Everything may be bad, then all of a sudden there's good, or maybe everything's going great, and then all of a sudden it all turns bad. That's the uncertainty of life, and that's why we need something or someone who is steadier than our circumstances. Unpacking this and more coming up today on the Clear Meet 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, and welcome to the Clearview Today Show. We are here in our studio live with our host, Dr. Abadan Shah. If you're listening for the very first time, never listened to the show before, want to catch you up to speed.
Dr. Shah is 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. Thank you.
Thank you. Good to be here. Good to see you. Good to see you. It's going to be a great conversation today.
Oh, yeah. I'm looking forward to it. We've been going through the book of Job, and we're diving back in. We talked about Job yesterday and this idea that it's not a good idea to question God. And we sort of challenged that, pushed back on that, and showed that, you know, Job's relationship with God gave him the comfort and the peace to be able to question God and come to that understanding together.
And it's kind of funny because as we were walking through the book of Job, we came to this really weird in-between chapter, chapter 28. Do you want to kind of lay this out for us and lay the groundwork for what we're talking about? Yeah.
So. You know, we have laid out the structure of the book of Job. There are three dialogue cycles. Starting in chapter four, you have Eliphaz speaks, Job responds. Zophar Abildat speaks, Job responds, and then Zophar speaks, and Job responds, and then there's a second dialogue cycle and a third dialogue cycle.
In the third dialogue cycle, you can tell that the conversation is breaking down. It's not working out. It's not. going in the direction that the friends intended it to go when they first got there. They were hoping to come.
And grieve with Job, encourage him, and then get to the heart of the problem. We got to tell you, like it is because we are your friends. And if we're your friends, and if we don't tell you like it is, then you cannot get back all that you've lost. And what is it that we have to tell you? Job.
You must have messed up somewhere. You know, I often think about Even Christians, we think like that. We think that. When we're going through suffering, whether it is A job loss. Or financial problems or health issues or relationship breakdowns, we think, I must have done something wrong.
I know that's my default. Yeah.
God's punishing me. What did I do? What do I need to fix? Yeah, because when something happens, you look for a cause. And so the cause has to be me.
I must have done something bad somewhere. Like parents, they look back. to see, you know, if the kids are not doing right, what did I do wrong? Right. And in my early years, I used to say, it's like, yeah, you must have done something wrong somewhere.
But over the years, you know, you face your own struggles, and you go, no. It doesn't have to be something you did because there are many other factors that are coming in. Right. Factors like your own genetic makeup.
So, if in your ancestry there are certain issues, It may skip you and show up in your children. How in the world can you control that? Right. We almost treat human beings and God's creation like a machine. Because if a machine isn't working, it's because if the output's not there, something had to have gone wrong with the input necessarily.
And human beings are not that way. Right. There's so many factors. It's such a messier amalgamation of things. You know, you have the way that you were raised.
You have your genetics. You have the factors that you encounter growing up. You have outside influences.
Now you have social media. And then, of course, you have a real live enemy in the world, in the flesh. I mean, these are powerful forces that are trying to distract.
So, but but our natural default is I must have uh input the wrong data or wrong information or something I have messed up. And so this is the product, right? And we have to fight that, we have to get away from that. But that again, that's the natural default. And so his friends Came and said that to him.
And with each dialogue cycle As Job says nope, Nope. That's not true. Nope. Nope. Not gonna believe it.
They're getting angry. Yeah, because like you said, it's the default, right? It's so ingrained in us that when Job is saying, like, even me as a reader, knowing the correct stance that Job is taking. It's so ingrained in us when he says, No, no, no, listen, all of this, I didn't do anything wrong. I'm starting to dislike Job.
Right. I'm self-righteous. Yeah.
You're so full of yourself. And by the way, his friends tell him that. Job, you're self-righteous. You're so full of yourself. Yeah.
You need to humble yourself.
So, Job is so revolutionary in how we approach suffering and how we think about our place in this grand scheme of how events are lining up in our lives and circumstances are outside of our control. It's not always you messed up, you're getting punished. It's so much more than that. Absolutely. That's one of the things, too.
It's like where it's such a real human thing where when your friends are there to help you, they end up giving you advice. And then when you don't take the advice, they get mad at you for not taking the advice. Yeah, and that happens. I mean, that's happened to me when some friends of ours gave us some advice on how to handle a situation. We're like, yo, thank you.
Yeah, I definitely will. And then a week later, month later, hey, so how did it go?
Well, we decided to do this. Are you serious? Remember, we talked about this. I'm like, I know. I know and but we felt like, you know, this may be uh the right Hmm.
