When you're suffering, what you need most is wisdom. But biblical wisdom isn't a clever truth or a catchphrase to remember, it's a person. Discerning wisdom's true identity, coming to Brighton out on the previous section. 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. Welcome to another great episode of the Clearview Today Show, right here in our studio with our host, Dr. Abadan Shah. If you're listening for the very first time today, I want to let you know who's talking to you.
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 got a great conversation today. Yes, it is.
It's going to be a fun time. People have made a wise choice by tuning into the conversation. There you go. There you go. Back in our series on Job.
Dr. Shah, you've been preaching. How long have you been preaching on Job? How long has it been since you started? We actually began, I want to say, sometime about.
October?
Okay. Yeah.
So October, December, November. October, November, December, January. About three, four months in July. Yeah, it's been three, four months. Altogether, I would say.
Maybe 15 to 16 sermons so far. And I would say there are probably two to three more to go. Do you, do you ever, what do you find typically when you plan out a series? You're like, I'm gonna keep this one on the shorter side and it goes long? Like, like you're like, oh man, there's just so much to explore in this book?
Or is it more like, oh, I'm going to plan out this big, sprawling series from the start?
Well, most of the time, I go to these book series because there's something that I'm doing that ties in with this series.
So when we were in our end time series, by the way, we're still in the end time series. I have people coming to me sometimes. They'll say, oh, I wish we could go back to that. I said, we are already in it. Yeah.
Oh, but this is Job. I get it. We're learning about the satanic realm. What better book to go to than the book of Job? That's true.
It begins with Satan walking in and turning a man's world upside down. Why? Because he. Loved God. Because he feared God and shunned evil.
So Satan comes in and says, No, he doesn't love you for who you are. He loves you for what you do for him. And then you know, all hell breaks loose.
So my reason behind going to the book of Job was actually initially really to study the work of the enemy in the lives of people. and the world. And then to tie that in with This is why God's going to judge Satan In the end times. That's where I was going with that.
So, like R. C. Sproll said, you know, you cannot have, and I don't remember exactly how he said it, but you cannot have a good theology unless you have a good demonology. Mm-hmm. That was my purpose behind going to the book of Job.
And I think that's how it began. And I think it was a good purpose. But then as we began to go. through the first couple of chapters it I felt like, you know what? People are getting so much out of it.
We need to camp here for a while. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And so we did and ended up talking about trauma, which is kind of a one of our goals, our visions for our church for 2026, that we will be a church. of compassion, a church that cares about people and their needs.
So this sort of You know, the Holy Spirit has a better idea of what's happening. That's right. And what we need to do.
So we went for one reason, and then he opened up so many other reasons. That's right. There's sort of like all these different doors that you can open when you start exploring, I guess, really any biblical book, but especially in Job. And one of the ones that we wanted to talk about, we kind of started a few episodes ago, was this weird sort of in-between midpoint in chapter 28, right? Where Job is, the poetry is all sort of hanging together.
There's chapter after chapter after chapter, the same thing. And then you get to chapter 28 and it's like, wait, what is this? Yeah, you likened it to the eye of a storm in your message, where there's a storm raging around you still. The storm hasn't gone anywhere, but you sort of have this moment of. Clarity, this moment of calmness where you can kind of see things clearly.
But you do like read it. Like, if you're reading Job, it's like, Job, you must have done something. You must have sinned. And he's like, no, I didn't sin. I didn't do anything wrong.
And his friends are keep going and keep attacking that same point. And then Job in chapter 28 starts talking about wisdom. I wish I had some wisdom. I wish I could just get wisdom easily. And it's like, What are you talking about?
I thought we were talking about sin and justification.
So, for the benefit of our listeners, our viewers, the book of Job can be divided into various dialogue cycles.
So Chapter one and two It tells us about what happened to Job. He's a good man, loves God. fears God, shuns evil, and then Satan comes in And gets permission from God to attack him, all of a sudden his world collapses. It just keeps going downhill. And then finally, in chapter two.
Satan comes back in God's presence. Once again, God says, Have you considered my servant Job? Yes, I have. He. Still I think Loves you because of what you do for him, touch his body.
And then God gives him permission to touch his body. This is the worst thing that happens.
Now he is sitting on an ash heap, scraping himself with a piece of pottery. And then in chapter three, he talks about just wanting to die. I mean, that's it. I just want to die. I want to end my life.
Wow. I wish I was unborn.
