Monday, April 24th | Pious Thieves

Hello, everyone. Today is Monday, April the 24th. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. And you're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

If you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028, or you can email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com. That's right, and you guys can help us keep the conversation going by supporting the show, sharing it online, leaving us a good review on iTunes, Spotify, absolutely nothing less than five stars. I've been very clear with you guys in the past, we need the five stars. We need the stars, dude. And we're going to leave a link. Who did you turn into?

I think that was Brad Pitt at the end of Seven. We need the stars, dude. What's in the box? We need the stars, dude.

What's in the box? We're going to leave a link in the description of this podcast so you can do just that. But before we do anything else, I want to read the verse of the day. Yes.

Yeah, boy. It's time to read the verse of the day. It's 1 Corinthians 125, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. This lets us know and reminds us that God is not on the same playing field as we are. Yes, we serve a God who is intimately close to us, and we serve a God who wants to be involved in our lives, and a God who sympathizes with us because of Christ and his time here on earth. We serve a God who identifies with us and our struggling. But God is not on the same level as you.

Don't make that mistake. Don't reduce him to your level of understanding. God is beyond you. Yeah, you think about God at his most foolish, most weakest moment, and there's poetic license there, of course, because we know that God has no foolishness. He has no weaknesses. There's not a moment. But what Paul is saying is, even if you consider God at his absolute lowest, it is infinitely more than anything that we'll ever be able to bring to the table, meaning that his all-sufficientness, his omnipotence, is unimaginable. Just like you said, it's completely next level, another scale, something that we can never, ever attain.

So it brings this sense of awe in us that this is the God that we worship, and it brings a reverence that when we approach God, we don't do so with fear, like with fright, but we do so with, okay, I completely acknowledge that you are the king and not me. I have a question today. I got the question that was written in today. Typically, you're the one that reads them, but I got the question today from Myron B. Myron wants to know, what's one food you absolutely can't stand?

How much time you got, buddy boy? Just one. Just pick one.

I can wax poetic about a whole myriad of things. Just pick one. Mushrooms. Any sort of fungus on my food. Anything I could find growing in the forest or growing out of some bathroom grout that I might would sprinkle on a salad.

That's what y'all like? Okay. Yeah, you can have a mushroom. I've never seen a mushroom growing in a bathroom. I 100% when I moved into my house, we had mushrooms growing in the bathroom. Mushrooms?

Really? Fungus, yes. I've never seen mushrooms inside.

Yes. Ellie and I had mushroom. That house sat for many years. And when we got it, there was mushroom between the floor and the shower, there were mushrooms growing up out of it. No, there were not. Are you serious?

100%. I can call Ellie right now. Bathroom mushrooms.

I can call her right now, yeah. People sprinkle that on their food. I do like mushrooms.

I like mushrooms, but I wouldn't like them if they were in the bathroom. What's a food you can't stand? Beets. Beets? Beets. I hate them. I can't stand them.

I've tried them many different ways. I'm willing to try stuff, and I'll continue to try stuff in the hopes that I will like it. Beets taste like dirt, and they taste like artificial dirt. It tastes like somebody tried to remember what dirt tasted like and made it into a food.

I remember when I went to Israel in 2019, David was there. They had this restaurant that served, it was called Beet Ravioli. And I was like, well, I don't like beets, but this is the closest thing to pasta I'm going to get. So I thought it was like ravioli with like a creamy sauce and like a beet filling. So I was like, maybe I can just kind of open it up and get the beets out and eat the pasta. No, it was straight up beets. It was ravioli made of beets. And I was like, oh man. I was like, well, this is my dinner for the night.

And I'm on the other side of the planet, so I may as well eat it. It was pretty good. I ended up liking it.

I'd be willing to try it. I am not a beets guy. Are you justified in not eating something if you find out that something you don't like is in there? Like if I'm eating, if I don't like onions, which I don't, and I'm eating a burger and I like it, and then someone's like, hey, I'm glad you like it because I put ground up onions in there. Am I justified in no longer eating the burger? Um, I mean, you could do what you want to.

