rd | Religious Liberties

Welcome back, everyone.

Today is Thursday, November the 3rd, 2022. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abaddon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com, or if you have a question for Dr. Shah, anything you'd like to write in and suggest that we talk about, send us a text at 252-582-5028. You can also email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

You can, of course, follow Dr. Shah on his website at AbaddonShah.com, and I want to direct you back to ClearviewTodayShow.com. You can support us there financially. Every donation that you make goes not only to supporting our show, but countless other ministries that build up the kingdom of God.

That's right. We appreciate every single donation that we get. We appreciate everybody who's contributing to the mission. We appreciate everybody who's contributing just to the work that God has called not only us to do, but He's called you to do it too. That's why we keep pushing this so hard. It's not because we want your money. It's because we truly believe that God has called you, called all of us, every single person to obedience.

I mean, that's what the Great Commission is. It's a call to go and to spread the message and make disciples, and that's what we're trying to do, and that's what you guys can help us do. So absolutely thank you so much to everybody who is donating. Yeah, it's not so much support us as we stand, but let's stand together. Right.

Exactly. So before we start today's show, we want to remind you, of course, about the upcoming elections on November the 8th, 2022. We're going to keep this conversation going until election day because it is that important.

Please, please go out there, vote your conscience, vote biblical values, do your civic duty, and get out there, go to the polls, and vote. That's the reason things don't change is because people won't talk about it. Or people think, though, I'm just going to talk about it once, and then I'm just going to trust that people are going to go, no, people have got to be pushed. People have to be reminded, people, we have to keep the conversation going. That's right.

Otherwise, there's not going to be any change. That's right, and we would be happy to be a resource for you if you need to know who's running for what office and what is available for you to vote. We'd love to give you some of those resources, love to point you in that direction. Right. So you can send us that text at 252-582-5028, or an email to contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com. John, I have a question for you.

Go for it. So Gavin, how old is Gavin now? He's going, let's see, today's the third. He's nearly two. He's nearly two. On Saturday, he'll be two. He'll be two years old. Yeah, so today's the third, so let's say Friday is the fourth, Saturday is the fifth.

Yeah, it'd be two. So I'm going to ask you a question, and I fear it may trigger a response from you. How's potty training going? Bad. Oh, no. Bad. I'm sort of taking a hands-off approach.

Is that good? I don't think so, but I don't know what I'm doing. Okay. No, I'm joking around.

We're tackling it together, but Ellie is taking on the majority of it. It's just new. Yeah.

It's very new. I will say, to Gavin's credit, he's latched onto it very quickly. I mean, there are times when he's hanging around, and he'll come up and be like, Potty, I go potty. I'm like, okay. Try potty.

He's almost two-year-old. Very good. How was it for you? You've done it five times.

I have. Yeah. But it's different with each kid.

I mean, some kids get it super fast, and some it's like, oh my gosh, this kid's going to be in diapers through middle school. Who was the easiest? The easiest? Yeah. Our oldest girl, Hartley.

Okay. Who was the hardest? She was the hardest. Gosh, none of them were profoundly difficult.

Yeah. There were some that were just stubborn. Joanna was stubborn. Really? She did not want to...

I mean, she didn't want to stop what she was doing. Joanna and Asher, I think. Asher's our youngest, our little boy. He's fully potty trained, right? He is. He's like, you're done. We're done with diapers.

We don't have diapers anymore in our household. I got you. Asher's four, right? Asher's four. Yeah, so he's done. Yeah.

So it's... I mean, they were just stubborn, and it's just different with each kid. You got to find what works. The reward system that worked for one didn't work for another one, so it's kind of like relearning the system all over. We give him a Rolo. Anytime he tries and succeeds, we give him a Rolo. Now if he tries, if he tells us, like, hey, try potty, and we go take him, he doesn't do anything, we'll still praise him and be like, hey, good job, we'll try.

But if he goes, he gets a Rolo. So now he's kind of knowing, like, if I want a Rolo, I'm just going to go say try potty. So there's times where he'll be like, try potty, try potty. And then he's on the potty, and he'll go treat, and we're like, no, we're not going to treat just yet. Yeah. So there's sort of like a racketeering system going on in the house that I'm not super happy about.

Well, you know, babies, toddlers, little kids, they're master manipulators, so if he's going to find a way to extort candy from you, he's going to do it. That's right. We're going to bring Dr. Schein in just a few minutes for today's episode. You know, we're in the same vein that we've been in this week talking about issues that affect our political understanding of the world around us. Right. And one of those things that we constantly hear about is that our values are under attack. Yeah. And that's not a secret either.

