You don't have to live your life in doom and gloom, but you should care about the world around you because through you, God wants to do something about it. How can you figure out how to be that person? Let's find out together on the 3B 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. Welcome to another episode of the Clearview Today Show with our host, Dr. Abadan Shah. If you're listening for the very first time today, tuning in on the radio or on your favorite podcast app, we want to say thank you for joining and we're going to let you know exactly 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, a lot to talk about today. A lot to talk about.
A lot to talk about. But it's good to see you. See you as well. Amen. We're excited about continuing the conversation about Nehemiah.
Nehemiah is such an influential figure, and he's one that gets skipped over a lot in Bible studies. A lot of people don't even know that's a book. Right. I heard a bad joke about Nehemiah. I'll tell you later.
You know, we're excited to continue the conversation on Nehemiah today because Nehemiah creates such a clear picture on what it means to step up to the call to leadership. That's right. And we want to equip you guys to be better leaders. And we want Want to do that through this avenue that God's given us. And you know who makes that possible?
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Now, I feel like I really want to hear this Nehemiah joke. You want to hear the bad Nehemiah joke? Yeah, what was it?
Well, you may not know this. Many people think it was Zacchaeus that was the shortest man in the Bible, but actually, it was Nehemiah. Nehemiah was the shortest man in the Bible. Nehai Maya. All right, say, Dr.
Shaw, I mean, we're talking about leadership today. I really regret it. I did tell you, I really regret it. I told you in advance, I did tell you in advance it was a bad joke. Yeah, I really.
I told you in advance it was a bad joke.
So, I don't know. Dr. Sha, how do you feel about puns? I can't stand them. I mean, puns can be funny.
You like a pun. I mean, I'm not like a, what's the word? What's the name for the people who love puns? There's a name for me. We talked about this.
Annoying. Annoying. Annoying. It'll come to me. I think those people should be punished.
Oh. Yeah, they should be sent to the penitentiary. Anyway, Nehemiah. No, but we are talking about leadership, right? And we talked about this a little bit, but leaders have to care, especially about the world around them.
I'm thinking about Nehemiah, who felt this conviction to go and help his people who he had never met. We talked about that a little bit in yesterday's episode and the one before it. Yeah, to go rebuild a homeland he didn't know.
So. Imagine with me You're walking this wide stone staircase.
So, are you there? I'm there. You're walking up this wide stone staircase, which. leads into a gate to a gate which leads into a courtyard.
Now you are headed towards the palace. You can see the palace. It's beautiful.
So walking up these stairs, open the gate.
Now you're in the courtyard leading to the palace. And as you would walk into behind the walls of the palace, like enter into the palace. the walls on both sides.
Alright, come up the staircase, courtyard, walk through, enter the palace gate, you go inside. The walls on both sides. of this I guess you can call it a corridor are are decorated with bright colored enamelled Tiles. More specifically, like blue, brown, I mean, just beautifully colored. and on the walls are the images made out of these tiles of the immortal gods.
So they are guarding the palace. They are you know, these are just images. They're real immortal guards, but but these are the images. They're wearing colorful clothing decorated with tiny little stars.
So when the sun comes up, And it shines into the courtyard and towards the wall. Walls, you know, as you're walking in, it's like the wall just comes alive. It's like an LED wall on both sides. As you're walking, You're not all the way inside the palace yet, but you're just walking through this corridor. But it's tactile, it's lights and tiles.
It lights up because of the sun. And their bows, and arrows, and spears are made out of gold and silver, all on the walls, both sides. How would you love your job every morning? You park your car, walk up this giant stone staircase into this beautiful manicured lawn, a courtyard, walk towards the palace gate. The doors are open, the guards are there, and then you begin to walk down this beautiful gold, a beautiful corridor, both sides decorated with these enameled walls with the immortal guards standing there guarding the palace.
Yeah, I'd feel like a big shot every day coming to work. Every day. And gold all over it. I mean, real gold. This is not, you know, gold painted and in a color yellow.
No. When Alexander the Great came into Shushan. Because what I just described to you is the daily workplace of Nehemiah. Wow. When Alexander the Great came to Sushon, He took with him twelve hundred.
hundred tons of gold. That's incredible. That's a lot of gold. That's a lot of gold. That's a real.