That's bad because you've just gone through this traumatic thing, and now, on top of that, the person that was supposed to be helping you, now you've just lost. you know, care about whether or not you're happy with that.
So by the way. Viewers and listeners, don't do that to people. That's right. If somebody doesn't take your advice, pray for them, whether it's friends, family, neighbors. Just pray for them.
And then just say, God. It's in your hand. That's in your hand. That's right. Unless you can like force them.
Yeah, you can't do that. You get in trouble for that. That's illegal. You go to jail for that. They can't force him.
The conversation's breaking down, right? Job's friends are getting steamed. They're mad. They're getting sarcastic. They are getting really irritated with him, annoyed with him.
They're saying things that are so out of character. You know what I mean? You get somebody really riled up. They say things. Yeah.
They say, Look, I'm so sorry. That's not me. Yeah, I didn't mean it. I didn't mean for it. But they're doing a lot of that.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. They're coming in. Zophar, I think we even mentioned Zophar so mad he don't even talk. Yeah, he's just like, I'm sad.
He's pouting. Yeah, Bildad says only five verses. That's it. Five versus like when I picture these guys, it's always like I picture like. I picture like the guys in cartoons where they get so mad they can't even speak.
It's like machin boo, like steam coming out of their ears. Chapter 25, if you ever look in your Bibles, it's only five verses. Maybe six verses, I think. That's crazy. It's not because Job cuts him off, it's just.
I'm done. And then they turned to look at Zophar. Zophar is like. I have nothing to say to him. Yeah.
Wow. It's kind of funny because we talk about like this idea that his friends are getting angry and then Job starts talking. But then I liked what you said when we talked about this. We talked about it off mic that 28, he talks from like 27 all the way to 31. But 28 is a weird chapter.
Right. And and people, scholars, even even non-scholars have noted like, okay, wait, what is he talking about here? You want to kind of lay that out? Yeah, sure.
So chapter 28 has been recognized for a long time, long time. When you go say the history of the interpretation of the book of Job. 28 always stands out as like What happened here? What happened here? He's mad in chapter 27.
Wondering why God is not coming through. And then in chapter 29, he's back to the same thing. I don't know why God is doing this to me. But chapter 28 is. Like Yeah.
It's so calm, it's so thoughtful in the sense of Let's talk about wisdom. Uh Michelle Keener says it in her book, she said it's like finding a curly fry in a box of uh You know, seasoned fries or regular fries. Yeah.
That's not getting positive to me. Onion rings. Yeah, it's like a little pleasant surprise. Yeah.
Like where he's like, is she saying it's positive where like he's he's calm now? He's he's pretty good. Yeah, he's just just like. Wisdom. Where does wisdom come from?
I love that analogy because anyone who's had onion rings versus curly fries knows. I mean, onion rings are great, don't get me wrong. But if you had to pick onion rings over curly fries, what do you do? It's always a good thing. You're going to pick curly fries.
Yeah, like Arby's Arby's used to do that. Like, I don't know who goes to Arby's and doesn't get curly fries, but when they used to have regular fries, you would get the regular fries and then there's a curly fry, and they're like, oh, that's a good thing. I like that. That's kind of chapter 28 in Job. I know I don't want to be on this all day, but you know who's really good for that?
Sheets. You get regular fries at Sheets. Almost guaranteed, you're going to get a couple curly fries. I think they do that on purpose. You might be.
You're going to come back. You might come back. You know, Five Guys does that. They'll give you like a ton of fries and they'll give you even more. I wish they wouldn't because it put me in a position I don't want to be in right now.
But yeah, that's always a good feeling.
So many scholars have come to Job 28 and they say. Nope, this is not Job. This is somebody else. This is maybe the narrator. This is probably a wisdom poem that somebody found, some editor found, and they stuck it right here between chapter 27 and 29.
It's not Job. It's not Job. It cannot be. How can the same Job Who Few verses earlier is just angry with God, and a few verses after chapter 28 is. upset with God again.
How could he so peacefully and calmly talk about wisdom? Yeah.
My studies have shown that it is Job because the vocabulary continues. If this was a piece of literature from somewhere else, there would be like. I'm not going to say vast differences, but there would be some differences. Like, oh, wait, this is not written by the same person. The way you write.
The way you write. The way you write, David, the way I write. is different. Yeah, even how we speak. Is different because that's how we were raised.
I grew up overseas, then I came here. And so I have a certain way of forming sentences. And it's different. It's not wrong. It's not evil.
It's just different.
