. | I Can't Help Falling in Love with Clearview Today

Hello, everyone.

Today is Monday, February the 13th. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis. You're listening to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. If you have a question for Dr. Shah or a suggestion for a future episode, make sure you let us know by sending us a text to 252-582-5028. You can also email us at contact at ClearViewTodayShow.com.

That's right. You guys can help us keep the conversation alive by supporting this podcast. You can share it online and you can leave us some good reviews over there at iTunes, Spotify, anywhere that you get your podcasting media from. We're going to send you a link, Ryan. We're going to put a link right in the description so you guys can do that. That's right.

We want you to leave us some reviews. With a nice little bow. There you go. Merry Christmas in February. Merry February. John, you want to give them the verse of the day today? Yeah, man.

Let's do it. Psalms 40 verses one and two. I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined to me and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit out of the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock and established my steps. I love the beauty of the Psalms because they don't shy away from difficult emotions. They don't shy away from difficult moments because, yes, it talks about God inclined to the Psalmist and heard their cry and brought them up out of miry clay, but in order to bring them up, they had to be in the mire in the first place.

They had to be in a horrible pit. Sometimes God allows us to go through those situations in our lives so that we can learn more about who he is and who we are as a result of him. Sometimes you got to stay there for a while. That's the first thing I noticed when I was reading it is I waited patiently for the Lord. I didn't just wait until this is too inconvenient, so I got to do something or I feel like I'm at my wits end, so now it's up to me because the Lord said no.

No, I waited patiently for the Lord, and then he inclined to me and he heard my cry. That's beautiful. I love that. Speaking of patience. Oh, I knew you were going to bring that.

I knew. So we are both dads, but our kids are very different ages. Vastly. You are in the trenches of the toddler newborn. I'm in terrible twos and I'm in very, very newborn. Right.

Nasty newborn, terrible twos. Nice. So our youngest is four and our two oldest are ten, so we are entering the pre-teen... I mean, you got everything in between.

Yes. We're entering the pre-teen realm, so I've got school drama happening. School drama. I've got sports schedules to keep up with. I've got stinky 10-year-old boy socks to deal with. Is he going through that thing where he absolutely does not want to shower? No, he'll shower. I don't have to stay on him about showering.

He's pretty good about showering, but just like you've been playing ball all day, your socks are going to stink. But I'll tell you this, this 10-year-old pre-teen attitude, ain't it? Oh, I'm loving the way this is going. It ain't it. What happened?

I mean, I know what happened, but I want to... So my sweet, precious 10-year-old daughter, she is a phenomenal young lady. She's the cleverest student of her age. Very proud of her. She is a Hermione Granger of herself.

There you go. She is caring, she's kind, she's compassionate. She has so many wonderful, wonderful adjectives, I can't even summarize it. She is becoming more conscious of her appearance. Okay. No problem.

Totally fine. She dresses very cute, appropriate for a 10-year-old. And one morning she's getting ready for school. Recently, one morning she's getting ready for school. She's also on the middle school girls basketball team at her school.

Very nice. So she had an away game that day, so she had some extra things to bring to school with her. She had her book bag, she had her lunchbox, she had her water bottle, she had her athletic bag, which with her uniform and her warm-up uniform that goes over her game. Is she staying overnight?

I mean, kind of. She has a change of shoes. She has her glasses to remember. And she has her, we have little watches for them so they can communicate with us.

They're not cell phones, but they're smart devices so they can communicate back and forth with us. She had plenty of time to get all this ready, but neglected to collect those things until the five minutes before we were getting ready to walk out the door. That's how they do, man. And then was frustrated with me. Wait, what? Because I was like, why didn't you do this in the 20 minutes after you got ready?

You had plenty of time. So what was she doing? Just chilling? She was fixing her hair. Fixing her hair.

Golly. She was fixing her hair. Her hair looked great. Hair looked great.

But wanted to primp it a little bit. But we forgot glasses. We forgot the device that allows us to communicate with mom and dad. How do you walk out and forget your glasses? So you and I wear glasses in order to survive in the world.

Right. My kids wear glasses, but they don't really need them to go through day-to-day life. They need them in the classroom. They need them to read the board. And they need them to, if they're working on a screen or working on homework. But playing around, playing basketball, just living day-to-day life, they don't really need them. So she would walk out the door and not really think, oh, I need my glasses.

Okay. So she didn't have her glasses. Didn't have her glasses. Didn't have her watch so she could let mom and dad know, hey, I'm leaving. Hey, I'm at the game.

Hey, I'm back home. Didn't have half of her uniform. She had her game uniform. She didn't have the warm-up track suit uniform in order to walk out the door. Leaves her lunchbox and water bottle on the table.

