Lighting Round

Hello, everyone. Today is Friday, June the 30th. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm Jon Galantis. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadan 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. That's right. You guys can help us keep the conversation going by supporting the show, sharing it online, and leaving us a good review anywhere you get your podcasting content from.

We're going to leave a link in the description of this podcast, so you can do just that. Our verse of the day today comes from Hebrews chapter three, verse 13, but exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. A verse like that kind of brings me back to that conviction, which is like, how seriously do I take sin? As Christians, how serious are we about our sin?

Because the Bible tells us right here, God views it very, very seriously. It has the power to entice you. Sin has the power to drag you away from your faith.

If you don't believe that, scripture is replete with examples of good, godly, I would say, ordained, anointed men being dragged away by sin. They harden their hearts to it, and ultimately, it binds you and it enslaves you. It's that repeated sin in your life. You'll start to deaden your sense of the Spirit convicting you there. You'll start to deaden the Spirit's promptings, like, Hey, this is sin.

Hey, this is wrong. That becomes white noise in the background to where you're continually engaging in this sin, which is why it says, Exhort one another. Sometimes we need each other to be like, Hey, I love you. Because I love you, I want to point this out in your life. I think that maybe there's something going on here.

What's happening with you here? That's what accountability looks like. That's what are those guardrails in our lives that protect us from falling off the deep end into sin. Sometimes we don't catch it ourselves. That's why we need Christian brothers and sisters alongside us to do that for us. That's right. Speaking of sin and being caught up in sin and getting wrapped up out of that life, I want to bring David in on this conversation.

Because he's the biggest sinner, I know. That's not the segue. A little bit ago, I don't remember how long ago it was. It was a few months ago. We were talking on the show about how I'm getting into kind of women's fiction thrillers and stuff. Some Reese Witherspoon book club picks. I'm talking about House on the Pine. I'm talking about Wrong Place, Wrong Time.

I'm talking about The Last of Vanish. These are women's thrillers that you find in a Target. You find in a Walmart. I've been eating them like candy. I got lamb-blasted on the show. Oh, no. You remember.

You remember. You explain to me why David is now reading and enjoying Francine Rivers' Redeeming Love, which I would argue is way, way cheesier, way cornier. It's not even fun.

It's not even fun. It's because it's Francine Rivers. It's Christian literature.

Ew. It's my girl Francine. Why are you with Franny? What snapped in you to be like, I'm going to pick up Francine Rivers' Redeeming Love? Read it. What was the impetus for this decision?

What led to this? So I've had people recommend it to me, and Nicole has always talked about it as well. Who is Dr. Shaw's wife. She loves Redeeming Love. Elizabeth does as well.

Elizabeth loves Francine Rivers' Redeeming Love. I thought, maybe I'll venture out. I'll try a different genre of book than what I normally read. So I got the audiobook, and I bought a physical copy, and I started reading it, and about two or three chapters in, I was hooked. There's no subtle... Have you read Redeeming Love? No.

I think I read maybe the first quarter. So it's not subtle at all. I don't want to put Francine Rivers on blast, because I do fear she listens to the show. Francine, forgive us, please. Believe me, Francine.

I'm sure you're a great writer. But here in this story, there's no subtlety at all. It's based on the book of Hosea and Gomer.

The main character's name is Michael Hosea. Even though I was able to overlook that. He goes to her place of business.

She's a woman of ill repute. I'll just leave it at that. And he's like, you're my wife now. And she's like, I'm sorry?

Which is directly from the Bible. He's like, get up. Come on. And she's like, did you pay to be with me?

Are you ready? He's like, let's go. And then, of course, she doesn't. So then he goes home and questions the Lord and is like, Lord, I don't understand.

I don't get it, Lord. It's a little awkward at those points. I will say that. But once you get past that, that's a very specific scenario.

It's tough to rework that. But all I wanted was a little subtlety. What did you like about it, Dave? So once you get past that part, and then you actually get to the part where she goes and she's with him and they're married, and then she has to work through all of this stuff. It was interesting to see how the parallels were.

We are so ready to give our life to Christ, but then when we actually have to open up and pray and actually give our life to Christ, we so quickly will wither back and go back to sin and run back to the other side. So it was something that I was like, okay, it's on the nose, but it's good and refreshing to read it in a different perspective, if that makes sense. I wouldn't have even thought about it if I hadn't gotten blasted for liking Reese Witherspoon's Book Club books.

