Hey guys, John here. I just want to take a quick moment and say thank you for tuning in to the Clearview Today Show. As you can imagine, producing a show like this takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of resources, and we are incredibly grateful to the Truth Network for giving us a platform to share the show as well as Pray.com, TBN Plus. But just know that the majority of our support actually comes directly from listeners like you.
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Now let's jump into the show. If there's one thing the book of Job taught us, it's how to understand and work through the suffering in our lives. But if you ever wondered why do we have to suffer in the first place, we're going to unpack this in the book of James coming up right now on Clearview Today. 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 John Galantis, and I'm here with our host, Dr. Abadan Shah. For those of you guys who are listening for the very first time today, 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 to the studio. It's good to be here, but somebody is missing. We're missing someone.
So I looked around, I looked behind the couch. I looked in the bathroom right before we started. I did not see Ryan anywhere. I called him. His phone went straight to voicemail, which I found incredibly hurtful.
And then I asked you, and you said that Ryan's not here today. Yeah, he is on an important assignment, but he will be back. That's right. He's coming back tomorrow. That's right.
He'll be back tomorrow right here in the studio. And then some important announcements and some really good news coming to the Clearview Today show. But for today, Dr. Shah, it's just us. Yes, it's great.
Busy day today. How have you been? It's been busy. We have the Apologetics Conference coming up at Clearview Church. We have text critics coming from all over the world, and they are excited to be here.
Our conference numbers are growing. I mean, it's great to see people coming to discuss the text of the New Testament. That's right. And there's a huge, huge, huge announcement that we've been sitting on for, I would say, a few months at this point. I would say four months.
Four months, not ready to announce it yet, but I promise you this. I promise you. Once we announce this, it's going to change the world. I think it's going to change the world. I think so too.
And I'm not just saying that. I'm not just building hype. This is a monumental announcement. I've been dying to talk about it. Unfortunately, the time is just not right.
Yeah, sometimes, you know, the producers have to tell us, no, not right now.
So we have to back away and just leave it alone. But big, big announcement coming. Absolutely. In God's timing, it will be out. That's right.
That's right. You know, today's verse of the day is coming to us from the book of James. Last couple episodes, we've been in the book of James. And today's verse of the day is coming to a listener from Chicago, Illinois. Patsy S.
from Chicago, Illinois has written in James chapter 1 and verse 2, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. You know, coming out of. the series on Job. We were in Job for the last few months, I would say. And One of the things that we went through was how to respond and how to understand trauma, suffering.
But it sort of begs the question: like, why do we have to suffer? You know, and as we've been talking through the book of James, you and I have been talking off-mic, and we said, you know, this might be the perfect time to go into the why. You know, we spent a lot of time in the how. Maybe now's the time to look at the why we suffer. You know, the early church, after Jesus ascended, gave the great commission to the disciples to go into all the world, Lo, I'm with you, even to the end of the age.
I'm coming back again. You know, the desire, the angels were right there with the disciples when Jesus ascended. He said, You know, the same Jesus you saw going up is so coming back in the same way.
So now go, go, don't stay here. Go out there and share the good news, share the gospel. And so as it began to grow and go and grow as well. They they encountered persecution. They encountered trials.
And James, a lot of scholars believe, and I agree with them, is the first book written in the New Testament. Wow. That's a big deal. Yeah, we often think it's Matthew, but that's just a canonical order. Right.
Because you got to begin with the Gospels. But the Gospels were not necessarily the first books written. Wow. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, I believe the book of James was the first one, and James. was the half-brother of Jesus.
And he was Assigned to be the leader of the mother church. And the mother church was in Jerusalem.
So He is writing this letter to people everywhere scattered abroad, to the twelve tribes scattered abroad.
So he's writing not just to his own people. He's writing to people in The entire Region of Palestine. But he's writing to People everywhere. Do you think that's why the principles and the lessons that we learn from James are so broad and so like easy to understand? Because he knew his audience was very large.
Yes, and also they're very relevant because these are new believers. They're going through persecutions from their family members. They are constituting a community. Built around a faith that had been promised and prophesied for centuries, and now it had come to pass. Jesus had come, fulfilled the prophecies, gave his sacrificial death on the cross, resurrected from the grave, ascended.
I mean, everything has happened. Church is growing. Not everybody's believing.
So there's persecution from your own, but there's also persecution from the outside.
So a lot of trials were happening for that first century church, which was mostly made up of Jewish background believers. And so James wrote this letter. to help them, but in the process he was helping all of us. All Christians throughout the ages have gone through some form of trial. And That's why people love the book of James because it's so simple.
