Lighting(ning?) Questions

Today is Friday, November the 25th. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. And you're listening to Clear View Today with Dr. Abhijan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart from the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com, or if you have any questions or suggestions for future episodes, you can send us a text at 252-582-5028. You can also email us at contact at ClearViewTodayShow.com.

Be sure to follow Dr. Shah on his website, AbhijanShah.com. And you can support us financially by visiting ClearViewTodayShow.com and clicking that donate button. Every gift, every contribution goes not only to supporting this show, but countless other ministries for the building up of the kingdom of God.

That's right. And you guys can help us keep that conversation alive by supporting this podcast, sharing it online, leaving us a good review on iTunes, a good review on iTunes, I should say, and just helping us keep the discussion alive, helping us keep the name of Jesus on the airwaves. Absolutely. You guys ready for the verse of the day today? Let's do it. Let me read the verse. I want to read the verse of the day.

Go for it. Yeah, you take the verse of the day today. I'm going to read it.

It's in red, which means Ryan reads it, but I'm going to read it. It also could mean that these are Jesus' words. That's true, but it's in Colossians, so probably not Jesus' words.

That's going to be Paul. But what he says, Colossians 3.23, and whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men. Whatever you do in every aspect of your life, work as if you're working for the Lord, because if you're a believer, you are. That's right. That's right. Everything you do, we're doing this unto the Lord right now. That's right.

When you guys give, when you support, when you leave a good review for the podcast, you're not just helping us. You are doing that unto the Lord. Amen. That's right.

Absolutely. How you been, man? I'm tired.

Long week. Listen, I'm going to tell you what. I got kids in a variety of extracurricular activities now, and it is not for the faint of heart. Yeah. I'm not going to tell you that way. I have, so I have five kids, people who have, surprise! No, I knew that. Those who have not been following the show, I have five kids, all 10 years old and younger. Right. Right.

So we are in, we are in the thick of it. I mean, we're in the, those elementary school years. I have, my two oldest are twins. They're twin 10 year olds. My son is playing basketball here for the church. Okay.

My mother is playing basketball for school, basketball for church, and she's cheerleading for school. Okay. So that's four schedules between two kids already. And you still got three children left.

Right. My next, my third, right in the middle, she's playing basketball for church and cheering for school. Okay. My fourth little girl, fourth child, third little girl, is playing basketball for church and cheering for school. And my fourth or my fifth, sorry, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm lost for the kids. Just take a breath.

My fifth, my four-year-old little boy, little tiny little boy is playing basketball for church. Okay. So you're, okay. So here's, here's.

We have roughly 125 practices to keep up with a week. Why? That's an exaggeration, but it feels that way sometimes. Why are you letting them do so much? Well, here's the deal. I want them to be well-rounded kids. And this is all things like, I'm not one to shove activities on my kids. I want them to try things once. And if they like it, then we'll find a way to continue doing it. If they don't like it, we're not gonna do it again.

Okay. You tried it. You gave it, you gave it a shot for a season. You don't like it.

We won't do it next season. But they all love what they're doing. And they've all been able to maintain their grades while they're doing what they're doing. So now it's just up to me and Elizabeth, because this is the first time we've had sports schedules for school on top of everything.

So it's just, it's an adjustment. What about getting them an Xbox and just letting them spend their time doing that? Right out. Okay. You don't, homie don't play that. Homie don't play that. Okay. Okay. Shoot.

Homie don't play that. Well, I don't know what to say, man. I mean, I mean, that's, yeah, that sounds crazy.

It's not really a complaint. Like I'm, I'm excited. I'm, I'm very proud of them and everything that they're doing. And it is very, it's very fun to think about them, like doing school sports and like having to weigh games.

And, and we've got an app on our phones that keeps track of everything and it's, it's exciting, but it's just, it's an adjustment. Well, you know what? Today being Friday, there's at least one schedule that's dependable. And we know that this is coming every single Friday and that is lightning round questions, which some Fridays we don't do. And that's fine to say.

Makes it not dependable, but that's okay. As I was saying that we do it every single Friday. I remember that sometimes we don't. We do it every single Friday, except when we don't. Yeah. We do it every Friday that we feel like.

