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 Hicks. I'm John Galantis. Welcome to the Clearview Today Show.
We are so glad you're joining us here in the studio today. Welcome to our space. We got a great conversation. But before we dive into 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 to the studio. Thank you. Good to be here. Those shoes, my friend, those are really nice.
Thank you. Those are. Alan Edmonds shoes.
So, if Alan Edmonds wants to come on the show, you can. You may. Absolutely. But these are great shoes. American May, if I'm not wrong.
Nice to say, this episode of Plea Be Today is sponsored by Alan Edmond Shootness. I will wear them on the show for you. Use Code Today for a discount on the next player. You know, that actually reminds us: we've been getting lots of emails about people wanting to. Wanting to be sponsors on the show.
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The Clearview Today Show is impacting. Tons of people and the horizon is growing every single day. And we want you to be a part of that as one of our sponsors. Before we get into the show proper, two quick reminders: updates, reminders. Number one is Prey Radio.
We're going to be talking about this all throughout the month of October because it's only happening this month. Dr. Shaw is live on Prey Radio, 7 a.m. Eastern Time. And so we want to make sure that you guys are there.
You're tuned in because you doing that is going to let all the people over at Prey know that this is content that you're interested in and you want to see more of. That's going to help us and it's going to help you. Second thing is, a lot of people have been asking: Is 30 Days Through Judges going to be available for pre-order? Here's the thing: we're in the very final stages of formatting. At this point, there's really not a point to pre-order because it's going to be available in the next few weeks.
So we want you guys to know that all the editing is done. Dr. Shaw, that was a, how do I wanna say it? That was a really great time of being able to go through each of the chapters and dive deeper into the judges. The only bad part was there was so much content.
that um just it can't fit it can't all fit in a little Three or four page devotional chapters. Yes.
So, for those of you who are tuning in for the first time, whether on radio or on. Video or YouTube. This is a very unique series that is starting. It's still in our 30 days format, but it's about 30 days of seeing Christ through. Yes.
So we're Covering Old Testament books, and we began with the book of Judges because last year. I've preached an entire series through the book of Judges. And we did ep we did a series on the show we sure did. And this was a fascinating series because instead of portraying judges or those characters as being negative, Or being radicals, or people that you don't want to emulate. They served a purpose, but they are not worthy to be.
followed in real life. And We took a very different approach, and it's based on a few people who are doing studies in this direction with judges. That judges, if they are mentioned In the faith chapter in the book of Hebrews. Gideon, Jephsa. Samson, and many others.
And they're portrayed. positively. then we need to give them that benefit of the doubt. And look at them positively. And that can be very difficult because.
For years and years. ages, I would say, we have been conditioned to look at judges as being these flawed characters like Like they're anti-heroes or anti-heroes that served a purpose, but now do not follow them. Right. Case in point, Samson. Do not be like a Samson.
Right. He did some horrible thing. He went to a Philistine woman. He was with a prostitute. He allowed this.
Uh Jezebel, not Jezebel. Delilah. Delilah? Yes.
Too much. Who was any Jezebel who was a Jezebel in that period? To. Take away his power and all that, so do not be like a Samson. And that's not true, right?
When you really examine them to the lens of Christ in the Christian life, they represent Christ. That's right, that's right. It's kind of funny because, just for fun, see, I had never gone through judges before this series ever in my Christian life. I've never gone through judges, and so I didn't know that this reputation of anti-judges as characters was out there. I'd never heard that.
And so it's funny because after we talked about it and we started talking about we're going to go through judges and we're going to hopefully turn this into a devotional one day. I went to Chat GPT and I said, give me a rundown on the judges. And it said that. It said, you know, they're flawed characters, but God still found a way to use them.
So then I said, I want you to spin it in such a way that they are the heroes. They're not flawed characters. It couldn't do it. It kept saying it would always find a way to put in there, even though the judges were flawed. God found a way to blah blah blah, even when I specifically asked it not to, and I found it is because the corpus of text out there that is anti-judges is so vast.
That's what Chat GPT asks to pull for. 100% the prevailing opinion about the judges. But, you know, that's why it was so impactful. You hear this, these, uh, this research, and you hear these people talk about how the judges were flawed and the judges made mistakes, and don't be like the judges. But it was so refreshing hearing your messages, Dr.
