was not like he was. picking favors. He Picked a Babylonian. I think that's that's the key is that it was it's God's mercy.
You know what I mean? Because I can see people online, especially having this propensity to say, you know what? You're absolutely right. It was just Abraham and God, and that's the way it ought to be. None of this Jewish, Gentile, none of that stuff.
Just me and God. And I think that's missing the point, but I like the way that you kind of clarified that. The. The point is not that it's just Abraham and God, it's God's mercy over everything. Yeah, God's all out of nothing.
Incredible mercy in picking a Babylonian man who was surrounded by other gods and goddesses and even kept some of them because that's why Joshua says, you know, choose for yourselves whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served on the other side of the river. I mean, if you want to go back to those Mesopotamian gods and gods, because we know you're hiding them. Right. You know, when Rachel, right, Rachel had some of those gods and goddesses that she stole from her father Laban's household. Mm-hmm.
There were also those Mesopotamian gods and goddesses. From Heron. Yeah. All that to say. I'm taking.
We need to step into the biblical story and really examine it and truly step there without all our preconceived ideas or prejudices and just really read it. Read it for the first time as if you've never heard that story before. And it's mind-blowing that God would even call someone from Mesopotamia. I would have picked.
Some other place. Ur of the Chaldeans at the time worshipped the moon god. and they lived close to the Gulf. the Persian Gulf. And so this was a great place for them to do business because ships would come in and out.
This was a great place for selling gods and goddesses because it was right there where people could come and they had a big temple there.
So God did not go find the most godly people in the world and say, Come with me and I'm going to make you godlier. No, he he went to Ur, which was not known for its deep religion to the living God. What would the modern or a modern equivalent of Ur be? I mean, that's a great and great question, by the way. If I were to pick a modern equivalent for.
In America, let's just say America. Right? So I'm trying to see some kind of a port city. Which is I would pick something like New York. That's exactly what I was going to think.
Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. We all went to the kind of hub of commerce and activity and it's right on the coast where immigrants are coming. Yeah.
And that's what I would say. There's not a super abundance of godly presence there. Like, if God were to do what he did with Abraham today, and he goes to New York City or to New Orleans. I mean, nobody would say, why did you? Oh, yeah, you have your favorites in New York.
Right. No, nobody's. I probably said that if he was in the Bible Belt or something. Yeah, I mean, I would have said, God, you know, you could come to, you know, like Raleigh, Charlotte, Atlanta. I mean, maybe you're in the Bible Belt, Dallas, you know, you can go to Christianity.
Nashville. You can go to, you know Kind of the Christian centers, New York City, for goodness sake. Not there. Yeah. That makes sense.
Yeah. That's a good comparison.
So do so you're talking about we we We need to understand this kind of stuff because otherwise we're going to draw preconceived notions. And then we bring those preconceived notions into the New Testament, right? Like with Romans 9 through 11, that's what we've kind of been talking about. If we bring these preconceived notions, presuppositions that we already have about God's relationship with the Jewish people. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we're destined to read Romans 9 through 11 incorrectly.
Oh, 100%. And we do that. We do that because we bring that kind of a bias that we have picked up because of envy. Or because of propaganda, because of our lack of biblical understanding, we pick up these ideas and we just go with, why did he pick them? Just looking at Jewish people today.
No, God didn't pick them. Of course, yes, He picked them. Don't misunderstand me. Yes, they are God's chosen people. But he picked a man and his wife from the most godl godless place on the face of the earth at the time.
A place from which God had driven out the people, right? Ancient Babel was not very far from Ur. He had driven out people from there and said, Go, spread out. And they were trying to build a tower into the heavens. And if you go by the biblical timeline, that was barely four or five hundred years after.
The Tower of Babel, maybe 300 years after the Tower of Babel, that God called Abram and Sarai.
So think about that. Thinking about it in terms of like that, that short span of history, it's really intriguing to me to think about this spectacular failure on humanity's part in the Tower of Babel when people are scattered and God says, Go, I've called you to go, and you are supposed to populate the earth, and you're staying in one place. And then, from that locale, very near there, is where he calls his chosen, where he calls Abram and Sarai. Right. Well, we're typically, I mean, we're typically accustomed to thinking about process.