Yeah. Yeah. I remember when my wife got saved, that was the first, that was the first book she read in the New Testament. Yeah. And if I go, that was the first book that she went through in the Bible.
She has a, I might upload a picture of it. She has her Bible from when she was a teenager, and James has like all of the notes. James is like falling apart. Yeah. And I mean, and rightly so, because it's such a simple, easy-to-understand book in the Bible.
Very easily applicable. I mean, it's hard to mess it up. Yeah. And so You know For the past couple of shows we talked about the the importance of our words. And we chose to do that just from James chapter 3, just so we can test and see how people respond.
And people responded overwhelmingly. Yes, a lot of people really responded well to that. And I think it kind of goes back to what you're saying: that James is universally applicable. People absolutely gravitate to this book. And so prayerfully, we felt like, what if we go through the book of James for the next.
A couple of months. Sure. I think it's really good. I think people will, and this is something I'd like you to explain too. I think people will gravitate to it because it's immediately applicable to what they're going through.
It's very, very hands-on and practical. But you always open talking about the context of the book. And just for maybe like the next couple of minutes, as a scholar, why is it important that modern-day Christians who are not scholars understand the background of the book? Like, how does that apply to me? Context is key.
Okay. Context is very, very important. It helps you know what it meant. Because unless you understand what it meant, you will have a hard time nailing down what it means today.
So, context, how do you find the context?
Now, I'm not saying context is everything, because the Word of God is God-breathed, is breathed by the Holy Spirit, it's eternal, so it's not time-bound.
So, context is not everything, but context is a lot. It helps you know who was James. Who was he writing to? What were the conditions at the time when James was riding to the church? Uh and then you can appreciate better and Hermeneutically, you would be more accurate.
I don't think any of us can be like 100% accurate hermeneutically, but at least we can be more right than wrong.
So, context to me is very important. One of the things that you said during one of your sermons, the last time you preached on the book of James, was how you talked about exactly that. Who is James? You know, who is this author that we're gleaning this biblical wisdom from? And you talked about how you assume being the half-brother of Jesus, he's like really close to the truth.
He's dialed in. But if you read, I can't remember the gospel where he's actually embarrassed about Jesus. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's like embarrassed. He's like, hey, man, hey, just why don't you chill out with all this?
You're making us look bad. Yeah, one time his mom and his brothers and sisters showed up and tried to take him home. Imagine that the Son of God, the second person of the Godhead, the one who holds the entire universe together. Who's come to give the ultimate prize that will not only save us, but also bring about the new creation which is eternal? Saying, come on now, let's go home.
This is enough. You've done enough. That come home. Yeah. I guess it just kind of goes to show: like, the closer you are to something, I guess, really, it's the really opposite, right?
Like, the more contempt that you feel for it as you get more familiar with it. Yeah, familiarity breeds contempt. And I think that's what happened to them. Yeah. Unfortunately.
They were living with God, God in flesh, and they forgot that, yeah, he's my half-brother, or yes, he is. My son, you know, talking about Mary, but he is so much more than just my son. Yeah. Not that his humanity was not important because it was very, very important. Fully God became fully man.
Let's not lean heavily on either side. He was fully God and he was fully man, and both are essential. For us. And for the person of Jesus. But in this situation, they did not realize that.
You want to talk about maybe just that transformation? Because. In one hand, we've got James saying, Hey, man, you need to come on home. This is getting too much. But then he opens up his epistle with James, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and what the relevance of that transformation is.
I think the transformation must have happened a little bit. After the the crucifixion. I mean, it must have hit him really hard. Keep in mind that this family, Jesus' family, lived in Nazareth. Nazareth was known as It was hard to find Nazareth, by the way.
For a long time, scholars thought this was just a make-believe. Just like a myth, a mythical town. Mythical town. And in the medieval times, they didn't even know about Nazareth. They said, ah, I don't know, but it doesn't matter.
But then finally in the 1800s, they're like, no, I think there was a real Nazareth. And then they found it. Isn't it fun? Do you see scholars do that a lot? Because I've seen people like on YouTube where they'll do that.
They'll be like, hey, here's a really important point that we're trying to figure this out. And they're like, ah, who cares? Yeah. Oh, they don't have an answer. Yeah, scholars sometimes are like, we don't know, and that's okay.
And I'm like, no, it's not okay. You're right. But we need to dig more. And they did. And they found.
uh Nazareth. And Nazareth was a place where these These descendants from the line of David. Many of them from a priestly lineage were living there. Netzer, Netzer is like a root, you know, Netzer is like a seed kind of thing. They were living there because uh kind of building a community there because they felt like through them the Messiah would come.
