Friday, October 6th | Lightning Round Questions

Hello, everyone. Today is Friday, October the sixth. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John 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. 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, anywhere you get your podcasting content from.

We're going to leave a link in the description so you can do just that. Today's verse of the day comes to us from Zechariah, a book we don't really think about that much. Chapter 8, verse 21 says, The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us continue and go and pray before the Lord and seek the Lord of hosts.

I myself will go also. This idea of come, let's go together, let's go seek God together, let's go worship together. It reminds us that the Christian life was never meant to be lived in a vacuum. It's never meant to be done alone. There are moments certainly of personal devotion and time spent alone with God, but you are not supposed to operate alone as a Christian because we belong to what's called the body of Christ. That necessitates community, that necessitates living life alongside one another and encouraging each other to pursue a deeper relationship with God.

Dr. Shah has told us a bunch, and I know that someone told him in turn. I might ask him when we get into the main segment, but he said, if you want to go fast, you go by yourself. If you want to go far, you take others with you. I think that's the exact same thing here is that saying, the inhabitants of the city are going to go, they're going to pray, they're going to seek the Lord of hosts, which is what they're going to do, but I'm also going to go.

I'm with you. I feel that in this church, and I feel it in the worship team, and I feel that even on the radio show with you guys, we're all seeking the Lord together. We are doing something with our lives that is making strides towards coming to know God more. If you're listening to the show, we're not trying to just give you advice to live by. We want you to come along with us, or even if you want to look at it the other way, we want to come along with you and see what he's showing us and see how those two kind of line up.

That's right. We want to go along with you as we skip through a pumpkin patch and walk on fresh fallen leaves that crunch underneath our feet, because fall is here. Summer is here. It's October 6th, but I feel like we can just hold on to summer a little longer.

No, bud. Fall's here. Fall's here.

You're happy. This is what you like. I'm ecstatic, because fall is one step closer to winter.

Which is what you really like. Winter is my jam. You like to look out at the winter and see the cold, dead, rotten branches. I like cold, dead plants, gray skies, landscape, just brown grass. Listen to what you're saying.

Listen to what you're saying. That's what you like. You like dismal, dark, cold. You like Russia. You like Russia. Yes. Yes. Without all the, you know, cut of this.

Without all the human depravity. Here's why I like winter. Fall kind of leans into this a little bit. You don't walk outside and start sweating, which is great. Love that. Hate to walk outside and start sweating. You walk outside and it hurts.

It hurts how cold it is. No, it doesn't. Oh. Well. No, you're wrong. Okay.

Well. You just prep. You bundle ahead of time. Fall attire is, I think, looks better than summer attire. You think of- You can layer like a little quarter zip with a button up underneath it. You think a nice Hawaiian shirt peacocked with a Hawaiian shirt and shorts is not good attire? No, I don't.

What do you mean? I think that needs to be run over with attire. You get a button down. You get a quarter zip. Cuff your sleeves over the quarter zip.

Oh, man. All the quarter zips I ever wear make me look frumpy. Gorgeous.

Or do this. I look like Molly Weasley. Get you like a waffle tee and put a blazer on top of it. What is a waffle tee? A waffle tee with a blazer on top of it. Let me look up a waffle tee.

Some nice jeans. Waffle tee. Oh, man. Fall is where it's at.

Fall is the jam on the way to winter. Oh, no. I'm not wearing a waffle tee. This thing? No, I'm saying a waffle tee, a long sleeve waffle tee with a blazer over top of it. All these guys are buff.

I'm just going to look frumpy if I put on a waffle tee. No, you're not. Yeah.

No, you're not. Okay. There are some things I like about fall. I like pumpkin spice. Pumpkin spice.

That's nice. Here's my problem with pumpkin spice. Uh-oh. Pumpkin spice has transformed over the years. Pumpkin spice, when it first came out, does not taste like it does today. David got me a pumpkin spice latte that was sort of like a cold milkshake, but he also got me a... What was that thing? The hot apple juice with cinnamon. It was the caramel apple crisp. Ooh, yeah.

That is delicious. You can only get that in the fall, too. It is very... It's seasonal.

