1776

Well, today is Wednesday, July the 5th. My name is John Galantis. I'm here with Dr. Abadan Shah.

Dr. Shah, you're in the intro again today. Good to see you. I am.

I am. It's exciting, but I miss the guys. I know, me too. I miss Ryan. I miss David.

I miss Nicholas. But still, it's fun. Yeah, it's fun. It's fun to sit and talk as friends. Yeah, this has been kind of cool.

It's been kind of a change of pace. Again, you're listening to the Clearview Today Show with Dr. Abadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. Or if you have a question for Dr. Shah, anything you'd like to write in and suggest we talk about, send us a text at 252-582-5028. You can also email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

And as always, you guys can help us keep the conversation going by supporting the show. Make sure you share it online. Leave us a good review on iTunes or Spotify.

Absolutely nothing less than five stars. You guys already know the drill. You know how this works. Make sure that you leave us those good reviews.

We're going to leave a link in the description of this podcast so you can do just that. Dr. Shah, today's verse of the day is coming to us from Jeremiah 10-24. O Lord, correct me, but with justice, not in your anger lest you bring me to nothing. Wow.

Yeah. I mean, Jeremiah is such a known as that lamenting prophet. He came at that point in history when God's people were suffering, going through exile and, you know, they needed that discipline and yet at the same time it was very painful for them.

You know how children, they need to be corrected. And it breaks your heart to take that away or, you know, or time out or whatever, you know, the discipline is. But in that process, he's saying, God, not in your anger lest you bring me to nothing. You know, not that God is ever like out of controlled anger, but still. God doesn't throw temper tantrums. Right.

He doesn't do that. It's funny because we do think of it that way, like children being disciplined, because I remember as a kid being disciplined or by my parents are corrected and I'd be like, just what do you get out of this? Like what pleasure do you get out of it? And then come to find out now as a parent, it's like, it's not they got, I got something out of it. I'm the one being helped and being, but you know, speaking of kids, there was something that I thought about.

I was thinking about it yesterday, a couple of weeks ago. And you know, both your girls are grown and they're married. And so hopefully there's some grandkids in the near future. But seeing you in a potential grandpa role has been really fun for me. Oh really?

Yeah. Because with our kids, you know, you've kind of taken on that role and you know, they see you as a grandparent, as a grandparent figure. And Holden doesn't see anything as anyone right now. But with Gavin, it was funny because he's so excited to see you all the time.

He comes in and he's like, oh my gosh, it's Dr. Shah. I'm going to get treats. I'm going to get candy. We're going to watch TV on his computer.

It's so fun. The other day he came in and I don't know what kind of mood he was in, but you were like, hey Gavin. He was like, hmm.

And so Ellie was like, hey Gavin, no, that's not how you talk to, that's not how you talk to anybody. He was like, hmm. And the look that came over your face, you were like, oh my goodness, that's Nicholas.

That's right. That's Nicholas. Nicholas would get like that sometimes. He's as sweet as anything.

But in those early days, if he is not happy with you, it doesn't matter who you are, what you got, he's gonna, he's gonna push you or do something. And at one time we got into the habit of spitting. Oh no. Yeah. What is that?

No, you don't do that. Gavin will do that where he thinks it's a game. He'll be like, hey, but it's funny because it's funny to see people like most of the people that I know here in the church are not new parents. They've been at it for awhile. So it's fun to kind of see people go back to that place where it's like, oh my gosh, that was my kid. I remember those days. I remember that for, for that brief moment.

And it is, and you have compassion, you know, on, I guess Gavin at that point is like, well, I know what he's going through. It's like, it's like, I'm tired. I'm upset. I don't know how to respond, react.

The only thing I can do is do this, but it's going to get me in trouble. I better stop. And it was also funny because I remember you telling the story about Thomas, your youngest son, when he would walk around with his hands behind his back like your dad used to do. That's right.

Oh my goodness. First time I saw that, it just shocked me. I'm like, whoa, I don't do that.

I don't walk around like that. There's nobody in our family who does that. Like that he has seen. But my dad who he hadn't seen did that. He had never met your dad. Never met my dad. And even if he hadn't met my dad, there was never that prolonged interaction for him to even copy that behavior.

Right. So for him to do that, it was very shocking. Do you remember your dad, would your dad just like ponder things or did he just stand with his hands behind his back? Usually in the morning, you know, he would, my dad would have, we have a newspaper come to the house so he would read his newspaper and then he would stop and he would think and he would walk around maybe thinking about his sermon for the week or what he has to do.