I don't think that's make or break. But do you think the other person is right, is like quote unquote right? Well, let me ask you this.

What is the motivation of the other person like, I'm glad you like it because I put, that seems a little devious to me. Yeah, to like, to like be like, see, I knew you liked onions. No, I just wasn't. No, if you're going to bring that kind of energy, I'm definitely not eating this burger and anything else that you cook because you're bringing that kind of energy.

Yeah. You always said you didn't like them, but you didn't even know that we're in there. Now if they didn't, if they didn't know and they were like, yeah, I made this with blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and onions.

Oh, actually. Like if your wife had made me a burger and was like, oh, hey, I'm sorry. I forgot you didn't like onions. It's got onions in it. And you're halfway through the burger. Yeah. I can like take the burger and throw it at the window.

No, no, no, no, no. Cause she didn't, I mean, she didn't do it with malicious intent. Now if she, if she was in the corner plotting, like I'm going to stick spinach in John's burger. It's going to be made of spinach. Like it's not actual meat. It's just fake meat made of spinach and beans. Then that's a little devious.

That's a different, that's a different setup. But if it's like, oh, halfway through, man, I didn't even realize. I'm not usually a fan of onions, but I like the way this tastes. Maybe you've discovered something new about yourself.

Maybe, maybe. If you're halfway through and there's no malicious intent, I say either finish it or just politely decline the rest of it. What do you guys think? What are some, what are some foods that you absolutely cannot abide under any circle? Like mushrooms. I'm not going to eat them. I don't care. I don't care if you're serving them to me and I'm being rude. I'm not going to eat the mushroom.

Look, can I ask you this? Have you ever tried mushrooms? No. You just like, not like the idea of fungus. I don't want to eat fungus.

Okay. No, I'm not going to, I'm not going to eat a mushroom. People say that about like blue cheese and cottage cheese too. Like I don't want to eat like spoiled milk. No, cottage cheese is my jam. I have blue cheese is my jam. I like both. I'm interested to know what you guys think though.

What, what's one food that you absolutely will not abide? Text in. Yeah. Text in and let us know.

252-582-5028. We're continuing the conversation about Malachi today. There's so much in this book, so much to be learned from this, this tiny little book at the end of the Old Testament, but there's such a deep truth about who God is and who we are in light of that. We're going to get Dr. Shah and bring him in to answer those questions in just a second. You can visit us online at cleareaviewtodayshow.com and we'll be right back. Well, good morning, afternoon, evening, Clearview Today listeners. My name is Jon and I'm David. And we just want to take a quick second and let you know about another way that you can keep in touch with Dr. Shah's work.

And that is his weekly podcast series, Sermons by Abaddon Shah, Ph.D. As a lot of you may know, or maybe some of you don't know. If you don't know, you do now. And if you don't know, then maybe just hop off the podcast.

David. I'm just playing. Hop off the podcast.

I'm just playing. Keep listening. Dr. Shah is actually the lead pastor of Clearview Church in North Carolina. Every single weekend he preaches expository messages that challenge and inspire us to live God honoring lives. 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 Shah 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. Shah's website, AbbadonShah.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 Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. If you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text, 252-582-5028.

That's right. And if today is your very first time ever joining us on the show, we want to welcome you, let you know who's talking to you today. Dr. Abbadon Shah is a PhD, a New Testament textual criticism professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor and the host of today's episode.

You can find all of his work on his website. That's AbbadonShah.com. Dr. Shah, welcome back to the studio today. How are you doing? I'm doing very well.

I hope you guys are doing well. Hope you had a very restful weekend. No.

No? Well. Restful weekend. Restful. Monday is the day to kind of recharge and rejuvenate weekends out so much. That's true. Yeah. Weekends are kind of, it's kind of funny how in ministry, that's like the big work.