And I got railed for weeks. People were coming up to me in the church and being like, did you see the new Reese Witherspoon book is out? And I didn't know you were in touch with your feminine side. And I was like, what? Come to find out David's staying up at night reading Francine Rivers under the covers with a little flashlight, giggling. His mom's like knocking on the door. David, are you in the bed? He's like, oh, oh, that's trouble.

She came to his house. Why aren't you in the bed? I don't want to blast Francine Rivers and I don't want to blast David, but I got blasted first and I just felt like that was much more egregious than liking Walmart thrillers. I think the reason is because it's Christian literature. It's Christian literature and it's extremely feminine. Mine aren't even feminine. There's written by women for women. This is like the Francine Rivers. This is a book about femininity.

Yes. If you're reading Christian Fix and Francine Rivers specifically, I'm not saying you're feminine. I'm just saying you can't make fun of me for reading Walmart thrillers while you're reading Francine Rivers.

Here's what I'll say. To all my people who are looking for something to read, Francine Rivers, Redeeming Love, give it a read. If you've read it before, read it again. It's a good read.

If you've read it before, read the Book of Hosea and the Bible. Have some fondue while you're reading it, because it is extremely cheesy. Extremely cheesy. It ain't easy being cheesy. We're going to get Dr. Sean in just a minute for today's episode, but if you guys have any questions or suggestions, or if you've read Redeeming Love, write in and let us know what you think.

2-5-2-5-8-2-5-0-2-8. Or, you can visit us online at cleaviewtodayshow.com. We'll be right back. Good morning, afternoon, evening, Cleaview Today listeners. My name is Jon. And I'm David.

We just want to take a quick second and let you know about another way that you can keep in touch with Dr. Sean's work. 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, hop off the podcast. I'm just playing.

I'm just playing. Keep listening. Dr. Sean 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 Clear View 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 to 252-582-5028.

That's right. If today's your first time ever joining us on the Clear View Today Show, we want to welcome you, let you know exactly who's talking to you today. Dr. Abbadon Shah is a Ph.D. in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show.

You can find all of his work on his website. That's AbbadonShah.com. And if today is your first time joining us, you might be wondering why Jon is wearing the bowler hat from the 1960s Riddler. Oh, yeah. I was about to say, I'm about to go harass Batman here. Gotham City has no idea what's coming. Yeah, Gotham City is about to be in for a riddle of a time.

Before we did that, I wanted to ask, because I know we're going to drop it like a hot potato after today is done. Dr. Shah, Francine Rivers. Yay? Nay? You like Francine Rivers?

Yay. You like Francine? Well, I don't read tons of her work, but definitely Redeeming Love is pretty good. See, that's the one we were talking about earlier. Your wife got me to read it, and I made the mistake of criticizing it to her. Big mistake. She didn't like that.

Bad move. Now David's reading it. Oh, actually, I'm sorry. David already read it. You like it?

He did. So I wanted to check in and see where you were on Francine. She also wrote, what, Beauty from Ashes? She wrote Beauty from Ashes, Last Sin Eater. And the way I read Redeeming Love is when she read it to me. Nicole read it to me. I was like, wow, that's good work. That needs to be made into a movie.

And guess what? It was. It was? Oh, it was? They made it a movie? Yeah.

I didn't know that. Yeah. About two years ago. Yeah.

They made it several years ago, but it was completed two years ago. Wow. We saw it. Crazy. Good movie. I liked it.

I think they did a great job. Yeah. Yeah. Well, speaking of questions being asked of each other, today is lightning round questions.

If you're wondering about the Riddler attire, it's lightning round questions with Dr. Questions. And I don't remember what our captain, like...

I don't think we had any. Captain Quiri. Captain Quiri and... Like, Insight Lad or something like that. Yeah, something like that. Inquiry Lad.

I came from our sidekick names. Yeah. Captain Quiri.

Captain Quiri and... I don't know. I don't know if I'll watch that.

Question Boy. Yeah, maybe that's a bad one. That's not a one we need to use. Yeah, maybe we'll just... I can't remember what it actually was. Back to the drawing board on that one.

We're gonna scrap that idea. It was one costume. The thing is, it was one costume. It was jacket, hat, tie. Right.

We needed the little staff. The cane. The cane, yeah. Yeah. But we're still waiting on that.

