Wednesday, October 4th | Contendsday!

Hello, everyone. Today is Wednesday, October the 4th. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm Jon Galantis. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abaddon 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 to 252-58-25028, 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, where you get your podcasting content from.

We're going to leave a link in the description so you can do just that. The verse of the day today comes from Matthew 11, verse 27. All things have been delivered to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal him.

Yeah. I saw this a lot when I was reading through the book of John during my devotionals, this really intricate relationship between the Father and the Son. It's the only relationship of its kind in the entire universe. No matter how close I am to my wife or to my friends or my coworkers or my church family, there's something intrinsically and just universally unique about this relationship between the Father and the Son. And I think even on the other side of heaven, we may never understand how deeply personal this relationship is. Yeah. I mean, it's the relationship within the Trinity.

There's nothing that we have here to compare that to. Even my relationship with my sons, your relationship with your sons, it's not the same kind of relationship because we are not members of one thing. We are still separate entities, even though we are members of the same family.

They are still independent from me. But Christ and God the Father are one. They are one. And yet the Father is not the same as the Son and the Son is not the same as the Father. And yet we serve one God, not three Gods expressed differently.

And everybody's goal is to get to the Father. And I love the exclusivity of Jesus's claim here is that you can't, not only do you not know God, you can't know God. Only Jesus can know God.

Only the Son can know him and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal him means without Jesus, you're never, ever going to have a true relationship with God. It's not possible. That's right. That's right. And that's our whole goal behind the Clear Read Today show is to help you find that relationship with Jesus.

That's about everything we do here at our church, at Clear View Church, including our student ministry and related to our student ministry. I have a gripe today. Oh no.

Welcome. Not with the students. To the gripe vine. To welcome to the gripe vine.

This gripe is ripe on the vine and I have to share it with you on today. Not with the students. Yes.

Aha. It is filled with pumpkin spice and everything. Not so nice. Tell me why.

Tell me why. It ain't nothing but a heartache, brother. With all of the planning and programming you, you've been to Illuminate events. You know that there's a lot of planning and programming that goes into it. There's a lot of things that happen.

Way more than I would have suspected. So like, I mean, we have outdoor events where there's like the band playing and there's like many different volunteers and lots of moving parts and pieces and there's inflatables and games and rides and yada, yada, yada. I mean, think like carnival on a small scale.

Oh yeah. Tell me why that when I announced what was going to be this year's open house, our big open house event where we welcome new students into Illuminate, we've got Kona Ice. We've got free food. We've got the band playing. We've got a new merch. A rock wall.

We've got a rock wall. We've got a... Like that spinning carnival thing. Yeah.

Yeah. We got a carnival game that spins around. We've got an inflatable thing like Wipeout.

If you've seen the show Wipeout, it's similar to that. All of this stuff, four different rides that we're bringing in for Teenagers to Ride. Tell me why the first question I got was, can we play basketball?

So this is something that I've always wondered about Clearview. And I don't know if it's a universal youth group thing. When I was in youth group, this was not the case. It seems like all they want to do is play basketball. We have a basketball court out on the parking lot. A very nice one. It's nice.

It is very nice. They have all they want to do. And so I was actually going to say that now that fall is coming, someone made the comment like, well, it's getting colder and the youth won't be out there playing basketball. I was like, they'll be out there in blizzard conditions.

They have been. They, they go out there and all they want to do, and maybe, maybe I don't, I know you don't want to talk on the podcast, Nicholas, but I would love if you just would shed some light on this because every time, and also you were guilty of this a lot when you were in youth, where it's like, we bought a pool table, an air hockey table and like an indoor basketball game, like, like you see it like arcades and stuff so that when it gets cold outside, they don't have to go out there and play basketball all they want. They just go out there and play basketball nonstop dead into the dead of night in the winter. Why do y'all do that? I mean, I know you don't do it much anymore, but why is that the case? Well, back in school, the reason why we did it, cause I was like the one time within the week we can actually go play basketball together where the girls can't bother us. They do get you, they do get away from the girls. Also, it's also, it seems to be a thing where like there'll be events that are happening here and you have announced to the students, to their face, like in, like in illuminate, Hey guys, the basketball courts will be closed for this event.