Some of that coming from the walls as you're walking in. I would say Nehemiah had it made. Oh, yeah. He was comfortable. He was a luxury.
He was living. I mean, this is like what we talk about: that penthouse suite. Yeah. You know, the corner office, the one looking over the city. And he was just like, man, this is where I arrived.
I have my beautiful mahogany desk in front of me, and I have a triple monitor stand and sleek. Perfect. Yeah, it's got a hot rod car on it. There you go. Yeah, that's my screensaver.
This is it. Or you can, if you don't like that high-rise and looking over the city, man, you have this beautiful office downtown. You know, man, everything is just very old-fashioned and traditional. And you just walk, you park your car in the parking spot that you've been parking at for years. And then you make your way into your little office and you sit down and you just think about all the people in the past who have come through there.
Man, it's just, this is my little comfort zone. Can you come build the walls of Jerusalem in a city you've never been to? Ancestors left because they were killed or raped and bullied. You know what Nehemiah says here in Nehemiah chapter one, he says, As I was in Shushon, the citadel, citadel means fort. We just read that as I was in Shusha.
What I just described to you is the palace. That was in Shushan. It was beautiful. Like I said, Alexander the Great just was blown away. And I mean, instead of just leaving it there, he's like, all this gold is coming with that.
That's why I think I believe that's mine right there. Yeah. So, imagine what you would have done. I would have been like, sorry. Yeah, I don't know what y'all sounds like someone else's problem.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, seriously, I think that Nehemiah could have been that person. And I think that who said, you know, I just, this ain't got nothing to do with me. But the fact that he had that conviction from God to go and do that, Dr.
Shaw, I think speaks to leadership. Yeah. You know, that's what we're talking about today. Yeah. Yeah.
You have to care. Care enough to sacrifice. In our world, in our culture today, we don't like the word sacrifice. And not everybody has to sacrifice the same things. Yeah.
But we will have to sacrifice. If we're going to be leaders, sacrifice is part of the job. Yes. And so I think a lot of times, and tell me what you think about this. A lot of times we see sacrifices like it's got to be the ultimate sacrifice.
Jesus laying down his life, soldiers going overseas and laying down their life for their country. And that's 100% that sacrifice. But we see sacrifice like that.
So when it comes to. An inconvenience or an interruption. We don't see it as sacrifice. We just see it as an inconvenience or an interruption. We don't want to do it.
Yeah, the tiny sacrifices often don't register to us. Yeah, and they're not tiny because, in the grand scheme of things, Nehemiah giving up that great job at the palace of the king of Persia, the largest empire of all times, I would say, I would say all times, maybe. Maybe other empires may have outgrown in our modern times, but back in those days, man, Persia was the greatest. Even the army, all these kingdoms came under the Persian Empire, powerful. And to be right next to the king of Persia?
That's crazy. To be his cupbearer, which is more than just his butler. He was his assistant. He was his confidant. He was the person that they went to to get things done.
He carried the seal of the king of Persia, but he was willing to sacrifice. Because what it says here that Henani, one of my brethren, more than likely his blood. relative, like a brother, came with men from Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. We asked him.
He was concerned.
So, how are things back there for our? Brothers and sisters. The Jews who had escaped means some who were in captivity in Babylon were allowed to go freely, but then there were others who had went into hiding, some went to Egypt, some went to other parts of the world at the time. And they were coming back. How is their condition?
Oh, they're not doing well. He was asking about these things. He was asking. He didn't have to. Yeah.
I mean, in our modern world, we would call them, man. He had his Rolls-Royce. He had his Lamborghini. He had his beautiful pinstripe suit. He had his Harvard degree.
He had his Oxford degree. He had everything lined up for a great, successful career. It would have been easy for him to have blinders on and just say, this is my life. I don't care about anyone or anything else. This is where I'm headed.
Yeah, I don't care. That's your problem. He cared. And so also for us, we have to care. Yeah, like I think about during Easter offerings and Christmas offerings.
Like a lot of times when Christians quote unquote make it, you know, you've got a nice, successful life, a comfortable life. You do forget about the people who are suffering, out of sight, out of mind. And that's why as churches, a lot of times we have to show those videos. We have to show these Annie Armstrong, Lottie Moon videos to remind people that, hey, there's suffering going on because if you don't see it, you're not going to think about it. And to know that Nehemiah was not that way.
