Monday, September 25th | The Bill of Rights

Hello, everyone. Today is Monday, September the 25th. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm Jon Galantis. 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. Or 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. You guys can help us keep the conversation going by supporting the show. You can share it online, leave us a good review on iTunes or Spotify, anywhere you get your podcasting content from.

We're going to leave a link in the description so you can do just that. And today's verse of the day is coming to us from Ephesians 4, verse 29. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. There's power in what we say. And what we say is often an indication of what is going on inside of us, inside of our hearts.

The Bible talks about that. Whatever comes out of the mouth reflects what is already in the heart. So it's not that you made me mad or made me say something in frustration. That was already inside of me.

It was just an opportunity for me to display what's already in there. And I love that if Paul in Ephesians reminds us that we have control or we ought to have control over what we say, because the power that we have in our words can build people up or can tear people down. And we need to understand that how we speak should reflect the glory of God. And there's a lot of times where people will say things that you don't want to hear that aren't pleasant to you. And so you think, OK, well, that wasn't good because it made me feel bad. But it says what is good for necessary edification. Some of the things, some of the most painful lessons I've ever learned in life did not feel good.

And it was very, very unpleasant and uncomfortable. But it edified me. And so it imparts grace to the hearers, not necessarily grace that it's like I'm going to excuse your sin or sweep it under the rug, but God's grace that actually forgives. And I think just talking about this, like God's word, there are just it's so true and there's no errors in it. But David told me that he found an error in God's word. I want to go ahead and affirm.

I didn't write the run-sheet. Yes, you did. I want to go ahead and affirm. You did. He is right. He's out of line. The Bible is the inspired, inerrant, no problems, no contradictions, nothing.

I think that it's errorless, right? The word of God. So let's start off saying that, because I don't want anybody in the interwebs to be coming after me. All I was saying was I got this new Bible. It is... Forest green. Yeah, it was actually... Is that goatskin?

It was goatskin, of course. Sure. Of course.

Of course. I found in the very back, in the concordance, a place where it takes you to a wrong verse. So that was what I meant when I said I found an error. So the concordance is not the word of God. Right.

Got you. Those are the words of man. Very important to make that distinction. Because I have on the run-sheet, David found an error in his Bible.

Which out of context, not good. I found an error. Yeah, no, I'm not saying I found an error in my Bible.

That's how Mormonism started. You found an error in the printing of the back matter in the book that contains the word of God. The reason that I even thought this was neat is because I emailed... No, I Facebook messaged the publisher. This is a great publisher. This is a great Bible.

So I have no qualms against them. What was it again? The concordance leads to a wrong verse?

Right. So it says, look up this reference. So I was looking up something on the Holy Spirit and I was like, all right, what does it say? Where are these verses on the Holy Spirit? And it took me to one and it said nothing about the Holy Spirit. And I was like, huh?

So I looked up the actual verse and it wasn't the same thing. So I Facebook messaged the publisher and said, Hey, I found this. I don't know if you guys are aware of this. And they said, you were the first person in eight years since we've published this to bring this up. So I felt pretty cool. Was he thankful or was he like, why would you bring this up? Now we have to do a massive reprint.

Thankful. Oh yeah. He was like, we've printed these for like eight years. You're the first person to bring it up. We're going to have to fix that in the next batch.

So it's kind of cool. Yeah. If you are sending out free Bibles, I would like... Say the name of the brand so we can give them good publicity and they'll send us free Bibles. The publisher is called Skylar. Skylar?

Yeah, Skylar. Shout out to Skylar Publishing. Premium Bibles. Premium Bibles.

I like the green goat skin. I'll take a PSQ if you have it. I'm sure that... You've already got a free Bible. He sent you that for free, didn't he? No. Out of gratitude. I paid for this.

Oh yes, that's true. My life savings. Oh no, no.