I'm going to chain it up. I'm going to move both vans onto the basketball court so that you can't play. And here's my reasoning behind that. The basketball courts, where we are for events, they are far removed. So if something happens on the basketball court, it's likely that there's not going to be many people over there to see what happened. Or like if somebody gets hurt or whatever, we don't have that area of staff of volunteers because all the action is up in this direction. It's on the opposite side of campus.

So we just shut that down so that we don't have to worry about that. And I've seen you, I've been in there where you're like, Hey guys, it's going to be chained off. Vans will be parked there. The goal is to keep you from playing. And every single time at the event, someone has, I've seen kids ask you, can you unlock the basketball court? Will you move the van so we can play? And you're like, no, the vans are there so that you can't play.

I need you to staff this event. They're like, I know, but can we just play basketball or not? Like, I don't get that. Here's the deal.

Here's the deal. I love that they want to play basketball. I love my students. I love, love, love them dearly. And I love that they want to play basketball.

And there are plenty of opportunities for them to play basketball. No problem with that. But if the vans are there, like if the vans are parked under the goals and the goal and the court is chained off, trust that it's done for a reason. Trust that there's a reason behind that. Yeah. I've seen them like try to like work the chain. So they're like, I, I, if we can just get the chain off, then we can play. I guess I want to know, and I definitely want to know from the listeners, is this a Clearview youth thing or is this a universal youth? Youth boys are like this. Like students are just like this. They, if there's a basketball court, that's where we're going to be.

Rain, sleet, hurricane, floodwaters, meteors, alien invasion. We're going to, we're going to be out on the basketball court playing. Yeah. I'm going to ask Dr. Shah if this was true when he was growing up, like with, with teenagers in his school, if there was like, maybe it wasn't basketball, maybe there was an equivalent. Like this, this was the hangout and come rain or shine.

This is where we're going to be at. I don't know. I feel like that's maybe a universal teenage thing.

Could be, could be. We're going to ask him when he comes on the show. Did you guys have any questions or weigh in and let us know if you have teenagers, is it basketball or is it something else?

Is this just a teenage concept? Let us know. Two five two five eight two five zero two eight. Or you can visit us online at clearveetodayshow.com. We'll be back after this. Hey there, listeners. I'm Jon Galantis.

And I'm Ellie Galantis. And we just want to take a quick second and talk to you about Dr. Shah's and Nicole's book, 30 Days to a New Beginning. Daily devotions to help you move forward.

You know, this is actually the second book in the 30 days series. And the whole point of this devotional is to help us get unstuck from the ruts of life. You know, when it comes to running the race of life, it matters how you start, but a bad start doesn't ultimately determine how you finish the race. You can have a good finish even with a bad start. And that's where this book comes in. No matter who you are or where you are in life, you're going to get stuck.

Instead of going out and buying some gadget or some planner, like I know I've done several times. I know that's right. 30 days encourages you to find your fresh start in God's word. Life doesn't have a reset button, but our God is a God who does new things.

His mercies are new every day, which means every day is a new chance for you to start over. You can grab 30 Days to a New Beginning on Amazon.com. We're going to leave a link in the description box below. And if you already have the book, let us know what you think about it.

That's right. Send us a text 252-582-5028. Share what God has done in your life through this devotional. Hey, maybe we'll even read your story on the air. Ellie, you ready to get back to the show? Let's do it.

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. Or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text 252-582-5028.

That's right. If today's your first time ever tuning into the Clear View Today Show, or maybe you've heard the show before and you're revisiting us, we want to welcome you, let you know exactly who's talking to you today. Dr. Abbadon Shah is a PhD in contextual 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. You know, one thing we were talking about, Dr. Shah, I don't know if there was any equivalent to this while you were in youth group, but it seems that our kids here at Clear View, I want to say our kids, our students, rain or shine, snow, blizzard, heat stroke, meteors falling out of the sky. They are going to be out on the basketball court no matter what. I don't know if you've noticed that. Just like your son, both of your sons at one point were two of the main ones out there, whooping all hours of the day.

Was there anything similar when you were in? Cricket. Cricket? Cricket. Really?

Yeah. What is cricket just for those who do not know? Cricket is like baseball, but with only two bases and you run back and forth between the bases. It's not like you just run to home base and then you're, you're done and somebody else comes.

No, you can, you can stay there for a day. It's just the whole game. You just hang out. They have five day matches. Five day matches. Five day matches. All day affair. So after, after church, y'all would go out and y'all would play cricket?