He's like, no, I'm checking in on this. What's going on? Another mark of leadership, I think. Yeah. We should care.
He saw that that affected him. Even if it didn't affect his immediate life, those were his people. That was his homeland, and it mattered to him. The question for us who are listening, who are watching, is: do you care? Do you care about the lostness around you?
Not just far away in Africa, which we should care. And when people say sometimes, like, man, let's care about across the street, not far away. No, we should care about both. Care about people across the street, but care about people across the ocean care. About what's happening there.
Number one, their lostness. There's more lostness today than there was yesterday and the day before. I mean, I think we are probably experiencing the greatest lostness of all time. I think Christians, a lot of times, will focus on good statistics that we receive, like numbers trending positive about people who are younger and attending church and people getting saved and record numbers on college campuses. And those are really great things, and we should focus on those things.
But I think a lot of times we allow them to sort of lull us into thinking. Christianity is experiencing a renaissance. We're seeing another revival. We're seeing another great awakening. And by God's grace, we pray that we'll see those in our lifetimes, but let's not.
Delude ourselves into thinking there isn't lostness in the world. And I like the way that you framed it too, Dr. Shah. It's like you have to ask yourself that. Yeah.
Of we're Christians, we know that we kind of have to care about these things. If someone asks us, Do you care about the lostness? There's no universe where any cognizant Christian is going to say, No, I don't care. Like, no, of course, we're going to say we care, but how often do I think about it? I don't think about it very much.
You know, I mean, that's a way that the Lord's convicted me right now. It's not something that we. really genuinely care about. You care enough to do something unprompted. Yeah.
Right. And think about other religions that are coming in and people who are searching. We think everybody is going the way of atheism. Or agnosticism. No, that's not true.
There are other religions who are evangelizing, and they are false religions. They don't have salvation, they don't have the truth. There's nothing but darkness and emptiness and despair. and then ultimately death and they are Quote-unquote evangelizing. I don't know where we're taking a term that is really regarding the good news of the gospel where we're applying it in this context.
Yeah, yeah. You mean, are you trying to say that like the monks walking up and down the country wasn't just like a little publicity stuff like that? I thought that was just some peace-loving little shaolin or whatever. No, that's shaolin monks. I just yeah, I mean, they were Vietnamese monks, by the way.
But they were trying to make it, of course, they're trying to raise funds for their big stupa up in Texas, I believe, but they were also trying to portray a religion of peace in the midst of such a chaotic Western world, which is madly in love with war and immorality that we're here to bring. Buddhism is Atheism. There is no God. They're not praying, folks. They're chanting.
What are they chanting to? Nothing. Right. And yet, people are like, man, you know what? That right there, that's what that is.
That's holy for me. It's like, man, they pray for me, please. Pray for you. To what? We're not praying.
To whom? No one. If you ask them, who do you pray to? They'll tell you, we're not praying. What are you doing then?
We're just repeating things. Why are you repeating things? It just bin brings peace. Yeah. So, this is, and then of course, the coming of Islam.
You see that in Europe, you see that in England, and now in America as well.
So it's time that Christians awakened and start paying attention to what's happening in our world. It's not just happening far away across the street. It's going to be happening in your own family, with your own children, with your own grandchildren. And it's imperative that you care. Why do I do what I do?
Another buck? And then what? At the end of my life, I'm not going to take anything with me. Anything. If I stop working extra today, I can coast the rest of my life just by doing.
you know, normal things. It's not going to stop anything. I'm not trying to buy the Empire State building. I'm not trying to buy a yacht or whatever. I'll be perfectly fine.
Why are we doing extra and more? Because we are people who care that lost people are going to hell forever and ever. Is forever. We care because the people who are living in bondage to Drugs and alcohol. It destroys life.
I was recently doing chaplaincy, and a gentleman came to me and asked me to pray. Pray for a member of his family who was stuck. in the grips of alcoholism. And, you know, sometimes I question myself. It's like, man, maybe I'm too hard on these addictions.
Maybe I'm too hard on these things. And then somebody comes up to me and says, Please pray because I don't know. I don't know how this person thinks. They're destroying their home, they're destroying their children. It's really It's it's it's so Painful to watch, but that's where we are.
