Hey, this is John Galantis from the Cleaview Today Show checking in with you guys to plug our new show, How to Read Biblical Hebrew with Dr. Abadan Shah. It's a video podcast. You can watch it right from your favorite podcasting app, and we're releasing new episodes every single week. You don't have to be intimidated about learning Biblical Hebrew.
We're going to start with the alphabet. We'll start with sounds, basic grammar. We'll work our way up. But our guarantee is this. If you follow this podcast and put in the work, you will be reading the Old Testament in its original language in no time.
Again, that's how to read biblical Hebrew with Dr. Abadan Shah. Links in the description.
Now let's start the show. Yesterday we talked about the importance of knowing your weaknesses because not knowing them can get you in trouble when temptation comes knocking. But did you know your strengths could also be used against you? All this and more coming up right now from the Clear Read Today Show. 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 the Clearview Today Show. We've got a great discussion from the book of James coming at you today with our host, Dr.
Abadan Shah. If you're listening for the very first time today, welcome to the show. Welcome to our studio, our space, our conversation. 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. I'm looking forward to today. That's right.
That's right. We want to dive straight into the book of James. And this is sort of our soft sequel to our series on the book of Job. Yes. Yeah, talking about trials, talking about strengths and weaknesses.
And yesterday we talked a lot about how our weaknesses get used against us. Yes. It's kind of obvious, right? But we were talking off-mic a little bit before we started, and you brought up this quote by Oswald Chambers that I thought would be really cool to kind of kick off today's discussion. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, the quote is. An unguarded strength is a double weakness. Unguarded strength. What what is a strength?
Something that you are gifted with. The strength can be your thinking ability, your strength can be your artistic ability, your gifts, your strength can be your ability to lead, or to manage, or to create, or to. Improvise, these are your strengths. But if you are not careful, that very strength can be a source of temptation, can be a source of weakness. Yeah, yeah, that's true.
So think about. You are gifted intellectually. I mean, you're very smart. Great. God has blessed you.
Use it for the glory of God. But you can also use that same strength to manipulate people because you're so gifted in understanding that now you have allowed Satan to use you. Or to help you or to tempt you, really, to figure people out and then press the right buttons in their lives. To get them to do what you want them to do, I mean, it can become very seditious. Yeah.
Yeah. I think about people who are even in worship ministry, right? Who start out thinking that because I'm such a gifted singer, I'm such a talented singer, it's obvious that I'm going to make a lot of headway in this ministry. I'm going to go far because of my talent. And I remember one of the things that you taught me very, very early on when I started here is that I'm not hiring you because you're talented.
I'm not really interested in talent. Talent will come as you grow in your craft, and that's all well and good. But we're focusing on building you as a leader and your character first. That has stayed with me for a lot of my life because now instead of being insecure that, okay, well, maybe I'm not the strongest singer on the team that I lead, I almost never think about it. Because I know that what we're looking for here at Clearview, what's propelled us to success is not talent.
Well, it helps us understand that even these good gifts that we have that God has created in us, because of sin, we can use them wrongly. We can, because even if it's A gift from God, we can use that gift almost in a disobedient way. You go back to the worship, right? To truly. Be a good worship leader or a singer or an artist or a musician, you have to have a touch with your senses.
Emotions.
Now that's wonderful.
Now I I am too. but not as much as somebody who's very gifted in that area.
Now, I'm different because I do like music and I have played music in my life.
So, I'm sort of the best of both worlds. But then there may be somebody who may not have that singing or that musical ability.
So, they're not gifted in the area. But as compared to somebody who is. But the thing that does somebody who is gifted with musical ability needs to be careful about is that. The same emotions that you tap into, the senses you tap into to create beautiful. Music, melody, lyrics, whatever, can be now used.
When you are down, to now somehow satisfy that emotion. To fall into lust or To connect with somebody on a level that And a typical rational person may not be, but you may be. And they will respond to you. And sometimes in not good ways. Yeah, absolutely.
I know I'm kind of dancing around that issue, but most worship leaders are doing a great job. Praise God for that. And I'm not talking about the style of music, whether it's traditional or contemporary, got nothing to do with that. But most worship leaders or musical directors or Or or Song leaders, whatever you want to call it in your churches, they're great. But then there are times you hear about people in that capacity.
Who ran off with someone's wife. Oh, absolutely. They did. Or who had an affair with someone in the choir. Or they have just tension with their pastor.
That's the problem. Or constant tension with the pastor. Because the pastor is very, you know, thinking very not reasonably, but really more logically. And the person who's on the worship team is thinking more emotionally, like, hey, we need to get people to do this. Or this song is good.