Yeah. After church, usually I played cricket on after school or Saturdays. Sunday was very different for us in our home. It was just busy with church and everything. And we came back home, we'd have a big family meal and then usually we had more services.

So we would be going somewhere. Did your, did your dad like you playing cricket? Like did he, did he play with you? A little bit.

Yeah. Like I remember like twice. I remember, I remember there was, there was one time where you told me, I bring your dad up because you told me at one point, like I thought I knew what I wanted to do with my life. But your dad gave you that advice. Like, hey, stick to, stick where you are. Stick with where, where God has planted you, whether it's on the cricket field or somewhere else. Well, no, he never wanted me to stick on the cricket field.

In fact, it went beyond that. I was, I was good in soccer and, and I was really getting good and being a goalkeeper and I would dive out there. I would do whatever to stop the ball.

So it kind of became my thing. But then there was another guy who was a good goalkeeper too. So it was kind of like, maybe he'll, he's better than me. I'll play left field, right field, whatever.

And when I got into ninth grade and I was getting really, really good, my dad actually told the coach not to pick me. Really? Yeah.

He said, don't pick him. Wow. Wow. And at the time I was like, how can, how, how terrible.

But now looking back in India, even to this day, when you're an athlete, there is no future. There's, I mean, some of these guys struggle to find food. Wow. Right. And your dad knew that. Yeah. Yeah.

And he knew that going down that road would not help at all. Wow. And all these coaches and math and science teachers were all his friends because he was a teacher in town at one time. So they were all connected. So he just went to one of the teachers who was my gym teacher, also art teacher. And he told him, don't pick him. Just, just he's, he needs to study. He's gifted there and he's going to play soccer and do what? Yeah. So my gym teacher is like, yeah, sure.

He's not going to get picked. That's pretty incredible. But seeing that, I mean, your dad knew in advance the, the importance of study. He knew the importance of you going on to further your education. And, you know, that's something that we continue to benefit from even now, like as part of Clearview, we benefit from you going on and pursuing your education. So we were benefiting from your dad making that call.

100% right decision. Did he make a distinction between, did he, I mean, I think you said this in the past, but he wanted you to be in biblical studies as well as like scientific studies. Well, that, that decision was simply so I would be more on the intellectual side of things. He knew that I was headed. I was very intellectually gifted. And so again, I'm not trying to brag. I'm trying to say I'm smart. Most times I don't feel smart, but, but he knew I was geared that way. But as to a Bible or studying the Bible, he never forced that on me. All he said was, if you got, if I can do two years of biblical studies, get a foundation, get a good background and then go off, either go off to medical school or engineering, aeronautic engineering. Um, that would be great.

Yeah. But I love being able to hold those things together, science and, and faith. Like they're, they're not contradictory as, as many people would have us believe. Like I feel like a lot of times people are nervous to learn more about science because they feel like maybe it's going to shake my faith. Maybe it's going to rattle what I believe. Well, I like looking at the different aspects of apologetics like we've done here at Clearview because that first season of content, content is our big for any listeners.

It's our big apologetic series. And we did content season one, which was all about the text, like the authority, the inspiration, that basic stuff. Right. But then content season two, I felt like is where people really latched on because you went deep into science and the Bible and how they don't contradict each other. Right. In fact, science, as we know today, modern science was birthed in the cradle of Christianity.

Okay. And now you'll often have people say, are you telling me that the Egyptians didn't understand science? Are you telling me that the ancient Mesopotamians or the Phoenicians or the Semites did not know what I'm saying to you is they did understand math. They didn't understand physics and things like that. But science, as we know today, that the ability to experiment was not full blown as we have it here. It was birthed in the cradle of Christianity as believers, as people became Christians in the Western world. I want to emphasize that in the Western world, they began to explore their world with the conviction that the created God or the creator God was a God of order. That's right.

That's exactly right. And you don't have to fear this God. You don't have to fear nature, but you have to harness it.

How can we harness it? Now, of course, the ancients did that, but not to the extent it has been done in the Western world. Show it to me.

He said, well, wait a minute. Are you telling me like all those places that you see in Greece or Egypt, the pyramids and all that? Are you telling me? That's not scientific, right? They're using physics and geometry to create something that cannot be explained.

How in the world did they do that? That's different than saying, here's a disease. Let's see how we can find a cure for it.

