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Now let's get into the show. We've been walking through James's checklist on what makes a person wise. And we're going to finish that list today, but our encouragement to you is this, pay attention. You might just see yourself. All this and more coming up right now on the Clear Beat 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. Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Clearview Today Show, right here in our studio with our host, Dr.
Abadan Shah. If you're listening for the very, very first time today, we want to say welcome. You picked the right show to tune into. 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, it's a very good day to be wise. I'm ready. It's a good day to be wise.
It's a good day to choose wisdom. We've been going through the book of James. James has talked about a bunch of stuff. He's talked about watching your mouth. He's talked about how to handle it when temptations, trials in your life, the inevitability of what to do with anger, all these things.
But now we're talking about wisdom. And we said this on yesterday's show: wisdom is one of those things a lot of us we try to define. We a lot of times talk About what it isn't, right? We talk about how valuable it is and how hard it is to find. But today and yesterday, we were talking about what it is, the markers of wisdom when you see it in a person.
I don't know if you're a wise guy. That's right. Yeah, there you go. A wise guy.
Well, James has been giving us the checklist. You know, he began with the wisdom that is from above is first pure, means wise people are people of integrity. They're people of purity.
Next, they're peaceable. Wisdom is first pure, then peaceable, means they avoid unnecessary conflicts. If you are prone to fighting with people or keeping things stirred up, then you're not wise. You're wasting your time, your energy, you're compromising your vision, you're getting off course, you're not achieving things that are. tangible or substantial, you're just going through life from one tumble to another.
No help. But Avoid those things. And then we also saw wise people are gentle. Gentle means considerate. Gentle means courteous.
Gentle means non-judgmental. They have a spirit of Compassion. Service It's not all about them. It's about someone else. They used to say about Abraham Lincoln that he was a man of velvet steel.
I like that. That's a good description. Yeah, he was full of steel. I mean, once he made a resolution towards going somewhere, he is going somewhere. But velvet means there's a gentle spirit.
They used to call him. A gentle giant. He was really tall and lanky, you know. But he but he had a a gentle spirit. Yeah.
Yeah, but it doesn't stop there because wise people are also willing to yield, and we sort of dealt with that yesterday: that they are teachable. Right. You go first. But it's more than that. It means you go first so I can learn from you.
You go first so I can. Step back. and evaluate and re-evaluate What I am doing. That's right. So there's that willing to yield has more than just letting someone go ahead.
We sort of began this last time. But James says That wisdom is also full of mercy and good fruits. And we left our listeners on the hook there where wisdom is not bitter. Wise people are not bitter people. You know, I think a lot of us, we don't want to admit it.
We don't want to admit our bitterness and our resentfulness that we have in us. We'd rather, like, I know I'm that way. I'd rather pretend it's not there. I'm not bitter at all. I don't resent anything.
But I think all of us have it within us. And the deniability of it kind of goes away when you read the book of James, where it says, you know what? I've actually got it in me. And James says it's not wise. I think it's so easy for us to trick ourselves into believing that we're not bitter, trick ourselves into believing, well, you know, that stings a little bit, but I'll just, you know, that's fine.
I'll just move on. In reality, our hearts and our minds don't move on, but we keep circling back to that thing. And that's, that's bitterness, isn't it? Just not moving on from that thing that's causing you an issue. You know, when we talk about full of mercy.
means when people don't meet your expectations. Or when people don't treat you right, or when people have treated you wrongly. You let mercy direct your actions. You can Pin them to the wall. You can call them out.
You can expose them. And I know for certain crimes, you need to expose them. You need to take them to the court. I'm not talking about those settings. But in settings where people haven't met your expectations, those are different things than something illegal going on.
Everybody understands that. But in those situations You let mercy direct your actions instead of nailing them to the wall and getting them up against the wall. You allow them to pass on by. You allow people to save face. You know, and that's a great mark of a wise person.
They don't just Slam dunk or Finished a job. If you know what I mean by that, it's I'm not talking about a job as in a work. But I'm talking about job as in completely annihilating somebody. Like they go in for the kill. Go in for the kill.
Again, we're not talking about here in a war setting or whatever. People often misunderstand the point. I'm talking about in a personal relationship. You can completely just tear a person down. But a wise person knows knows that I am full of mercy.