And that's when I realized, man. Yes, I do need to care. Yeah. In spite of what the world is saying, in spite of the distractions from people within and without, I should care. That's right.
So. What was the answer when Nehemiah asked that question?
So let's. Do the first things first. Ask the question, are things okay? Are things truly okay? And the answer is no, they're not.
And the world will get you all distracted about what to care about. They say, oh, no, don't worry about that. Care about this. Care about the planet. Care about the species that are dying and becoming extinct.
Care about all those things. And I'm not against that. I think we should care about the planet. I think we should care about species that go extinct. But there are some other things we should also care about, and that is human lives.
That is, the the destiny of every soul.
Okay. Or the unborn, the fate of the unborn. We should care about that. Nehemiah cared They answered to him, Listen to verse 3. The survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach.
Great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire. In other words, there is absolutely zero chance of recovery unless and until someone powerful enough and resourceful enough can come. And help them rebuild the walls. There is no way possible.
Yeah. It's done.
So Nehemiah knows at that point it's him. Right. It's going to be him.
Something is now happening in his heart. He's moved to action. He's stirred to acting upon this desire to help. That's a. Did you get this from Nehemiah, or is this just a mindset that you've always had?
Because that's a mindset that we have here on this staff. And hopefully, I would hope that other church staffs as well: if we're not the ones doing it, it's not happening. For me, studying Nehemiah helped me tremendously. As I mentioned in the past, I have studied the book of Nehemiah. at least twice in detail.
First time was back in the mid-2000s. I worked on this book and I realized: man, there's some gold here. Because our church at the time, this very same church, I haven't pastored any of the churches. This is my first and only church coming up now to about twenty eight years. That's almost three decades.
In twenty twenty eight, Nicole and I would have been here We'll be here thirty years, three decades. But when we first came here, Our church Was not here. It was in a different part of town. It was. Initially planted to be in the heart of a mill village.
You know, back in the day the cotton mills, you know, they they were the hub of the town and the Harriet and Henderson yarn mills were were the place to be, to work. And then over the years, because of the strikes that happened, and then over the years, because NAFTA. North American Free Trade Agreement. Many of the jobs moved overseas, went to the south, to other countries. And so the cotton mills began to shut down.
So because of that, and then, of course, other things like the farming went down.
So there was a massive shift of people moving from the farming areas into town and people from town moving away or moving out towards the outskirts of the town to now live a different life. I mean, it was a lot of changes happening.
So this church was left in the middle of where the mill used to be. And when I came to town, the mill was still there. And then it slowly shut down after a year or two of my coming here. The church had begun to decline. And When we came here, there were probably on a good Sunday.
20 20 people. Wow. Yeah, twenty people. That's it. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, once in a while there may be twenty-five. Yes, on a Christmas there would be forty five, fifty people. But that's like packed house. I I mean, not packed house physically, but like that's the most you're oh, our our building could hold close to five hundred people. Wow.
Yeah, but Seated in there would be twenty people, twenty five 50 on a on a Christmas Sunday. Yeah. That's it. And so I saw this. It was like, okay, this may not be the place for us.
I need to go somewhere else. And maybe I can use my resources better. And there are people who gave me advice: man, man, move somewhere else, move into a city setting, because you're a more city-minded kind of person. You grew up in a big city, you are very. You know, modern in your technological uses, you know, you're really like always on the cutting edge of things.
You are educated, you want to do your PhD and all that stuff. Man, move move, move to the city, go urban, or move to a place where it is more multicultural because you come from India. And you can really capture a lot. over there and and so We contemplated that. But God never gave us peace about it.
He said, No. We I want you to stay here. Of course, my dad told me that. Nicole's dad told us that prior to his death, And we prayed. We prayed and said, God, this looks like Jerusalem Okay.
Okay? This looks like Nehemiah's Understanding of Jerusalem where the gates are burned with fire. There's nothing here at the time. And maybe this is a question. We only got about four or five minutes left.
But at the time, did that decision to stay feel like sacrifice? It did. It did. It felt like if we do that, we may have to live in relative obscurity. Do you consider it sacrifice today?
No, absolutely not. And I don't mean like, like, it wasn't worth it, but like, do you consider do you like today, do you look back and say that wasn't a sacrifice? Or was it just something that felt like sacrifice? It felt like a sacrifice at the time. Gotcha, okay.