That's like the big push. And then for everyone else, they're like, whew, I got the weekend off. Do you have a, like a recharge activity, something to kind of rejuvenate yourself? Well, one would be for me is my devotional time. You know, I just sit down and I'll read the Bible and have my devotional book, meditate, think about what I've read and then pray accordingly. And then I just take my time, just kind of sitting there thinking through, not necessarily writing things or checking stuff. Once in a while, I'll check some messages or respond to things that'll come to my mind or jot things down about things I need to get done. But then overall, I'm mostly taking the time just to reflect.

And that's very important because people don't reflect. They just go from task to task or they get something in their minds and now they're driving forward to finish it. And they even accomplish it. So I'm not saying the people who are like that don't accomplish things. They do. But they all have a breaking point.

They all have a place where now what? Or they get disillusioned or they snap or they just fall apart. And I don't want to be like that. So that time of, of course, Bible reading, devotional time, prayer, and then reflection, that helps kind of bring, you know, a sense of return to normal for me.

You know, it's like a resetting time. And so I do that. Another thing we do on Mondays, Nicole and I will get away, spend time together and walk. And we will, then sometimes I will go look at books.

She goes, looks at makeup, something like that. That's my time to, you know, bring back that equilibrium. Amen. And we're continuing that discussion specifically about Malachi today. We've been walking through the series through the book of Malachi and it's a book that is, it is slept on by a lot of people.

People just kind of like gloss over it. Oh, it's one of the minor prophets. I'm going to skip ahead to Jesus. I want to get to the gospel. I want to get to the good stuff. Yeah.

The good stuff. But Malachi is just such a fascinating book and it's, we've seen over the past few episodes. I mean, we've just been like, just totally engaged in this conversation as well as many of you at home and writing in and texting saying how much you've appreciated this, walking through these different issues surrounding Malachi, what God was doing, how he was interacting with his people. And today we are coming to a very sensitive topic for people.

A lot of people don't like to talk about this one. What I really want is like a soundbite of Mr. Crabs here from SpongeBob going money, money, money, money. Yeah, I got it here. Here it is right there. There it is. That's what we're talking about.

Money, money, money, money. We're talking about money today specifically about tithing. It's like that young preacher who went to this country church and man, he was on fire. He started preaching and everybody's like, Amen.

And then this old farmer who typically wouldn't say a word, he was like, Amen. And he talked about the sin of lying. Amen. The sin of adultery. Amen. The sin of gambling. Amen.

The sin of robbing God and not giving your tithes. He said, now preacher, you're meddling. That's too far. Yeah. I think you took it a little bit too far. I was on board with all that other stuff. Yeah. And then you started talking about money. I don't know about that. Preacher's meddling now. Have you heard of the dollar bill that met a $20 bill?

I have not. Is this, is this another joke? All right, let's do it. This is the last one worked.

I thought I'd maybe try this one. So he hadn't seen him in a while and he said, Hey, where have you been? Haven't you seen, seen you in years?

So $20 bill replied. He said, I've been doing a lot of traveling. You know, I've been to the casino, been to the cruise, went on a baseball game.

You know, I went to the mall for Christmas shopping, fancy restaurants, beach mountains, you name it. I've been there. I've been living the high life.

Wow. And so, you know, he's, then he says, how about you dollar bill? What you've been up to? He said, ah, same old stuff. Church, church, church. People only be dropping the $1 bill.

Yeah. The dollar bill said, all I see is the offering bill. Or that old, another one, you know, this is old. These are all old jokes by the way.

I don't have new ones. It's like the father who was driving home from church, you know, he's all fussing about the music wasn't right. The lights weren't right. The preacher was not good.

Nobody was right. And the son replied, that wasn't, that wasn't a bad show for a buck. We kind of, we kind of got out of head on that. Yeah. It's a lot. It's funny cause I can feel a lot of people just tensing up in their seats right now. That ain't funny.