I'm going to let you. Go ahead and save face. That's a wise person. Yeah, I think that's something that all of us have to work on and get better at that. But I've seen like through my time here is that people have done that to us.
People have done that to us as a church or as individuals. And one of the things I've always learned from you is that you always keep the door open because you never know what caused that decision. You never know if there's something else going on, if maybe God is trying to deliver us. I mean, not deliver us, but steer us towards a better opportunity down the road. Rather than saying, we need to justify this, we need to make this right.
Maybe God is taking you somewhere else. And part of that wisdom that I've learned from watching you and even watching you, Ryan, is seeing that before it's too late. You know what I mean? Before that decision is made for you. I think that is a marker of wisdom, especially in you, Dr.
Shaw, is being able to say, you know, God is in control. We'll handle this situation, but ultimately, this is in God's hands. It hasn't taken him by surprise.
So we're going to trust things to be in his timing. And we're going to be, you know, we're going to give people, we're going to be gentle. We're going to. Be loving, we're going to be gracious, but also we're going to be wise. We're going to be able to navigate this, and we're going to be savvy in how we handle this.
And we're going to be protective. We're not going to just sit there and say, Oh, yeah, go and shoot me and tear down the organization. No, there are times we will have to take precautionary steps to protect.
Something good that is happening. But at the same time, we're not going to now completely oh, you really?
Well, let me tell you, because I know some secrets on you. Boom. The times that I could have used some of those things. And when you're in a community for coming up now, Almost thirty years. This is my 28th year here.
This is my first and only church. Twenty eight years I've been here.
So you learn people's secrets. Lots of them. But you never use them. Right. Why?
Because. That's not what a wise person does. He is full of mercy.
So when you can. When you sit back and go, uh-huh, I heard you, I heard you, I heard you. Really?
Well, what if I say this? It's like they keep firing these rockets at you, and you take a nuclear bomb and go, boom. Your whole life's ruined. Your reputation's ruined. Like resolved.
Yeah, but what do the rest of the people who are watching the audience say about this? They go, oh my goodness. That got out of hand fast. That was the quote, right? That escalated quickly.
That escalated quickly. That really got out of hand. Yeah, and they don't blame that person who was constantly shooting those missiles at you. They turn to the person who put the nuke on you and going, man, that did not deserve that. When did you, is that something you always known, Dr.
Shah? Is that something you had to learn, or was that something that was modeled for you? This part about mercy? Yes, not launching a nuke back when someone's firing at you. I saw that in my dad.
Hmm. I mean, I saw that. many times He he he was not a pushover. He was a very strong, he was a fighter. I mean, he would fight.
But there were times that I was like, Why aren't you using the ultimate weapon? You have it. You can Completely decimate that person with your words, with your arguments, with your facts, with your information that you have on them. You can decimate them. I've seen that.
And even as a young. teenager, like fifteen, sixteen, I could pick up on those things. And I'm like, why aren't you saying that? And my dad would just Listen, I'm like, why are you nodding your head? Because you can tell them, hey, I know what you did there, and that's why we're here in this problem right now.
He's not doing it. But now having lived life you know, thirty more years, I'm like, oh He was showing mercy. He was being a wise person. And When I went for, but I didn't get a chance to go to his funeral because with all the pandemic stuff that was going on. You couldn't fly there and all that.
I didn't want to get stuck. It was a crazy time. It was January of 2021. Yeah, it was wild. It was wild.
So a lot of crazy things were happening, not just over there, but also here with restrictions.
So I didn't want to get stuck, so I didn't get to go. But people came one by one to the funeral, even in the midst of shutdowns, even in the midst of.
Some of the wildest things that I was hearing that were happening in India, they still came for miles. To that funeral because they were like, now there's a man. There was a man who was. once in a lifetime a person like that passes through People's lives or an area once in a lifetime. That's what they think about my dad.
And I was like, yeah, that's because. He was a man. Full of mercy. And so I saw that modeled and I have tried to model that I have seen it. Done badly?
Yeah. There are certain people you don't joke with. 'Cause you can jab And they punch. Yeah. And so you learn from that.
It's like, don't, don't jab. Yeah, I've done that. Even if it's in fun, because they will punch you. Yeah, I've learned that too. Where you, you know, as a, you know, when you're a funny guy, you like to, that's how you make rapport with people.
