December is the month of giving to the Ladi Moon Christmas offering. Every single dollar goes straight to missionaries on the front lines all over the world. And today we're going to talk about why your generosity matters more than ever. All that and more coming up right now on the Cleaver Today Show. 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. Welcome back to the Clearview Today studio. It is Christmas time over here in North Carolina.
It's Christmas time everywhere right now. And we are so glad that you're here celebrating, joining us for today's conversation with our host, Dr. Abaddon 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. We are gearing up for Christmas.
Yes, the Christmas music is going, and at least in my home, Nicole starts listening to Christmas music months in advance. I'm talking about in October. Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Nicole and I are cut from the same.
I was trying to come up with a Christmas pun, but the same cloth where that's concerned. Yeah, yeah. It's funny because she put a huge sign on your chair years ago that says Grinch because she was not happy with you. She was not happy with you. And it's still there.
Yes.
So I don't know how you got, you might think you're cut from the same cloth, but I don't know if she shares that sentiment. Can you even get it off? I can. You can. I choose to.
But you like it. You like being. All the Greens. But you like being all the Greens. I think that's the point, he's unlikable.
Yeah, but I mean, in the end you like him. Because his heart grows three sizes in that day. I can't believe he's not dead from that. That's cardiac distress. Yeah, I was going to say, in all seriousness, cardiac enlargement is a very serious problem.
It is a very serious problem. No, no, no, I like that. The Grinch is kind of a cointessential Christmas thing. And, you know, the whole story of the Grinch is similar to that of Ebenezer Scrooge. He learns his lesson and, you know, he becomes one of the biggest champions for Christmas after his whole ordeal.
Hey, I got a Christmas story for you, Dr. Shaw. It comes from John chapter 3 and verse 17. This is the verse of the day. It says, For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Now that's Christmas. That's Christmas, if I ever heard it. That's right. That's Christmas, Charlie Brown. Absolutely.
The great, great.
So I wanted to ask you this. This is not Christmas. This has zero to do with Christmas. This really has zero to do with the Bible, but I want to ask you this because I heard it on another podcast. I will not take credit for this.
But when I was listening to it this morning, it made me, I don't know why, but Dr. Shaw, it made me think of you as a pastor. You get put into some kind of weird social situations sometimes because you meet so many people. And of course, church people are coming, they're wanting to meet someone.
So I'm going to lay this scenario out for you. And I want you to tell me how you would socially navigate this.
Okay. And Ryan, you feel free to chime in as well.
Okay. There's a new couple in the church. Go ahead and name them for me, Ryan. What's the new couple's name? The Flanagans.
The Flanagans. Let's say Jan and Troy Flanagan. All right. They come up to you, Dr. Sean.
They're saying, hey, we love Clearview. We love you and Nicole. We want to invite you over to our house for dinner.
So of course, you're going to go to their house for dinner, right? You're at their house, beautiful home. Beautiful. Like, I mean, like, imagine like Kevin McAllister from Home Alone. This is a very nice home.
And they're giving you the tour. And when you go into one of the bathrooms, they say this is the spare bathroom. We don't, nobody uses this bathroom. You see in the tub. Is some brisket.
And I mean a lot of brisket.
Now, I'll say right off the bat: the brisket smells amazing, the brisket looks amazing. Mm-hmm. But it's in the tub. It is in the tub. Yeah.
That's rough. Let's say for dinner, you I mean, well, first and foremost, are you commenting on that at all? Are you just like, uh, okay, or are you just trying to get past that? Uh I'm not sure what they're doing with it. They're they're cooking it, they're marinating it.
In the tub. In the tub. Boy.
Okay. Okay. So I'm guessing you're like, I'm just going to. Kind of be like, just nod and hope we move to another room soon.
Okay. For dinner that night, there's brisket on your plate. Right. How are you navigating this situation? What do you think?
What would you do? I think before I took a bite, I'd be like, man, this prison smells amazing. What's your secret? We marinated in the bathtub. I'm sorry.
This is Jan talking. She's like, we marinated in the bathtub. In the bathtub? It smells great. And it looks great, but it was yeah, we marinated.