They all know how to be joking. You never know what people make, you know, and, and, and it's just, everybody's on fixed income. And I, and I hear that a lot and I, and I, and I get the point people are on fixed income, but does that mean back in Malachi's days they were on unlimited income? Right.

Just, just raining from the sky. Like, oh, these people who like came in from this like exile, they're finally back in their land. They're like, we live in a life, baby. They didn't have a fixed income. I think they probably did have a fixed income. They had nothing. I mean, they just came back from Babylon, right? I mean, their lives were, were uprooted, you know, and they lost their ancestral homes, their properties.

Their family members died and then being dragged across to, you know, Babylon, ancient Mesopotamia, you know, that's where they are in a foreign land. And when God set them free and told them to go back, not many of them wanted to go back because, you know, it was like, okay, we've done this once and we've been beaten up on and our brothers to the north fought against us and they got kicked out. We don't want to go back.

We want to stay right here. And some of them decided to go back. So you would think God would say, you know, since you actually came back, guess what? No tides for you. Don't worry about that.

It's all paid off because you are sacrificing for me to the contrary. God is like letting them have it because they're robbing. Yeah. They're robbing from God.

Yeah. As I mentioned last time, you know, the book of Malachi is written like a courtroom drama where the people of Israel were on trial and God was their judge, their prosecuting attorney, their witness, their executioner. But don't think of this as just one sided or negative because God was also their public defender who was trying to negotiate a plea bargain that would greatly benefit them.

So he was also trying to say, okay, we can get this right. There's a way out of this. Nobody has to go to prison. Nobody has to be locked up forever.

We can work this out. That's what God is doing in this situation. And he begins in verse six by saying, for I am the Lord.

I do not change. So what does he mean by that? When he says, I'm the Lord, I am Yahweh, he was reminding them of his covenant name. Yeah. That same name that he gave Moses and that same name that he's always used for himself to remind them of that covenant, that promise that he made with them. That's right. I'm the Lord.

I do not change. Therefore you are not consumed. Not all sons of Abraham or Isaac, but Jacob. Why do you think Jacob? If you think for a moment, Abraham also had other children, Ishmael. And then later on through Keturah, he had other children. Isaac also had Esau through whom came the Edomites. But how about Jacob? Jacob's children made up Israel.

Oh yeah. Jacob's children made up the 12 tribes, right? That's it.

That's it. So God in a sense is telling them that unlike the Ishmaelites or the Edomites or all the other tribes that came through Abraham's lineage, they all had perished or vanished, but these people were still alive because he had kept his covenant. The Jewish people are here, this one tribe, maybe throwing a little bit of Levites and a little bit of Benjamites. The reason they're still there is because of God's grace. That makes sense.

That makes sense. Cause you wouldn't, you wouldn't include the ones who ended up going away. It's almost like the purest or the most, I don't want to say the most pure, the most holy sect of people, but I guess the ones who got it the closest who are like, okay, now this is Israel. This is what makes up Israel. And don't ever forget that you're here because of me in the first place, my covenant with you. Just when you think God would let up on them and be extra kind and gentle and look, they were in Megzah. Look, their fathers died and they are coming back to their ancestral home.

Look, they actually, they at least came, give them credit for that instead. Listen to what God says in verse seven. Yet from the days of your fathers, you have gone away from my ordinances and have not kept them.

Wow. I mean, this is so contrary to what, what you would expect. It's like when you, it's like when someone scolds you and you start listing in your mind, all the stuff that you do, right.

Or all the stuff that you, you're not understanding all of this, but when you're doing that with God, who knows it better than you do, knows the intricacies of what you go through and still is not relenting is like something really, something's got to give here. When he doesn't, he doesn't give them an inch there. He doesn't even say like, oh, they've lost their, they've lost their forefathers. They've let her come back. They've come from exile. He says, no, even from the days of your forefathers, you've abandoned my ordinances. You've abandoned my laws.

You, your disobedience started well before right now. Yeah. So the very people that you're glorifying, you know, your ancestors who died under Nebuchadnezzar and God's saying like, they were, they were thieves as well. Your granddaddy, your granddaddy's granddaddy. Yeah.