All 50 cent. I would love, I mean, we're kind of joking around, but I would also really love a purple, like a deep purple. What's a deep purple NKJV goat skin Bible? That would be very nice. Maybe we could, you know, maybe work something out. We could have an insert in your publications and we could have a spotter show.

Oh, that's what I was going to say. What if we start like a sponsorship? Yeah, I was going to say, if you send us all these Bibles, the publisher, we will sponsor you only. I've already said your name. I'll talk good about your company.

I've already said your name. Yeah. We'll see where that goes.

Yeah. We're going to go further in the episode in just a second, but if you guys have any questions or suggestions for new topics, let us know your favorite Bible. Send us a picture to 252-582-5028, or you can visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com. We'll be back after this. I just imagine Clear View Today begs for free Bibles.

Local radio show begs for free Bibles. We'll be right back. Well, good morning, afternoon, evening Clear View 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 Abhad Shah, PhD. 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 Clear View 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 Clear View 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, Ph.D. podcast. First and foremost, check it out on our church app. That's the Clear View 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 at 252-582-5028.

That's right. And if today's your first time ever joining us here 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 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. David, did you ever tell Dr. Shah about your amazing discovery? Oh, yeah. Remarkable find.

The treasure island of sorts in your Bible's concordance. I think I did, but, um, just because I'm so proud of this, I'll say it again. Um, I found in my, my Bible that in the concordance where the scripture is supposed to say Luke 11 13, it says Luke 11 three. And I found that one little error. Uh, I told the publisher, Hey, I saw this, you know, this error. I thought you might want to know just in case for future printing, you want to fix that. And he said, wow, ever since 2016, this has not been addressed.

Where were you eight years ago? When you write and when you publish, everything is combed over because with scholarly work, that kind of thing is really not what you want to have. All it takes is one or two mistakes and the book reviewers will light you up. Oh man. And some of the scholars, uh, they love, they live for that.

They live to find you. It's one thing to catch problems in your reasoning. It's one thing to find problems in, you know, just, just your logic.

It's quite different when you're making dumb mistakes. I love bringing that up because I mean, like you said, not sure we're talking about the bill of rights today. And, uh, you know, that's another document that has been heavily scrutinized. But another one that's been in front of people's eyes for a number of years and has shaped the way that we handle legal proceedings and the way that we think about different laws here in our country. Today is actually the anniversary of when Congress first proposed those 12 amendments to the constitution. And then the first 10 of those amendments went on to be ratified as what we know today as the bill of rights. They were, they were first proposed today. Right. September the 25th, 5th of 1789. Correct.

Something like that. I think it's really cool because a lot of people tend to look at the bill of rights and declaration of independence and they say, see, this is how it should be. There's a big separation here between church and state, but that's not at all what the founding fathers actually.

Right. To the contrary, these bill of rights were actually given to put some kind of a, a restriction on government infringing on the rights of the citizens. So these were those 10 amendments. James Madison wrote the amendments which are kind of taken from the Virginia bill of rights as well. So a lot of, a lot of influence here and there, but they finally went before the Congress.

Now when these, when these were first proposed, I'm interested to know, were people receptive to these or was it something to where, like I can almost imagine these, these being put forward as amendments to the constitution and people saying, wait a minute now, wait a minute, we just got the constitution. Like you want to change things up on us now? It's kind of like when you get, when you get a big pro, like if you ever have done a big project like writing a book or even making an album or doing like a website or whatever, you get it and it's like, okay, finally I can rest, I can breathe. And it's like, let's go ahead and publish this. And it's like, well, hold on, let's, let's change it. Like you said, Dr. Robinson's like, let's change this real quick.

Let's add, let's do this. Here's an amendment, here's a patch, here's a bug fix. Like, oh man, isn't it good enough? Like I can see them as like some people at the constitution just be like, isn't this enough? Like we had a whole war over this.

Isn't it fun? To me, what really impresses me or, or, or just, just, um, you know, I stand in awe, let's just put it that way, is that these people anticipated the problems that would come in this new world, in this new nation. They anticipated that they knew that as time goes on here, here, here, here, here, the government will overstep its, her bounds. And then the citizens will have to fight for themselves. So we have to have these bill of rights.