They had this this I don't know, spiritual, um intuition that this was going to happen. Yeah. That Joseph was not from Nazareth. He was from Bethlehem. Remember that after the census was declared, he had to go to Bethlehem to the city of David to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife.
So he was not from there, but he was also a Davidic descendant. Right. I think that uh Joseph must have come to Nazareth to work in Sephorus, which was not very far away, which was a Roman town. And Was he a carpenter? We don't know, but he did some kind of a handiwork, which we call a carpentry.
Right. All that to say, That these people who were living in Nazareth were not just Galileans. Because Nazareth is in Galilee. They were not just, you know, there's just an outpost of. Jewish people working there so they living there so they can work in Sephora.
They were. very steeped in Old Testament people. I mean, they thought through them was the Messiah going to come. Yeah. I think, and this is speculation, so I want to go and put it out there for all our listeners and viewers.
I think James probably All his life you know, growing up next to Jesus, he must have thought, What if He is right. Yeah, I mean, I think that makes sense. You can't listen to someone say that for three years during their ministry and not have that thought. Like, this dude might. Be on to something.
He must be onto something because he keeps doing things right. And look at the following. Yeah. Look at all the people who are going after him. And somehow he's transforming lives left and right.
Yeah. And I think at the cross, something must have happened to him. You know, when Jesus was on the cross, James was probably there. You know, his mother was there.
So maybe just as kind of protective, he must have been there.
Something must have happened to him because in First Corinthians fifteen When Jesus arose from the grave on the third day It says in verse 5, 1 Corinthians 15, verse 5, he was seen by Cephas, meaning Peter. Then by the twelve. after that he was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, Of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that, he was seen by James. Than by all the apostles.
So, for Jesus to make a special visit to see his half-brother James. Means something was already brewing in his heart. Can you imagine that conversation post-resurrection where James is like, Why didn't you tell me? And remember, they're brothers have brothers, of course. He is God.
Jesus is fully God, fully man. But I can imagine. I don't know. Did he give him a noogie over his head? I don't know.
Like, you just kind of shove him a little bit and he falls. You're like, oh, gosh, I got to remember who I'm pushing. And what did you tell me? I've seen my kids. I tried to.
I didn't grow up with a brother. You grew up with a brother. I didn't grow up with a brother, but I see my boys. I can tell that they really love each other, but they are kind of physical. Yeah.
I thought it was a physicality or a hug. Or kind of like holding hands. I don't know what happened between them. But Jesus made a special visit to see his half-brother after the resurrection, which means this was not a random. show of power like, Hey, so Now, what?
Oh, okay. I believe. I believe. Believe me. Help my own belief.
You know what? I think it's cool, and maybe you can speak to this too, because we're going to dive into the letter of James itself. But if I was James, I think I would say, I would open up by saying, hey, everybody, this letter is coming to you from James. Guess what? I'm the brother of Jesus.
Yeah. That's me. That's me. Me and Jesus, we're tight. He calls himself a half, a bond servant.
Yeah. He didn't even say anything about his half-brotherhood. Yeah, I can't believe that. That was, to me, I think in our culture, we'd call that a missed opportunity. But I think God looks on that and says, yes, my good and faithful.
That's how that needed to open.
So I feel like something was already happening in James's heart.
So Jesus made a special visit. He went to see his disciples. He went to see Peter The chief among them. But then he said, I need to see James. And then James became the head of the church, the mother church.
They didn't just give him like a side church somewhere. Like a little country church out beyond the county line. No, they didn't say, like, okay, so Matthew, and then we have Peter, and then we have Andrew, and James and John. We get the main.
Now, you may get a church, maybe one in Nazareth, probably. You know, they didn't do that. They gave James. The lead church was James one of the 12 with the Peter, James, and John. Was that the same James?
No, is it different, James? Absolutely. James and John's, John, were sons of Zebedee. Got it. James fishermen.
Yeah, and Peter and Andrew were brothers. Got it. And all of them used to fish together and lived in Capernaum.
So They were originally from Bethseda.
So, this James, who wrote the book of James, was sort of on the outskirts of Jesus' ministry, looking in. Yeah, I mean, he was a half-brother who did not. Who are the ones who showed up to take him home? Yeah, yeah. Our crazy brother.
But then becomes the head of the church in Jerusalem, sees all of his people scattered abroad, and writes the epistle of James. Absolutely. Okay. And I mean, he is writing to them, and it says in verse 2: My brethren, counted all joy when you fall into various trials. If you fall into various trials, no, no.