Mammy and Pappy were all thieves every single one of them. That's hard to hear, man. Especially for like people who pride themselves on that lineage and that, that, that special covenant relationship with God is so important to them. Yeah. They came back. They're like, oh, we're going to go find their grave, baby. We're going to, we're going to, we're going to just like, you know, mourn and maybe build some statues for them.

They're a bunch of thieves. It's funny because like you think about it and it sort of reveals what you think about God. You know what I mean? Like when that offering plate comes around, what do you truly think about God? Like, like this, is this, is it really his? If it's his, then why does it hurt so much?

Or why do I hesitate so much to put it in there? That's right. And the answer is very simple. Return to me and I will return to you says the Lord of hosts. And their answer is in what way shall we return?

What do you mean? What they're really saying is we came back, didn't we? We did you a favor. We came back.

Is this not enough? Oh, y'all. Y'all. Don't say that. Bad move. Don't say that.

Especially to the Lord. Don't say that. Yeah.

It's like fallout four. Nobody liked that. Everybody disliked that. Here's some people just be like, did he say that to the Lord? Oh, come on, man. And here comes the answer. Verse eight. Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed me.

But you say in what way have we robbed you? I mean, they had the audacity to say, what do you mean? This is, this is like quintessential, like middle school response. Like you did this.

I don't even do anything. Like, what do you mean? It's like, it's like, I want you to pray. It's like fine. Dear God. Thanks. All right. Now you're in trouble.

Trey Kennedy had a sketch light. What did I do? In what way have we robbed you? In tithes and offerings. Now, many of us know that that word tithe, it means 10%. It is an old English word that means 10th. That's what tithe really means is 10th. So if you ever wonder, tithing is 10th thing. Oh, yeah. I actually, I didn't know that. I mean, tithe was your 10%, but I didn't know etymological, etymologically.

That's what it meant. Yeah. It's 10th thing.

Okay. So it comes from the Old Testament, from the Bible, of course, there were three kinds of tithes. The first one was a general tithe of the land in Leviticus 27, 30, and all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree is the Lord's. It is holy to the Lord.

And where do you get it or where do you give it? Numbers 18, 21, behold, I have given the children of Israel, all the tithes in Israel as an inheritance in return for the work, which they perform the work of the tabernacle of meeting. So the money was being given so that the Levites could continue the worship, the sacrifices, all the work of the temple. Now keep in mind, we're not the temple.

We're not the Levites, but we do resemble in some sense, these offices. That's why we at a church, we work here and people give their offerings and tithes and we use that to support ourselves. This is a biblical pattern. It's continuing the work and the worship for the good of the community so that the community can continue to gather and worship as well. That's right.

That's right. The second tithe or kind of tithe is the eating of a portion of the tithe at the sacred meal when the first or general tithe was given. So it's the eating of the portion of the tithe at the sacred meal when the first one, first tithe was given. In Deuteronomy 14, 22, it says you shall tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year.

And you shall eat before the Lord your God in the place where he chooses to make his name abide. We're talking about Jerusalem, the tithe of your grain and your new wine and your oil of the firstborn of your herds and your flocks, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. So they would tithe, they would tithe all of those things and then they would eat portions of it? Is that where the sin was coming in in Samuel with Hophni and Phinehas? They were eating improper portions of the tithe?

Yep. And they were almost, I mean, they loved meat. I think they were running a butcher shop, really. It's like all this choices meat, right?

The animals had to be perfect. And you're getting all the best cuts, the sirloins, the filet mignon, the New York strips, and they were selling them and making money off of it. That act that should have been an act of worship. That should have been an act of sacrifice.

They became a business venture, a profiteering thing. And then there's a third kind of tithe, which is collected every three years for the poor. So the first tithe, of course, of the land, the general tithe of the land. The second is the eating of the portion of the tithe at the meal of the first tithe.