And that's fine. This is our show. This is our show. But we do appreciate all them questions.

Absolutely. Make sure if you haven't done so yet, make sure you send those questions into two five two five eight two five zero two eight. We take all of your questions and we compile them based on their theme.

Like we will group questions based on a specific theme. So all of our lightning round questions on a specific Friday, we'll cover a specific theme. If your question doesn't show up on this Friday's episode, don't fret. We've gotten it. We're going to air it on an episode on a Friday that matches that theme. Like all of the questions that we got for today's episode were all Thanksgiving.

So all the people who sent in questions about St. Patrick's day, that was kind of, I mean that was cute, but what do you think? Of course, we're not going to read your question. You may have to wait a little while. Stop sending me aggressive text messages asking why your question's not getting read. I don't like it and it's mean to me. Just send the messages.

The aggression you can maybe keep to yourself. That's right. We're going to get Dr. Sean. We'll be right back. But again, text us those questions two five two five eight two five zero two eight or visit us online at Clearview Today Show dot com.

We'll see you in just a few minutes. If that's the case, how can we claim that the Bible is inerrant? 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 Clearview BC dot org. You can also support our ministry here at Clearview by visiting us at Clearview BC dot org forward slash give. Thanks for listening. Now back to the show. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abudon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at Clearview Today Show dot com. If you have any questions or suggestions for future episodes, you can send a text to two five two five eight two five zero two eight.

You're going to see why those are important in just a second. We have Dr. Shah with us in the studio today. Dr. Shah, happy Friday to you. Happy, I guess the Black Friday.

Happy Black Friday. Did you secure any Black Friday deals? Uh, I'm still looking through them. Yeah.

You got the Nintendo switch on a back order. Unfortunately. No.

Oh, sorry about that. Obviously. But I'm sure my boys may consider that. Very cool. Just subtle like, Hey dad. Yeah. Just push a coupon forward.

I'm gonna leave this right under your door. Well, if you guys are joining us for the first time, if you've never listened to the show before, Dr. Abudon Shah is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, a professor at Carolina University, author, pastor, and the host of today's episode. That's right. The host of today's episode. And today is Friday, which means today is lightning round questions.

I think you mispronounced that. I do want to point out those who have been faithfully watching the show or listening to the show, I guess really just watching the show, just watching it in the description for the past several weeks. Friday's episodes have been called the lighting round questions, right? And I don't, and you know that I don't edit the episodes. I don't post them and I don't do it.

I know Dr. Shah doesn't do it. So there's two more people in this room. There's a sound engineer and a videographer and I know the videographer didn't do it.

Sure. He didn't do that, but we're not going to call it who I don't need to. It was pointed out by who did it. I wish I knew who did it.

Me too. It was pointed out by an eagle eyed fan, very eagle eyed, who maybe it was a little bit lighting, lighting, uh, apparatus and strategies on the, uh, on this segment. Like they, we've had contractors like texting in and emailing and be like, Hey, I want to talk about the contractor.

That is true. He was like, I want to, I want to ask you guys about the specifics of your led lighting and I was like, I'm so sorry. Lightening lightning round means we're going, we're going to fire these questions kind of rapid fire.

These are questions that have been submitted by our listeners, by our viewers to make sure if you haven't done so already, make sure you're sending in your questions or suggestions for topics that you'd like for us to describe. They're super fast questions. Ironically, we will spend about five minutes up top explaining the segment. Exactly. Exactly.

Explain why they're not lighting round questions. Right. Cool. I got one from Louise B for Dr. Shah. Uh, you talked to yesterday and this is just me kind of set it up, but you did talk yesterday about how, you know, you didn't celebrate Thanksgiving in India. So Louise B asks, how did Christians celebrate the holidays in India where you grew up? Well, Christians basically in my community in which I grew up, we celebrated Christmas and Easter. Christmas, let's, let's talk about Easter for a moment.

Easter was very different. We had Good Friday services that lasted three hours. Wow. Yes.

Three hours. And you fast. So you fast for the service.