Now, he's not saying I want to commit suicide, but it's more like I wish my life would just. Be gone. I wish it never happened. Never happened. Starting in chapter four.
is when those dialogue cycles begin with his three buddies. And they are horrible counselors. I mean, Job even says that. You are horrible counselors. Doesn't the Lord get onto them in the end?
Does he leave them on? Yeah, in the end, he fusses at them. Wow. And Job even offers sacrifices for his friends. Wow.
What a dude. What a guy. I mean, Job is like the example, the model guy. Because if my friends came to me and they were terrible advisors, I'd be like. Dude, you guys are already on.
Yeah, yeah. Good luck. God's going to fuss at you. I'm not. Starts fussing at them.
I'm like, get them. I don't want any part of it. Get them. Yeah.
So you have the first dialogue cycle, LFS, Build Ad Zofar. Second dialogue cycles again, Eliphaz. And it's really Eliphaz, Job, Job, Eliphaz. Uh build that. Uh Job, Job, Bildat, and then Zophar, Job, Job, Zophar.
I mean, that's how the cycles work. Yeah.
Until you come to the last one, the third one. And this is the one where. things began to go downhill. And Job starts speaking. He starts speaking in chapter 26.
Zophar doesn't even speak. He's like, I have nothing to say. Yeah, I'm done with you, Jeb. Bildad gives only five verses. All right, so this is where Job starts speaking, and he does not stop.
Speaking until chapter 31.
So 26 to 31 is Job just talking, talking, talking. And initially, he talks about how bad his life is, what is God doing, why am I being punished, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He goes on and on. And then All of a sudden in chapter twenty eight It's like there's a mood change. Job is no longer You know, this depressed Frustrated.
Angry, bitter man because of what's happened to him. All of a sudden, he's like, Let's talk about wisdom. But surely, this is evidence that this story was just pieced together from various sources, right? Like, this is obviously not theory. Scholars believe, yeah, scholars believe that.
You know, not all scholars, but many scholars look at this and they go, Yeah, this got to be something edited into this section. It's got to be some wisdom poetry somewhere. And some editor, as he was looking at it, and say, You know what? This used to be in Proverbs, but I think this is actually Job. It could work well in Job.
Copy, paste, glue it in the middle of Job. Yeah.
You ever like been like two computers have the same iCloud account? Like, and like what one of them, like, if Ryan copies something, I'll hit paste on my computer and it copies his time. That's what happened with Job here. Yeah.
And then scholars have come around and said, no, the problem is his vocabulary, his syntax matches perfectly the sections prior and the section after.
So this is not something that has been stuck in here. Just because There is a shift in his tone. There's a shift in his tone. Hmm. Uh his subject.
Yeah.
What is happening here?
Well, if you look at the book of Job. through the perspective of trauma. You know, that's what we've been trying to do. I'm not saying that everything in the book of Job is only trauma therapy. No.
No. Well what I'm saying is we can learn something from trauma therapy. As Michelle Keener has, and understand this book better because. Suffering is suffering. Right.
Whether the suffering happened in 2000 BC or 1900 BC or the suffering is happening in 2026. AD is suffering. And we've heard the message, but if anything, that our listeners and viewers, I mean, you guys who have been tracking with these episodes on Job, you know how relevant to our lives today the book of Job is, how impactful it is, even today, in the stuff that we deal with, the stuff that we go through. God's word is timeless, and the book of Job speaks perfectly to the situations that we face today. Think about the last time you were truly suffering, you were truly traumatized.
Imagine someone expecting you to have clear, logical, coherent thoughts. Like, if I was reading this, and I truly believe these are the words of a man who has gone through as much suffering as Job has, I think he's allowed a little bit of a detour, a little bit of a by the way. Like, I'm not expecting him to completely stay logically on the same subject for 40-something chapters. Yeah.
And what is a detour? He's having a good day. Until chapter twenty seven is like Bad Day. Chapter 27, verse 2. As God lives, who has taken away my justice, and the Almighty who has made my soul bitter.
Okay, he's not happy. Yeah, that's enough. Chapter 29, verse 2: Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God watched over me.
Okay, bad day. Yeah.
But in the middle CHAPTER twenty eight Behold the fear of the Lord. That is wisdom. and to depart from evil. is understanding. Yeah.
The old guy is back. Yeah, yeah. That sounds like the old Job is coming back. Job is coming back, man. He's healing.
He's getting better and better.