And I remember that very characteristic of him with his hand behind his back. That's really funny. So to see this little man, how old is Thomas at that time? Oh my goodness. Maybe less than two.

Like what, where did he get that? That is really funny. Well, you guys stick around. We've got a great show lined up for you today. Day after Independence Day, but we're still going to talk about this because this is one of our favorite books of all time.

It's 1776. Dr. Shah is going to introduce it right after the ad. We want you guys to stick around. If you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, make sure you text us 252-582-5028 or visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com and we'll be right back after this.

Hey everyone, my name is Ellie and I'm David. We want to take a minute and let you know how we can actually serve you as you're listening to Clearview today. The Bible paints an extraordinary picture of who we are as a church body. The mission of Clearview Church is to lead all people into a life-changing, ever-growing relationship with Jesus Christ. A huge part of leading people is praying for them. A big reason that Christians have unanswered prayers in their life is because they're not praying.

You know, 1 John 5.15 says, and if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of him. If you're listening to the Clearview Today show, we want to know how we can pray for you as well. There's a number of ways that you can get in touch with us at Clearview and share your prayer requests, but the best way is by texting us at 252-582-5028. You can also send us an email at prayer at Clearviewbc.org or you can download the Clearview app on iTunes or Google Play. You know, on that app, there's a dedicated prayer wall that helps us to get to know what's going on in your life, how we can pray for you, and how we can take any necessary steps to get you moving in the right direction. Thanks for listening.

Now let's get back to the show. Welcome back to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Remember, you can always find us online at Clearviewtodayshow.com, or if you have any questions for Dr. Shah, anything you'd like to write in and suggest we talk about, send us a text at 252-582-5028. You can always email us at contact at Clearviewtodayshow.com. And if today's your first time ever tuning into the Clearview Today show, we want to welcome you, let you know who's talking to you. Dr. Abbadon Shah is a PhD 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. We are back once again. Yes.

Yes. I'm, I'm looking forward to today's conversation because one of my favorite authors in the world is David McCullough. He's written on American history, his perspective, his appreciation, and even at times his criticism, criticisms are very in line with how I feel about this nation. So sometime back I was introduced to this book called 1776 and it's about, primarily about George Washington and his role in that year leading up to the Revolutionary War. And I've read other books by David McCullough, like Mornings on Horseback by, on Theodore Roosevelt.

I've read on pioneers. I've read all Brave Companions. I think these are different books he's written, but 1776, it just inspired me more than any of his other books. We talked about this briefly on the, on the show before, but I remember you recommended David McCullough to me years and years and years ago.

You recommended 1776. And I remember the way you put it was, cause I, I wasn't really into nonfiction at the time. I mean, I'm still way more into fiction, but I've grown to appreciate nonfiction and learning from it and understanding how, you know, how, how it kind of moves you and get you to look at the real world. And I remember you, you, the way you sold it to me was, I know you, you prefer fiction, but the way this guy writes, you just have to read it. And I was like, okay, I'm going to read it. And I started reading 1776 and I was blown away.

It resonated with me because at the time when I read this book, so I'm going back to like, this book came out in 2007, I believe it is. Let's just see right here. 2000. Yep. Five. It came out in 2005.

I read it probably about 2007 maybe. Okay. And this was about the time when our church was going through this transition, going from the old building with just maybe 20 people on a good Sunday to now where we are. So we were going through this transition of moving from the old building, examining our core values, our mission, our vision with our church people. And then, you know, going through this transition of knowing these are our doctrines, we are not going to compromise on them. But then there are things we will change. So these were those times where I didn't know if this will work. Now I had faith in God that God will work and that God will do something great, but those were some very precarious times.

I can imagine. Well, it also instills a sense of gratefulness in the people who are here now because it's kind of like the American story. Like we're not founding a nation. We're building our lives upon sacrifice and hard work that other people have made for us. Other people who sat down, crafted out those values, put them in place, stood against the opposition. And now because of that, we get the freedom to build and flourish and grow.

It's very similar here at Clearview Church. Yeah. So in those days, this book on the pre-American Revolutionary War really helped me because what David McCullough does is he kind of goes behind the scenes with George Washington. And he, just for folks who do not know, the letters that he wrote to his wife, I'm not talking about David McCullough, but George Washington wrote to his wife. He told her to destroy them. He said, destroy those letters.

Why? Because in those letters, I bet he was saying things like, I don't think it's going to work. Well, that's the thing that I thought was so interesting about it is that this would have been the perfect chance to just prop Washington up and like make him like, and he does, he does give him the proper respect, but at the same time, he goes really in depth as to how hopeless his situation was. Like that winter where everybody was deserting him and how hopeless and how dreary things were.