Oh yeah. You fast the whole time. You don't break the fast until you get home, which is going to be probably about four o'clock. You're just sitting in church hungry. Oh, you're hungry.

You're tired. It's March, April. So the temperature is going up.

It's hot. When I was growing up, our church did not have air conditioner. So the air conditioner was the fan is super fast and the windows are open. Wow. Air conditioner.

Natural movement of air. And then we would have, people in the church that my dad would ask to speak for 20 minutes, 30 minutes. And then we were saying 20 minutes, 30 minutes kind of thing. And it was, it was good.

You know, lay people getting up and speaking. It was very inspiring at the same time. It was kind of interesting to watch my dad who is godliest men I know, but he is nodding off over there because it's hot. He's hungry. He's hungry.

And that he would, you know, be alert. So what time did Good Friday start around noon? It started at three.

By the time we mixed, you know, milled around, talked to people. Four o'clock you get home. Now Easter service would be at six o'clock in the morning. Okay. Yeah. It would be a sunrise service at church. So the sunrise service by default, because sometimes here in the States we do it kind of as a special thing, but default y'all having sunrise.

Okay. Now Christmas was a much bigger deal. Christmas services, of course it would start with Christmas carols on 23rd or 24th night. Sometimes both.

Wow. So, you know, in our church we had two services Sunday morning, one for the English speaking congregation. Another one was the Hindi speaking congregation. So both nights, in fact, when I was growing up, it was all on 24th night.

A group would go out from the church and go home to home singing Christmas carols. And we don't start until eight o'clock in the evening. And it goes all the way to four or five o'clock in the morning. Wow. Yes. Now here's the funny thing. Y'all are really out caroling. In America, if you show up at somebody's house at two o'clock singing, that's a call to the police.

Right. Over there, if you don't show up at someone's home, who's on the list, it's bad news. They're going to be upset. They're going to call my dad. They're going to be angry about it. Waking the past time. No, no, no. And the next day they will talk like, why did they not come to my home? I got you. It's a big deal.

Yeah. They want them carolers there. They want the carolers there. And we had two, three different parties would go out all over the city.

And sometimes we had people living 20, 30 miles outside the city limits. Well, we had to drive there. So it was a lot of fun. So that was, that's how it began.

But here's the thing. 24th night. Didn't I say 24th night? Okay. The last house would probably be done about four, four 30, maybe five, depending on where we are. And then we would get to the house, take a shower, get ready.

Eight o'clock. Start opening presents. No. Oh. Service at church. You're joking. Christmas day service.

Caroling all night. Then come back. No, there's service. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Sometimes I would say nine o'clock in the morning. Okay. Okay. So yeah. And then it was quite funny. We can look around in the service and see who all was caroling last night because they're all, they're asleep in church. We got it good here in America.

I mean, we got it really good. So that's a, that's a burden or anything, but I mean, I have a question about that. Right.

If, if you went out caroling on the 24th and did you always have service on the 25th, whether or not it was on a Sunday? Oh yeah. It doesn't matter. Okay.

Christmas day. Did you know that all across the world, that's the norm. Wow.

Other than America. Yeah. People don't go to church on Christmas day. I know. Which I mean, I'm not complaining. Don't get me wrong.

I'm not complaining, but that's, that's the way it is. And then 26 there wouldn't be anything. Okay. Because you know, we pretty much wiped out after Christmas carol, which is just the 24 hour Christmas carol journey.

Yes. Not 24 hours. It would begin at eight o'clock until four and then Sunday all day. And then Sunday afternoon there would be a, you know, families would have big meals and those kinds of things.

So you're tired, you're wiped out. So 26 typically there wouldn't be anything. But then 27, 28, 29, 30 at 31st there will be church activities. Really?

Oh yeah. There'll be things like, in our church at least, sports day. So all kinds of church sports that kids races and then, oh, you just name it. Shot put and javelin throwing and relay race. I mean all kinds of things for kids.

Wow. And then even for adults, for husbands and wives, there'll be games there, you know, competing. Like, like it was fun to watch your parents, like they would have the needle and thread race. So the husbands had to run from one end to the other with a needle and then the wife would thread the needle and then they would run back. Of course, of course they would drop the needle.