You, you often think that, like, when you're funny, it's always like you're, but, but you learn that, you know, especially among your friends, you can jab and you can pick and you can play. And then you start to think you can do that with everyone. And some people should be real quick. They don't like that. Oh, I've seen that.
And so, and that person is not a wise person. Yeah. And I know enough about that person to know: oh, now it makes sense why you have made certain horrible decisions over your life. Mm-hmm. It makes all the sense.
You don't have any mercy. And this is why it happened to you. Yeah. Yeah, I think your dad had the wisdom to know that i eventually he didn't have to nuke even though he could nuke those people, he didn't have to. Because at the end of their life, they're j they're going to be sour.
They're going to be bigger people. Yeah. And Gosh, it's a fate. I think it's a fate worse. Have you ever just met people who you notice?
Like, life has maybe been bad to you, but man, you let yourself become bitter.
Well, that's the second half of that statement where James says, full of mercy and good fruits. Mm-hmm. So, a wise person, when we say that a wise person is not bitter, not only are they full of mercy, but they also have good roots as opposed to.
Sour fruits And Sour. What has made them life. What has made them sour? Bad decisions. What has made them sour?
Other people's revenge has made them sour. Yeah. You know, so what do you do with people like that?
Well, Romans, I'm sorry, Proverbs 11:30 says: the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life. And he who wins souls is wise. Fruit of the righteous is a tree of life. Yeah, I think it's important and especially powerful for us to realize that in this example you're talking about, Dr. Shaw, from the book of James, you are bearing fruit.
Whether that fruit is good or whether that fruit is sour remains to be seen. But you are going to be producing in your life, in your conversations, in your interactions with people, in your decisions, you are going to be bearing fruit. And it's the quality of your fruit that determines the health of what's inside. Let's take a quick break. Hi, it's John here from Clearview Today.
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So thank you for that. Thank you to Mighty Muscadine for sponsoring this episode. Let's jump in. You know, While we're on the subject of fruits, because James talks about good fruits. We're talking about quality of fruits.
I've said it before in a message, and I think it's worth repeating here. Fruits By nature Are for others. When a tree is bearing fruits, the tree is not eating the fruits. Right. It's for someone to come and take.
Right. Yeah. The fruit of the Spirit. When people are so hung up on the work of the Holy Spirit in their life, look, check out the fruit, man. I got love, joy, peace, patience.
I got it. You missed the point. Right. That's a good point. It's not meant for you to enjoy it.
It's not for you to enjoy. The apple tree doesn't grow, and apple and goes, yeah, that doesn't happen. It's not like the giving tree. But I'm, no, I understand exactly what you're saying. Like, we think that I've got love, and joy, and peace, and patience, and all this stuff, and now I can enjoy my life because I'm the right person.
Because the fruit of the Spirit is in your life, bro. Right. And then now I get to enjoy it. I can enjoy the Christian life now. And it's like it's not for you.
Do other people experience those in your conversations? Right. They need to come and pluck love from you. That's right. And joy from you, and peace from you, and patience, and kindness, and goodness, and gentleness, and faithfulness, and self-control from you.
Yeah. It's not like if I have the fruit of the spirit, it means I have self-control. Why? Because the Holy Spirit helps me have self-control. No, you're going to lose control at times.
Yeah. But As you humble yourself, you repent and submit again to the leadership and the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. And allow the power of Jesus Christ to work in and through you. you may have lost control. But somebody else is gonna come.
and pluck self control from you. and enjoy If fruit That maybe even you didn't enjoy. What if I'm feeling bitter right now? Like, like, even me personally, like, I feel like maybe there's things that have happened in my life that maybe I'm not like fully bitter. Maybe I'm just taking things personal and I've just got a cynical attitude right now.
Or maybe I thought I would move past something, but in reality, it keeps coming back. It keeps replaying it in my mind and my heart. And I want to get over this because I can tell the people around me aren't being edified by that. What do you do?
Well, I mean, just know it's not always because you are sinning. It's not always because you're sinning that you're feeling Cruddy or crappy, or whatever you want to say at the moment, sometimes it's because the enemy is working on you. The enemy wants to make you feel miserable because he knows he doesn't have you. He can never, ever, ever, ever, ever have you. All he can do, because he does work in our thoughts.