That's our secret. Oh. What's wrong? You're barely touching your brisket. I've just never had tub brisket before.
Dr. Shaw, you've put down your fork. It would be tough, but I will, in Jesus' name, go ahead and eat it. Would you would you do So, you don't make any comments, you don't go like, oh, is this sanitary? Or you just go for it.
So, look a couple of bites and then. I'm very going. If it tastes really good, I'll keep on rolling. Not just try not to think about it. Yeah.
I think I would. Power through. I'd eat it. Yeah, I would eat it too. I'd eat it.
I wouldn't say. I kept imagining.
So they had this hour-long conversation on this podcast about how they could be like, oh, this looks so great. Unfortunately, I'm vegetarian. Like, how to get out of it. But I think, honestly, I would just go for it. I just eat it.
If it smells great and I try to bite and it looks really great.
So for me, it's not a big deal because I grew up in a kind of a missionary type home. I grew up in a pastor's home, but we had a lot of connections with missionaries. And dad did a lot of work with missionaries. In fact, in a sense, he was a missionary.
Now, we were not a missionary family, but he did a lot of going into places that people normally don't go, tribal areas, unreached people groups in India.
So was it some Tub briskets going on, kind of like that? Like similar things? It's nothing compared to what he went through. Right. Oh, yeah.
So you want to hear something? Yeah, absolutely.
So there are a couple of stories.
So one is Both of them involved Dr. Fred Shilander. Fred Shilander was a. Uh missionary. to India.
His he he actually was born in India. His family came to India as missionaries. His mom and dad came to India as missionaries. And He grew up in India. British family?
No, they were American. American family. But Swedish background.
Okay. Okay. Swedish background.
Okay. So, um. And that he was born in India. He was born in India 1902. Wow.
Yeah, born in India. And he died in 1993, and he is buried in Washington state.
Okay. Yeah. I mean this right here, for those who can see online, this is his uh His uh uh gravestone that is in uh Uh Snohomish County, where Everett? Washington. And Snohomish County, Washington.
Yes, Cyprus, Law. Yeah, there it is. Born in Maharashtra, India. Yeah. That's the state you're from, right?
That's right. Maharashtra. Yep. That's where.
So he was born there. And, you know, he came into my dad's life when my dad was wandering all over India, sharing the gospel. Um preaching the gospel. And then oftentimes getting beat up because He would he was very direct.
So they told Dr. Fred Shalander about my dad, and he left. um information with a family that had taken my dad in at one time that if This young man, ever comes by here, let him know. That a missionary by the name of Fresh Lander is looking for him and would like to send him to a seminary.
So, anyways, that's how their connection began. And of course, my dad came by after six, seven months of wandering all over India, came back to this family, and they're like, hey, you need to go to a seminary. And he didn't even know what a seminary was. Yeah. He said, What is a seminary?
He said, Seminary is where you go to study the Bible. Oh, okay. And here's a missionary. And you need to go. Wow.
So my dad came to the seminary, and of course, the rest is history. But later on, when my dad... came to the church where I grew up. Right? I mean, you know the big story about how he was going to go to Cary Baptist Church or the Lord Church, but he gave that up and came to the small church.
That small church. was right next to the mission house where doctor Fred Shilander lived. Wow. In Basawal, India.
So the church, the parsonage, and the next door is. Dr. Fred Schillander's house. That's right. Was he living there at the time?
Oh yes.
Okay. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So they're next door neighbors.
They became next door neighbors. That's really awesome. Yeah, God works in amazing ways. Yeah. Let's say so so Doctor Shalander sends your dad to seminary.
And your dad accepts this call to the church in Usavo. Yeah. And then. It happens. It so happens, which we know it doesn't so happen.
God orchestrated all of this. They end up being neighbors. Right. Wow. I'm guessing that's the church that Dr.
Fred Schlander attends. Um yes. When he was in town, he would attend that church. In fact, he was good friends with my mom's dad. Wow.
Wow. My mom's dad was Thomas Franklin, after whom our fourth one is named. Same, yeah, yeah. What was that moment of realization like between your dad and Dr. Shalander?