This is unlike Hartley, because Hartley isn't the forgetful one, I don't believe. Is she? She's not usually. I would say this is like, no, because she is like a Hermione Granger, where she's like, I've got my books. I've got everything in order.

I'm ready to tackle the day and win. Except today, she was like Hermione Granger at the Yule Ball, because we were more concerned about the hair walking out the door than the things we needed to be successful for that day. Same with Viktor Krum, Daddy.

He's only the seeker of the Bulgarian blashers or something. Here's the rest of that story. So I will often do chapel at the kids' school.

Like they have a weekly chapel and I'll often speak in their chapel. So we're on the way to school. I am frustrated with her because we're already late. She's forgotten half of her things and we're on the way to school.

And now you've got to get up there and speak on the things of God. She's like, I'm really sorry, Daddy. And I was like, through gritted teeth. I was like, don't fuss at her. She's just a kid, don't fuss at her. And I was like, do you understand why I'm frustrated? She was like, yes, sir. Are all the other kids around for this?

The car is very quiet. They're just trying to play like they don't hear you. So we get there. I get up there for chapel.

And of course, I talk about how God loves us and forgives us of our mistakes. So I went up to her. I was like, hey, I'm sorry. I got frustrated. After chapel, I was like, I'm sorry, Daddy got frustrated.

That's nice. Do you understand why I was frustrated? She said, yes, I forgot things that I should have remembered. Yes, but I love you. I was frustrated with the situation.

I wasn't frustrated with you. I love you. I hope you have a great day.

Play well in your game. I can't wait to hear about it. That's a nice Brady Bunch moment. There was a little conviction happening when I got up there before speaking in chapel. I was like, I'm about to talk to these kids about how God forgives us and overlaps our mistakes. And I didn't do that with my daughter.

That's how the Lord works, man. I love that for y'all. That was a good moment. It's a sweet moment, but we're kind of navigating those pre-team waters now. So y'all pray for us.

Those of you who have teenagers, send tips. So we've got an exciting show planned for you guys today. We're going to grab Dr. Shaw in just a second. But if you have any questions or suggestions, send us a text at 252-582-5028 or visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com.

We'll be right back. David, pop off the podcast. Well, one of the four core values of Clearview Church is that we're a Bible believing church. So every sermon is coming directly from scripture, which is great because that guarantees that there are timeless truths that are constantly applicable to our lives. This is a great resource because whether you're driving, whether you're cleaning the house, whether you're working out, you can always benefit from hearing the word of God spoken into your life. And God's word is always going to do something new for you every time you hear it.

Sometimes it's conviction and sometimes it's encouragement. But know that every time you listen to God's word, you're inviting the Holy Spirit to move and work in your life. You guys can check out the sermons by Abbadon Shaw, PhD podcast. First and foremost, check it out on our church app. That's the Clearview app. You can get that in the Google Play Store. You can get that on iTunes, but you can also find the podcast on the Apple Podcast app or on our website at ClearviewBC.org. And listen, if you've got a little extra time on your hands, you just want to do some further reading, you can also read the transcripts of those sermons.

Those are available on Dr. Shaw's website, AbbadonShaw.com. And we're going to leave you guys a little link in the description so you can follow it. But for right now, David, let's hop back in.

All right. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadon Shaw, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. If you have any questions or suggestions for future episodes, send those in to 252-582-5028.

Dr. Shaw, welcome to the studio today. We've got a lot planned for the episode today. Oh, yes. Yes, I'm excited about this one because this is bringing our love series to a close. And I know we heard a lot of good things from people here and there about how much they enjoy the messages way back then and the radio shows now. So I'm excited about this one. Absolutely. Amen. Well, if you guys are joining us for the first time, I'm going to let you know who's talking to you today. Dr. Abbadon Shaw is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's episode. You can follow his work on his website.

That's AbbadonShaw.com. That's right. And like we said, today is the wrap-up. It is the last message or the last show in our series on what love is from the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 13. We've been talking about this as we're headed toward Valentine's Day, trying to understand what the Bible teaches about love and where we need to maybe adjust some of our understanding with how love is displayed in our lives. So we come to 1 Corinthians 13.7 now, which is love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

And of course, then jump over to verse 13. So, you know, at the heart of all the problems that the Corinthians had, their problem was of love. And if you really pay attention to that in your own life, what you'll find is it's the problem of love. Most people have not been properly loved. And so it comes out in how they love other people.

Hmm. So if you think about that, it's not even like, oh, your parents just were rotten people or whoever you lived with were just horrible people. It's not the point.