Or that song is wonderful. And we need to give more time in the worship. Or we need to bring in more instruments. And the pastor is not liking that.
Now, I'm sort of different. I go along with it because I think it's. Important to have worship and the emotions engaged in the service. Right. But some are not.
And now there is a tension between. The senior pastor and the worship pastor, or senior pastor, and the music minister, you know, whatever you want to call it in your setting. Yeah, we think a lot about covering our weaknesses or guarding our weaknesses. What are some ways that we can guard our strengths? How do we feel that process?
Yeah, people don't even think about that. Why would I guard my strengths? Humility. Humility. Everything that you have is a gift from God.
So don't ever forget that. Whether it's my ability to think. or my ability to write, or write music, or sing music, or play instruments, or lead. or work out.
Some people are gifted in that area. Physically, they're built in a way through their genetic makeup that they are very good at working out. Great. Praise God for that. But don't ever start believing that you are somebody In and of yourself, that you are this unit of just incredible gifts and you are a gift to humanity, and you're better than other people.
That's where we get into trouble. Yeah, absolutely. That's where Satan will tap into that and say, and then press the right buttons at the right time or wrong time. And you may explode at somebody or you may Indulge. The same emotions that are wonderful to create melodies and lyrics can also be used to indulge.
Because th they're creating em emotions in you And you're like, oh, this feels good. Yeah. I'm going to go with this. Yeah, absolutely. And I think when you don't guard the strength, I mean, I know we're picking all worship pastors and worship leaders a lot, but when you don't guard that strength, you typically find people who will feed into that strength.
And typically, that's the people on your team. I mean, we can use athletes for that matter. Yeah. Right? Yeah.
I mean, you're a great athlete. Praise God. You can dunk the ball. You can hit a home run. You are very good in the 100-meter dash.
You are a great. hunter or or fisherman, whatever your gifts are, great, great. Great, great, great. But just make sure everything you do, you're doing it unto the Lord because it's given to you by Him and you give it back to Him. And then.
When the enemy comes and wants you to use it. For some personal benefit that may satisfy some emptiness in your soul at that moment, stop. The enemy does not care one bit about you. He'd rather you crash and burn and go down to hell. That's what he cares about.
So when you feel that. This is about me. Yeah. To stop. That's right.
And turn to God is what I was saying. Don't just stop. Just turn to God and say, God, help me. Yeah. Yeah.
It's so important for us to be surrounded by voices that remind us to do that too. Because you can be blinded in your own thinking and you cannot recognize areas where you may be struggling or maybe you are in danger of not being as humble as you need to in certain areas. And you need those voices that kind of call you back, like, hey, remember that everything you have is a gift. If I can mention one example from the Old and then one from the New Testament, Old Testament, one that just immediately runs to us is David. David was an amazing guy.
He was gifted with handsomeness. He was gifted with musical abilities. He was gifted with, you know, physical prowess. I mean, this, and then spiritually minded. I mean, he was like an assistant.
He sort of has it all. Has it all the guy you want in your class growing up in school? It's like, not even worth trying because you're going to be first in everything. That's right. In sports, in drama, in music.
Student body president, captain of this football team. You're the valedictorian. Yeah, it sort of does you now. It sort of has that element of, well, God is always going to choose the lowly, the meek. And then David comes wrong.
He's like, no, I'm sort of it. Like, it makes sense. I'm God's chosen man. And then guess what happens with him with the Bathsheba incident? I mean, it was terrible what he did.
Same emotions, same gifts, same talents, but he used it in a completely wrong way. Yeah. Now jump over to the New Testament and you have someone like Peter. Peter was amazing, right? He was the first to jump out of the boat.
He would speak up when everybody else was cowering and scared and confused. He would just say the words. But then he also messed up. He messed up several times. He messed up by trying to tell Jesus to build three tabernacles there after the Transfiguration.
That was nothing, that was silly. A voice comes from heaven: This is my beloved Son, hear him. Stop talking, listen to him. Then he tries to stop Jesus from talking about the cross and going to the cross. Like, no, this is not going to happen to you.
You ought not to talk like this. Get behind me, Satan. It's like we can never just have a nice day. Like, we literally see Jesus transfigured, we get confirmation, and it's like, if you just, if I just stay quiet, this could be a really great day. Yeah.
And then finally, you see him at the Garden of Gethsemane. You know, Jesus had just told him. in a parable form about Having Swords being ready to fight because there's a fight coming, it's a fight from the enemy, not just you're going to fight people there. Because if that's what Jesus meant, Then, when the fight began, Jesus did not. Commend them, he condemned them.