That's not something that Christians are just making up. I mean, people on the other side, people who are attacking our values will openly say, yes, if you're a bigot, if you're homophobic, xenophobic, whatever phobic, if that's who you are, there's no place for you here. Yeah. And that's common rhetoric. And it's surprising.

You would think that people wouldn't openly talk that way, but it's gotten to the point where they do. Well, it seems so much like people are very concerned with protecting liberties and protecting values, except when it comes to people who are believers, except when it comes to Christians. Right. Because Christians are not individuals. This is all about, it's under the guise of individual liberty. So it's my individual right to exist. And yet I'm operating under a group, but I'm not going to talk about that because this group over here is oppressing this group and yet somehow it's an individual identity thing.

None of it really holds up. But that's kind of where we are. Right. So we're going to bring Dr. Shah into the studio in just a few minutes for that discussion. But if you have any questions, maybe you're firing off with some questions about, maybe you feel like your liberties have been challenged or you're not even sure if this is an issue.

Send us those questions or ideas for us to talk about at 252-582-5028, or you can email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com. And just a reminder, today is Thursday, so tomorrow is Friday's lightning round episode. We are going to take those questions that we've received from you, especially those that are of a political nature. And we're going to pose those to Dr. Questions in our lightning round tomorrow on Friday's episode. Who is Dr. Questions? Did I say Dr. Questions? Yeah, you said we're going to pose them to Dr.

Questions. No, did I really? David, did you hear it? To Dr. Shah. I'm so sorry. David, did you hear it?

I don't think so, but I'm definitely going to like, if I do hear it in the recording, I'm going to make sure it stops and repeats. That's hilarious. I did not mean Dr. Questions. I meant Dr. Shah. That's all good. We're going to pose the questions to Dr. Shah. Very cool. Apparently, I'm very excited about those questions. That's all good. I'm getting the questions in, by the way. Yeah. Please keep sending those in.

That number is live. We're going to go grab Dr. Shah, and we'll be right back. If you haven't already, be sure to check out Dr. Shah's book, Changing the Goalpost of New Testament Textual Criticism. Before the 1960s, the goal of New Testament textual criticism was singular, to retrieve the original text of the New Testament. Since then, the goalpost has incrementally shifted away from the original text to retrieving any text, or many texts, of the New Testament. Some scholars have even concluded that the original text is hopelessly lost and cannot be retrieved with any confidence or accuracy.

If that's the case, how can we claim that the Bible is an errand? To answer these questions, make sure you order a copy of Dr. Shah's book. That title again is Changing the Goalpost of New Testament Textual Criticism. You can pick up your copy on Amazon right now, and let us know how it's helped you by emailing us at info at clearviewbc.org. You can also support our ministry here at Clearview by visiting us at clearviewbc.org-slash-give. Thanks for listening, now back to the show. Welcome back to Clearview Today with Dr. Abaddon Shah, a daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com, or send us a text at 252-582-5028. Dr. Shah is in the studio with us today. Dr. Shah, how are you doing today? I'm doing very well. This is our second week coming to the end of the second week.

Almost through the second week. It's been very exciting. I know it's been humbling and exciting for me because, for one, thank God for this show. Thank God for you guys and for what you all are doing, our AV team, they're doing an amazing job.

But also, thank you to the listeners. To be able to hear from people in our text messages and our emails, that has been just awesome for me. The engagement has been through the roof, which is funny because I remember when we were in those initial meetings, they were warning us, like, now engagement may be months and months off. You may have to.

Don't want to see it. They were like, temper your expectations because we don't want you to get discouraged. To have this much engagement right off the bat is incredible. Very uplifting.

And if you guys are listening, you've never heard of Dr. Shaw, you've never heard of his work before. Want to let you know he's a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and host of today's show. I like that. Add a little flourish.

The little... I got another one for you. Snap. Give me notes on this one. Okay.

And host of today's show. Nobody on the video. The snap was my preference. Yeah, nobody on the audio can see it. I think that's why I like the snap is because the radio listeners can participate too.

The flourish we can't see unless you watch it. But you can watch on Facebook and on Instagram. So you can see us on Instagram. You cannot see all the videos on Facebook. Sometimes I wonder if we're not good to our radio crowd because we do so much things, but it's a film show.

I know. You guys are getting the audio. But you can go and watch the show. We'll watch it too.

That's right. And where can they watch it? They can watch it on Facebook and they can follow us on Instagram at Clearview Today Show. Yeah. Oh, I was going to say clearviewtodayshow.com.

But not Instagram. Huh? Never mind.