The point is this. We just don't know how to love properly. And I like how you've brought it out in this series because we tend to think in this day and age that love is something that's ingrained inside every human being.

It's just something natural that comes to us. But Paul is showing us here that love has to be taught. It's just like you said, these people didn't know how to love properly. Paul was writing to teach them. And I think that's something that we in 2023 need to hear. We need to be taught how to love properly.

Right, right. And you're going to hear today that once you see how Christ loves us, then you will not try to expose people or suspect people or discourage people or even threaten people. You will love them the way they're supposed to be loved. It's interesting that you bring it up that way because a lot of times we hear about the whole nature versus nurture argument and it has to do with how you were raised versus the environment that you were raised in. But you said that we don't love correctly because we haven't been loved correctly. I guess, how do we see that play out or what are some examples of that where people might be able to say, oh, I do that because of this? Yeah, I mean, if you grew up in a home where there was a lot of impatience, whether it was impatience because of physical problems, a person had sugar levels, or you grew up in a home where there was a lot of stress, or if you grew up in a home where a lot of sarcasm happened, and sarcasm is not bad.

I mean, you can have a good time laughing at each other. But if it's not properly communicated, then you grew up thinking that was normal. And then you do that to other people and you're impatient with them. Well, you think, but daddy always did that, so I'm going to be like this. Mama was always like this, so I'm going to be like this. And then we're not just robots. So people respond or react kind of like, I don't like this person or I don't like you.

But what's happened is you were not loved properly and now you're doing the same thing. Right. Wow.

Yeah. Oh, go ahead. I was just going to say, I love the hope that you brought out in that though. It was like, yes, you may have had that experience growing up or you may have had that sort of natural inclination based on the home that you came from, but we can be taught how to love rightly. It's not just, it's a lost cause, it's just how I am, this is the way that I was brought up, daddy always did it this way or mom always did it this way. We can be taught the right way. I mean, think about it. When you're around people who are good lovers, if I may say that, you walk away wanting to love your family better, you know, you, you, you walk away being more patient.

You walk away being more appreciative because you just were around somebody who was patient and appreciative. So what does Paul mean by this when he says love bears all things? Well, the Greek word for bears there is Stegae. Stegae kind of comes from the noun, which means roof.

Okay. So I'm sure the Corinthians knew what this word meant. Archaeologists have found evidence that by the seventh century BC, the 700 years before the coming of Christ, the temples and houses in Corinth has started replacing thatched roofs with fired tiles. So, you know, thatched roofs, you see them in England or, you know, whatever, they are a huge fire hazard.

And in a growing city like Corinth without having big fire trucks running around everywhere, you can imagine one little spark of fire could destroy an entire area, you know? So these tiles that they replaced with were very heavy, weighing about 60 plus pounds, but they were durable. They were long lasting. They were protected from the rain, sun, heat, snow, you name it.

I mean, it was, they were really good. So the word Stegae etymologically, etymology is like the origin of the word. The word Stegae took on the idea of covering, sheltering, protecting, keeping out and keeping in. So Paul uses that word. I'm not saying he was saying, like, remember the roofs, but I think what I'm saying here is that's the origin of the word. Right.

We tend to think it's like love bears all, it's like it just endures all the hardships, but really saying love covers you, it shelters you, it protects you. Yeah. Does not expose you. That's a good way to put it. That's a good point. You know, I know people need to be exposed for their bad behavior, abusive behavior. Totally agree with that. But if you're constantly in the business of outing people, you may even out people who don't have to be outed.

Right. You don't need to be outed. There's nothing there to out them, but you're outing them. Well, I think in this day and age, there's such a pleasure that comes from exposing people, like of toppling organizations or toppling people in power.

There's such a, like an Aaron Brockovich sort of thing where it's like, I'm the lone wolf coming out or the lone warrior coming out. And it's just such a pleasure that people get this like sick derived pleasure where like, even if it needs to happen, that should break your heart. That kind of goes back to what we talked about on a previous episode where, you know, love doesn't delight in the misfortune of other people or other, you know, it doesn't delight in bringing to light these horrible things about a person or trying to overthrow somebody. Love is, it's that covering. It's that protection.

It's that safety. You know, very interestingly in Greco-Roman times, if a person didn't pay their rent, you know what they would do? They would come remove some of the tiles. Really? From the roof. Wow. So you haven't paid. Oh no.

It's cold. You lose part of your roof. Yeah. It's kind of sounds like a mafia shakedown. Like, oh, you got a lot of nice stuff here. We get a late fee. They lost like a section of the roof. Nice roof you got here.