See, another thing is I want to walk through each of these amendments if that's okay with you guys. But before we do that, I just want to think about for a moment, the immense amount of pressure that these guys must have been under. Yeah.

True. That you are setting the course for the destinies of billions of people. Yeah. I think they knew.

I think they knew that this, this, this new found land is going to blow up and a lot of people are going to come here from all kinds of backgrounds. So we are creating these laws that will benefit people who will want to hate us. That's also kind of sounds like Moses, doesn't it? Yeah.

I'm doing this for you, but I know you're going to hate me one day and call me all kinds of names, but I'm doing this for you. That's right. That's right. So you want to kick it off amendment number one? This is the, this is the big one in it. Yep.

Who wants to read it? I'll do it. Okay. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Okay. So several rights are mentioned right there. The first amendment is the big one, right?

We, we, that's the one most people often quote or misquote, but this is a big one. Starting with no law respecting an establishment of religion. And that's often just, as you mentioned, used as the grounds for separation of church and state.

Yep. That's what people, they always, and I like that you put that people also misquote it. Now, where do we get the idea of separation of church, church and state? That's coming from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists telling them there will always be this wall of separation between church and state. Why the Danbury Baptist? Because the Baptists were one of the groups that were often persecuted, right? They were penalized.

I mean, right across the border in Virginia, we talked about this in one of our other shows. People's hands were cut off because they were Baptists. They were thrown in prison. Which seems like a wild punishment, by the way.

Jail time is one thing, or even just like, you know, exposure to the elements or just, just waterboarding, just the typical punishments that you think of. Nah, we're going to cut off your hands. Whoa. That's like a huge...

I think that sounds about right. We're going to cut off your hands. That way you won't be Baptist no more. Because you need your hands to be Baptist. Like I get the whole, like at least those, those, like you said, the other ones make sense where it's like, Oh, you stole something. I'll cut your hand off. But it's like, you're a Baptist.

So you... No more hands for you. Yeah. I mean, a lot of things happened. They were whipped. Places were burned, their homes.

So a lot of crazy things happened. So this was, this letter was written to reassure them that when the new government is in power, you know, not the monarchy from England, from Great Britain, but the new government based on the colonies, that we will make sure that you have the rights to worship. Even the Jewish people, where some of the synagogues were told you'd be okay. This will not infringe on your rights. So that's the reason behind it. And also because the first amendment is so much, and again, our time is running away. The freedom of speech, that you can say what you want.

Unfortunately, recently that is one that has been trampled and trashed on. Especially if you're a Christian, if you're a believer, if you're a patriotic or if you're conservative, that's, that's one of those, you know, first amendment rights that are being trampled. Of the press, freedom of the press.

In other words, the newspapers, media outlets can publish what needs to be published. And may I say, not further some agenda or not do things, you know, in a way that misleads the people. So we have a whole different problem right now. Or the right of the people peaceably to assemble. Why is it that one group assembles and another one wants to beat them up?

Right? That should not be the case. You should have the right to assemble. Whether good or bad, it is what it is. Now there is a place for decency and indecency, but other than that, there is a place for people to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

That's right. And you as a citizen have the right to petition without fear of, of, of repercussion or of retaliation. And it seems that these days that's being taken away more and more and more. Like you really have to, even on this radio show, we have to really think, do I want to say this? Is the pushback going to be that bad? Is about, are we going to get canceled?

Are we going to lose our platform? And they should never ever become right now ever. Well, here comes the second amendment, a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. It's another big one.

It's a big one. And here's where you often hear people say, Oh, you know, guns, guns kill. But again, having grown up in a country where people take lives without guns, I can assure you people will always find a way.