And the third one is collected every three years. In Deuteronomy 14, 28, at the end of every third year, you shall bring out the tithe of your produce of that year and store it up within your gates. And the Levite, because he has no portion nor inheritance with you, and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are within your gates, may come and eat and be satisfied that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hand, which you do. Can you just quickly explain the Levite thing? Because I know, I know there's something that the Levites are set apart.

But what does that mean, he has no portion nor inheritance with you? They never got the land. They were supposed to be living with all these tribes, and the tribes were to support them. So they didn't have their own tribe of the Levites where they lived.

They lived among the people in their tribes. Yeah, they were supposed to be like pastors. Yeah, they were functioning as the priests.

They would need to be scattered throughout. And they would go to the temple. After Moses gave the law, eventually, they were to go to the temple and serve there and come back to their homes. But then in time, the temple fell apart, all this kind of craziness. So they were doing ministry right in their communities. Remember Zechariah, who was John the Baptist's father? He was going home, and he came back and he got the call to be the next priest. You know, the lot fell in his name. But if you remember, Mary went to see Elizabeth her cousin who was living up in the Judean Mountains.

So this third type of, this third type of tithe was to support the Levites who didn't have their own tribe, and then all of the fatherless and the poor, and this was collected for their benefit. That's right. Okay. Okay. We gotta end today's episode, but stay tuned. We're going to jump back into this tomorrow. If you guys have any questions or suggestions for new topics though, send us a text to 252-582-5028. Or if this episode raised some questions that you have, send those questions in as well. We'd love to know what you're thinking. We'd love to know what you're getting from each week's episodes.

You can also visit us online at cleareaviewtodayshow.com, and you can partner with us financially on that same website. Pray about how God would have you give not only to this radio show, but to Reaching the Nations with the gospel of Jesus. Amen. You know, we're talking about good food and choicest meats, but Dr. Shuh this morning, Myron B wrote in, and he wants to know, what's one food you absolutely can't stand? Well... We've been talking about a food a lot on the intros. I'm pretty easy going.

I'll try anything, everything. I've been to wild game nights in the churches. We're trying to do one here soon. We have a big fishing tournament coming up. Not tournament.

I mean, tournament's on the lake, but then all these fishing experts will be coming here, and we have a big conference, and you'll be meeting celebrities. But anyways, that's different. But I've been to wild game nights. I've eaten everything.

You name it, raccoon, rodents, whatever. I've eaten it all. I was in Mexico.

Okay. This is up in the Yucatan. And we had just come back for lunch doing mission work, you know, up in the deep jungle, so the Yucatan. And they had bowls of soup. So I'm like, oh yeah, soup. I went in there and chicken feet.

Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Did you like it? The nice nails and everything.

I didn't like it. And I was like, oh, if the nail, nail of this rooster that I saw yesterday. Did it resemble a foot? Like you could tell it was the foot? Yeah, it was.

You can pick it up and you can make impressions with it if you want. It was still good. But at least you should have, should have taken a nail cutter to it. Yeah, at least give the chicken a pedicure or something. At least a pedicure chicken in my soup would have been fine. So, but, but I've, you know, the people, it tasted good. That's a funny thing. It was not bad. It just, I couldn't get the image of this rooster's foot in my soup. Yeah.

No, that's, that's rough. But I ate it. I ate it. I threw away the chicken and I remember one of the, one of my friends and this is not like what all Mexican people eat. So don't, please don't misunderstand that because this is more in the village and this was kind of like, oh, this is a delicacy.

But I saw one of the guys from the, from Cero Mall, which is a more of a city. He looked at me and was like, you like the foot? I said, no. He said, I don't either.

I was like, okay, I guess we'll all agree. Grab the foot, grab the foot real quick. I said, you want it?

That's when you need one of those village dogs to come by. Like, oh, you're such a good CEO. Yeah, here, eat this real quick. Okay. No to chicken foot soup. Yeah. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clearview Today.