Like, now you, oh, it's you. Oh, now we're living together. I have never heard that part of the story. Wow. As interesting as that could have been.
Yeah, man. But I'm sure at some point in time, he might have quickly realized, or. The dean at the school must have told him, and by the way, do you know that you're going to the same church where Dr. Shalander usually is at? Because he was a missionary, so he would travel.
But that's where the mission bungalow, mission house was.
So, your dad, through being there and through being exposed to that, saw a lot of missionary life? Not just through Dr. Shalander, but also through just his heart. He was very missions minded. And so a lot of missionaries would come in and out of our home.
Yeah. So our home was like a missionary Like a center.
So it was nothing for you to come home and there'd be just people in your house that you didn't know. Yeah, a lot of Europeans. Wow. Yeah. Suddenly these people are here and they're sleeping in your room and you got to sleep on the couch.
Yeah. England, Germany, Sweden, Denmark. Um Let's see. America, Canada. Philippines.
What was it like having missionaries just in the house? You'd come home from school, not even know it was happening. Yeah, I mean, you have to give up your room. Yeah. They can have a bunch of people.
They can sleep. Yeah. Wow. You just kind of knew to expect that. Oh, yeah.
Absolutely. And that was fine. Yeah. You know, and so for us, it was exciting in some ways. We're like, oh, there's somebody else here.
It would go introduce ourselves. And to us, it was very exciting. It's like, oh, we get to meet somebody who is from the West. I don't know what it was for them because some of them were just young.
So they were sort of like being cordial. But to us, it was like, so great. Can I have your address so I can write to you? Really? Wow.
That's what you would do. Wow. And some were like, oh, yeah, I'll give it to you. And they would give it to us. Because they didn't understand.
Some of them did not understand.
Someone, some did. They said, oh, sure, I'll do.
Some didn't understand that we didn't want anything from you other than just. Just correspondence. Just wanted to work. Just to be friends. Yeah.
Wow. That's really cool. What was the most unusual. missionary visitor that ever passed through your home. Oh, that's a great question.
We're going to come back to, by the way, for those who are listening and wondering, how do we get on this topic? With the briskets and the tub, the top brisket, yeah. Yeah, yeah. The most unusual missionary that came to our home was actually a man. who was an Indian.
Hmm. And this man had taken a vow not to speak. dismute for the rest of his life. Yep. And was a missionary.
He was a missionary. And was going to share the gospel. And he had taken a vow to wear a burlap sack. I don't like I don't like it. I don't like that.
Oh yeah.
Okay. So it's not like just like he was naked. No, he was very well covered. Right. But he was wearing this thing.
Like it is a burlap, it's straight up a burlap sack. Yes.
But I mean, of course, he, you know, has very well covered pants and shirts. But it was, so it was very, you know, I mean, I mean, I cannot have burlap on my skin. Like it's a BO. It's horrible. It's itchy.
Yeah, it's itchy. And he had taken those vows. And those vows, and to us, it's like, why are you doing that? That's dumb. You know, by grace through faith, you don't have to do those things.
No, he had taken a vow so that he could engage people with the gospel. Without speaking. Without speaking. Yeah. So, you say, how does he speak?
I was going to be interested to see. This is the question I've been leaning to. One of the quintessential parts of being a missionary is telling people what you're doing. Yeah, my interest is peaked. I'm not going to.
So, the way he would preach is the Bible would be open. And he would turn quick point to that. And that's what the person speaking would have to read that scripture. And so, my dad was a reader for him when he came to our church.
So, okay, so he took the vow of silence before, like, as a part of being a missionary, like, this is the vow I'm taking so that I can do this way. I don't know the inception. I don't know when it all began. But he had taken the vow. That's the vow he had taken.
So, your dad functions almost like an interpreter. In a sense. And my dad had done that for many other missionaries who would come. They didn't know Hindi, so my dad had to translate for them constantly. And dad himself was a big name speaker when he was also, you know, he worked with the Billy Graham Association.
Did you meet this person? Did you meet this man or is this a story? I do. I do remember him kind of vaguely because I was like maybe six, seven years of age. Wow.