So then you spend this laughing and looking for the needle. But then the next day there would be church picnic. So all of us would go to this farm and have a big picnic there.

And then I'm just making up the dates. Here's the 29th evening. Let's say it will be the big competition for speaking and singing competition.

Wow. So kids would compete. There were extemporaneous speeches.

You pick out a title and then you speak on it. Are all these, are all of these activities Christmas related or is it just kind of holiday, like post holiday festivities sort of thing? These are, I mean they're, they're Christmas related and you know, it's Christian community.

So they're looking somewhere to connect and this is the way they connected. So that would go on. And then of course there would be the New Year's Eve service and that, you know, pretty late one, you know, one o'clock you're getting home. But guess what? New Year's Day there's a church service.

So you show back up at nine o'clock in the morning. Wow. So, and then that evening there would be a big meal.

The whole church, you know, three, 400 people would be there to eat. Wow. Yeah. And that would be the final thing, the big church dinner.

So Louise, to answer your question, how do Christians celebrate the holidays in India? Nonstop. Yeah. They go hard.

And not every church was as active as ours, but I would say a lot of them are. Wow. That's awesome. This next question comes from Cliff P. Cliff is, I guess, still working through like leftovers. He says, what is your favorite Thanksgiving food? Oh my goodness. I would say for me, of course I love ham.

I don't know. Turkey is great, but I'm a ham person. Really? Yeah. Ham, I feel like ham is consistent.

Turkey, sometimes Turkey is good. Sometimes it's just like dry as a bone. Right. You put gravy on it.

Yeah. You make a moist maker. You make the, you make, you put, make you a sandwich and you soak the middle bread in gravy. That's a friend's reference.

Ross's sandwich. Oh yes. Okay.

He was Thanksgiving Turkey. All right. All right.

You're good. My sandwich. What is your favorite Thanksgiving food? My, Oh, my favorite Thanksgiving food. I would probably have to say I really like a green bean casserole.

Really? I do. I like a green bean casserole. I'm just yams all day. I love yams. I love sweet potato casserole. Sweet potato casserole. It's delicious.

I like that. You like it with marshmallows or almonds? I've never had it with almonds. Yeah.

I mean, I have. I thought it was like pecans on top, but that's what I meant. Okay. Pecans, pecans. Yeah.

Yeah. I prefer it with marshmallows though. I do like, Nicole's grandmother would make this green pepper jelly. Ooh, man. It was so good.

You put it in the biscuits. Yeah. It's really good. How about the guys in the back over there? What do y'all like? Favorite Thanksgiving food? Probably funeral potatoes. Funeral potatoes? Yeah. That's, I didn't know that's what they were called. Funeral? Yeah.

Yeah. It's like that potato casserole. It's like a loaded potato casserole.

It's like potato with like cream cheese. What funeral? I don't know.

Cause people bring it to funerals cause it's so easy. Ryan's the one who told me it was called that. I'd be scared to eat those. Yeah.

It's like, am I dying? The name's not great, but it tastes good. Yeah. Contrary to popular belief, it's not mac and cheese. How about Nicholas? What do you like, Nicholas? I like ham also. Okay. Ham. I like ham also. Nice. Cool.

John, what about you? Oh, I did yams. Oh, you did say yams. That's right. I thought we left you out.

For sure. Mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, mac and cheese, but mainly just sweet potatoes. I love yams.

I've always loved yams. I got one from Lauren L. Do you have any Black Friday plans? Stay home. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But we used to go, we used to go shopping. Oh my goodness. We used to go shopping.

Never went like the four o'clock, five o'clock shopping. I know you guys do. Yeah. Ellie loves it. My wife loves it. I'm trying. I'm thinking now that we have kids, it's going to slow down. I don't think she's about that anymore. No, no, no.

I don't really. I've been, I've been like that early Black Friday shopping. I've been one time and it was pretty fun. It was four kids.

Elizabeth and I went with like, I think her sister and maybe a friend. Um, and we like got coffee and you know, we took our time. It was kind of fun to, you know, we had some moments where we just sit back and people watching and it was fun.