Let's see how we can do an experiment. Ancients did that, but not to the full blown extent as we have today. It seems like when we talk about these biblical truths, it seems like we've reached a place in our culture where we reject those truths, thinking that we're somehow enlightened or that we're progressing humanity, but it's really the exact opposite, right?

Right. Ancient peoples, this is a very interesting debate and maybe it's kind of goes off the subject just a little bit, but I think it's worth doing that. All ancient peoples had certain gifts. I used to think that unless everybody was a born again Christian, they didn't have anything.

That's not true. Like the Phoenicians knew how to build seafaring vessels. They knew how to make boats and ships and maximize them to go across the oceans.

They knew how to make them go fast. They knew how to navigate, but they were not born again Christian. In fact, abortion was practiced among them, right? It was a horrible thing. So also Egyptians, were they all born again Christians?

No, but they had certain things they understood about building the pyramids and things like that. That's amazing. The dimensions are so perfect.

So perfect. And when you stand and see the places where they, you know, where there has those, what do you call them? Just the edges of the triangle or the pyramids. Oh yeah. Like the base of the pyramid.

That's what I was looking for. It's unbelievable how close they came to perfection. So they had certain gifts, but then there were certain things because of their presuppositions about God and nature. They could not surpass, they could not grasp because of their presuppositions about God and nature.

So people in the Western world, they understood that God was a God of order and that the creative world did not have to be feared or worshiped. Instead it could be studied and its power and resources can be harnessed for the betterment of humanity. That is to me, the true meaning of science.

Right. I feel like there's so many cultures that we look at that, I mean, just like you said, Dr. Shah, either default to fearing what they don't know or worshiping what they don't understand. Like this must be divine. This must be something that we can't unravel. This is some kind of mystery.

So we're just going to just bow down and hope that the gods and goddesses will be kind to us. But that idea of exploration, that idea of discovery, of experimentation, of harnessing the world, that's distinctly Christian. One more thing I'll share.

And in coming up at Clearview, there's a series I'm doing on Table of Nations. And one thing I'm going to demonstrate through ancient writings is that these ancient peoples were not just pagans worshiping gods and goddesses. Many of them had a concept of this one divine being who was the true God, who was omniscient, omnipresent, omni everything. They knew this was it.

They were too close to the beginning to deny that. And what the Psalmist says, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. That is, he said that to describe this oddity of this atheist. Right. Right. Because they would have known, they would have known, they could look and see there's really no denying that there is a God at that time.

And he is one. Did they understand everything about the Trinity and all that? I think some did, but not all. Now, many of them took the next step and they decided to make God in their own image, Romans chapter one.

And that's where they went downhill. Prior to that, they knew there was one God and he was sending his son and he was going to come to the line of this man from the Ur of the Chaldees. Do you think as civilizations progressed and got further away from God, the one true God, there was such a push as there is now to squash down the truth of God? Yes. Like as intentional as today?

Yes. Very intentional. Because the Bible says that. Romans chapter one, Paul says that because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were they thankful. But in their own futile hearts, in their own foolish hearts, they became darkened, right?

And exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for corruptible idols and forfeited animals and all that kind of stuff. So they suppressed it. I don't know if we went off our topic. No, not at all. Is what we're discussing.

Yes, absolutely. Because you see that today. I mean, you see people who, when you drill down to the bedrock of it, or when somebody goes through a difficult moment in their life, who do they turn to? They're going to call out to God. But if you press them on any other day, I mean, there is that sense of suppression. There is that sense of like, I know the truth, but I'm intentionally masking the truth from myself. Well, I'm angry with God, or I'm disappointed with God, or I'm disillusioned about God. Those are kind of things.

Yeah. And we've got knowledge today and we've got like advancement in the world, but you'd be foolish to deny that the world is not hostile towards God, like actively hostile. Like they want God eradicated from our culture completely.

And they've done a fantastic job and has been doing this job for several centuries. And I want to address this myth that has been propagated and still comes around. And the myth is this, the organized church or Christianity has always tried to persecute science and scientists. That is a big myth. You always hear that. Like I've seen so many documentaries about Christians burned at the stake or scientists burned at the stake by the church and all this stuff about like Galileo.

Yeah. And usually that's the story they bring up, the Galileo and the Roman Catholic church. And they usually point to the period in the 17th century when the Western world was experiencing the scientific revolution. And this is the period where the church was so on the wrong side of things. So we need to back up and truly understand this revolution was actually part of a much larger revolution called the Protestant Reformation.