It's okay. Go for it. Speaking of engagement from listeners, um, we did, we get a lot of messages in, we get a lot of texts and emails into contact at clearviewtodayshow.com. But this one text came through, uh, with a suggestion from one of our listeners. Is it okay if I read that?

Absolutely. So this comes from Rachel who's listening from right here in North Carolina and she writes, hello, I've enjoyed listening to every episode of the podcast so far. Thank you very much, Rachel. Thanks for listening. I had a suggestion and didn't know if you would consider including a daily scripture for listeners so we could get some of God's word from the podcast as well as the practical advice and interesting topics being presented.

Thanks for your consideration. That is an awesome suggestion. Thank you, Rachel. I love that.

We love it. So we do have a verse of the day today. Thank you very much, Rachel, for this idea.

We're going to incorporate that into each episode. Today's verse comes from first Peter chapter two, verses 13 and 14. It says therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good. Wow. You know, it's funny because we often think about those good works as just blind compliance.

And I think that's one thing I like about you, Dr. Sean, I don't want to, you know, I know you're going to, we're going to segue into the topic, but that's not at all what Peter is saying. Right. That is not at all.

That's right. You're saying, well, I grew up in a non-Christian country. What I mean by that is Christianity was not the foundation. Just like in America, you know, we know the Christian foundation of our nation is built upon Judeo-Christian values. And I've had, I've seen people argue against that in America. I've sat in college classes where students argued with each other over, no, we were a secular country. We've always been secular and the Christians or the fundamentalist or the evangelicals have been trying to push their agenda.

I've heard all of that. Right. And personally, having grown up for the first 17 years of my life in a non-Christian country and then coming to America and having lived here for the past 30 some years, I can assure you this is a Christian country because it's very, very, very different.

Yeah. And it's very interesting to hear that because you hear the opposite all the time. Like I grew up in a Christian background, but then I went somewhere and I saw how quote unquote real the world actually is and how little Christianity actually has to do with it. You hear that all the time.

I've heard that I was raised Christian in a non-Christian environment and I came here and I see that no, Christianity is the truth. It is the foundation. Absolutely. That's encouraging. Absolutely. And what I have seen, unfortunately, in just the past 30 years of being here, that progressively or regressively, we have gotten further away from those values.

That's a good way to put it, regressively, we've gotten further from those values. What is that like for you? Okay.

So here's, here's kind of what I, where, where my mind is because you grew up in a culture that was already hostile towards Christian values. What is it like to now come to America and see that happen almost for the first time here? Yes.

It's very surreal. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember growing up, this is back in the early eighties.

Okay. This happened in the early eighties where our electricity came from a part of the railways because the whole town was supplied by electricity in two different ways. One was just the government electricity and like a power company. And then there was a railway electricity. This is for the railway employees, their homes, their workplaces, the hospital was supplied by the railways. So anyways, a person came to this, the railway department as the GM and general manager of that area of where I grew up of the railway departments.

And he was very antagonistic towards Christians. And one of the first things he did was he went through and saw that a church was getting electricity from the railways and which was understood because we're sitting in this, this church was originally founded back in the 1890s and it serviced, if I can say that, or ministered to railway families. These were Britishers, their families who were living in India and even some Christians, you know, it was kind of understood that this is for them.

This is in that area. Just like in small town in North Carolina, you have mill villages. So you have churches that were planted in the heart of the mill village to reach the people who worked in the mills, the cotton mills.

So also this church was meant to do that. So where do you think the power is going to come from? From the railways. So to expect a power company for the town or this government power company to run a cable all throughout the railways to get to a church, it's not possible. It's crazy, right? So for him to come and say, no, it's not a railway entity.

The church does not belong to us, so we don't belong to the church. Cut their power. And guess what? He did. Wow.

He cut our power. And imagine if you grew up in India, especially in the summertime. Yeah. Oh my goodness. It is very hot. I mean, you know, talking about, you know, here when people get, it gets about a hundred degrees.

It's like, oh my goodness. It was the hottest day of the year. Yeah. Try 120.

Wow. How long were you without power? The whole year.

A year? No power. No power. Now there was a neighbor who ran us a line, um, uh, you know, he was sort of a Christian neighbor. I should say he ran us a line for a little while and you know, it was, we had to like turn the lights off at night because we don't want the lights to be on for somebody to see us and to report us.

And then in the process, also report our neighbor, then he'll lose the power. So all kind of weird stuff. I mean, we're like growing up, like I was in some communist country, you know, living in persecution, but we were in a way, we were persecuted and it's crazy because now here in America, someone could seriously look you in the face and say persecution is not going to happen here in America. Right. We're not going to see that.