Got some deals. When I shop, I like to go in, know what I'm getting and get out. But the whole point of Black Friday is to browse and I'm not a browser.

I'm not a browser. Now if we're on vacation, if all of us are out and I'm like with friends and we're like on our staff retreats and then y'all browse shops. But just to be like, Oh, I've got some free time or I'm going to just browse around a shop.

That's never me. I like going to the mall on Black Friday. If we happen to get out and just walk around and see if there's some deals. There was a time where we used to like, Hey, there they have the washer and dryer on sale. We have to be there. We have to get in line. Um, we haven't done that in a while. Now I feel like with the, with the advent of like cyber Monday deals, a lot more people are just kind of shopping.

It's a lot more attractive. Yeah. So this next question comes from Michael S. Do you have any specific Thanksgiving memories?

Definitely. I would say the one of, um, the German lady inviting us over. I remember that that was very special. First Thanksgiving ever in the United States and going to this ranch style home and seeing all these people and this lady stood up and in her German accent explained Thanksgiving to all of us foreigners.

Wow. And it was fun. It was, it was learning within later on, you know, I did my own research and studied more. But if you want to know my ultimate Thanksgiving memory is when we would sit around the Thanksgiving table and each person around the table would say something about the other person or somebody of all people, they have to say something about each person, about why they're thankful for them. And it was the most sweetest moment. But since we've had individuals come into our lives like a son in law, we haven't done that, but it is what it is. But prior to that, it was quite special when each one of them would say, Nicholas would remember that, right?

Nicholas? Yeah. Was that emotional moment for you at times? Yeah, I can imagine, but it was very special. That is special.

That does sound special. Uh, I got one from Rachel B. If you could thank one person living or dead for their influence in your life, who would it be?

That's a good one, Rachel. Thank you. I have, I have two individuals, you know, I would say one is of course my dad. He passed away in January of 2021. Made a big impact in my life. Tremendous impact. I wouldn't be where I am today without his impact. And secondly would be my wife's dad. And he came into my life when I started dating Nicole. He was a pastor in Georgia and made a tremendous impact in my life.

I wouldn't be sitting here for him. Wow. So those are two individuals that come to my mind, but those are people. But if I could go further, I would say this team at Clearview, you guys sitting around this table, I'm very thankful to each one of you.

The ones in the back, the ones in the office. I wouldn't be doing any of this if it wasn't for you. So I'm grateful to you. Thank you.

Thank you. I mean, I think it's safe to say we have something very special. We have a very special relationship where it's not just employer employee, but we are truly a family. We're a family that cares about each other and not just the, just us as the staff, but just this church at large, our community, our, our listeners, you know, we feel that, and we feel that this is something that God has put on, put on our plate for us. You know, it's something that, I mean, to kind of keep the Thanksgiving analogy going, it's something that we feast on.

It's something that is a show of his abundant love. I mean, I could extend that to our Clearview leadership here. You know, it's so awesome to have people who are willing to support us when we say, Hey, here's a radio show, go for it. Hey, we're going to, you know, try this in the worship. Go for it.

Yeah. We're trying to reach this community with the gospel. Go for it. What do we, whatever you need, let's go for it. You know, that's, I'm so grateful.

I am so grateful because I know where my success, our success is coming from. That's right. Absolutely.

That's right. Absolutely. I wasn't asked this question, but I'm going to piggyback on this question and just say how, how thankful I am. And I know I speak for all of us when I say how thankful we are to you for giving us a place, giving us a team, a family, giving us a purpose in standing alongside you. As you reach and impact people, you've given us an opportunity to stand shoulder to shoulder with you and reach people with the gospel.

And we're profoundly grateful. I think what people don't realize is that you can look at the fruit, you can look at the produce or the abundance and think, man, it just kind of happened. Or it just, they just decided to do it and do it. But if we had decided to do this, like when I first started coming in 2013, that we wouldn't have, we wouldn't have this.