Like, I think that's the thing that McCullough does. And I think that's something you do as well when you preach is that you make the characters into human beings. Because when they're not humans, they're just puppets that are used by God.

They're avatars that I can't relate to. But when they're a human being who struggles with like leadership, like he's like, I'm leading people who don't have a vested interest in this nation. They're just, they're kids, they're conscripts. Right.

I mean, these people were deserting, walking off the battlefield. And you can blame them because they're like, we're doing this. Congress is, or whoever they had, is deliberating and wasting time sending us money so we can send home to our families.

That's not happening. We need new shoes. We need socks. We're here, frostbitten, and you're not doing anything. So I'm just going to leave. I'm out. Peace. Like here, it says on New Year's Day, the great turnover of the army commenced as new regiments arrived in the old, departed by hundreds and by thousands.

Can you imagine hundreds and thousands of troops? Just gone. Just walking off. Come on, boys. We're taking the hill.

Where is everybody? And General Heat says that they, they were leaving in the very teeth of, of an enemy. So like right there and you're like, huh, I'm, I'm out.

It's like, don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes and then you see the whites of their eyes. You're like, I'm gone. No, I got to go.

This is crazy, but I got to balance. So there are a lot of things in this book that, that really you know, speak to situations where you feel like I'm, I give up. Do you remember?

Well, I know you do, but like we've, we've talked about this before, how the children of Israel or like, I guess they were the Hebrew people at that time where they left Egypt and then they were out in the wilderness and I'm like, man, I think we might've had it better back in Egypt. Like I can see these guys being on the battlefield. Like we're, we're laughing about it, but I do see like if I were on the battlefield and I'm cold and I'm frigid and I haven't seen my wife and kids in months and I've got a gun in my hand, I've barely ever shot it. And then I see a professional army marching toward me.

I've been, you know what? I might could have paid a little extra for stamps. I might would have just paid a little, like I can see, do you ever find yourself frustrated when, cause as a leader you see the big picture like Washington was like, listen, it's not about just paying for stamps. This is a big picture that you guys aren't seeing.

And the soldiers are like, I don't see it. Well, see, he said that in July the second 1776, this is what he said. He said, the fate of unborn millions will now depend under God on the courage and conduct of this army that is walking off the field. Bye. See you, man.

I'm gone. You know, he had to threaten them with court martial. He said, we will shoot you. I'm paraphrasing, but it was pretty much like, well, wait, we're doing this your favor. No, I mean, we're willing to go against the mother country. We're doing you a favor. We're going home.

So you know, it is what you're like, no, we will shoot you. That's dude. That's crazy. Are you serious? Is this real? Do you think this is a real, real battle? Oh yeah, this is a real battle. You're a real army and I'm a real general. Yeah. You saw, yeah, we, you, I mean, we, you signed up for this.

You, you knew what this was going to be and now you're walking off the field. Look, you want to be the army. They are, you want to be the nation. They are, you have to do it.

It's like, ah man, I don't know. Can we just pay extra for, for sugar and tea? You know, you often heard that statement by Thomas Paine. These are the times that try men's souls. Do you know when he said that?

This is in December of 1776. Wow. We think it's like some random, he's like sitting there writing, no, no, he's talking about this situation. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

That makes a lot of sense. But it does come back to this thing where I think the leader can see the big vision. They can see the big picture. And so the goal, I think, and maybe you can kind of speak into this as the goal is to get your people to see that this is more than about stamps or this is more than about sugar and tea. Or in your case, this is more than about which do we play hymns or, or tibbere. This is about more than do I wear a tie?

Do I not wear a tie? Like those are things, but there's a big, big picture. Absolutely. Absolutely. As we talked about the Lycian league, you know, how the framers of our constitution, whether it's Alexander Hamilton or James Madison, James Madison primarily, but I mean, he was getting help.

Okay. He was not just the only guy doing this. You know, they were creating this, this nation with the proper checks and balances that did not work out. Some of the, you know, because, because the systems in Europe did not work out. So they were creating something very in a sense new, but in a sense it was coming from ancient past, right? Right.

From Greek, from Mysia, from Lycia, from the Achaean league. They were creating something from there for something today that will create a nation that would bring peace and harmony for generations to come. Right. That's what they were trying to do. We talked about that a little bit yesterday, just to kind of off mic, like using good, solid research that exists to contribute to the field in a new way.

You know what I mean? And that's kind of the heart of what you do. Like when you wrote your dissertation, it's new research. It's research that hasn't been done before. And yet you still go back to fundamentals of the field. And like, like, like what was like in New Testament textual criticism, the goal was let's find the original text. Well, we've shifted away from that. You're like, right, let's go back to that goal.