Pre-flood being unrecognizable from like modern-day what, like the rest of human history, right? But Abraham is not that removed from the flood, right? It's like a few hundred years. Yeah, I would say maybe three to four hundred years.
So it's not, it's not like. That's not long. Like Abraham is much closer to the flood than he is, like. the modern Jewish Oh, 100%. Yeah, the whole idea of Jewish people.
Jewish people came after the Babylonian exile. Real yeah, yeah. Like Jewish Jewish people Yeah, the idea of Jewish people came out of the Babylonian exile because uh the Assyrian exiles seven uh you know, about eighth century BC. This is where the northern kingdom is taken away. The ten tribes to the north are dispersed by the Assyrians.
They had the policy of. How do you say it, repopulating people? Like they would take people. people from one pop one zone region and move them somewhere else and take people from there, move them here. And that's the way they kept them from becoming nationalistic.
That's the way they kept them from having any kind of roots.
So the northern kingdom dispersed. Does that mean that they immediately forgot who they were? Right. But they were no longer You know, they were no longer Israelite like they used to be. Their policy was known as relocation.
And then uh the the southern kingdom was still left. Two tribes, Judah and Benjamin. Benjamin was not. A very large tribe.
So it was sort of. assimilated into The tribe of Judah. Judah is now the de facto with some Benjamites in there. Right, right. And of course, Levites were still around because they were people with no land, but they were dispersed among all the twelve tribes to help them worship properly and all those kind of things.
So whoever the Levites were left. With Judah, Benjamin, where the Levites lived.
So, not a whole lot of them as well. But nonetheless, that's basically what you have. When the Babylonian exile happens, and now we're coming down to about the sixth century. Um BC, which is five eighty seven B C When Nebuchadnezzar and all that, you know, they come, they destroy the temple, Daniel. and all of them are taken away.
Sixth century BC. This is about the time. Kind of seventh into the sixth century. This is about the time where the tribe of Judah, major tribe, is taken away to Babylon. They stay there.
A whole generation until God brings Cyrus to the throne, and then Cyrus gives that famous decree, they can all go home. And build your own lives, including the Jewish people, you can do that too. Because it was not just the Jewish people who were in exile, other people were as well. But unlike the Babylonians, the Medo-Persian had a different. policy which was you go live.
Just make sure you send us the tributes. Make sure you remember. You're under Persian rule. And as long as you do that, we're all happy. Worship your gods.
Build your temples. And so that's when the Jewish people, because now that's all are left, the tribe of Judah, they come back and they try to build their lives.
Now we have the Jewish people.
So, the whole idea of Jewish people was about. I would say sixteen to seventeen hundred years. After The time of Abraham.
So let me ask you this. And I want to make sure I frame this correctly.
So the. Ten tribes that were lost in the Assyrian exile gone. they still exist somewhere today, but absolutely not as Israelites or Hebrew people. They exist as something else.
Well, there are people who have tried to. Um You know, do like a genealogical search to find who those people were. And there are a lot of theories and conspiracies out there, and I don't want to get into that, but there's a lot of. those kind of things. I still believe that many of them Uh are Lost Forever?
Let me take that back. Not lost forever. I think in the end of times, they will be brought back. That's where I was going. That's where I was going.
But lost for now. Lost for now is a better way to say that. When I say lost forever, I'm talking about just through the ages of time, through the ages of time. But I think. In the end of times, of course they're going to come back.
That's what I was, that's where I was going to, my follow-up question was going to be for end times prophecy when God says, You know, I'm going to bless Israel. Do you think those 10 tribes are? Are included in that blessing, the ten tribes that were lost in the tribes. Absolutely. Because in Revelation, we talk about.
The 144,000, they are from each of those tribes. Right. All the 12.
So those people, wherever they are today, whether they're in the Middle East, whether they're in Iran, or wherever. They're included.
So when we talk about God is blessing Israel. A lot of people today, and correct me if I get any of this wrong, but a lot of people today mistakenly think this nation right here, that's all we mean. But there's many, many people groups living in the world today that would fall under that covenant promise. Yes. But it won't be recognized until the end of time.