So it was very young. Wow. But it was a. Amazing, powerful message because the way he weaved all those passages that it was a message coming straight from the Word of God. Wow.
So it's like he I'm just making this up. Yeah, yeah. Like he was flipped to where John the Baptist calls repentance. And you would do that and then repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For all have sinned and followed the glory.
And he was fast moving through that scripture. Wow. Was he an Indian man? Was he an Indian guy? Yeah, he was a missionary.
He just traveled everywhere, had taken a vow of silence. Unbelievable. Wow. Wearing a burlap sack, which was very painful. But that's a way of communicating his burden for the lost.
And people would get saved. Huh. Wow. That's incredible. Man.
Because it's the word of God. Nothing from man is coming in there. Right. It's directly straight. The Bible.
Wow, that's incredible. The entire message is the Bible. I think that's what makes it kind of unique and interesting: it's like, I'm not interpreting it. You're just reading it for yourself. Yeah.
And the whole point behind it. Yeah, like the whole not speaking thing is like, I'm not tainting it. I'm not giving you my spin on it. You yourself are reading the scripture. That's certainly a hook.
I mean, I would pay attention. I mean, you know, like this scripture right here, you know, Philippians 4:5, the Lord is at hand. But instead of him saying that, He would just find it. Mm-hmm. And and point to it.
That's pretty cool. Man, that is pretty cool. Did your dad continue working with him or just a couple of times? I think that he came and stayed with us like a good couple of weeks. Nice.
Much older than your dad? Same age? I think he was older than Muffin.
Okay. Yeah. I remember that. He was not very, very old, but I would say at the time when he came, he would have been in his. Probably fifties.
Okay. Oh, and so this if this was late seventies and my dad would have been in his 30s, maybe? Was that rare for Christian missionaries to be Indian? Were they typically from somewhere else? Yeah, it was rare.
I didn't see a lot of Indian. Missionaries. That's still pretty awesome. Was he just going from state to state in India? Town to town, village to village, wherever whoever would take him in, and he would.
Spent some time. He would write things to communicate. Wow. Wow. And people are getting saved.
Yeah. That's really incredible. Yeah. Yeah. There's a people because in Indian culture Uh there are a lot of these kind of people who take vows.
And the vows are to not speak, or the vows are to keep one hand raised, or the vows are to s I don't know, just uh Do weird things, like grow out all your hair, you know, stuff like that. Right. But they're doing that to attain nirvana or to attain.
Some form of eternal life, which is. But there's nothing there. Right. Lostness. Are those prescribed somewhere, like a list of possible vows, or do people just kind of come up with, I'm going to do this?
Yeah, I mean, they just come up with it. People just kind of come up with it. There's no such thing. Yeah. Yeah.
There's no such thing as a holy book as we have it. Right. Old Testament, New Testament, even Islam. Islam has the Quran, but the Quran is really based on stories in the Bible. That's true.
Yeah, that's true. Take away the Bible in the Quran, it's a book without a reference.
Now, they had a lot of statements, but the Quran will often say, but as we said to Moses, as we said, well, who's Moses? Yeah. We got to have the Bible to know that. Yeah, the Bible doesn't need the Quran to exist, but you can't say it the opposite way. Right, exactly.
Or we said to Esau, Esau is Jesus.
Well, That you need the New Testament to know who Esau is. You got to have the Bible as a companion in order for it to be dependent on it.
So, anyways, it's a. Uh so the whole concept of a holy book is really Old and New Testament.
So talking about Lottie Moon, right? Because December is where we're giving to international missions. I think for someone like me who's like, I'm giving, right? We're giving, but I don't get to see it. Yeah.
Is money tight for missionaries, or at least like when you were growing up, was it like you can tell, like, hey, these people are doing everything they can with what little they have? Yeah, there were some who were there for the wrong reasons. There will always be people like that. You know, we don't know what their motives are, but sometimes the way they will act and behave, you're like, Wow, you don't like anything here. Why are you here?
You don't like the people, you don't like the food, you don't like the weather, you don't like anything. Why are you here? But they're hiding for something or they're escaping. The Western world to come here. I remember there was a guy who said one time.