Sure would be a shame if something happened to it. They start. So that's what they did, you know? And so, you know, think about first Peter four eight and above all things have fervent love for each other for love will, what's the word? Cover. Now Peter uses a different word for cover, but I think the idea continues here.

Yeah. Love will cover instead of expose a multitude of sins. Well, I think it also goes back to just what you've been saying is that it's not even about exposing someone so that the world can see how bad they are. It's about helping that person. It's about getting that person, the help that they need and or that organization, the help that they need, you know, it's because I believe in, in what's right and what's truthful. And we can get to a good place rather than you deserve to be punished.

And I'm going to make sure it happens. Yeah. So that's love covers all things. Or what about love believes all things? The Greek word for believes is pisteo.

I mean, it's a very common word. It has the idea of trusting in others. Again, the Corinthian culture, if you've learned anything about them, freedmen, veteran army soldiers, businessmen, ethnically Greek people, I mean, it's all kinds of people who were very proud of who they were. So when you get around a culture, a community like that, it is very competitive and status seeking. So they're constantly trying to get ahead of the other person. So love believes all things in a culture where there is the mindset of distrust and suspicion.

Paul is saying true love believes in the other person. You know, they don't live in the zone of perpetual suspicion, but they're willing to trust people. So in your own home, hey, listen, there may be bad things that happen in your marriage or bad things that happen in your kids' lives, but don't stay in the zone of perpetual suspicion.

If you do that, you're going to die early. Yeah, that stress, that constant on edge. Especially if you're a young person, especially if you're like just going into ministry for the first time, like you need those people around you, those people over you that you can trust. And to trust like I've got with you guys and with everyone here at Clearview, that when we talk to each other, I trust that these are people who want the best for me and for my family and for my children.

Right. So, you know, ask God to help you. And there will be days that you will doubt. There will be days that there'll be, you know, you'll be filled with suspicion.

So the enemy will tell you, hey, are you sure? Are you sure that this person is trustworthy? So you will have your struggles.

Having said that, God can help you, heal you, and you don't have to live in this place of non-belief. I love that you bring it back to that sense of trust. You know, trust is the foundation of all of our relationships. And without that, we're not really loving. Yeah. We're not exercising that love toward one another.

I can't think of a single person I love that I don't trust. Yeah. Right.

I mean, it's that essential component, that essential ingredient. What was the illustration you used that one time? Like anytime you can say anything about that you want about Dr. Shaw, like I can't remember the way you put it, but you were like, he's a great guy, but you just can't trust him. Just can't trust him. Yeah.

Like he's got a PhD. He's a good guy. He's very nice to me. You can say all these positive things, but the second you said that I can't trust him. You just took everything away from me.

Yeah. The positive things don't matter. You know, in church setting, in ministry setting, it is even more vital to trust people. People will, you know, do things, say things, act in ways that are untrustworthy. But if you want to be in ministry, if you want to be a shepherd, and I'm talking about not just, you know, the pastor, I'm talking about the whole staff, the entire team.

You'll have to learn to trust people. I remember years ago when Nicole's dad and I went to New Orleans, because I wanted to go to the same place where he had his seminary education. So I said, I want to go where you went. I admired him a lot. I admired him a lot and he said, well, I want you to go to Wake Forest, but I'll take you there.

So we headed that way. And he had a friend there who pastored near New Orleans, you know, somewhere in the, you know, maybe an hour, two hour radius. And so my father-in-law, Pastor Jerry Shedd, called him up and said, hey, we're coming to visit you.

Look forward to connecting with you on and on. And we got there, and I believe it was the next day that he showed up. I remember sitting in that room and listening to this man who was a pastor that Pastor Jerry had mentored back in the day. He was a veteran from the armed forces. I mean, just a great guy.

And, you know, had some amazing stories about life and some of the things he endured while he was, you know, in armed forces. And he spent the next, I would say, as much as two hours, okay, just telling me about all the horrible things about ministry. Oh, no.

Yes. About how people are and what they do and how terrible they can be. He went on and on and on. Just emotionally vomited on you. Yeah, emotionally vomited on me. And I don't know if he was, like, mentally trying to, like, psych me or something.

I don't know what he was trying to do. What he didn't realize is I grew up in a pastor's home. That's true. Like, you knew what good ministry looked like, what successful ministry looked like. Yeah. I mean, I grew up in a setting where not only sometimes we had to battle people from the outside, but we also had to deal with people in the inside.

Outside where, you know, it's a, you know, non-Christian majority country. So we had to deal with people sometimes through a rock in our church building. And we had to go fight them, you know, and say, you better do that again.