You know what I mean? It's only because of the work that you've put in and the foundation you've laid over the past 20 years and all that God has been doing in your life and working through you and through the people that he's put in your life that we can do this kind of thing. And I've caught, I've got caught in that trap where I look at what other churches have or what other leaders have and I'm like, man, they just decided to do it and they just did it and it worked for them and guys working for them and not us. And it's just, over time I've seen that the work that you put in 20 years ago while I was still, you said you came to, you started here in 1999 or 98.

I was in like first grade. But little did I know that the seeds of what would grow into this radio show and our ministry at large were already being planted by your faithfulness and your obedience to God's word. Well, thank you for saying that. And of course, to God be the glory is through him, is through his son Jesus Christ that we have life, we have meaning, we have purpose, we have sins forgiven, and when we die, we go to heaven forever and ever.

So, I mean, how can we lose? That's right. That's right. Absolutely. Man, what a great lightning round, not lighting round, lightning round of questions today talking about what we're thankful for. If you guys have any questions or suggestions for future episodes, make sure you send us a text to 252-582-5028.

We appreciate you texting in and we read every single one that comes through. We're going to save those questions for when we can categorize them based on a theme and you'll hear them on Friday. We're going to delete the lighting ones. I'm not talking about the LED.

Yes, I'm not talking about lighting. Sorry if you submitted those. And that's it. Sorry if you submitted those. Take your questions to Lowe's, I guess.

I don't know. You can also email us at contact at clearviewtodayshow.com. And don't forget on that same website, you can support us financially. There's a little donate button there.

Every contribution that you make goes to not only supporting this radio show, but countless other ministries that build up the kingdom of God. Did you like that? Was that funny? I didn't really think it was going to be that funny. Sorry. I'm not trying. I know you've moved on to something serious now, but that was really funny. Take your questions to Lowe's, I guess.

I don't know. Do you got any last minute advice? I do. Preferably not about lighting.

Preferably not about lighting. I can't help you there. So as we're thinking about Thanksgiving, you know, a lot of people, if you, if your family's like my family, you tend to have a lot of leftovers. You are eating Thanksgiving food days and days and days afterwards. And sometimes that can get kind of monotonous if you have the same leftovers.

My advice is twofold. The first is utilize Thanksgiving leftovers in a creative way. So I've seen several recipes for like Thanksgiving style egg rolls. So you take like egg roll wrappers and you fill it with Thanksgiving food and you kind of deep fry those like friends style. You can make a Thanksgiving sandwich with the Turkey and like cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes and all that kind of stuff. Right.

Right. Or you invite friends and family over to come eat your leftovers. And if you do, the best way to send them home with leftovers is a disposable muffin tin. Oh, what is that? So like, you know, the, the aluminum trays that you can get where you, you can bake food, but then you just throw it away afterward. No.

Um, yeah, I think so. They make them for, for muffins and it's like, you can make six at a time. You, they come with a little plastic lid. You just serve your leftovers in there. It's automatically portioned out, serve your leftovers in there, put a little lid on it, send it to like a dollar. I mean, they're, they're super cheap, but put the lid on there, send the leftovers home with them and you don't have to worry about people will bring your dishes back. You don't have to worry.

It's just here. Take this home, enjoy, and then throw it away when you're done. Do you feel like, uh, do you feel like people would come to get Thanksgiving leftovers?

I mean, they've, I'm sure they've got tons at their house. I've never once cleaned out Thanksgiving. I've never like ate all the leftovers. So we've invited people over, uh, to eat our food and then like, we're like, bring your food, bring whatever leftovers you have, kind of consolidate. Cause you might have some casserole leftover where I have some Turkey leftover and we'll sort of make a meal together. I got you.

Okay. You know, share the wealth, share the leftovers. It's not bad advice, man.

It's, it's really good. Plus, I mean, that gives you an opportunity to hang out with people and spend some time with friends and family and friends giving friends giving. Yeah. Do a little friends.

Do a little friends giving after Thanksgiving. That's right. That's right. Helps. It helps.

It helps work your way through the leftover kind of monotony cause day three of anything gets a little old. Yeah. I feel you on that. Yeah. That's my advice. All right. Cool. Happy black Friday, everyone. Hope you get some good deals. We love you guys and we'll see you next week on clear you today.