That's right. Okay. And when it comes to the right to keep and bear arms, just know that when if somebody says you got to turn your guns in, usually the bad guys never do. Yeah. Funny that we expect this law to be, you know, the overturning of this law to be in place, but they just won't have guns. So it's all good. It's all good because they won't have them because we're going to take them. Yeah.

There won't be any illegally available. The thing is, it's like these are foundational documents for a reason. And if you don't believe this, then you have to argue against the second amendment and say, no, a well-regulated militia, a military is not necessary for the security. Like we can be safe without them. Like, okay, fine.

How? So explain that. The right to keep and bear arms is I believe is one of the most fundamental rights of being an American. And it is not so you can go out there and shoot up and kill people, destroy lives.

No, it's true. So you can protect yourself. So you can protect yourself. And I know there are people who are on the other side of the fence and who feel, man, you have no idea what guns have done or blah, blah, blah. And I hear, I hear what they're saying, but at the same time, just know when, when guns are turned in, usually the bad guys never do. And let's not, and let's not pretend that governments don't, I mean, these guys just got out of a situation where they saw their monarchy turn tyrant.

Oh yes. So, so to sit here and pretend like we're past that point in history, we're not past that point in history. Governments don't go corrupt. We're not in any danger of government.

Right. So, so just for the benefit of all those listening or watching us, we're not here to tell you to go, go start a militia. We are telling you the right to bear arms is a fundamental American right.

Please don't be foolish and give it up or give it over. Go and look at even countries in Europe and see what happens when without guns, see what happens. And so that's our second amendment right. Third one is no soldier shall in time of peace be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. This is just, you know, the British soldiers staying in American homes against the will of the people.

And this was done for that purpose. But again, also it has a very important right, which is no one can come and take over your home. You just walk in and be like, this is my place now. No, you're the king of your castle. And the more you give away those rights to people, to government, just know this third amendment was put there for a reason. And it is the third amendment for a reason. There's really nothing more empowering about being an American than that individual sovereignty. Like in your castle, you are the one in charge and you run that. And that's a very Christian thing too, that you're the head of your home.

That's right. Fourth amendment, the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated and no warrant shall issue. I'm laughing because so many of these are getting compromised, but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. I don't know what I can say here, but I think a lot of our rights are being taken away.

Oh yeah. And I hope people are hearing that and people are seeing that as they're listening and as they're watching. I hope that you clock that in culture and in media and things that are happening. Like, oh, this is in the Bill of Rights and oh, I can see how this is being attacked. It's not just like it's being swept under the rug. No, this is, people are trying to disassemble this. They're trying to take this away.

And it's being done every single day. And I'm just going to hope that people listening will know that. Be aware of what's happening. Be aware of the things going on in our culture, in our country, and know that these amendments have been put there for our protection, for our safety.

And so don't give them up so easily. Fifth Amendment. No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentation or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces or in the militia, when in actual service, in time of war or in public danger. Nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation. You know what that reminds me of is when Pilate was grilling Jesus and Jesus just didn't answer.

He knew he didn't have to answer to him. That's kind of what that reminds me of. I think about that every time I think of the Fifth Amendment.

I plead the Fifth. That's right. That's right.

That's where it comes from. Here it is. It's what you're pleading.

It's just saying you can't be forced to incriminate yourself. Yeah. Yeah. And, and again, this is an important one in our world today, especially where in the past, I would say maybe eight years or less, maybe, where we've gone from innocent until proven guilty to guilty until proven innocent. And that is, that is how it is in the rest of the world.

Okay. Especially in third world countries where you are guilty and you have to prove yourself innocent and a lot can happen to you, but this is all part of the process. In America, at least the Fifth Amendment guarantees the right that you are innocent until proven guilty, right? We've been seeing that not, maybe not in the courts specifically, but in the court of public opinion, we've been seeing that more and more and more start to reverse itself where you are guilty. And then now you have to on social media and through public apologies and all this stuff, prove yourself. Oh, absolutely.