We can still use this goal. We can use this foundation that exists to contribute something new and fresh to the field. We don't have to, we don't have to, I guess it's like a reinventing of the wheel, but we don't have to do that. Right. Now in every generation you have to give your commentary in a fresh way, in a new way, based on the new research that has come, based on the shifting or the changing in the culture.

So every generation requires their own commentaries, but then there are certain propositions, certain premises, really not a problem, certain premises that remain true no matter what generation it is. Right. And so going back to those premises and then building for the here and now in the language of the here and now is the key. You think that's kind of what they were doing in drafting the, I was trying to say the Pledge of Allegiance, but you think that's what they were trying to do with the draft of the declaration?

Absolutely. They were doing just that because you know, with, with Renaissance, right? Renaissance is coming from the 14th century with the fall of Constantinople in 1453 with all these scholars right from the Greek scholars are running to the West. They come to Florence, Italy, and that's when Renaissance happens.

People's eyes are open. But they knew about these writings, but they never studied them this way because they're all in Greek. But these writings show up, they study them and go, wow, we didn't know these things existed. And then, you know, they come across the writing of Polybius.

I'm going to talk about this, you know, even in my message coming up, but we talked about this in the Lycian League show. They're reading these writings and going, wow, this is how they, these, these different cities came together and had a proper representation where if you're big, you have more, if you're smaller, you have less, but there's a checks and balances. And so how can we, you know, the founding fathers was saying, how can we then take this and apply it to our situation? Because what Britain is doing to us is not right. I mean, just last week we were in Boston a week before last and you know, the people are frustrated.

Taxation without representation. Hence they threw the T in the, in the harbor. We were able to go by, by the way. What was that like?

What was that like to be able to walk? It was pretty cool. We were not able to get on the ships because by the time we got there, it was like 5 30.

They're close and you know, our time ran out. But I'm planning on going by there again. It was awesome to see somewhere here, there's lots of T. Do they have like all the markers and stuff like this is where this happened and this is where this happened?

We didn't get a chance to see them that far, but yeah, they do have, that's pretty cool. I think we should, this would be, we usually don't talk about this on the podcast, but that would be a place to go and film, like go film in Boston. Like, Hey, this is where the Boston massacre happened. This is where the Boston tea party was going on and this is where these people met and this is where they lived and our nation was found.

It really is a very instrumental city. See what I have a year ago, I found this at a used book sale. It's called the illustrated edition of 1776. So it has all these documents.

Okay. Copies of these documents. Like here I have in front of me the, the speech of, wow, look at that king and the crate.

If you guys aren't on the video podcast, make sure you get on the video podcast because look at that really awesome copy, but it's done so well. So, you know, made it make, made to look authentic. But this is by an express just arrived from New York. We have his majesty's most gracious speech to both houses of parliament on October, on Friday, October 27, 1775. And this is a, this is where he, you know, he, he just had nothing but pretty angry words to say about the color. It wasn't a good speech.

It was not. This is the king, King George the third's a declaration that the American colonies were in rebellion and that their true objective was independence speech. Oh, so that's him. Was that the declaration of war or was that being like, Hey, get ready. I know what you're. Yeah.

It was like, we'll teach you a lesson. Oh wow. Yeah.

You don't want that. Maybe Washington's letter. Yep. This is it. Very cool. Letter he wrote on June the 18, 1775. Oh my goodness.

Philadelphia. It looks legit. Like if you showed me that I would think that was the original. Yeah. It looks really, really hard to read it. I mean, it's cursive.

I can read cursive, but it's like, I am now, um, set down to write to you on a, on a app object, which fills me with something, something, an expectable concern. Wow. My Martha, I'm worried. I'm scared girl.

These guys are leaving. Dude. That's really cool.

Yeah. Where did you get the, where did you get it? I found it at a used book sale.

That's right. And I have the original book, you know, the 1776 book, but this is, um, an illustrated edition. So it has all those, you know, facsimiles of those documents that were part of that, that year or the year prior and all that. That is really cool. You know, I read this, I read the book and I don't think I've ever finished the book, but I did read it.

I read it through, um, up to a certain point a couple of times. And one of the things I find interesting is just how much, and it's something you've always said, how much everything rises and falls on leadership. Oh yeah. You know, if it weren't for like, like genuinely, do you think they would've stood a chance without Washington at the helm? I don't think so. Yeah. I, I truly believe that if Washington did not have that life of faith that we know he did, none of their secular historians who will say, oh, that's not true. None of that is true. Well, if you read between the lines, what he is saying here, um, he is, he's really scared.