So, what is the conclusion we can draw just at this point? The conclusion is. When it comes to healing, healing is messy. It is not linear, it's not logical. Everything may be bad, and all of a sudden there's a good day.
And then, right after the good day, there's a bad day. Yeah.
So, you know, people in your life who. You know, they've been through some trauma. Maybe sickness, maybe divorce, maybe someone died. Maybe they went through some emotional breakdown. And you spend time with them, y'all go out to eat, and you're like sharing scriptures with them, you're talking about life, and you're laughing, you're trying to make them laugh.
And then you come back, and it's like, man, oh, wow, you know what? I am so glad. I'm so glad you came over. I'm so glad we went out. I'm so glad we spent some time together.
I feel better. I mean, I feel like my old self again. Oh, yeah, that's great, man. You know what? We need to do this often.
Let's let's plan on another how about two weeks from now, we'll do it.
Okay, sounds good.
Sounds good. I can use another day like this. And then let's say the following week. You're in the grocery store. And you run into the same person.
And they're back to the same thing they were doing prior to your visit. Man, I tell you what, my life stinks, and I just, you know what, I don't care. I hate the world. I just want to die. Oh, man.
What are you going to say? I thought we were having a lot of people. What's the matter with you? I thought this made a difference. She was healed.
I thought we were making progress. I thought you were doing better. What happened? I don't know. I'm just So what happens to when people do that?
As a pastor, as a counselor, as a friend, church member, Sunday school teacher, we feel like we failed. There often, I have in my early days in ministry, and I wouldn't say not early days, like. Decades ago, but early days, as in 10 years ago, I used to take that very personal. I would be like, man, I missed it. I don't know.
I don't get it. What is it that people understand about helping people? That I don't because I'm not saying that thing that That that you know all of a sudden is a brings about a breakthrough. Right. What can I say that will heal that person?
Yeah.
That would That would help them move past. And I would really blame myself. Maybe I need to read more books. Maybe I need to uh go to a conference. Maybe I need to audit a class.
What can I do? And then I realized That Healing is messy. The people go through ups and downs.
So just because they're having. A good day today doesn't mean they're not going to have a bad day tomorrow. Right. And when the bad day comes, I shouldn't take it personally. It's not because I did something wrong.
If I only had said this to them. No, it's just It takes time to heal. Yeah, it seems like, it seems like, and correct me if I'm wrong on this, but it seems like Job, sort of even in the middle of it, understands that. And that's what leads him to this discussion on wisdom in particular, because wisdom is what's going to get you through those good days and the bad days. You know what I mean?
Like, if I only have good days and I'm focused on my happiness and my joy, then when those bad days come, I don't have that. I'm like, I'm lost. But if I've got wisdom. Yeah.
I can survive both. And this chapter serves as a needed detour because he's not receiving that wisdom from his friends. No. He's not getting that good, godly wisdom from those three. Counselors, we're using that in air quotes now.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so Jobus. It's sort of Temporarily setting aside his pain, His doubts, his fears. Frustrations, whether with God or circumstances or even his buddies. And he says, I'm going to think about wisdom.
You know, I I think about going to church every Sunday or Saturday night. Like we have a service on Saturday night. We tell people, come Saturday night. If Sunday you want to spend time with your family or just sleep in or clean your house, you can do that. Come Saturday night.
Right. But whether Saturday night or Sunday morning, Coming to church is is like Job chapter 28. This is your day to set aside your problems and just come in. Warship. That's right.
Just coming Spend time with people. Just come and listen to the message. Pray. Encourage one another.
So that's what's happening here with Job. It's like that. That moment where he sets aside his problems and he focuses on wisdom. If you've got someone listening to this and they're equating wisdom with intelligence or equating wisdom with knowledge, you know, I can get intelligence and knowledge outside of church. Do you want to just kind of lay out how wisdom is different?
Like, what is wisdom? Absolutely.
Well, the Bible tells us the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Okay. So we know how we get it, we just don't know what it is. Right. So what is it? Job.
Masterfully tells us what it is here. The first thing he tells us in this chapter 28 of the book of Job is that wisdom. is hidden from common view. And what is amazing to me is that he uses the analogy of mining, like mining for coal or mining for gold. or mining for some precious metal or precious stones.
He he uses the analogy of mining to communicate to us that you cannot dig deep enough and take enough risks To attain wisdom.