When? When? I know. That's always the sticker, isn't it? Yeah, definitely.
I mean, trials are a matter of time, not chance. Yeah. Yeah. They're coming.
So it's one of these things where we want to know the why, right? Like, okay, I get it. Trials are coming, suffering is happening. I mean, ultimately, everything's going to lead back to that problem of evil, right? But why is it inevitable?
Why do we have to go through trials? Is it a way to prove myself? And of course, you know, going through the book of Job, it feels like now we're going back to 101. But for those of us who are joining, maybe just today, this is the first time I'm ever listening to the show. Why do we have to go through trials?
I mean, the Bible doesn't give us an exact reason. There are many reasons mentioned, you know, to develop your faith, to develop your character, perseverance, you know, develop character and all of those things. Maybe it is like in Job's situation where God was holding up Job as a demonstration of a man who loved him, loved God, worshiped God, not because of Of ulterior motives, but because he was truly. A man who was blameless, upright, one who feared God and shunned evil. I mean, he was truly a man after God's own heart.
And so he is going through these trials because God bragged on him. The Bible doesn't give us like this is the only reason. There are many reasons why we go through trials. One thing we know for sure is that Job chapter 14, verse 1 says, Man who is born of a woman or born of woman is a few days and full of trouble. Full of trouble.
John 16:33, Jesus said, In this world you will have tribulation. That's what means it's a guarantee. It's done. Gee, look, if Job saying is one thing, but if Jesus said it, man, you can count on that. And then Peter says it.
In 1 Peter 4, verse 12, beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, which is means it's not which may. Which could. Which is. Yeah. He says, don't think it's strange.
And I think it is funny because a lot of times Christians will hear this sermon. They'll fall into trials and they'll say stuff like, I can't believe this is happening to me. I cannot believe this is catching me so off guard. And I've said that kind of stuff too. And it's funny because you never, even though you know it's going to happen, you never find yourself expecting it.
Yeah. And let me add one more reason for trials. And there are numerous is sometimes God uses trials to keep us humble. Hmm. when there are blessing after blessing coming into your life, we have a tendency to start strutting.
We get proud, we get arrogant. And that's the moment where Satan enters in, when it becomes all about us. I did this. I made the right decision. I made the right connections.
I am talented. I am gifted. I am good. In fact, I am amazing. And that's the moment Satan comes in.
And when he comes in, He comes to not only embarrass us, but to destroy us.
So, allowing trials to come into our lives in those moments is God's way of saving us. Amen. I thank God for that. Because, I mean, as soon as you said that, I sort of resonated with that because a lot of good things have been happening at Clearview Church. And it is because God's hand is on us, but it's also because of the hard work that's been done by every single person on the team.
I am of the persuasion where when things start happening, I start to celebrate. I start to celebrate inwardly and be like, yes, we got it. Things are finally looking up. And I don't want that to be the case. I don't want it to be an open door where God has done something good in us, and I'm opening the door for the enemy to come in.
I mean, think about Paul. Paul talks about this. He had an abundance of revelations. He was being able, he was given a view, a peek into heaven. And lest he be exalted above measure, a thorn in the flesh was given to him, a messenger of Satan to buffet him.
What does that mean? because he was seeing such heavenly visions, He would have been tempted to become proud and arrogant and think he's better than others and that he is so. And at that moment, he was becoming. Like Satan. That's what happened to Satan.
And so God sent him a messenger of Satan to buffet him. We don't know exactly what happened to him.
Some people say it must have been physical pain, and that can happen. or financial troubles. Or relational problems. Or it could actually be a messenger of Satan who showed up just to goad him to attack him. To tempt him.
to distract him. And That was done so that Paul will remember that when I'm weak, then I'm strong. His grace is sufficient for me.
So sometimes trials come for our benefit. Yeah. We don't like them. Because they're painful, they're frustrating. You feel limited.
You feel like if only this thing would not be in my life, if only this thing would be healed, if only this situation could be resolved, man, I mean, I could give so much more. God says no. That's not what would happen. What would happen is you would become a tool, a vessel of Satan. I think this is clearing stuff up.
It's clearing up a lot of murky, blurry ways that we see trials, right? Because a lot of times, and maybe we can talk about this further as we go into this series on James. A lot of times, I think we see trials like, this is something God is giving me so I can test me.