We learned that from the book of Job, right? All he can do is he can inject you with a little bit of venom.
So that you will have a very miserable existence for a little while. you will feel cruddy, you will feel crappy.
Sorry, folks, I'm using that word. But I hope it makes sense to you because I think that's how you feel on some days. You just feel down. Because something happened or someone said something or some a series of circumstances.
So, in those moments, instead of thinking I must be sinning somewhere, don't. Always go to that. What you need to realize is Satan is trying to inject his poison inside of you, and he is trying to make you feel Hurt, angry? Make you feel that life is not fair. make you feel that you were not given your proper due?
Or you wish things were just different. He just wants you to feel like God is not. Doing for you what he promised. And so, what do you do?
Well, it's very simple. You can either let Satan have the victory, or you can say, no. That's not true. I'm not going to let You control my emotions. I am going to Turn to God and say, God, help me.
Help me to Find peace, help me. To shake off this this horrible spell? Help me, Lord, to See that you are with me and not against me. Help me, God, to see that you're working. and that even this little Momentary dip that I'm experiencing.
It's also something that you're allowed. And you allowed it because Not because I'm a horrible person, you allowed it.
so that I could beat Weak enough for you to pour your grace upon me. Yeah, absolutely. Acknowledging your weakness in these moments of why am I feeling bad? Why am I feeling angry? Why am I feeling hurt?
Why am I feeling like something wrong was done. In moment of weakness. It's not a weakness as in weakness to sin, but weakness. As Paul says, when I'm weak, then I am strong. Yeah, his grace is sufficient for me.
So, this gives God an opportunity to pour his grace upon you.
So, you come out of it. Shining? You come out of it. Victorious, and yet you are not like, Yeah, give me a high-five here. No, you walk out of going, golly, God is good.
Yeah. But I'm level headed. I'm level heaven. You're not becoming like the devil, which is what he did, right? He started climbing, climbing, climbing.
And God had to bring him down for size.
So Yeah, a wise person acknowledges that, sees what's happening. And Trusts God. Amen. I love it. Trusts God, and His grace is sufficient.
He will get you through. You'll come out of the other end. Higher up. And yet, you don't have the attitude of somebody who is higher up. You don't have the arrogant spirit because what you just went through, you're like.
Okay, hey, guess what? You did this. Oh, man, that's awesome. Not that you become cynical or like, that's awesome, but you're boy, I don't know. No, you're like, you're happy.
You're not terrified for the other shoe to drop or any of that. You're just like. Yeah. But That's not what brings me joy. What brings me joy is that God's hand is upon me.
That's right. And I think that's the key. What you said there is: God's hand is on me, God is good. Getting through the other side and not saying, Look what we did, look what we accomplished. Wow, go us, but saying, Man.
God is good. And you can always tell. Yeah, you can always tell the people who maybe are just young, ambitious, they haven't actually been through what life has to offer because they know that the answer is, you know, hey, I just accomplished something really great. But you know what? To God be the glory, man.
God, God's the one that did it. And be like, yes, that's the right answer to give. But then you know, like later in life, you do start going through some of these things and you quote unquote pay the cost for what this success is. Then you really can say, yes, we accomplished that, but man, God is good. And then there's a different spirit, even to the same work.
Neither are you arrogant nor are you cynical. Neither, because both of them are what the enemy wants. He either wants you to get full of pride. And feel like, look at who I am. Or he wants you to be so bitter and cynical and sarcastic over how terrible life is.
Yeah, we got success, but I tell you what, golly. Anyways, he wants you either of those things. When you don't do either of those things and say, yes, God is good. Yes, it is a wonderful, beautiful thing that we have just accomplished by God's grace. At the same time, It's not because of me, it's not because it's for me, it's God's.
Glory, that's what I want. That's right. You know, another thing that James says here, going down our list of wise or people or wisdom, is that. It is without partiality. Partiality when we're talking about is Being fair.
Wise people play fair. Play fair. That's one thing that I have seen in wise people. Over the years. Even when I was not that wise.
Not that to say that I'm all wise now, but there are times that I was like, oh, this situation like this.
Okay, if you all we gotta do is move the piece here and we win the game. We win the game. I mean, let's move the peace. We win the game. And I've seen wise people not move the peace.