Uh, that he hated the south. He was looking for churches like around the south. Uh, he was like trying to come and get like a like jobs at churches. And I remember one of the things he said was, like, yeah, I'm just, this is ain't my place. I don't like the south.
And I was like, why would you say that to a pastor who's trying to hire you in the south? Right. Yeah. And why are you here? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And I guess it's the same with missionaries. Like, it's not like the Mormons where they just get sent somewhere. Like, you chose to go there. Yeah. But.
Um As a whole, most missionaries were there for the right purpose. A lot of them were very sacrificial. A lot of them were very dedicated and were there to serve God. And that's why we support the Ladimoon Christmas offering. That's why we also support the Annie Armstrong, which is more in the springtime and supports North American missions.
But this is for Southern Baptists. But the Christmas offering, the December offering, which is a Ladimoon Christmas offering, goes to support international missions. Right. Yeah. Right.
Missions is on your heart as a whole, Dr. Schmidt. Oh, absolutely. We support missions year-round, not just at these two times. As a church, we support missionaries and different entities and organizations who are serving the globe over.
We serve, we help people in Uganda. I mean, directly. We're not like going through a mission agency. We serve directly. Yeah, we've built relationships with these people.
Absolutely. And we give and support in Haiti. I mean, big time, we're supporting missions in Haiti. That's right. Yeah.
I think it's an interesting conversation to have. have with you because your life has been touched by missionaries. Like for someone like me, It's like I'm convinced that missions are a good thing, but for me, missions has only ever really become applicable on mission trips that I went on as I was in a youth group. You know what I mean? And it's like, at the end of the day, that was nice, but that was like a fun trip for me.
Right. And I don't mean that in a way. I think there's a place to go somewhere where you've never gone to have fun, to learn new things, to experience. Right. Things that you've never experienced.
So, all that, nothing wrong with that. Right, right. But I think it is great to have this conversation with someone whose life. Was so impacted by missionaries. You know what I mean?
Like, and I think you have a unique sense in that where you're seeing these people from elsewhere coming and genuinely sharing Christ with the people that you were growing up around. Absolutely. Yeah. Now, going back to the original story about the. Bathtub brisket.
Yeah, yeah. So, a couple of things happened with my dad and Dr. Freshlander. This is going back in the 60s. Wow.
So they went to this one uh village and uh Well there was some Christians there.
So my dad and Doctor Stander went in there. And now there was some old British presence there at one time. And since then, the British had left and had left a lot of their things behind. And um so you know, they sat him down to eat. And um The The the utensils they brought out were two bedpans.
Oh no, no. That's not so. Did they know that that's what they were? No, they had no clue. They thought they were just like bowls of some kind?
Right. Well, I mean, I guess technically they are. Yeah. They had no clue that they were bedpants. Oh.
But my dad and Dr. Sander knew right away what they were. And they sort of looked at each other. And they both prayed in Jesus' name and ate. They ate.
I don't know, man. I want to say I'd have the faith, but. I wanna say I'd have the good girl. I mean, what do you do at that point? You're there to share the gospel with somebody.
You're gonna tell them about Jesus. You can't be like, I'm I'm not eating that. These are mission. These are Christians, by the way. But and I think they were Christians, or maybe they had just become Christians, or they were in the process of coming.
So I think it was something that was at stake that if you don't do this, Uh, this would be you will close off the opportunity to share the gospel. That's something like this.
So, I want to say either they had just gotten saved or they were on the verge of getting saved, something like that.
So, yeah. Yeah. I definitely, I definitely, there's a sense of like when you travel, especially, and I didn't notice this until the first couple of times I've traveled, like to Israel into Greece, but there definitely is, I don't know if this is specifically American behavior to want to talk about this, but like when I'm, when I'm traveling, I'm like, whatever they put in front of me, it's like, you got to at least, at least give it your best shit. But I've seen others, I've only ever seen Americans do it, but I don't know if other people will do it. But they're like, I need to just kind of talk to the waiter and maybe just explain.
like here if you talk to the waiter like okay yeah we'll get you another one but like i've definitely seen overseas where people are like it's um it's vegetables it's yeah you just you eat and they're like no no no but it's i can't have it this way because i have this and this and they're like okay you just yes it's very good you eat and i'm always like i'm always i never say anything but i'm always like hey man i would i just eat it and i do remember as i was as you were talking i was thinking back to that story because dad shared that story uh they that family if i'm not wrong i'm I'm trying to reca re recollect. That was... That was the only rice that they had.