Shaw, because the Bible doesn't say that. The Bible doesn't call them villains, it doesn't call them these kind of cautionary tales.
So we can't say that either. They're actually types for Christ.
So, if that's the case, then when we're calling them flawed, we're also, in a sense, calling. Jesus flawed. That's a great point. That's a great point. And I know some people may argue with me and say, yeah, there are other characters like Abraham was flawed and David was flawed.
And I hear what you're saying, but Judges, nobody ever says anything. positive about them. Or if it is, it's very minimal. They always qualify it with the mistakes that they made. Samson killed so many Philistines.
Okay, that's great. But other than that, man, he was a mess. I mean, even Jonah, like, for all of his flaws, even Jonah's cast in a pretty favorable light compared to the judges. Right, right.
Well, you want to listen. I want to continue yesterday's conversation, and I think our verse of the day kind of goes perfectly with what we're talking about today. Absolutely. Verse of the day today is coming from Genesis chapter 12, verse 1.
Now, the Lord had said to Abram, Get out of your country, from your family, and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. A land. I will show you. Favorite passages in the Bible because it's God's telling Abram. Go.
Yeah. He doesn't tell him where. He doesn't tell them the destination. He says, just go. I'll direct you.
I'll lead you there, but you go. It's the call to adventure. And I think so many of us, we want to embrace that in our lives. And Dr. Shah, I think it's funny because growing up here in America, it's easy to just look at this as this is home, this is base, this is neutral.
But you offer a unique perspective in that not growing up here, you have seen America. from the outside. You know, as that beacon, as that destination that we want to get to. Oh, absolutely. In fact, most of the world And I'm talking about Asia, Africa, South America, Europe Most of the world Wants to be here.
Now not everybody is going to be able to come here. Not everybody may. And up choosing to come here, but they love the idea. that America is this place of opportunity. And why is that?
It's because this is a unique place. You know, when people talk about how America is um Uh You know, there's systemic racism in America, or the system is just. flawed and it's against you Become wealthy, or to make something of yourself because of the color of your skin, or because of. which side of the tracks you grew up on, they don't understand. The rest of the world sees America differently.
They see it as a land of opportunity. They see it as a place where you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and become somebody. Yes, yes.
So. Growing up I was really blessed to be raised by parents Who were, of course, were Christians, but also dad was a pastor, but they were also very pro-West. Especially America. When I say pro-West, not just they were pro-West like all Europe and and And America and everything. No, very specifically, America.
Right. Because they saw. How God had blessed America. They saw the values that America stood for. Of course, we know that there are times America failed, and there are those parts as well.
So they were not naive that everything America always does has been perfect and God ordained. No, they also saw the flaws. But overall, they knew that this is a special country.
So I grew up. In fact, um I had a big sticker on my backpack. My sister even pointed that out. It had the American flag. with the words In God we trust.
Wow. On my backpack. When I was in Middle school, high school. That's incredible. Was that common growing up?
Were there a lot of families that were pro-West, really pro-America? Or was that largely because of your dad and your mom and their values? Ours was more than just the average group. Christian family, okay? Because dad was very educated.
And and he was uh even before he came to America, he came Actually he came after I came. I came to America in 1991. He came in 1992. He and my mom did for a preaching tour. Mm-hmm.
And um But Always, I remember him talking very positively about America, the American history, politics. Yes, he would see places where. America could have made a better decision, but overall it was He was more patriotic towards America than Americans are. You know, you mentioned this as the land of opportunity, and I think it kind of goes with what we were talking about yesterday: the value of hard work. You know, if we're talking about just the ministry and the church, if you zoom out, America is a land of opportunity for those who work hard.
And I wanted to show you this clip that I saw. This is from this series called Jubilee, which is basically like this big surrounded. You take one person who's an expert in their field and you surround them by 20 novices and they like debate. It's not a great. Format for actual debate, but it's very, very entertaining, and that's why it's so popular.
So these guys, we'll pull this clip up. They're debating capitalism specifically. But the guy who's in the middle of the circle, Patrick Bett David, he makes a point very, very similar to yours. And I want to show you this conversation and kind of get your take on it.