And that's not true. Yeah. Persecution has already begun, but it's a different kind of persecution, but it's already begun and it begins with all these hate speeches and this kind of stuff.

It's already started and has been for, I would say a couple of decades. So that is what we grew up in. Now, thank God that at the end of the year that GM was transferred and we call it an answer to prayer and they were able to reinstate our power. At the same time, we got the government power, ended up having two different sources of power in our church.

So one went out, the other one was on. So it was pretty cool. But anyways, for that year, it was a very rough time. And we know what persecution looks like. So the way my father, my dad, the pastor of the church, conducted himself was always with a sense of very involved in the community, very helpful, but very tough, very, how do I say this? I mean, he was, people respected him and you would not try that again.

So I don't know what my dad would have done, but there was a sense of fear about it. Well, that's, I mean, that's interesting though, because we often think of persecution as just outright like Roman style era, just feed you to the lions, do that. We yank people out of homes. And so we tend to say, well, no, that's not going to happen in America. But how many clever loopholes like that, or how many like techniquet, well, you know, this is not a, we can't just supply power to the church. We can't do this because it's not a, I mean, how, how feasible is that in America?

It's very feasible. That's exactly how it happens. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly how it happens. You know, challenges to our tax status and things like that, that's already been happening for a while. And so Christians are told, if you don't behave and if you don't back off, or if you don't stop, if you keep calling this kind of lifestyle or that kind of lifestyle as sin, then we will take away your status.

Yeah. But what is the marker, I guess, if somebody is experiencing something and they're like, is this, would this fall in the realm of persecution? Like what is that, I guess, criteria?

How would people know? I mean, to me is anytime they come against churches from the angle of morality, their idea of morality, it's a form of persecution. It is. Can you expand on that a little bit? Yeah, of course. Just like with the whole sexual issues going on, right? So to say that, oh, are you not going to do weddings for a same sex couple?

Well, you know, that's called discrimination. Yeah. Well, that's your step towards persecution. It's happening.

It's already begun. So in other parts of the world, the second and third steps have been carried out where the pastors have been put in jail. Yeah. And even in India, there are pastors who are put in jail because they share the gospel with somebody and they have been beat up. I mean, this is happening as we speak.

Yeah. I mean, think about Iran, what's happening there to pastors, to Christians. I mean, that's persecution has been going on for decades. So I would say as Christians in America, we need to comply. We need to obey the laws. We need to respect those in authority, knowing that God has placed them. But at the same time, always resist.

Yes. Always stand up, speak the truth, do in love, but don't compromise. Don't get all, you know, I don't know how to say it, but kind of meek and mild.

Sometimes you have to be bold and courageous. And that's, you know, I was thinking about First Peter. We often bring up that portion of First Peter where it talks about submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, the passage for today. But you know, if you really examine First Peter carefully, there are plenty of resistance language in there.

That's true. And lately, this is a topic of research in New Testament studies, in church history, in early Christian studies. So let me give you some example examples here. Now pay attention to the resistance language here in the submission commands. Okay. So First Peter two 13, therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake.

Means it's almost like they're looking at you. The pastor is looking at his people and saying, for the Lord's sake, okay, not that we agree with any of this garbage for the Lord's sake. First Peter two 15, for this is the will of God. Okay. This is the will of God, folks, that by doing good, you may put to silence the ignorance of what's the word foolish man, foolish man.

Yeah. Doesn't sound to me as a very compliant church. He just called the government officials and the Roman soldiers foolish men. That's true. Verse 16, as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God, I am not a bondservant of the empire, I'm a bondservant of God, so I'll do what you want us to do.

Of course we comply, but at the same time, we're not your servants. That's right. You see the sense of resistance. It's in there, but it's not in your face.

It's not like rebellious. Right. Yeah. If one or all love the brotherhood, fear God. Then comes honor the King. Now these are little tiny instances, but if you truly pay attention to them, they have some meaning behind them.

There's a purpose behind them. Yeah. Here's another one. First Peter two 19, for this is commendable. If because of conscience sake, a conscience toward God, one endures grief, suffering wrongfully of conscience towards God means because you are being obedient to God, you're suffering. Hey, listen, that's commendable.

Yeah. First Peter two 21, for to this you were called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow his steps. You're suffering. I get it. You're being like Christ.

Don't lose heart. And there's so many others. Here's one more. Four three, for we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles.