It's what we call seasonal. Yeah. Pumpkin spice now does not taste as much like pumpkin. It just tastes like clove.

Yeah. Someone baked Dr. Shah a pumpkin bread, and I saw to it that he did not get that pumpkin bread. I ate a good majority of pumpkin bread.

Oh, no. My apologies, Dr. Shah. I saved you a little bit, but the pumpkin bread did not make it fully to Dr. Shah.

And that's all me. Baked goods, soups, cozy by the fire. I mean, we're in what I like to call the burr months. It's a timber, October.

Christmas music and Christmas movies are on the table. It just feels too much. It feels like it's too much. Summer is like you walk outside and your glasses steam up. I hate that. The sun is just brutally beaten down on your shoulders. I hate that.

Listen to what you're saying. Yeah, that's... I hate that. No, that's fun. You can splash in the lake.

If I have to protect myself from UV radiation, mm-mm. I'm not doing that. Not a good time.

Nobody's having a good time. No. Negative. Okay.

There's not a lot of point complaining because I can't stop the fall from being here. It's just here. Your favorite is summer and my favorite is winter, so we are literally polar opposites on that. Yeah.

I love very nice. If you say one more pun, you're in. It's fall.

They're coming right off the top of the dome. All right. Pumpkin spice has really kicked in. I guess we're here for fall. Stay with us.

I'll try to survive another. I'm actually okay with fall. Winter is where I start getting ornery.

I like it. Like around the Christmas months. Cold, cold, icy cold. Give me cold. Give me snow banks.

Give me... I can rest easy knowing Dr. Shah's on my side. He does not like the cold. I know Dr. Shah does not like cold weather, but I'm interested to know his thoughts on fall, because fall's kind of an in-between. I'm interested to know his thoughts on fall. Let us know what you guys think.

Is fall your jam, or are you kind of like, I really wish summer would come back? Let us know at 252-582-5028, or you can visit us online at clearveetodayshow.com. Stay tuned. We'll be right back. 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. 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. And 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. Welcome back to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. Or if you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text, 252-582-5028.

That's right. If today's your first time ever joining us here on the Clearview Today Show, we want to welcome you and 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. As you can tell from our attire, it's lightning round questions. It's Friday lightning round questions. I really want an effect where I can go like this and lightning bolts shoot out of my fingers.

You can do that in after effects. Just be like... Nicholas, can you make that happen just right here? Right out of my fingers. The radio audience doesn't know. I don't know if we ever talk about it in person.

Dr. Shah wears a funny coat, I wear a hat, and Ryan wears a tie. You really should be watching the video episodes. If you're not, why? Yeah, you can watch them. They're free. You don't even have to pay for them. They're free!

They're free! But, we are taking the questions that you've submitted, we tell you that number all the time, 252-582-5028. By the way, if that's not saved in your phone by now, this is your opportunity to do that.

I'm going to say it one more time. It should be on speed dial. You should press 1. You should have this conversation pinned at the top of your text messages.

It should be in your favorites list. You know how they tell you to do ICE in case of emergency? Delete your spouse, delete your mom, put Clearview today in case of emergency.

That way, you can get to it instantly. I don't know that I want that kind of responsibility, though. I don't want that kind of responsibility. What is it like, hey, I need an ambulance, and I'm like, this is a radio show. This is a radio show. OK, fair enough.

Maybe don't put us in case of emergency, but do ICE in case of entertainment. There you go. Very nice. Dr. Sean Nicholas B. wrote into the show, and he wants to know, what's your go-to flavor of ice cream? My favorite has to be mango. Mango? Mango ice cream is awesome. I've never even seen mango ice cream.

Oh, yeah. If you'd given me 100 years, I don't think I would have guessed mango. Mango?

Really? Where do you get mango ice cream? Well, in Greece.

OK. They did have mango ice cream in Greece. I remember that.

They did have mango ice cream. And we ate twice. I remember that. Yes.

That's so not good for you and me. Yes. No, three times. Three times. David just told me from the back, three times.

Three times. Every night we were in Thessaloniki, we ate ice cream. Yes.