So, I can prove that I trust him, so that I can remain faithful and steadfast. But if you look at it that way, the trial doesn't really accomplish anything, it just proves. Quote unquote proves who you are and you still remain at zero. And I think what you're saying, and correct me if I'm wrong on this, is that God is giving you these trials because there's something good, better, beneficial on the other end of it. Yeah, but God cannot trust you right now to just keep on climbing and keep on soaring because you will keep on climbing and soaring right up next to Lucifer himself, who was cast out.
So some trials. I know we're sort of deviating from James right now, but some trials come To keep us humble, keep us dependent upon God, keep us from getting puffed up. And so to our listeners, to our viewers. We don't know what's the reason behind the trials in your life. We don't know.
Um And we're not here to assume that we can tell you based on what you tell us that this is why it's happening. We don't know. Yeah. But what I do know is that God is good. Yeah, and then God sends those trials.
He's the one who signs off on those trials, no matter what they are. He signs off on them because he knows what's best for you. Do you think that plays into the unpredictable nature of them? Because that's what James says, right? Like you fall into the trials.
Yeah. You can't plan for them as much as we wish. You can't plan for them. You can't prep for them. You fall into them.
And maybe the falling into them and the unpredictable nature of them is because they are being sent ultimately by God. Absolutely. You know, that was a big theme in Job, right? Yeah. I mean, one after the other, the messengers came and gave him the bad news, didn't even give him a chance to catch his breath.
Mm-hmm. One after the other, the traumas kept coming, kept coming, kept coming. And then, just when you think, man, okay, he's ready to. you know, gather himself and do something all of a sudden. Satan comes back into the presence of God.
God brags on him again. And Satan says, skin for skin, boom.
Now God says, Go ahead and do it. Yeah. And Job is covered in boils. Yeah. So maybe I know we, golly, I'm just getting into the conversation.
This, this, uh, we, we got to wrap up here, but Dr. Shah, someone's listening to this right now, and they're saying, look, I get it. For you guys, this is a fun conversation. For maybe the people listening who are going through something, maybe this is prepping their hearts. But right now, I'm going through a trial and it really hurts.
And I don't want to be cheered up, but I just want to be encouraged. I need something that's going to lift me up spiritually out of this trial. What do you say to someone who's going through something very specific right now? Very simple. Trust the heart of God.
Trust the heart of God. You know, it's so easy to start doubting. It's so easy to become cynical. It's so easy to get down on yourself and feel like, man, nobody cares. I'm just alone.
I made a bad mistake. I just feel like giving up. Or I'm just going to, you know, I'm just going to not worry about things. This is my life. This is what my life is for now.
No, no, no, don't do that. Trust the heart of God. God is good. He loves you so much that he gave his son on the cross for you, to die on the cross for you. This Suffering that you're going through, this trial that you're facing, I'm sure it was unpredictable.
When you fall into various trials, which means You are not prepared for it. Nobody prepares to fall. Right. You know, unless you're skydiving. But here, Perry Pipto is not.
It's like the Samaritan story where the man fell among thieves. Oh, yes, that's right. It does say that. It fell among the thieves. That's right.
God knew this was going to happen.
So even though you're falling, God knew this was going to happen. And he allowed it, and he's a good God, he's trustworthy. Then trust him that he is working in your life. Amen. And if you're listening for the very first time today, we went really, really heavily into the how to get through things.
If that's you, if that person is you saying, I need to find out how to get through this, you should go back and listen to our episodes on the book of Job. It lasted over a couple of months, but all of those episodes are there. They're on Pray.com. They're on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you can find this podcast. You can listen to them and listen to them concurrently because we're going to be talking about the why.
And the Job was talking about the how, and that's how the Bible works. It's two beautiful halves of the same coin. Dr. Shah, thank you for the discussion today. Absolutely.
Thank you. Thank you guys for listening. Make sure you join us next time, same time, same place. We're going to be diving into another great topic right here on the Clearview Today show. We want to say a big thank you to all of our sponsors for supporting today's episodes.
We got some new sponsors coming out in just a couple of weeks, so stay tuned for that. And if today was your first time listening, just know we love you. We want to be there for you, whatever trial you're going through. And we want to talk to you again tomorrow. You can always support us financially at Abadanshah.com.
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A couple of things we do want to let you know before we let you go today. Big, big apologetics conference is happening at Clearview Church on March 28th. We're looking at the Byzantine text form, just like Dr. Shah said up front. We're going to be diving into that on March the 28th.
You can get your tickets right now at the link in the description. And if you use promo code today, T-O-D-A-Y, we're going to be 20% off at checkout. We love you guys. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you tomorrow on Clearview Today.