Still working on that. Yeah. But these questions, when we tell you to text those questions into 2525825028... We ain't just whistling Dixie, you know? We're not.

We use them. I don't even know how to whistle Dixie. That's what it means. You just talk just to hear yourself talk.

We ain't just whistling Dixie over here. We use these questions for our lightning round questions. That's right. So you might just hear your questions answered on today's episode of Lightning Round Questions. Jumping in for our first question, it comes from Mr. Gerald H. Gerald wants to know, Dr. Shaw, how long does it take for something new to develop in your field? Like textual criticism field?

Textual criticism. Or a novel or a new concept to come out in your field? Wow, that's a great question. I was going to say, unless you were a farmer or something, and then it's just like a season of harvest. Yeah. Harvest time. Yeah.

Honestly, it takes a long, long, long time. Wow. I mean, just keep in mind, one of the biggest movements that happened when Erasmus published his Greek New Testament. He jumped ahead of the complutensin polyglot, which actually was out first, but it was not published first. And Erasmus, you know, there was a race to beat the Catholic Church, and he put out his Greek New Testament.

1516, I think it is. So anyways, that's when the whole so-called was broken of, this is the established text into now, oh wow, we have the Greek text behind the English or even the Latin. So that's where people woke up. But then they were stuck with that until Westcott and Hort came along in the 1880s, and they published the New Testament in the original Greek. And that's when the so-called hold of the Textus Receptus was broken. Again, I lean more towards a Byzantine text, but I'm just giving you the history that is these high marks. And then until recently, I would say in the 1990s, you have what's known as postmodern. Postmodernism came into textual criticism where now it is, well, we don't know for sure, you know, where is the original text, so we can create whatever text we want.

I consider these to be like the high points, you know, in the field. So think about it from 1516 or so to 1880s. How many years is that? That's like 300 something years.

Wow. 1880s to 1990s. That's about another 150, maybe close to 200 years. 100 years.

100 years. So you have such big gaps. Now in between, there are things that happen with regards to finding manuscripts or a new collation or something like that that comes to light. But honestly, they don't make such significant differences. It's interesting in the field of academia that that's the way, because I think with us, and with our, not that it's really a generational thing, but I mean, you see like trends in worship or trends in podcasts or trends in entertainment.

Like if you are doing last year's stuff, you're pretty much out of the picture. And yet, I think the way your dissertation opens is, you know, before the 1960s, this was our goal. Since the 1960s, this new era has gone. Modernism has come in, yeah. So from the 60s to now, like this has sort of been the norm and the way people have been doing it for like, what, that's like, 60s to now as well, like 50 something? Yeah, I mean, you're talking about 50, 60 some years, 60 some years. And again, in the past 10 years or so, CBGM, coherence-based genealogical method, that's come into the field of New Testament textual criticism.

That's how they evaluate reading. That's how the folks at Munster who are behind the Nessel Island Greek New Testament, they're using this computer-based model, you know, Gerd Mink, Klaus Wachtel, and all these people there, they produce this. I'm not too much in favor of that, because I think there are problems there, just like AI, right? Maybe one day we can talk about AI. Yeah, I would love to. Yeah, I would love to do that. Like just in AI, you know, if I can put in my information in the AI so that AI will pick from my parameters, it'd be one thing. But that's not how it is right now.

Really? Yeah, it's been set. So it is a set.

The parameters are set by somebody else. And to say that those somebody else do not have a bias is a big fat lie. Because that's a person. It's a person with an agenda and with a mind.

Right. Try putting in there something about AI, tell me or whatever, you know, why is the transgender movement such a mess? And see what they answer. It'll be a very, very, you know, like, hey, you're wasting my time. Or it'll be something to the effect of, you know, you need to move with the times and all that kind of stuff. But wait, wait, wait, wait, AI, you just got here and you really think you can be so partial towards this aberrant movement?

Well, there are a hundred percent. You're exactly right, because I've been messing around with chat GPT and there are some things where it's like, I can't process that request at this time. And it's always political or like hot button topics.

If you ask chat GPT hot button topics, it'll just say, I can't process that request at this time. Yeah. So also when it comes to coherence-based genealogical method, you know, it is a bias method. So these are those high points. Anyways, long answer to a short question. Yeah, yeah, no, I think that was an excellent answer.