Yeah. We, we hear that when he talks about the providence of God, when he talks about, you know, without God we're done, you know, all those things that he was saying. And often secular historians, you know, say, well, Washington was not a man of faith. You know, he never would expressly talk about, uh, Jesus Christ and all that.

Yeah, he did here and there, but not as much. Well, if you read between the lines, what you find out is that he knew that this was a nation where you would have people from different angles of Christianity. You know, they may be Presbyterians, they may be Episcopalians, they may be Baptist, they may be Methodist, different peoples are coming in. And so to make sure nobody says, hey, Washington is our guy, so this is going to be the religion or this is going to be the denomination. He purposely would leave it vague. And this is, we find evidence of that. This is not, this is not something that we're just conjuring up.

We find evidence of, of him purposely keeping it vague so that everybody would have an opportunity. And I think it's easy to attribute that to cowardice or to playing the fence, but it's wisdom. He kept a nation intact.

Yeah, that's huge. There's a reason. See, we've forgotten some of this history. So he's like, oh, George Washington, some dude and, you know, who was, you know, back then did something, the first president. No, there's a reason why people said that man needs to be our president because of how he thought, how he, how he united people, how he challenged the Congress, how he encouraged the troops, how he got onto them.

You leave, I'll shoot. I mean, we need to be honest, we need a leader like that. We don't always want a leader like that or we don't always feel like that's, that's nice or that's beautiful or that's the ideal. But listen, that's what this nation needed.

And he was what we needed. And I think that's something that you've taught me overall is that you, you have to be the leader that your people need. You know what I mean? They may not always love you for it. They may not always rally behind you with like war, victory cries.

But at the end of the day, they will thank you for it because you were what they needed in that time and you led them through. I mean, he led us like as a people through one of the most tumultuous times of our nation's history. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I have here letters he's written to different people.

Here's one that I think is very interesting. He wrote to the Congress, this is in September the second 1776. He said, as my intelligence of late has been rather unfavorable and would be received with anxiety and concern.

Well, peculiarly happy should I esteem myself ever. It is in my power at this time to transmit such information to Congress as would be more pleasing and agreeable to their wishes. I mean, they, they talk kind of land the plane, stop circling the runway. But in the end, he said, if Congress therefore should resolve upon the destruction of it, the resolution should be a profound secret as the knowledge of it were, uh, uh, of it, uh, make a capital change in their plan. Wow.

I mean, it's, I mean, it's a different way of writing and speaking, but this was not just some dunce out of Virginia. He knew exactly what he was saying. Yeah.

And his audience knew too. Like, like there's a reason it made such a fuss. If, if there was one thing that you could say you took away from this, because we, we both agree like 10 out of 10 would recommend this book to anybody out there, especially if you are, you know, uh, have a sense of patriotism and pride in your country. Even if you don't, this book will, will put that in you. Right. If you got one thing out of it, what would you say that is? Well, it's that time when they were surrounded.

This is in New York. Okay. And I forgot the name of the house because I actually went to that house. Really? Yeah.

There was nobody there other than the, the museum keeper. They were surprised to see me there cause usually nobody comes there. Wow. So he's like, what do you want to do? I was like, can I look in the house and that what we do? Oh, okay. Yeah. You can, you can pay me for that. I was like, okay, here you go. Okay.

You can go look. So I'll, so I walked around this house and I forgot the name, but it'll come to me in a minute. But that's where he was and waiting for, you know, for it all to be over. And then as you know, the fog rolled in and they were able to get out of that place. I mean, it was a retreat really.

They were retreating if they weren't, if they hadn't retreated they would have been killed. No, was that the Delaware crossing you're talking about? No, no, no. This is different. This is different. And so I wish the name of the house would come to me.

But anyways, I have pictures of that and all that in New York. So anyways, but the next morning with the fog rolling in, they were able to escape, leave. And when the fog lifted, they were like, the British were like, where did these people go? Just gone. They disappeared. Wow. And so is it the Osgood house?

No, it was something different. It'll come to me. It'll come to me.

Maybe in the next episode we'll talk about that. I love it. And the fact that his faith kept him strong is what I needed at that time in 2008. Amen.

And again, I need it today. Well, look how we are being rewarded by it. Absolutely. We believe that. And we're so thankful that we're able to do this. Look at the show that we're able to do now because of your faith, your perseverance, the perseverance of us as a people and as a church.

Very, very important for us. If you enjoyed today's topic or you have any suggestions for future topics, 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, you can always support us financially on that same website as well.

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