Because I was thinking, man, so I when I agree to stay here, I'm choosing the path that my dad took. and of course that became very well known. Albeit our church was good size, you know, for 400, 500 people, but it was still a small church. If he had gone to, say, Cary Baptist Church in Calcutta, that's where he was called to go. And then later on through the years he was invited to come be a pastor here and there.
And each time he said no.
Some of those churches Easily, I mean, sitting in Bombay and Calcutta and Delhi and some of those big cities. He could have Easily built up an audience of a couple thousand people. Wow. Even in India, like Christians among Christians. In the big cities, yeah.
Wow. Okay. In the big cities. Yeah. Now, even in our small town, where the population was about 400,000 some people.
There were Four or five churches.
Okay. But the church that we were at, or dad came to, was planted by the British back in the day through a revival that came there, supported by people in Virginia. Yeah. Anyways, that's a long story. But, anyways, he came to this church.
This church was where Sort of the transient people came, not the locals. These were people from outside who came to work in the railways Came to our church.
So they were not locals, they didn't speak the local language.
Now, some locals came. But mostly outsiders.
So it was very unique. Over here. Uh we felt like in some ways it was Similar. It was a small church. struggling, And It could shut down and other churches may continue, and maybe these people will just sort of amalgamate into other churches and move on.
And some did. Yeah. But God gave us a burden. To do something here. He said no, there's something that needs to be happening here.
And it was a big question, is it really true, Lord? Yeah. Well us Nicole and I staying here, raising our family here, truly make a difference. And I think we are. Amen.
I truly believe so. But at the time, It was really just like Nihama would have wondered, it's like me going there to Jerusalem, will it really make a difference? Or should I just get a support system and send them there? Should I just get some raise up fund and just send them send send it to Jerusalem? But if you know the Nehemiah story, it's Nehemiah who went.
So, anyways, we have a lot to cover. Yeah, yeah. And so, someone's listening, we really are out of time, but I just want for someone who's listening to this who goes, man, that was a great story. I'm really glad it worked out for you. Right now, in my situation, I just need someone to speak into me.
What's the advice that you would give them? Yeah, just as we're closing. If God is beginning to lay on your heart to sacrifice and do something that may not seem to make sense, Trust God. Don't trust your senses.
Sometimes don't even trust what some people may tell you. Trust godly counselors, okay? That's important. Godly counselors. People who love the Lord Jesus Christ, people who truly have the best in mind for you, people who are in the word, trust them.
But don't trust everything what people may say. But Just know, you may not see the whole picture right now, but if you follow God, One day you'll realize that you made the right decision. May not be today, tomorrow, one day. For us, it was very quickly. We realized: man, yeah, this is the right thing.
Even though we didn't have. but maybe 50 people. We knew this was the right decision. Amen. God brought that clarity.
God brought that in your life. Yeah. Man, so great. And I can't wait to continue this conversation with all of our listeners, with all of our viewers. Guys, I hope the takeaway that you leave with today is trust God.
No matter what you're dealing with, no matter what you're facing, no matter what sacrifice seems like is on the table for you, trust God. He's never let you down and he's not about to start now. That's right. Thanks so much for tuning in today. If you're listening for the first time, write in and let us know.
We'd love to get to meet you and welcome you to the Clearview Today Show family: 252-582-5028. Don't forget that you can subscribe to anywhere podcasting content can be found. Share these episodes with your friends and loved ones as well. And you can always support us financially at Abhadansha.com forward slash gifts. That's right.
We are inching ever, ever closer to the release of the Greek New Testament. This is the Robinson Pier Pont Byzantine text form 2026 edition. It's a hardback cover. I think we've got one. Oh, yeah, we got one right over there.
I'll show it to you next time. But listen, we're telling you right now, it's going to be available for regular ordering very soon. Pre-ordering is available right now. Thank you to everyone who already pre-ordered. And thank you to everyone who's already pre-subscribed to our new show, How to Read Biblical Greek by Dr.
Abadan Shah. It's a companion series to our How to Read Biblical Hebrew with Dr. Abadan Shah. And both of these two shows are running concurrently through the summer and beyond with the intention of helping you read the Bible in its original language. That's right.
We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Cleavy Today.