Okay. has to work five jobs just to survive. How did they get there? How much of that is on their decision making? We're talking about capitalism, but then they'll move.
How much of that is on the market where they're not finding ways to improve themselves? It doesn't matter how much onus is on the individual. We want to create a bunch of people. Of course it is. No, no, no, no, no.
See, we want to create a onus on which people don't have to earn their right to exist. And we live in a country where majority of the world wants to come here. The most important citizenship country is America. Right. People give up their lives to come here.
Have you ever lived in another country before? No, not lived. No. Why do you think so many want to come here? I think the people coming here are coming from gang-ridden, corruption-ridden, violence-ridden.
You think that's just all it is? You think I came from a gang-ridden in Iran? I lived there 11 years. I think the majority of people, certainly coming from South South, most people come here because what you're doing to me, you're sitting across from me right now. Right.
Millions of people are going to watch this. In America, you can call me out. You can say whatever you want. Nothing's going to happen. You're free and safe here, right?
Sure. Freedom of speech is in America. You can't do that in Iran. Of course it is. There's a lot of elements with America.
You're talking incentive. The amount of benefits America offers against other countries, it's so much higher. Where somebody with big dreams, incentives, they're willing to come and say, I want to come to America, please let me in. And some come and take advantage of it. But to say the individual that's working three to five jobs, if you do that for a season, if you do that for two years, if you do that for five years, fine.
If you do that for 20 years, 30 years, you're doing something wrong. But the point is: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, right? Those are the inalienable rights. We shouldn't have to earn those rights. We shouldn't have to earn the right to healthcare to earn the right to do.
No, I because these are this is just we just want to live, just exist. We can't work our blood, sweat, and tears just to just to survive. That's a horrible, dystopian world that we live in, right? No, then what do you think we're here for? To just sit around and play video games?
That's it. What are your thoughts? That clip has been kind of rolling around in my head for a couple of weeks now, and I wanted us to kind of be able to talk about it. Of course. Let's go back to the founding fathers.
When they said life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they were way ahead of their times. They were going to the core, the heart of what it makes for a good life, not just for people in the West or in these colonies. They were. Coming up with principles based on European Enlightenment, but really based on Judeo-Christian values, to come up with these three: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This is what No matter who you are, where you're from, No no matter what age you live in, this is what makes you successful, satisfied, happy, prospering.
Person. Right. And They Created this. as the gold of vision. But you have to come together and work together to make that vision a reality.
And for that they gave us The Constitution, the Bill of Rights. a system of government. A way to make money which is capitalism. This is how you work in a capitalist society. Of course, everything wasn't perfect at the time, and they could have easily said only for European white.
Men. They could have said that. European background people. They said All men. Which means and and then and then when when you when you have people say something like, Oh, no, no, they were racist and they were slave owners and they they you must not be reading much because when you read the literature of the time, they knew exactly how to say someone from Africa.
They knew how to say someone from the East. But they said, all men. Very, very important. And when you read the correspondence between the various four founding fathers, they were saying, Should we now go ahead and outlaw slavery? Should we go ahead and deal with it?
And they said, no. There's correspondence there. You need to educate yourself.
Well, they're vision casting, right? Like they're setting the ideal. Like even in any organization, you don't set the vision and say, okay, well, we don't have it right now.
So this vision isn't worth, you know what I'm saying? Like, of course. Go ahead. I just feel like it's such an easy way to try to cash in chips, especially where we live in society right now. Nobody wants to be labeled a racist.
Everyone agrees racism is bad. And so when you present yourself as a champion against racism, whether you're calling out a person who lives now or a person who lived 100 years ago, you automatically elevate yourself in people's eyes, especially if they haven't done their research. You present yourself as like, well, I think racism is bad.
So I must be a good person. But. When you look at the research, when you look at the correspondence between the Founding Fathers, you recognize that these men truly did mean all men, all people were to be afforded these rights. And they just knew when to address certain issues, and in wisdom chose to maybe. Shift something to another day.
Well, they knew the work that it was going to take. And that kind of goes back to what we're talking about here. There was incentive there. They knew it was going to take a lot of real work to get there. But the idea that all men are created equal and should have those inalienable rights.