Right. And then Peter pulls out his sword and, you know, does what he does, and then ends up denying Jesus three times. Yeah. Tough day. Yeah, he was there, right?
I mean, he was there in the courtyard, and yet he ended up denying. Jesus three times.
So A lot of gifts and talents, and yet this unguarded strength. And I think. A lot of our listeners and viewers are probably resonating with this because we have those gifts and talents. Let me give you one more if that's okay, because I think this is an important topic. If you have the gift of perception.
You can pick things up. Also, be careful that you are not a very negative critical person. Be careful that you don't become very condescending towards those around you because if you're perceptive, it means you can pick up things that other people can't. Great. But then how do you present that to those people?
How do you see the world around you? And if we're not careful, we will. People won't like us. Yeah. Yeah.
It's easy to, I think it's this is a great discussion because it's so easy to say, know your weaknesses, but also know your strengths and not know your strengths so that you can capitalize on them, but so you can guard them. I think that's a conversation that I don't think I've heard many people talk about, especially not in like Christian media, because it's something that we always say, you know, thank God for your strengths, but also guard your strengths. Yeah, it makes that self-examination critical. You know, sometimes people fall into the Christian camp of, I don't want to pinpoint my strengths because that feels prideful, that feels boastful. But not doing so actually puts you at greater risk for.
being prideful, not and not being humbled in the way you should be. Theological setting. Let's talk about theology. Let's talk about the Bible, the con principles, the laws, the commandments of God, the convictions we should have in this world. If you're the type of person who is very black and white, great.
Just don't become judgmental. You can still call sin sin, you can still stand up for truth. But don't become judgmental. Always have a heart of compassion there. Always have that heart of compassion that seeing somebody who is being a dirtbag and doing horrible things, saying horrible things, acting in horrible ways.
Have something in your heart that says, man, Jesus died to save you. I'm not sure you're gonna get it or not. Because the way you're acting, you're in the possession of the devil, and your eyes need to be opened. But. I've seen people like that, haven't you?
Oh, yes, absolutely. Yeah. Golly. And they just draw out intense hate from us. And that's true because of the sin.
But I hope somewhere there we also have compassion towards them. Yeah. Yeah. I've been definitely feeling that the older I get, where things that used to make me angry still make me angry, but there's a tinge of sadness now. There's a hope, there's a hopelessness.
Like, golly, man, I really hope. Because that man was someone's son at one time. That lady was someone's daughter. Yeah. I see.
And so you see them at that stage and you go, huh, something happened. Yeah. I think it was definitely after having kids that I do. I didn't put that into words, but once you said that. I do start to like, man, I imagine this hateful, old, shriveled, mean, bitter man.
I imagine him as like a little boy that looks just like my little boy. And it's like, gosh. What happened between then and now? Yeah. I mean, it does certainly shift your perspective.
Or you can. Go to the other end of that pendulum swing, which is you are a very, very, very compassionate person. You're very, your heart goes out to people. You're very mercy-loving, mercy-showing kind of a person. Great, great But just make sure that you don't compromise God's standards.
Make sure that you stop. That you don't stop calling sin sin. 'Cause that happens a lot. That we get so lovey-dovey that we think that we have more mercy than the Son of God who gave His life for us. If Jesus called sin sin and he talked about a place called hell, then you and I have zero right to walk around sending people to heaven.
That's right. You didn't die for them. I can take your money and try to be the most generous person in the world, but I'm not generous. It doesn't cost you anything. It doesn't cost me anything because I'm using your money.
I'm using your money, yeah. You know, I had to be careful about that because that's where you realize: like, yeah. I'm showing compassion and mercy and sympathy, and so connected to people and so caring, and the church is not a caring place. Like Yeah, but you just told that person that Their lifestyle, their behavior was okay. Oh wait.
You must be dying for them. No, no, no, you're not dying for them. You're not going to do absolutely anything for that person. But you are portraying yourself as compassion.
So here's the thing: in that situation, the compassion does more for you than it does for the other person. Yeah, that's true. That's true. It elevates you. It gives you this sense of moral superiority over everyone.
It's something for you to virtue signal to everyone that you are an elevated person. It's not really helping anyone else. No. Yeah. So much better if you would, both sides would be at the right place.
Where if you are a very black and white type person, that you will also say, God, let me let my heart, as they used to say, let my heart be broken by the things that break your heart. Yeah, that's true. But if you're a very compassionate person, that you can also say, God, but help me also to see that they are sinners with a clenched fist. Mm-hmm. Against heaven.