So they cooked everything and they put it in front of my dad and Doctor Shalander and they just sat there and they they but you could not say, Land, I want you to eat this. No, they were like, No, so you would insult them, so they ended up eating that because this was a sacrifice for them. Wow, wow, give you their best meal. Wow. Another story, since we're on the story, so go for it.
I love each other. Is uh they went into a village where good clean water was not available.
So your dad and Dr. Shalander kind of became a team. Like a mission. Not like constantly, but at times they would go out together. Got it.
Yeah, many times. Not like every single week or every single month. But they had some kind of a partnership where they would go missions. Hey, do you want to go here? Yeah, I think I have time.
Let's go. Got it. So they would do those kind of things.
Nowadays, you can't do that in India. It's the world has changed. Unfortunately, not for the better.
So they went to this village where. Water was not Clean. Clean water was not available. And so Yeah. They come to this headman's house.
Head man is like the the chief of that. The village, if you want to put it in more American terminology.
So they come to the headman's house and uh so he you know th they were gonna drink some water so He has this bucket of water that just came out of the well. Oh, man. And Of course, it's not clean or whatever it is.
So he takes the edge of his um It's known as dhoti. Dhoti is like a rap. He takes the edge of that wrap, puts it Like a uh Like a mesh on top of the cup to like filter it out. Then they use that to filter it. It's okay, all good.
Eeeee man, I would be so scared.
So, water, my dad joked to us like it would have been better if we had just drank with them because I got no clue what that did you add to the water rather than have his uh his wrap be the filter for. For The water because they said the rap didn't look very clean. Yeah, I can imagine. I can imagine. These are not.
Average Indian people. This is like way in the interior of not just any village. uh travel villages when you're going deep into the interior where where Outsiders don't usually go.
Nowadays, things are changing over the past couple of decades, three, four decades, a lot has changed in India. But You're talking about the 60s. Oof. Yeah. Things were different back then.
Yeah, I can imagine so. Wow. Well, what is our word for the audience today?
Well, I mean, think about it. Isn't that what Jesus did when he came down? Imagine what he had to endure to become like us. I mean, that's what he did. That's right.
Incarnational ministry is to be able to step into the world of the people and meet them where they are. And I don't always handle that well because to me that gets on my nerves, annoying, frustrating, but that's what you got to do. Amen. Amen. Sometimes eat the brisket.
That's right. Sometimes I just eat the brisket. Eat the fan. Drink the water, eat the rice. Drink the water, eat the rice, eat the brisket.
That's right. Let's put that on a shirt. Yeah, there you go. Drink the water, use the bowl, eat the brisket. Thank you.
That's it. I like it. Copyright that note. Guys, make sure you join us tomorrow. Same time, same station.
We're going to be diving into another great topic here on the Curvy 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, Spotify, Prey.com, TBN Plus very soon. Yes.
If you want to re-listen or share it with a friend, and you can always support us financially at Abadanshout.com forward slash give. That's right. John, what do you want to leave the listeners with today? I think you said it all, my friend. Just definitely make sure you go on ahead and get that TBN Plus subscription right now.
It's 100% free. Actually, I've been saying that. I don't think it's there. I think it's $5 a month. I could be wrong on that, though, but just check it out.
Either way, it's completely worth it. They've got tons and tons and tons of great content on. There. You can also find all of our shows on Pray.com. We're still doing very well on Pray.com.
NRB 2026, we're going to be there. Nashville, Tennessee, we want to see you guys. If you're going to be there, if you're in ministry, especially broadcast, Christian broadcasting ministry, come see us. Come say hello. We'll be with the Truth Network and we'll also be there.
Dr. Shaw will be there as part of Pray.com's featured leaders lineup.
So we want to see you. That's right. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow. We'll clearly today.