So I had to. Very consciously work on fixing that so that I can connect with people and relate, especially during preaching. Chapter Twenty Eight If for all Purposes, it's exactly in the same How do I say this? Vocabulary. And syntax None of that is changing, except the tone.
It's just the content of what he's talking about, different. Which is an indication that it's not.
Something else that was inserted. Right. I encourage people to go read it. Yeah.
Read 27 and then read 28 and then read 29. You see a stark difference. This may be a discussion for another day, but I know you're a New Testament text critic, but as a text critic, is there any manuscript evidence that it was not there? It doesn't exist. Yeah, so text critical argument is null here, null and void, because there's nothing.
There's no evidence that this was added later. Yeah, so if I say that, oh, this is somebody else, then I have to prove that there are at least one manuscript out there that is like. Yeah, it doesn't have it. Right. Not there.
Okay.
So what is happening here?
Well, again, going back to trauma. therapy and things like that. I know our culture has taken it off. way off the deep end. But when it's properly studied, properly in a balanced way, Uh you know looked at It helps us understand what's happening in Job.
Job 27, he's having a bad day. Job 29, he's back to having a bad day. Job 28 It's a good day. Bad day, good day. Bad day.
Right. Isn't that how we go through life? I mean, shoot, that's how we go through conversations. Like, if you've ever had a heated conversation with someone, you know that it comes and goes in ways, especially if you're the one, like, I've had heated conversations with, like, I don't know, my wife or just friends or whatever, and you're passionate, you're talking, you're like, okay, hold on. I know you breathe.
I know I'm getting a little worked up, but what I'm saying is this, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you start to remember something. You're like, but, guys, this is why this is important. And so. It does kind of come and go in webs and flows.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's not just your days. It's also just like, that's how a conversation works. Every time you're processing, I mean, think about losing a loved one. Like, you're going to have days where you're really, like, really missing them and really feeling the sadness of them not being here. And then there are days that you're not quite as sad and, you know, that everything is okay.
But then the following day, You might be more sad than you were the day before, so it doesn't follow a linear trajectory where we're constantly the mood is just always improving. I'd honestly, yeah, I'd honestly be more concerned for Job if he, if he, from chapter three all the way to chapter 40, was just blasting God, blasting his friends. I would be more concerned if he didn't ebb and flow. You know what I mean? Um, scholars have said a lot about this: Bill Kynes and Will Kynes, their father and son, Kynes and Kines shout out.
I think we've shouted them out on the show before. Yeah, they're both uh scholars. Uh, the father, Bill, uh, was a pastor for many, many years, and then he went back to Cambridge University and got his PhD, I think, in the New Testament. I may be wrong. and the son has a PhD from Cambridge in Old Testament.
Good team. Yeah, good team. They got their bases covered. Yeah, so they wrote a book on Job together. And father kind of brings a more pastorly perspective.
And then the son has these deeper study sections, like appendix to each chapter, where he goes deeper into more of the critical issues or theological issues, things like that. And I appreciated the study. I don't agree with everything that they've written, but it's pretty good. Very good. I would say I agree with most of what they've written.
They remark that Job is going through the eye of the storm. a calm reprieve from a tumultuous clash. A reprieve, what is a reprieve? It's like there's a punishment, punishment, punishment. Reprief is like holding back on the punishment, holding back on.
On on you know, that that emotional outburst temporarily. Job is going through the eye of the storm in chapter 28.
So what is the application? I know we talked for eight minutes on this. The whole point is this: healing, I think Ryan just alluded to that, is not linear. That's right. Healing goes through ups and downs.
Healing is messy. Yeah.
So, when you come across someone in your family, loved ones, whatever, and one day you sit down with them and you help them work through their problems. And it seems like when you're finished, an hour later, two hours, a day later, you know, they feel like, man, I feel so much better, so much better. And then you walk away thinking, Mm-hmm. I'm so glad we did that. You know, I feel so much better because now that person is in the right track.
Yeah.
They're on the right track. They're going to be doing great. It's great. And then a week later, a month later. He called back.
Text And they're back. Saying the same thing. Same thing. I don't know. I'm just I I just feel like That person is this and this, and you're like, wait.
Didn't we just talk about that? Yeah.
Didn't you understand everything I said to you? Why in the world would you say the same thing you're saying again? And our natural inclination is to get angry with them. Yeah.
And to be like, hey, listen, I'm not going to talk to you anymore about this if you're going to keep repeating that. Listeners, viewers. Don't do that. Do not do that because they don't need for you to now fuss at them the way Job's friends did. Right.
That's right. They may have had a great day when they left you. But they may have a bad day tomorrow. We want consistency so desperately that we're willing to put it on the people that we love and the people that we are trying to minister to, trying to, you know, trying to be there for. But we expect robotic consistency.