That they had a they also had The hammer and the nail in their hands as they crucify the Son of God, spiritually speaking. Suppose someone's listening to this and they maybe haven't been a Christian very long. Maybe they have not been exposed to like Christian culture, ministry culture, church culture very long. They're new to this. And they're listening to this and saying, I love this advice.
I'm not really sure what my strengths are. I'm not really sure what I'm good at. You know what I mean? Yeah. I would say, take an inventory of your life.
things that you have done well at. Of course, pray over the whole process, but think about it. What have you done well? What have people. Congratulated you about, or they have commended you on things that you did that nobody else could do like you do.
And those are your strengths.
Now, you may want something else. Like, I would love to be a basketball player who can, not that I love to be, I'm just using that as an example. Like, somebody who's like so good in dribbling. I'm not.
So don't don't go for wishful thinking. Go for what is actual. That's a good that's a good point. Yeah. So if somebody tells me, Hey, I love the way that you Do an exposition of a text, then that is my strength.
I love the way how you make things very simple, I can understand them. That's your strength. You're a good teacher. That's your strength. I love the way you I don't know.
make difficult concepts simple.
Okay, that's your strength. Yeah. Don't try to find other strength that make you feel cool. Yeah. Yeah.
There's not always a strength that you have like laid out in mind for yourself, but the one that you really do have. I know we keep going back to like music and musicianship, but like We've worked with, I mean, we've done like in-house productions here at Clearview worship before, but we've also worked with external producers. And there have been producers who are like, hey, I'm extremely good at like arranging this for you. I can write this. I can, I can, or so, but, but singing, this is not my strength.
Then there's others who are the same way, but they can tell they kind of want to be singing. They kind of want to be an artist. And I always, I remember like we had this same discussion like before. And that was something that I always wanted to watch out for, especially what we're doing here. One of the things I'm super grateful about the culture at Clearview is for the last 13 years that I've worked here, I never felt like anybody wanted someone else's position.
You know what I mean? Like I've never once felt like I really wish I was, I was doing students. I really, really wish that I was preaching. I really wish that I was in children's ministry and not them. I don't think that culture exists here.
And I think that has really helped us a great deal.
Well, I'll tell you why that culture exists is because when I have. Hired people, okay, prayerfully hired people. It has been. For a need, it's not based on that person or even who they are as much. I mean, it's there, don't get me wrong.
I'm not gonna hire somebody who has zero idea of music to lead music. Right, right, right. But I I I I've tried to think through You know, How How does this person fit into this position that we need? and then bring them on and encourage them and guide them. And once you see that, there is that.
That content there, then my job is to encourage that. My job is to foster that, support that, help meet their needs, value that position.
So if it's a position that Let's say somebody comes in and says, I am a great Yeah. Oh, golly, I'm trying to think what would be a a job here I can draw blood like nobody else, like I'm a phlebotomist. I mean, that's great. But I don't know what we're gonna do. What do we want to do?
I don't know where we can we can fit you here at Clearview. Maybe medical missions, you can go with us and do that. But then again, how are we gonna do that over there? I'm not sure.
So I'm not going to hire a person in that field that doesn't fit with what we're trying to do here. Right, right.
Somebody says, hey, I can drive. A truck, I can drive an oil tanker. That's great. I just don't know how we're going to make that work here.
So right from the get-go, we're trying to put people In the positions that will help enhance and fulfill the mission and the vision of our church.
So then, when you come on board and you go, okay, I think this person is fitting here. Then the next step is That's not all there is to it. What else can this person do? That would also help support the mission and the vision of this church. And then you find that the person is not just a music guy or a youth guy.
It's more than that. Because nobody here calls you the music guy. No, not that. Maybe jokingly, they may do that, but. Really, they see so many other things you're doing.
True. Yeah, true. It's something I think is, and I know we were kind of running out of time a little bit, but this whole thing on a macro level, I don't even think we got to what the discussion was going to be today. This whole thing. I can say this way.
Yeah, sure. I think what we're doing here is helping people find their strengths. And guard those strengths by submitting them to the Lord and using them for his glory and not letting the enemy. Come in and take them away. I think you're that's what we're doing.
I think you're 100% right because I mean, I won't even go me with like Ryan. You didn't, correct me if I'm wrong, but you didn't do graphic design before coming here, right? No, huh? I didn't know, and I guess you didn't know that you were as skilled at graphic design as you are. Like the images you make, I would, I would pay money for.
I would, like, I think they could be pretty good, just very good. Very, very good. I appreciate you saying that. And I appreciate Dr. Shaw.