We'll take you, we'll grab you, take you to the police station. You know, that's what we did one time. And then internally we've had problems too. You know, we had one time people came with a chain and lock to lock our church up.

I remember you telling me about that. This is not outsiders. This is insiders. Yeah.

Because they felt like they can do that. So, you know, I'm like, okay, you're not going to intimidate me by all this. And I don't know why you're doing that. Right. But what very interesting when he left, Nicole's dad said, I want you to forget everything this man said. I don't know what's going on.

He must be having some problems at his church because he should not have done that to you. Wow. And again, this man, I can't go any further in telling you who he was. He was an amazing person when it comes to, you know, all his accolades that he had and some of the things he's done.

Unbelievable. And yet he was like this. So the point there was he had no trust for the people.

Yeah. And without trust, you can't love his people. How can you love the people? You know, some people may stab you in the back.

You know, some people may do junky stuff, but you still have to love them. Yeah. But the third statement in this description is love hopes all things. Hope says, it has the idea of expectation, has the idea of wish. And people often try to confuse faith and hope, but these are related, but they're not the same.

Okay. And later on, Paul even clarifies that he says in verse 13, and now abide faith, hope, love these three, but the greatest of these is love. So hope is different than faith. Faith is the foundation that you can see. Hope is the window through which you are looking for what you can see.

Okay. Faith is like, I can't see it, but I'm still standing on it. It's here. Hope is like, I can't see it.

I'm still looking for it. But faith is something I've already got. Right. That makes sense. Right.

I can see it coming. Yeah. So hope gets into the seed coming and it's almost as good as it's here in my hand.

So it's not, I hope so, but it's like, I know so. Yeah. That assurance, what we can stand on, we can build on. Well, I like that because you can have as much shelter and as much trust, but if I don't have hope, if I don't have something that I'm striving for, I'm moving towards, it's just going to shrivel up and die. I've just got what I've got now, but life isn't static like that. Right.

Yeah. And then finally, the fourth and final statement is love endures all things. The Greek word for endures is hupomene, which has the idea of being patient. It has the idea of remaining, the idea of endurance. And so love does not give up, doesn't run out when things get tough, you know? So, so much we have to learn about faith. So just the way Christ bears all things, Christ believes all things, Christ hopes all things, Christ endures all things, Christ never fails, so also love. Oh wow. Amen.

You know, think, think through that. Just substitute the word Christ or the name Christ for love. That's beautiful. I love that. In, in the Corinthian culture, you said earlier that Paul wrote these things in response to the things that were going on.

Love enduring all things. Was there this sense of like, we're going to try this, but if it doesn't work, like, peace out. Think about the transient community this is, you know, who do you have there? Freedmen? I mean, they don't have any roots there. Army veterans, they don't have any roots there.

The, the ethnically reckoned people, probably Greek people have roots there, but then the business people, wherever they're good business, that's where they're going to go. So there, there is no sense of loyalty. Yeah. If something doesn't work out, you can just try again somewhere else or just move on.

Just drop it and move on. Yeah. Wow. And I understand some people have to do that and that's great, but I don't believe when it comes to true love, biblical love, that you can do that. Yeah. That's one reason why Nicole and I have chosen this to be our home for the rest of our lives. And we did that 24 years ago, not two years ago, not five years ago, not 10 years ago, 24 years coming up on 25.

Wow. Because if you truly want to love people, you have to stay there and love them in spite of their messes. And we have messes too. So, you know, love them with respect. Well, I think that builds trust the other way around too, because now your people, your congregation know that my pastor is here for life. My pastor's always going to be there for me.

He's not looking for something better. And so, whereas you trust and love us, we also trust and love you guys because we know that that's a concrete pillar of our community. That's right. It's family. And you know, if there may be issues that you get to work through, but at the end of the day, your family is your family. That's right. Amen. And that same kind of love applies in our church.

That's right. If you guys enjoyed today's topic or you have suggestions for future topics, make sure you let us know by sending us a text at 252-582-5028. You can also visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com.

And don't forget that you can support us financially on that same website. Every gift that you give goes not only to building up this radio show, but countless other ministries for the impact of the kingdom of God. I got a question coming in from Mark G. Dr. Shaw, what did you get your master's degree in? Has it helped you in your ministry? My master's degree was in pastoral ministries with languages, and I focused heavily on Greek and Hebrew.

Okay. So did you write a thesis on language? I didn't have to. I didn't have to write a thesis because I did so many advanced level courses.

So I did the first year of both Greek and Hebrew, but then I went to the second year and the third year. Very cool. Yeah. Very cool.

And I even won some awards for both biblical languages. Nice. Very cool. Nice. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clear Read Today.