That's how it is right now. Sixth Amendment. In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the state and district where in the crime shall have been committed in which district shall have been previously ascertained by law and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation to be confronted with the witnesses against him to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense. Wow. Yeah. So if you don't have a counsel, the counsel will be assigned to you.

That's right. We're going to, we're going to give you everything you need to get out of, to, to have a shot at getting out, whatever you're used to. And we may not like it in the case of people we know that he's a criminal. He doesn't, you know, but still just think what a, what a wonderful privilege we have that if you don't have one, one will be assigned to you.

Many parts of the world, if you don't have the money, you're stuck, you're done. Yeah. So, and I know that that system is not perfect. Sometimes that doesn't always work out for the person who's accused, but still at least the sixth amendment is there. Well, it's not, it's not perfect and we don't live in a perfect world, but could it be that this is the best possible solution?

This is, this is the best of, of what is possible in front of us. It's a lot better than like, like having a right to a trial by a jury of your peers. That's a lot better than having to stand before a judge who may or may not like you. What if the judge has the ultimate authority and he's just like, Hey, I don't like this guy.

And I, I think he did it. So yeah, you're done. These past, these two amendments, the fifth one and the sixth one is dealing with justice. And and again, there's another one coming up soon, but double jeopardy cannot be done. You know, you cannot be, people can't keep dragging you back to court or innocent until proven guilty or, or free trial, a right to be free until trial. And these are things that are very, very important and we can't, we can't afford to lose them.

Right. Seventh amendment in suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed $20. The right of trial by jury shall be preserved and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States than according to the rules of the common law. So once it is tried by the jury and the certain amount mentioned here, it cannot be reopened or re-examined in any court of the United States than according to the rules of the common law. Again, that's it.

Imagine having to go through this again and again. Eighth amendment, excessive bail shall not be required nor excessive fines imposed nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. Again, just the foresight of our founding fathers and, and, you know, protecting even those who are accused, even those who could be, you know, criminal, who could be considered, you know, the, the dregs of society, but they want to make sure that people's rights, their fundamental rights are protected. Right.

They are somebody's brother or son or father or mother or sister or daughter. So, you know, for you, it may be like I bury them under the jail. Okay. But they should still be able to have a fair chance. That's right. Because that's revenge. That's not justice. Right. Right. Punishment. And what is, what if you're wrong?

What if that person is innocent and that has happened, especially in recent years, there have been cases that were reopened and come to find out the wrong guy was sitting in prison. Right. So imagine that person's entire life has been taken away. Right. So we need to be aware of that. So ninth amendment, the enumeration in the Congress of certain rights, the constitution and the constitution, the enumeration in the constitution of certain rights should not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

More foresight. It's like this, this is not an all inclusive, exhaustive list. You probably have other rights that are not mentioned here and there are more than 10 amendments. So I guess they were right.

Yeah. Well, they were trying to make sure that the federal government doesn't keep expanding. That's one of the, the hearts behind that ninth amendment. And so it, it, it, again, protects the freedoms we have. And then the last amendment, 10th amendment, the powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved for the States respectively or to the people. So this, this 10th amendment was to give each state the sovereignty that, you know, you have you have the right to make your own decisions. And of course, when it comes to the union, you know, of course we have to preserve the union. We have to come together and stay together. So I would say, yes, I understand the need for this.

This amendment definitely allows each individual state to have their own power, to handle their own circumstances, unless and until it begins to impact, impact the whole country, other people as well. At that point, you have to go, no, this is for everybody. And we have to get this right. If you guys enjoyed today's episode, if you have questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028. Or you can visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com. You can partner with us financially on that same website.

Scroll to the bottom, click that donate button and become part of the Clearview Today Show family. Now, Jon, what are we talking about on tomorrow's episode? Tomorrow, we are talking about something that is near and dear to us. It is the Christian flag. We're flag people here at Clearview. We love to have you. We have our flags out on full display out in our courtyard. And tomorrow is a very special day for the Christian flag. I'm excited to learn more about that. Oh yeah. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clearview Today.