You, you're the one who pitched that to me. I'd never touched Photoshop before. I never, I didn't even know what graphic design was. I knew the product of it. I could see it, but I'd never done anything artistic like that.
And Dr. Shaw one day was like, hey, why don't you take a shot at making the sermon images? I was like, The image everybody sees that's going to go up before your message. I don't know if I can do that. I don't know.
Before you arrived, I was making them like I would make like. Video game YouTube thumbnails. That was the only thing I knew how to make in photos.
Well, it's fun. It's fun now to look back at some of those older images and be like, oh, wow. Yeah, the skill level has changed. But if you hadn't, I mean, just like you said, if you hadn't given me the opportunity and encouraged me in that, I would have never even discovered that skill, let alone refined it. I mean, you were geared that way.
You know, you have that artistic gift and that ability. And now you're leading the theater ministry along with your wife, Elizabeth, and Nicole, my wife, and Natasha as well. I mean, you're leading a very, very, one of our biggest ministries here is the theater ministry. Biggest ministries. And that's that's a strength that a lot of people don't even know to look for.
Knowing what looks good visually is a huge strength. And I know that because I certainly don't have it. Like a lot of times, we'll be thinking about like the studio that we're sitting in. I'm like, I'm going to put a plant. We're going to get some greenery and put it around the ceiling.
And everyone, like, Ryan's like, what are you talking about? I'm like, trust me, we need some color. But I think that's one of the things, like you were saying, Dr. Shah, like, you wouldn't think if you think, I think people know that see this in ministry is like, this is our student path. He runs our student ministry.
You don't also think, okay, then he's also really, really gifted at graphic design, but you are.
Well, so I think that goes to, that goes to show, you know, God gifts us in a variety of ways. It's not just one thing. This is your pigeonhole and you're going to do this forever and ever and ever. You may have gifts and talents that you haven't considered. I mean, that was certainly the case with me before you identified those and kind of encouraged me to develop that skill set.
So, you know, pay attention to what people say about you because had Dr. Sean not said, hey, I think you could do this. I think you can handle this. I would. I still wouldn't have touched Photoshop at this point.
So, I mean, it was you affirming that in me that kind of opened that world up.
So, so those of you who are listening are watching us right now and wondering, what are we talking about here? I thought we were talking about James.
Well, we're talking about James 1.14 in the context of temptation. That's right. Where James says, But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed, means it's coming from within, and our gifts Sometimes our gifts and our talents and things we're good at can sometimes become a liability. Yes, that's true. That's what we're talking about here.
And that's when sin is conceived. But I wanna I wanna read this one line and then stop there because our time is running away, which is verse fifteen. then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. When desire has conceived means that the the desire in you which is which is going away from the things of God. For the glory of God, what you could use your talents and your gifts to glorify God.
Now that you have lost that focus, at this point, fertilization is happening. And sin is very, very near. Yeah, I think that imagery, that imagery really tracks. I mean, not getting graphic, but like the first time that you entertain, let's say, nothing may happen. But once it becomes a habit and you keep entertaining, I mean, you're going to conceive.
And I think that's the danger that James is warning us about. And we may just have to talk about that on tomorrow's show. That's right. So helpful for us. 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. And if today's your first time listening to the show, hey, make sure you have a pen and notepad ready because you're getting good stuff on the Clearview Today Show. That's right. You can support us by subscribing to the show anywhere you can find podcasting content.
And you can always support us financially at Abadanshaw.com forward slash give. That's right. We got a big, big announcement coming in the next few weeks. We cannot wait for you guys to hear it. And when I say a big announcement, I'm not just saying that as radio show hype.
This is a monumental announcement. Dr. Shah, I. I wish I could talk about it right now, but I'm telling you, our listener, tell them how big it is. Just tell them how big it is.
It's the biggest thing other than coming to know Jesus Christ, marrying my wife. This is maybe having my children, and the church and the staff. This is right up there. It's the biggest thing I would say that we have ever done as a team. I'll say next to my dissertation, this is it.
So that announcement is coming. But we just want you guys to be ready because something huge is coming out of Clearview Church.
Something huge is also happening at Clearview Church, March the 28th. It's our apologetics conference. It's happening right here. It's on the Byzantine text form. We've got lots of scholars flying in from around the world.
So make sure you get your tickets right now. It's in the description. You can follow the link. It says conference registration. And if you use our promo code today, T-O-D-A-Y, we're going to give you 20% off when you check out.
That's right. We love you guys. We'll see you next time on Clearview Today.