That's a goal worth working towards. And they gave us a system that would help you reach that goal. Not just a governmental system, but also an economical and economical system as well. How would you work towards that? and it was not going to be through social Marxism.
It was not going to be through Any form of communism. It had to be. Capitalism. Yes.
See, I think that's where people, even this young man who was arguing against the guy, I think he thinks that the inalienable rights are life, liberty, and happiness. That's that's you have the right to be happy, but it's the pursuit of happiness. The onus is on you. To pursue your happiness. Even that, our founding fathers were very insightful in making sure it's the pursuit of happiness.
Right. It means you're working towards that. You're not guaranteed that. You're working towards that. That's right.
And how do you work towards that? It's when you work. Mm-hmm. When you have been given opportunities, was it Difficult? Yes, I think it was very difficult for people who came here.
Even in the colonies it was difficult. But they chose to come here. Why did those people leave and come? Study the migration of people. Because majority of them came from England.
The people who came from the south of London. Uh the people who came from the Midlands. The people who came from the Scottish border. The people people who came from uh sort of the East of London North. Why did they come here?
Some came for religious freedom.
Some came for opportunity.
Some came because this is it. If they don't leave now, they will die. There is no food, there is n especially especially those on the sc uh border of Scotland, they came because it was this or else. It's over. You know, when you study the history of the time in England when those people you know, we call them Scotch-Irish, but maybe Scotch-Irish, but what we think Scotch-Irish is like a mixture of Scottish and Irish, uh that's not what Scotch Irish means.
Scottish Irish means people who are right on the border. Right. All right. Uh they came because, man, The homes are bare. Mm-hmm.
There's n there's no food. Yeah. has been a failure again because of, um A drought or Or some other problem, they just cannot seem to get ahead. And that's why they had to leave and come. And they said, let's go here.
And and see what we can do. Were all of them solid, born-again, saved Christians? No, they were operating from a Christian perspective, but many of them just came. Because Either that or it'll be over for us. Yeah.
You know, is there anything like this at all in the East? Like, well, what I mean by that is. Since seventeen seventy six. Has anybody else ever even attempted to make this happen? Like, for instance, you grew up in India and you grew up in a Christian home, but there's also in India, and correct me if I'm wrong on this, but there's castes, right?
Where, like, if you're not born into the right family or if you're born into the wrong circumstances, your life is set. Right, right.
Well, the government has tried over the years to create opportunities and to sort of, you know, equalize the playing field by creating opportunities for they used to call them scheduled caste and scheduled tribes, which means like these people came late on the scene, so let's find a way to help them catch up. Kind of just like the DEI hype agenda. And it doesn't work. It did not work then. It only created more division in America, in India.
And I saw that growing up back in the 80s. Oh, yeah, people hating each other, looking down on each other, riots. People from the high caste burning themselves, you know, self-immolation. Yeah, it was terrible. I mean, that's that's.
DEI. Yeah. It doesn't. bring us together.
So Yes, efforts have been made here and there, but because they're not based on a Judeo-Christian foundation. They go only so far. Do efforts like that, whether it's DEI, whether it's those scheduled casts working with those individuals, where it's like a, no, no, you stop and let this person go. Do those ever work? Has there ever been a time when those have been successful?
Or is it because they're not based on Judeo-Christian values? I don't think they ever truly work. Work, work. um they may work for that individual who gets that leg up to move move forward and and and just jump the line. It may work for them.
But as a society, it just causes Uh division. it causes hatred. is not healthy for any community to grow. Because I work hard, I work smart, I I have kept myself Focused. Oh wait.
You're getting ahead of me. Based on what? Based on the fact that you belong to a certain class or caste or color.
Well, I guess you're going ahead. What happens to me? You're done. Go home.
So, all this time I've educated myself, or my parents have invested so much in me to do this. No, it doesn't matter.
So the opportunity is not there. Yeah, it's not going to be there. And that's why. A lot of people, not one reason, not every reason, but one reason why many people have left India to come to the West. Because they say there are opportunities here that they're not there in India.
You talked about growing up and really having this love for America that came down from your parents and in your household. In a sense, America was sort of always the destination. What was it like growing up knowing that the destination was somewhere else? What did that almost sense of longing feel like?