It's really bad in like political discussions. It's really bad in like philosophical discussions. On the one hand, enjoy this whole like jubilee debate culture that we see online. On the other hand, is really, really, really not good because you're not allowed to change your mind. Yeah.
If you, if we were to have. a show today. And we're talking about something political or some stance that you're taking. And a year from now, you say, you know what, I've changed my mind on that. People would say, you're not a good scholar.
You're not a good communicator because you're not consistent. And we demand that from people so much that even when they're in the middle of healing, We demand Almost like a robotic sort of obedience to an ideology. Yeah.
Yeah, it's weird. I mean, you said it earlier with input/output. Like, we've led you through this, we've processed all of this.
Now, you move point past this point now. You shouldn't go back. No. Life doesn't work like that. Do you think it's also laziness?
Like, I really don't want to have to work through this with you. I just wanted you to get you past it. We want people to get better. We want relationships to return to normalcy, what we consider normal, what we consider happy. And it doesn't work like that.
If you offended somebody, if you hurt someone, if you really broken their trust. Just know. You may have gone and said, I am so sorry for what I've done to you. I am s, I was wrong. I was wrong for what I did, and it it wasn't right, and there's nothing right about it.
Please forgive me and blah blah blah.
Okay, great. Are you thinking It's done. Yeah, what more can I do? What more can I do? Yeah, yeah.
And then you hear something said again a week later, a month later, a half a year later, and you go, Why are you bringing that up again? It seems like you're still pretty ticked about it. Yeah, because healing takes time.
Now, there will come a day when that person will have to now go, should I keep hanging on to this or is it time to let it go? Mm-hmm. Pray for that. Pray that they will let it go. Pray that they will be like.
Okay, it's done. Done is done.
Now it is ridiculous. For me to hang on to this. That's right. That's right. You pray for that.
But if you say, Okay. You know what? They're gonna forgive me. This is who you are. You're gonna hold this grudge against me.
You're gonna hold this.
Okay, you're not understanding what you actually did to that person. That's right. That's right. And how the what so Job's the book of Job. I mean, I'm amazed that this book was written.
About 4,000 years ago. Yeah.
maybe four or five hundred years after the flood, It is so relevant. It applies to us today in 2026 with all our gadgets and technologies. It applies to us today. Because that's how we are, that's right, and not in a way where we have to work to make the application fit. Like, I guess I can draw some principles from no, it is so relevant, speaking to exactly how people process trauma and grief and things like that, anger, and everything, yeah.
Yeah, I wonder if it's this idea that because God is consistent, because God never changes, we should aspire to be like that. And maybe there's this false relationship between us who change and us who ebb and flow, and God who never does. But I think one of the things that you pointed out when we first started going through the book of Job is that Job points out the humanity of all of us. He shows just how human not only he is, but all the Bible characters are, and how that's not a bad thing. You know, it doesn't serve anyone to say because we're human, we are sinful and should therefore be ashamed of our humanity.
You know, God never, God never asks for that, He doesn't ask us to be. God. You know what I'm saying? I don't know if I'm rambling or not, but I guess what I'm saying is, I think what Job is going through is a very beautiful picture of humanity. Yeah.
And God. Meets us where we are. He doesn't want us to stay there. If Job continued this way for the rest of his life, he's a pitiful man. But Right now he's having a good day, bad day is coming.
Maybe a good day again, maybe another bad day. And that's part of life.
So I wanna encourage our people. Those who are listening and those who are viewing. Give give people a break. Yeah.
if they are having a bad day, Don't Remind them of the good day they had, and how dare they go back to a bad day. Just go, okay, it's a bad day.
Something has triggered them, and something has caused this pain, and they're having. Rough day. What do they need? They need God's grace. Yeah, that's right.
To pray for God's grace in that person's life. It's like a machine that is Making a lot of clanging sound because the oil is leaking. I visualize God's grace as almost like. Pouring oil on that machine so that begins to run smoothly again. That's all it is, the grace of God.
One of the things we do at our You know, on our team, is that when we are having a bad day, we don't feel ashamed to tell each other. You know, sometimes I'll wake up, just terrible mood, the kids are not cooperating, snapping at my wife, snapping, and I'm driving here. And on the way driving here, I'll just send a text and say, hey, guys, I'm having a bad day. If I'm snappy, if I'm distant, if I feel like I'm not paying attention, it's not on you. And just a something as simple as that, I feel not only it, I've never, ever had anybody say, oh, let me stay out of his way.