Right. But but when we're also talking about Israel, the land is part of that promise. Right, right. That's another thing to remember: that the promise was not just a generic promise: that, hey, God's going to bless all of you, He hasn't forgotten you, He'll be faithful to you. That's it.
No. It was connected to the land. And that land fulfillment promise has not gone away.
So these peoples, I mean, we know they're coming back. How does that. How does that affect how we read. Paul's letter to Romans, because we've been in Romans for a while, and we're getting a lot of comments from people like this who are saying, you know, I understand what you're saying, but I feel this. I feel this way, and I don't want to.
Well, I think there's a difference in the question, and maybe you can clarify this, Dr. Shaw. There's a difference in the question. Why not me? versus why them.
But I don't know if that really stems from the same place or if that truly is different. Like, I want to be the chosen one versus I can't believe you would pick them. Maybe it's maybe it's this, and I don't want to cut you off, but maybe it's like. Salvation was for the Jewish people first, then the Gentiles. Maybe it's like Christians feel like they're an afterthought.
And I don't want to be an afterthought. I want to have this special relationship with God where God loves me. And I'm the main character. Because Abram. When he was called in Genesis, it talks about that through you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
Through you, all the facts. It was not just like. I'm gonna I'm just going to bless you like crazy. That's true. It didn't say all of your biological descendants will be blessed.
Right. Through you, you'll be a light unto the Gentiles.
So when you truly understand that. Um They were supposed to be the conduit through which Everyone would find blessing. God had to find a conduit.
Somebody would be the carrier. Right. Somebody would have to be the protector of that promise. God knowing who Abram was. And who Sarai was, who would later on become Abraham and Sarah, God picked them, chose them.
And he did it out of his grace his mercy? That's it. He did it just because he picked them. Amen. Could he have picked their neighbor?
Maybe?
Now, you know, I I'm I'm talking about it. Yeah, about this in in the context of time Because we have a very poor understanding of time. We either see time only as a linear extension, like day one, day two, day three, one year, second year, third year, one millennium, two millennium, on and on. Or we look at it as. Time's going to end in a in a time.
timeless Age is going to begin or a different kind of time will begin. In the end of time. And I don't think that's very accurate. I think more and more I'm studying and reading some of the best on the subject. What we're beginning to see is.
There are a lot of views. There's even a view that. That a different time has invaded our world, and now that time is the time of God, the time of the Messiah. And that Also has some merits. But I think there's a better way to see this, which is: yes, a different time.
Has come in which is a god time. Which allows us to see that the past is not just left in the past, it is very much alive today. And those promises that God made to Israel are not just dead promises that we're going to apply to ourselves, and some of those we're going to put them as a figure of speech or some typology and just dismiss them. No, those promises are very active. It's like, it's like.
like those embers are are not cold. It's not even like they've been sitting there all night and they have become cold. They're as hot as they were. The very first time they were lit. Those embers of God's promises.
are very alive.
So what God promised Israel What God promised Abraham and S and Sarah, what God promised through uh Moses and and through um David and others about this kingdom that will never end. That promise is very alive. You've got a great way of bringing up the most interesting topics right at the end of the episode. I was about to say, I'm excited to dive into that questions. I want to talk about that.
We're actually 30 seconds over. Man, it's like quantum physics level. It's like quantum leap. Remember Quantum Leap? Oh, yes.
I want to talk about that. We got a special guest on tomorrow's episode, but maybe on the Thursday show we can talk. We can dive. We got to dig in now. That's exciting.
Now I'm kind of hooked. Wow. Guys, make sure you join us like Don said. We've got a very special guest on tomorrow's episode. 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 relisten or share it with a friend, 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 encourage you guys to follow us on Prey.com, follow Dr. Abadan Shah.
We're closing in on 60,000 followers. We're also on Prey Radio, just like Ryan said at the top of the episode, every single weekday at 8 a.m. on Prey Radio. It's only going on for the month of October, so the more you guys listen, the more Prey.com is going to take notice and bring you more of Dr. Shah's content.
That's right. Make sure you join us tomorrow. We love you guys. See you tomorrow on KB2.