Well, it was not like the destination was always America in our home. Yeah. I didn't always see it like that. My parents did not always say, like, Hey, you're gonna always go to America. You know, you that's where you're headed, that's the end goal.
It was never like that. It was said, it was kinda like, Get education. Keep God first. Make sure you're not going to be able to do it. You know Christ and honor him in your life.
Do you think they had that in their hearts, that in their minds, that was their destination for you? Or did that like America was? Not necessarily. I think it just kind of happened naturally. It happened more and more as we saw.
Doors closing. For us. In India, we saw especially for Christians, my mom and dad, we saw things down the road where we felt like opportunities are not going to be there. Especially because we come from Christian families. And it's and people there are now telling us: wow, yeah, 100%, that's happened.
Um For Christians, it's it's harder to get a job. Does that mean Christians don't have a job? No, of course they do. But but moment they find that you're a Christian, it's kind of marked against you now. And that has been coming for the past, I would say, a decade or two now.
Right. My parents saw that, and many others, not just my parents, many others saw that, and they said, You need to go somewhere else where you can live your life. And where else would you go? Maybe England. Maybe you're up.
Maybe Maybe America. And then the more We understood. the difference between America and Europe is definitely America. Right. And not that we understood at the moment.
My dad and mom already knew that America was a was a great place, but just didn't know, you know, so far away. What do you think that did to you as a young man? 'Cause like you're 17 when you move across the country to start a life. Like me at 17, I'm playing like Halo 3. I'm eating chips.
You know what I'm saying? I'm like I'm my life I'm living life on easy mode. If someone told me at 17, I need you to go across the ocean and live there. with your brother. You have to grow up quick.
Yeah. You have to grow up quick. You have to mature. You you take risks, but you take risks very calculatedly. I had plenty of opportunities to do bad things.
Plenty. Plenty of opportunities to do make bad choices, and I didn't. It was not because of my Christian convictions. But many times it was because If I did that and something bad happens. What will I tell my parents?
Yeah. hurt me physically. They can't even come to my funeral. If it's something that's going to hurt me morally, What will this say about them and how much they did their best to raise me? To follow and love Jesus Christ.
Okay, so m many times it was simply because of I don't want this to happen to them. And then it was also the older you get, you go, No, I don't want this to happen to me because Man, I am a Christian. I cannot live like that. Right. You have a testimony.
I have a testimony. And so there was a time that I sort of. veered away from God, because of just circumstances of life. But Because I was saved, God brought me back. I came back to the truth and went back to following Christ again.
And very soon after that, God called me in the ministry. Mm.
So yeah, when I first came here, I knew I had to work. Mm-hmm. I knew I had to work hard. And I know there there are people who may say Yeah, you talk about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, but what about somebody who doesn't even have a boot? You know, that's what Martin Luther King Jr.
said that. And I do understand that's tough. That's tough. But it's only in America that you have people who may even give you a spare boot. Yeah.
Amen. Other places it's not that way. Dr. Shaw, we've got a lot of, and I know we're coming to the end here, we've got a lot of international listeners who may want to come to America. Maybe they're even initiating that process.
What encouragement would you give them?
Well, especially if you're a Christian, I would say pray. Pray and ask God to open doors for you. Pray that God will give you the opportunity to come and come legally, right? I mean, that's a very important thing. Pray that God will give you those opportunities, and God works in mysterious ways.
That's right. I mean, think about. In the Bible you have Joseph. in Egypt. Yeah, great, great example.
You have Moses.
Next in line to be the Pharaoh in Egypt. You have Esther who is a Jewish girl. said to be the queen of Persia. You have Nehemiah. right hand man to the king.
I mean there are plenty of examples there. Yeah. immigrants flourishing in another country. All because of God's grace. That's right.
Guys, make sure you join us tomorrow, same time, same station. We're gonna be diving into another great topic here on the Clear View Today show. Thanks again to our sponsors, LeBlue, Ultra Pure Water, and Mighty Muscadine for making today's episode possible. Forget that you can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Podcasts. Make sure you listen on Pray.com, especially the Pray Radio all month long, the month of October at 7 a.m.
Monday through Friday. Love for you to engage with Dr. Shah's content there. And if you're not already, make sure you're following him on Pray.com. You can always support us financially at Abadanshah.com forward.
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