And I think in the realm of academia, it's important to know that time does kind of move, like the movements move that slowly because it sometimes takes that long for cultural trends to catch on. Yes. This is a huge departure. Jonathan B, morning showers or night showers? For me?

Yeah. Morning. I'm morning too. Yeah, because you've got to face the day.

I want to be fresh, clean, ready to go face the world. Same. Now, if I take nice showers, I'm going to sleep really well. Yeah.

That is true. I don't understand how people don't have morning showers because my hair does weird things. I hate to make it this way. I hate to make it this way. I think it's a gender thing because most of the people I know who prefer night showers and won't take them in the morning are women.

I think you might be right. Because I cannot, there's no way in the world I'm getting out of the bed and leaving the house without showering. It's not going to happen. But I will come home after a hard day and be like, well, it is what it is and just fall in the bed. Ellie will not. It's the opposite. She'll get out of bed, kind of primp herself up and then go.

But then she comes home and she's like, 100% I'm showering before I get in the bed. I don't know. So Patrick G has our next question. Patrick wants to know, any update on your summer writing projects?

Yes, very much so. There's a book coming out very soon regarding the original text based on the conference we had here. So be expecting that book to come out hopefully by August. I am now working with the editor.

Well, I'm the editor of the book, but there's a copy editor who now goes over line by line, footnote by footnote to make sure, because it's an academic publishing. So make sure that all our information is up to speed, is accurate. And the bibliography is being made right now of all these chapters. So hopefully by August, then we're working on a couple of other projects and I'm really excited about that.

That's coming soon. Amen. Michael M, what makes you feel motivated? How do you keep your motivation going during lulls in your life? I learned this a while back and I'm still daily making it part of my practice, which is this, feelings or not, my job is to focus on what God has called me to do.

Okay. Like when a child is, you know, like you're a little Holden and when Ellie walks out of the room, he starts crying. He has to see her.

You know, he can see you and he may be attached to you, but Ellie is different. That doesn't go away when he gets to be Gavin's age, who's two years old. Yeah, two and a half. Two and a half. And that continues for a while.

Okay. Then when they get into elementary school, you know, it's a little different. Then middle school, they can live without you. They don't have to see you 24 seven high school. They'd rather not see, you know, it depends on what the child is like, you know, some, some are attached to mom and daddy. Others are like, I'm good. Yeah.

See, I'm going here. And then when they become young adults, you know, we, we learn to live separate from our parents, recognizing the whole time they're there. We don't want to disappoint them.

Hopefully we want to please them. Then when we get into adult years, I mean, you don't see a mom every day. You don't see her mom, your mom, sometimes even every week, you know, they're like out on vacation. You may not see her.

But you still know that she's there. So also when it comes to the Christian life in the early years of our lives, I want to see God. I want to see his presence. I want to feel his presence. I want to sense him guiding me and nurturing me and maturing me, even disciplining. But then there comes a point as we grow up there, God says, you don't need to see me and feel me and sense me and hear me every day. You know, my voice is coming through the Holy Spirit is coming from the word of God. It's in the presence of Jesus Christ that you take by faith in your life. You don't need me.

Now go do what I tell you to do what I told you to do. So even if you don't see God, here's the statement I made Wednesday night. Even if you don't see God the rest of your life till you die, even near death, you don't see God. You still should live as if he's right there.

Because it's by faith that we live. Now, you know, I have parents, my dad passed away two years ago. And I was 5000 miles away for most of my life. But I still knew I had parents. And they loved me and they had, you know, certain expectations of me and they prayed for me and they helped me. But I still lived without them right there for talking to me.

There were months that I didn't talk to my parents. So also when it comes to this lull times that should I, should I not? We should live as if God is there. That's right.

Because God wants us to move forward in faith and not him having to handhold us throughout our life. Always there to assure us. I'm here. See the signs. Can you connect the dots?

Seize me. What if there are no dots to connect? What do you tell Paul when he's sitting in a Roman prison? Hey, you know what? Don't worry about Philippians because you don't know right now. Is God really? I mean, just did the whole Jesus thing.

Could it be in a, could it be just fake, you know? And Paul's like, you know what? Let me put this pen down right now. Let's not write of Philippians because I'm in prison and people have left me for the world. Demas is gone.