And I'm like, Why aren't we moving the piece? We can win the game. But the wise people are saying, Yeah, but that person is looking elsewhere. Moving the piece is catching them by surprise. I don't want to do that.
Again, don't misunderstand. We're not talking about in the context of war where you have to use the element of surprise or whatever. That's a whole different issue. I'm talking about personal relationships. When you know that that person did not have a fair chance, you don't move the piece and win the game because they have their head turned or they did not notice something or something was blocking their view.
You go, wait, no. Yeah, I can win, but... No. Hey, did you know that's going on? Oh, wow.
Thank you for pointing that out. You didn't have to. Mm-hmm. Well, I just want to make sure you knew that.
Okay, alright, the game c still goes. And I may even lose the game, or I may win the game. But I come out a wise person when I play fair. Yeah. Trying to keep the field as level as possible for everybody.
It's like a soccer game where one side of the field is just muddy, wet, the other side just because of Freak of nature is Pretty solid. And you're like, man, we're going to exploit this to everything. But a wise person says, hey, Let's work on switching sides so everybody gets a fair share, which happens anyways in soccer. Sure. But let's work on doing that so that there is no unfair advantage.
What do you all think? Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Thank you for doing that.
Now, they have a choice now to also play fair. Here's a word of wisdom. They may not always play fair back with you. Great point. When you play fair, don't expect the other party to play fair.
In fact, most of the time, they will still be unfair. And it's life. You have to go, oh.
Okay.
Well Now I know.
Now I know. What can I say? Yeah. You're revealing your character. You are revealing your character.
Yeah. And here's the last one. Our time is gone. Wise people do not pretend to be perfect. Because the last thing James says here is without partiality and without hypocrisy.
Without hypocrisy means pretending to be something you're not. Wise people do not pretend to be something they're not. One of the best things that you ever told me when I first started here is that you can always feel safe to tell people what your weaknesses are because they already know. And I think that has always helped me because you're never the mystery that you think you know. No.
People are. You're not as good at concealing things as you might think. Yeah, the people in your life know what your weaknesses are. And that's one thing that I think has helped me, especially on the worship team, is I tell my people where I'm weak. Hey, guys, I'm not the best singer.
They're like, trust me, we know. You know, I'm not the most organized mind. I think you are.
Well, thank you. But I guess what I'm saying is. Like, I feel that, and I think this has helped on our team as well, our, our, Church staff team is that we trust each other. We trust each other so much that we're okay finding out what those weaknesses are. And nobody feels like they have to say, I don't have any.
Because we don't operate under the previous point where we're not trying to take advantage of people. We are operating in a spirit of playing fair. Like, I'm not, I don't have a desire to lead worship.
So I'm not going to capitalize on areas where you might be weak and I might not be. And I can swoop in and say, well, you know, if I was doing it, I could do this way because I don't have that desire. We trust one another. I trust your leadership and I trust Dr. Shah's leadership.
We operate from a spirit of trust and a spirit of fairness in accomplishing the goal that is set before us. We're not, nobody's out for each other's job. Nobody's trying to subvert the other person or make them look bad. We trust one another to bolster each other's strengths and cover each other's weakness. And I think, even for you in your ministry, if you're watching this, like when your pastor corrects you, when your pastor says, Hey, I don't want to go that way, I want to go this direction.
It's never a personal attack. You know that because you trust that your pastor or your boss or whoever this person is, they want the best for you. I don't have to worry about what is my image, what does he think of me? What does he respect me? Does he not respect me?
We know that we all think the best and want the best for one another on our team.
Well, just know: the one group of people that Jesus did not get along with. Or the Pharisees and the scribes because they were hypocrites. Yep.
So don't be a hypocrite. That's right. Never be a hypocrite. Guys, make sure you join us next time, same time, same station. We're going to be diving into another great topic here on the Clearview Today Show.
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That's right. A couple of other ways you can support us as well. I'm going to tell you both of them. Number one is you can pre-order the Robinson Pier Pont Byzantine text form 2026 edition. It's available right now for pre-order.
You can follow the link right in the description. And you can also check out our new show, Learn to Read Biblical Hebrew or How to Read Biblical Hebrew with Dr. Abadan Shah. You can also find that on Dr. Shah's podcast channel on Apple Podcasts.
It's a video podcast.
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We'll see you tomorrow on Clear Read Today.