So, if one of you wants to read that, I think our listeners, our viewers, may find that very interesting because, you know. Other than the fact that we're learning about wisdom and what it is, it also tells us that people in the past, when we talk about past, the book of Job was. probably four thousand years ago. Four thousand years ago. People knew how to mine.
They knew how to go down into these shafts in the ground. And go look for this vein that's running in the mountainside and go, whoa. There's gold in them there. Yeah, in them are hills. That's it.
That's it. So listen to this.
Somebody read it for us. Job chapter 28. And verse 1. Surely there is a mine for silver and a place where gold is refined. Iron is taken from the earth and copper is smelted from ore.
Man puts an end to darkness and searches every recess for ore in the darkness and the shadow of death. He breaks open a shaft away from people in places forgotten by feet. They hang far away from men. They swing to and fro. Can you see the miners going down in these baskets?
Yeah.
and they're going deep, deep, deep, deep down this pit, And they're going to keep going, and they have these, you know, unlike the miners today who have these helmets with the lights. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Little torch lights. They're probably carrying a torch or something like that. I don't know what they were carrying out there. But I'm sure they have something like that, or a little mud lamp going down deep, deep, deep. And they're in these baskets that are swinging back and forth.
Why? Why? Because that's what happens when you have these weighted baskets going down into the shaft. Yeah.
That's right. That's right. Not very different from our concept of mining. Not at all. Not at all.
Yeah.
Nothing new under the sun. Nothing new under the sun. As for the earth, from it comes bread, but underneath it is turned up as by fire. Its stones are the source of sapphires and it contains gold dust. That path no bird knows, nor has the falcon's eyes seen it.
The proud lions have not trodden it, nor has the fierce lion passed over it.
Now, let me pause there. There's so much. Depth here. On one hand, what Job is saying is. This precious metal or precious stone is deep into the earth's.
Surface. Where lions don't go. I mean, lions may have a layer somewhere. A cave somewhere, but they don't go that deep. Yeah, they're not going down deep.
So, lions have not walked down there. But it also has another meaning. Because even by this time, lions were used by ancient empires or kingdoms like the Mesopotamians or even the Egyptians. Sekhmith looks like a lion. They were used to represent gods and goddesses and power and authority.
So what it's saying here is? Proud lions have not trodden it. Means where this wisdom is? It's not found in empires and kings and wise men. And rulers.
It's so easy to read this as poetry. And by that, I mean to just skip over it, like, oh, okay, this dude knows how to write. Right. Yeah, just pretty word pictures. Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. That's exactly it. And you don't realize there's theological truths hidden. Kind of like mining for, kind of like mining, like, man, what a circle. You're kind of like mining for these theological truths in these sentences that you don't really know.
Now, John and Ellie have gone with me. Greece, right? And I think Ryan has gone too. But Ryan, you didn't get a chance to go to Mycenae. No.
Yeah.
But you went to some other places with me. Yes, yeah, we didn't. But John and Ellie had a chance to go to Mycenae with me. And I've been to Mycenae a couple of times. And when you go to Mycenae, R there there is this gate.
That you come to, you park the bus and you walk down this path and you get up here. Mm-hmm. And the gate has these two Uh lions. without the head, okay? They're like like almost like they are on the hind legs.
And And they're just standing as as position in a powerful position to declare their authority and their power. You're entering in here This is a place that is under power and authority. That's what it's an incredible sight. I mean, you really, you take a look at it and you know, this is a place where kings were. Like, this is, this is, this is not like, this is not like what you call like the slums or like where the common people say.
Like, it's kings lived here. Massive, massive walls. They call them cyclopean walls, right? Because the stones are so huge. But you walk under those lions, and sometimes the tourists who come have no idea what they're walking.
They're not even looking up there. Yeah, so they were seeing us taking pictures, and I'm filming with the lions behind me. They're like. I was like, make sure y'all get the picture of that. Oh, okay.
And I was like, that. is mentioned in Homer's Iliad, Really? I was like, yeah, he talks about the Lion's Gate. That's the lion's gate. It's true.
If you don't know what you're looking for, like I didn't, I had seen it in pictures and videos from when you guys went in 2017, but I walked under it the first time without looking up because it is so high up there. It's such a huge gate. That you have to be like, oh shoot, there it is up there. Yeah.
But for our purposes, what it's saying here is, proud lions have not trodden it. Means this wisdom is not. The property of the Greeks or the Egyptians or the Mesopotamians or the Syrians or the Chaldeans or the Canaanites. No, this wisdom cannot be found by them. And it's has not been found by them.