Timothy is too far away. Maybe I should hold off on Philippines. Can you imagine what would be like if there was no book of Philippians? Wow. Yeah. Our next question today comes from Greg P. Greg wants to know what unpopular opinion do you hold? And he said, this can be personally or in your field of study or what is an opinion that you have is that's maybe outside of the norm. Opinion.

Wow. Or maybe even like a world like, like a, not a worldview, but like I'm thinking like in textual criticism, how do you go against the grain of the popular right now? I am like, what is the popular view and how do you kind of go against that? Well, in textual criticism, popular view right now is CBGM route.

Oh, that's right. We just talked about that. Not everybody is necessarily for it, but most people are because they think all the experts are going in that direction. You might as well follow since you don't know the subject well, go along with the experts. And I refuse to believe that. So it's not that it's technology based.

It's that it's the, the big names are going for it and I trust them. Right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Because technology is just pretty much what the creator has put together. I'm talking about the technological creator.

True. What is still opinion that I have that I feel like it's not popular and yet I hold to it. I don't know. I don't know.

There's so many I have. Is the, is the fact that we can get back to the original text unpopular or is that you feel like there's more people that lean that original text is still possible? I think a lot of people still believe that original text is still there.

I mean, if it's common sense, there is an original text and if you treat the Bible like any other piece of literature, then of course you will have the idea that there are many texts. For example, when I write articles, you know, I write like, like I just wrote an article for the newspaper. I sent it to Ryan. I said, Ryan, just check it for grammar.

Check it for anything that may seem a little off. And he did. And he said that I made two corrections and he sent it off just a little while ago. I asked Ryan, Ryan, can you make sure you get me that copy with those grammatical changes? And he said, yeah, sure. I'll give it to you.

Now think about it. I have a version. He has a version. And so a lot of times these arguments are being made as if this is how Paul wrote. He had a version that his amanuances had a version. And then the church had a version and everybody had a version and he had several of his own editions of the letters.

And so now we have to find out which one is the right one. I don't believe the Holy Spirit gave utterance that way. I think it was far more settled. No, like Galatians version 0.015B.

Like draft R. Yeah. I mean, Peter tells us, you know, holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. So it's a different writing, albeit it's written in the common language. Yeah. Last question, Nancy W. What did your parents do for a living?

Oh, that's a good question. So that of course, as you know, was a pastor, right? But when he came to our little town, little church, you know, he had to supplement his income. So he had a degree in math and science. He had a bachelor's and a master's. So he started teaching at the college. He was teaching physics, chemistry, and mathematics. Wow. Goodness.

Yeah. He was teaching those subjects. My mom, she went to teacher's school, right, education, and got her bachelor's. And then she later on went back and got her master's. I think I was born by that time when she was doing her master's. And she was not only a teacher in the public schools, that's why I love public schools. You know, they have a certain value and they're worth protecting. But she also went on to become a principal of a public school, elementary, middle school, middle school.

Yeah. She was a principal when she retired. So that's kind of where you got your value for not only being a pastor, but being an educator as well, because you're a college professor and you've spent time teaching. You taught high school. You taught... And up until recently, I taught physics at a Christian school because their science teacher had kind of vanished. You were a principal of a school as well. I was a principal of a Christian school.

And you're a college professor now as well as a pastor. My dad was also a principal of a private school. It was a private school, sort of like a military school.

Let me clarify. It was not like the typical military schools, like where you send your kids to have education as well as military discipline. No, this was a school for military personnel kids.

I got you. It wasn't like Cadet Kelly style. No, no, no, no. These were normal kids. But if you asked the parents, one of them might be a private, another one would be a general, another one would be a command... Not general, maybe major or whatever. It was tough. My dad would tell me sometimes these people would walk into his office and try to intimidate him because he had to, at times, suspend them.

Imagine people walking in your office. And again, just to clarify to our radio audience and podcasts and YouTube land, most come up like that. That's right.

Some did. That's awesome. Man, what a great episode of Lightning Round Questions. Thank you guys so much.

Thank you, Dr. Shaw, for answering those questions for us. If you guys have any questions that you'd like answered on a Lightning Round Questions episode, make sure you send those into 252-582-5028. Or you can hop online and visit us at clearviewtodayshow.com, click that donate button, join with us in impacting the nations for the gospel of Jesus Christ. And before we go, I want to remind you to pick up the latest single from Clearview Worship, Power and Mercy, available starting July 2nd, anywhere that digital music is sold. We love you guys! We'll see you next time on Clear View Today!