Right? Now, of course, we also know the Renaissance, the writings came from the East, from Constantinople falling in the hands of the Turks. All those scholars with their classics began to run towards the West. And when they did, they brought ancient writings with them. The ancient world was, or the European world was sort of enlightened at that point. And they're like, wow, we didn't know all this knowledge existed.

Now, let me also clarify. It's not like they were completely in dark, but it was not as widespread. Scholars knew.

Okay. If you study history, you realize very quickly scholars in Europe also knew, especially in monasteries that there was another world of lot of knowledge about ancient times and all that. But once this fall of Constantinople took place, it flooded, flooded Italy to start with. That's where a lot of that knowledge went.

And paintings and art and architecture and statues and sculptures were prominent. Out of that also came a return to the text, return to the Greek text, which brought about in some sense, the Protestant Reformation back to the originals. Don't have to go to the Latin, don't have to wait on the man to tell me what God is saying. And I can't even comprehend what he's saying. I speak Anglo-Saxon and he is over there in Latin doing his thing.

Why? So all that happened, of course, we know about Martin Luther and his 95 Theses in 1517 at the Wittenberg door. But a major point of this revolution was to bring the scriptures in the hands of the ordinary people. The scientific revolution simply extended that attitude towards all creation, which is the second sacred book.

Okay. It's getting away more from the authority of the Roman church rather than from Christianity itself. Right. So extended towards the whole creation. It's one of those things where people are wanting to be like, well, the Christianity is what did this. But your point is saying that no, Martin Luther and Christians and Protestants are trying to get away from this as well. It's not just that Christians are against scientists. It's that these Protestants are also trying to get away from the authority of the Roman church. Roman Catholic church or the corruption.

And if it weren't for them, that scientific revolution would probably would not have happened the way it did. Right. Right. I mean, people ask me the question, are some Roman Catholics Christians? I'm like, yes.

If they truly believe Jesus Christ is the only way, truth and life, God's son who died, buried, rose again as promised, as prophesied. Yeah. You're saved. Yeah. Don't add anything else to it. Stop there. Don't add anything else. There you go.

So think for a moment, Francis Bacon, who was the major leader of the scientific revolution and the one who developed the scientific method, was also part of the translation of the King James in 1611. I didn't know that. Yeah.

Wow. I bet a lot of people who claim that don't know that either. Isn't that interesting that we spend all our time talking about how we are the strong, brave scientists fighting against the establishment, which is the church. You don't know your history or you are conveniently forgetting the truth. And is that what science is supposed to do?

Cover up the truth? Good point. Ask questions. Find good, solid resources. For example, there's a book called The Genesis of Science, How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution by James Hannam. Great book because it talks about these very things, how Christianity was not against science.

Now, there were some people foolishly who did things that should not have been done, but that does not mean the entire religion or our faith is at fault. Again, question comes up. We talked about philosophy from India or great pyramids and things like that, or gunpowder in China. Stanley Jackie, great book. Again, for those who are looking for a recommendation, he has a good book called The Origin of Science and the Science of its Origin.

Very clever. He says this, the historiography of science has still to face up honestly to the problem of why three great ancient cultures, China, India, and Egypt, display independently of one another is similar pattern vis-a-vis science. The pattern is the still birth of science in each of them in spite of the availability of talents, social organization, and peace, the standard explanatory devices furnished by all knowing sociologies of science on which that historiography relies ever more heavily.

The still birth of science. He's saying like the further they got away from Christianity, their scientific development just kind of ceased. When I say Christianity, I'm referring to the knowledge of the one true God who was going to send his son to redeem mankind through his sacrifice. That's the ancient knowledge. The further they got away from that, then they began to get into paganism or worshiping celestial bodies or worshiping animals. Romans 1.

Romans 1 is what began to happen when they got away from that. So I would love to talk more about this. There's so much more I can say. Let's do it. This is what Contends Day Wednesday is for.

There you go. Contends Day Wednesday. If you guys enjoyed today's episode, hopefully you learned something about the relationship between science and between your faith, text in and let us know. Let us know what you thought about today's episode. We'd love to hear from you guys.

You can also visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com and you can partner with us financially by clicking that donate link down at the bottom of the page. Tomorrow's episode... We're talking about technology and innovation. So exciting. Stay tuned. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow. Clearview Today.