And it's valuable. It's valuable. You got to work for it. Like, I'm thinking about these miners here. Like, to get wisdom, you really got to work for it.
Not that you earn it. I mean, it's given to you by God, but at the same time, it's not easily attained. No, those veins of gold and silver and those deposits of precious minerals are down in the earth. You got to go looking for them. You got to hunt for them.
Okay. Verse 9 says, He puts his hand on the flint, he overturns the mountains at the roots, he cuts out channels in the rocks, and his eye sees every precious thing. He dams up the streams from trickling. What is hidden, he brings forth to light. That's amazing to me.
He dams up the streams from trickling. Isn't that what the miners have to do? Because when you go down into these shafts, deep into the earth's surface. Uh you know, you you s You strike a spring, underwater, underground springs. And so you have to dam up that spring and reroute that because you don't want it to flood the cave.
That's right. That's what they had to do back 4,000 years ago. And he's talking about that. Incredible. He dams up the streams from trickling.
So you see the little water, you know, like almost like beads of water. That's dangerous for miners because they're like, oh, that's not good. There's some alternative. There's a little bit of water. There's more water there.
There's more water there. That's right. How much water is there? Right. I mean, a little water flooding the bottom of the cave is all right.
But a lot of water coming, we're gonna drown. We're gonna drown. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Verse twelve But where can wisdom be found, and where is the place of understanding? Man does not know its value, nor is it found in the land of the living. The deep says, It is not in me, and the sea says, It is not with me. That's crazy. Man does not know its value.
If I've ever heard a truth from the Bible, I think that's one of the ones that sticks out to me. Yeah.
The deep says it is not in me.
So what's the guy's name back in the eighties? I used to watch his show, Jacques Cousteau. Jacques Custo? Custeau. Yeah.
I loved watching it. I I remember it coming home from church. It usually u was at like, say, one o'clock. Yeah.
So I would rush home from church and turn that on and watch this French dude. He would go down, you know, he would, you know, into the uh the ocean and and then the cameraman will go down and then they will go find all these animals. But one thing the deep says is, I don't have any wisdom. You can come down as much as you want to Cousteau, but there's always some here. I don't care what James Cameron does later.
Yeah.
Titanic can go down there. Yeah, there's no wisdom. There's definitely no wisdom there. All of this digging, all of this exploring, all of this searching through the depths of the earth and the depths of the sea, wisdom isn't there. Yeah.
And one more thing here: wisdom is priceless. Mm-hmm. In other words, The rich people are not the happiest people. Because if you could buy wisdom, All the rich would buy it up. That's right.
Now I have all the wisdom. I'm good. But unfortunately, you cannot purchase wisdom with money. Neither are the poor the wisest.
Now there are poor people who can be very wise because money or status does not determine your relationship with God and how much wisdom you have from God. But The whole point is Whether you have money or not have money. That's not wisdom.
So, Job says that too. Listen to Job chapter 28 and verse 15. It cannot be purchased for gold, nor can silver be weighed for its price. It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, in precious onyx or sapphire. Neither gold nor crystal can equal it, nor can it be exchanged for jewelry of fine gold.
No mention shall be made of coral or quartz, for the price of wisdom is above rubies. The topaz of Ethiopia cannot equal it, nor can it be valued in pure gold.
So there you have it. Can dig deep enough? Yeah.
and can pay high enough to get wisdom. I think we need another shell. Yeah, we're going to have to. Yeah, because we told you, we're two places where you can't get it. You can't get it in the bottom of a mine shaft.
You can't get it in the depths of the earth or the sea, and you can't go out and buy it. We got to talk about how you can get it. It's not in some Barnes and Nobles or I'm going to enroll in college or I'm going to give me a PhD. You can have three, four, or five PhDs. Yeah.
You may have knowledge. I can take a master class online. You can. But that doesn't mean you will have wisdom. That's right.
It's not a subscription plan that you can't. Like the platinum wisdom plan, please. If I spring for the platinum, you cannot. No, you cannot. I've already paid for it.
You cannot, unfortunately. But we're going to tell you on the next show. That's right. Make sure you join us, same time, same station. We're going to dig further into this topic on wisdom.
Thanks for joining us on the episode today. And if today was your first time listening, we want to make sure that you know that we're glad that you're here, that we love you, and we hope you join us again for the conversation tomorrow. That's right. You can find our podcasts, anywhere podcasts can be found. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TVN, Pray.com, Truth Network.
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