Wow. I mean, he's really, it's really, once you point it out, it's very obvious. You can, you can hear, I mean, this is Peter, you can hear Peter's heart, his personality coming through because Peter was the, he was the disciple that was in the front. He was the one who was kind of the mouthpiece of the disciples. Keep in mind, he's from Galilee. Galilee was not known for hardcore Judaism. It was in a Gentile territory.

So Romans and whoever else, Syrians were ruling them. So what he's saying is, you know, we spent enough of our lifetime doing the will of the Gentiles. Right. All right. So that's enough is enough. Let's also make sure we obey God first, Peter four 16, yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this manner.

That's, that's amazing. You know, what's funny is that we typically tend to think, and I mean, maybe this is just our kind of soft Americanized understanding of the gospel, but that these good works that Peter's talking about, these commendable, like instances of compliance, we tend to think that the goal is to lessen conflict or to make, or to like minimize conflict. I don't really know that Peter's interested in minimizing content conflict as much as just challenging these powers without like forsaking the ultimate goal. You know what I mean? Right.

Right. I mean, he wants them to live peaceably. He wants them to be good citizens, productive citizens of the, of the empire or of the community or the city or whatever. But at the same time, he's also making sure that they understand that you don't have to give in right to every whim and pleasure of these rulers.

No, no, you don't need to. I mean, look at this one, first Peter five eight, we know this passage very well. Now I want you to put on your glasses of resistance language. First Peter five eight, be sober, be vigilant because your adversary, the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Now immediately we think of Satan and of course we should, but can he also see the persecutors walking around trying to devour the community of God's people? Absolutely.

Absolutely. And what's the next word in verse nine? Resist, resist him, resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. I wonder what that, what is, what is, what is the Greek for resist there? What does he really, I mean, what is the heart of it? Is it possible that we're, I mean, of course I know that we're not, but like, what is the root of, of that word?

I mean, it's, it's a, it's a two part, a two word word, I guess I can say it's anthestomy. Anti is of course, it means again, is histomy to stand, means stand against it. So when he's saying it, it really means resist and stand up against this. You know, in the past couple of years with the pandemic going on, people were sending me texts and emails and saying, have you read Romans was it chapter 13 and have you read first Peter chapter two that we need to give into and listen to our rulers and those above us? And I said, yes, of course I know that passage, but let me ask you a question.

Have you read the resistance language in both of them? Exactly. But Paul and Peter were telling their readers, obey your authorities, but please remember, ultimately obey God. Right. That's right. Yeah. And sometimes that comes with a choice.

Sometimes that comes with a really, really uncomfortable choice. And I'm glad that we made the choice we did in 2020. I'm glad that we, uh, you know, we, we showed that we lived that passage. Right. And we kept on ministering to people.

We kept on reaching the world and, uh, we told people that God, church, Christ is essential. Exactly. Absolutely. And this is so important, especially as we're headed toward those elections. If you, if you value your religious liberty, if you, if you want your values protected, if you want to protect against that discrimination, go out and vote, vote, vote your conscience, vote biblical values. Go out and hit the polls November the eighth. We want to see you out there. We want to know that you're voting, exercising your civic doodle. If you have questions about today's topic or any suggestions for any future topics, make sure you send us a text to two five two five eight two five zero two eight, or you can send us an email to contact at clearview today show.com.

And don't forget on that website, clearview today, show.com. You can support us financially. You can partner with us financially in reaching the nations with the gospel of Jesus Christ. That really is the goal of everything that we do is that we're trying to reach the nations with the word of Christ. Um, and I'm Dr. Shah, I'm, I'm thankful to you because I know that that's your heart as well. And I know that that, I mean, that's just our heart here at the show.

It's not just a talk show. It's the, it's that the word of God has spoken so richly and so clearly into our lives that we can't help but share it. And this is the best avenue that we've had so far other than your preaching and just posting stuff online. But this is the most direct avenue that we've ever had.

Certainly the one with the furthest reach and the most partners that can help us get the message. Yeah. So thank you guys for donating. Absolutely. As we close out today, we want to leave you on a practical note, Dr. Shah, do you have any last minute advice for us?

Oh wow. Last minute advice from me. Well the one I gave some time back to, uh, to, to folks with the gas prices going up and down, you know, when you pump gas in your car, in your truck, don't just, don't just finish pumping and then slam it back on the, on, on, you know, on the pump. There's still some gas left in the, just kind of stay, stay there and shake it down and you'll, you'll find maybe you'll get enough to go another one 10th of a mile. Hey, you paid for is your gas. That's more than you would have gotten.

Had you not done that. That's right. So that's my friendly advice. Amen. It's friendly, friendly, friendly advice. That's right. We love you guys. We'll see you all in Clearview today.