No, people are, people go out of their way to help you. Hey, can I do anything to help you? You want to, you want to, you want to buy you a drink, make you a coffee? Yeah.
There's a, when you communicate, especially with people who trust you, when it's something as simple as that, I found it has brought us closer together as co-workers, as friends, and also as Christian brothers. And that's helpful.
Well, I think that's a good reminder of the response that we need to offer when people are having a bad day, when people have ebbs and flows, and not the response that Job's friends give. Job's friends, and as the book goes on, we kind of use that in air quotes, Job's friends. They start to get frustrated. And they start to snap back at him. And then, I mean, we talked about the third dialogue cycle where Zophar just doesn't say anything at all.
That's not the response to give. That's not helpful for people when they're struggling, when they're dealing with these ebbs and flows in their mood or in a situation. We need to be present. We need to be loving. We need to be understanding.
Dr. Shel, we talked a little bit about what to do if you're on the receiving end of that, where if you're like, you're. You've done everything you can, but this person is still not List, do you have any words of wisdom for the person who's going through it, where they're like, listen, I'm tired of going through these ebbs and flows. I don't want to hold on to this, but I just can't seem to get over it. What I would say is what I've said to myself when I have gone through those, and I may go through them again.
is our prey. You have to pray. You have to pray in that very moment that your heart is going towards. In a negative direction, because of her memory, because of a pain, because of a hurt, you pray and say, God, protect me. Don't let your thoughts run away.
I've tried to do that. with my own self. Don't let your thoughts run away. You know, the Bible, Paul talks about that. Bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
take every thought captive. What does that mean? Make it a prisoner and put it under the feet of Jesus. And say, that's where you're going to be. I'm not going to go down that way.
That's right. Now, you may even feel justified. Satan will tell you, yourself will tell you. Your memory will tell you. You're justified to feel this.
He said, No, I'm not justified because it's not right.
Now don't don't deal with yourself like super harshly. And angry with yourself for having a negative day or a negative thought or a bad day. But you can definitely Sort of uh Pull yourself back. where you need to be. Right.
That's not going to help anything. Right. And ask the Holy Spirit to help you. He is with you. The third person of the Godhead is with you.
Ask His help. He he is He's the one who encourages us. He's the one who comforts us. And so ask him to help you and he will. Yeah.
So, prayer is the key when it comes to having a bad day. Amen. I think that's a wise response. And I know that, you know, chapter 20 is about wisdom. We didn't really dive into the wisdom side of things.
We'll dive into it tomorrow. Today, but today is an important discussion about how to respond when, you know, you have a loved one who is going through that sort of ebb and flow, that good day, bad day, good day scenario, or when you yourself are dealing with that. I think for me, you know, a struggle has been when I have a good day and then a bad day, I'm like, oh, now I've messed up.
Now, now this is a trajectory. Yeah, the good day no longer counts. Right. Yeah.
It's just only bad days from here because I've taken a step backward. And that's not true. That's not the case. God is still working. God is still moving, even when you're struggling.
And it's important to remember that. It's important to spend time in prayer, too. I've often found, like, for me personally, the bad day will, the bad day will come to an end if I do a couple of things. Like, I know if someone says something and it really gets under my skin, it's not going to get better before I either eat or go to sleep. You know what I mean?
Like, I don't know what it is, but I've, I've usually, usually. Found that things that bother me don't bother me the next morning. That helps because while I'm thinking it in the back of my mind, I'm thinking they should not have said that. They don't understand. They don't know.
But in the back of my mind, I know I won't feel this way tomorrow morning. God has given me a lot of grace there because it's a lot easier to, because the last thing you want to do is like act on it, go confront somebody, start breaking. Because I know once I wake up in the morning, I'll know, okay. That person was actually probably right. Yeah, a little bit of perspective.
So, yeah, that's always helped me. That's right. Guys, make sure you join us tomorrow, same time, same station. We're going to be diving into another great topic here on the Clearview Today Show. Thanks again to our sponsors for making today's episode possible.
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We're going to be there from February 17th to the 20th. We want to keep saying it over and over and over.
So, you guys who are there will come and see us. Say hello to Dr. Shah. We're going to be there in the prayer, in the pray.com booth. We're going to be part of the Truth Network booth.
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You guys didn't even know this announcement was coming. It's called How to Read Biblical Hebrew with Dr. Abadan Shah. Lessons one and two are up right now. But listen, if you've ever wanted to dive into the text of the Old Testament, especially, this is a great podcast for you.
We're going to go over all of the basics. We are going to start from ground. Round zero? Round level one. Basically, you're gonna start right from the beginning.
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