And it was fantastic. I mean, you come out of this beautiful, was it a four-star hotel, turn to the left, and there's ice cream stores there. Yep. Wow. I mean, just massive places.

And ice cream, I don't know what it is, but people that part of the world know how to decorate their food. Yes. Really? It looked good? It's beautiful. Oh, yeah. It was beautiful.

It was beautiful. You're like, I want a little bit of this and this and that. I want to just jump in there and just swim through the ice cream. Scrooge McDuck-style. Just dive.

Swim, do the backstroke through pistachio. Just, yeah. It was beautiful. Did you try the mango? I did not try the mango. I did have the first restaurant we went to. Dr. Shah and I got fig ice cream. Yeah. And that was delicious. They had like fresh figs in the ice cream.

That was really good. Yeah. Yeah. I love our hometown ice cream as well. What is Tasty Freeze? Freeze Made. Freeze Made. Freeze Made. Tasty Freeze is gone, right? It used to be. There used to be an ice cream place called Tasty Freeze. I've eaten there too. Yeah.

But it's been a long time ago. Yeah. Freeze Made.

Freeze Made. In the summers, there's a line that literally comes to the, it's just, it's just a walk-up place. You don't go inside or anything like that. And they only take cash. They only take cash.

That's how you know you're in a small town. How do you know if they're open? You just show up. You just show up. You look for the line. Yeah. They don't, I don't think they have any social media.

I don't think they have any accounts. It's just, you show up. If there's people there, then they're open.

And a lot of times the line is like out into the street. It is so, so good. It's like the softest of soft serve you could ever have. Adam K. writes in and says, what well-known speaker would you recommend to someone who wants to be a, to become a better communicator? Oh, wow.

I would say Dr. Abaddon Shah from Clearview Church. You do speak pretty well. I'm not going to lie. Well, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate the kind words.

My goodness. There's so many good ones out there, but the best ones, think about someone like John Maxwell. John Maxwell has been around doing what he was doing for, I would say almost 50 years now and just so good at his craft. And I've learned a lot from him. Look at some other, and if you look at talking about pastors, people like Chuck Swindoll, you may not always say, oh, I agree with a hundred percent with some of these names that I'm sharing with you, but that's fine. Just learn the art of communication from them. And basically they are good theologically, so learn from them.

And then there are others as well that you can turn to. I like some of the older ones. My favorite, one of my favorite communicators are people like Harold J. Okenga, who was a pastor in Boston, went by his church when we were visiting Abby and Jared. Of course, Donald Gray Barnhouse, powerful communicator, 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I love his preaching. Adrian Rogers from Bellevue Baptist Church, Memphis, Tennessee. Great, great communicator.

And of course, growing up, I heard my dad, who was a tremendous preacher, pastor, and I learned so much. Now I look back and say, now I know why he did it that way. Now I know what he was doing.

And still, I'm learning just by memory. I wish I had written things down, but you know, what kid sits there? Yeah. Right. Especially a preacher's kid sitting there taking notes.

I want to be just like this man. You grew up saying, that's the man who is the source of all my problems. We talked about it a little bit. We touched on it a little bit on yesterday's episode, but when you're in those fields, you do tend to analyze even your heroes.

When you talk about, and this is not, someone didn't write this in, but just kind of furthering that conversation. When you think about your favorite preachers like Barnhouse and the others, do you balance out their theology and their communication? Is it like, well, this one is kind of weak in theology, but I love his delivery, or this one's kind of got a flat delivery and really good theology or a good balance of both?

That's a great question, by the way. Most of them will have something that you will not agree with. Then again, the people may not agree with what I believe in everything, but most of the time I look for people who are theologically good. I may occasionally turn to somebody who's not theologically good, but I love their way of communication. You know, God is amazing. God is the father of lights in him.

There is no variation or shadow of turning. I mean, he has given gifts to all people. No one can get on the other side of heaven and tell God that you, you did not, you were not fair to me. God has been fair to every single person who comes into this world. He has given gifts and talents to everybody. Do they always use those gifts and talents for God's glory?

No. And that's a sad reality. So I can learn from people who are great communicators, even if their theology is horrible. I don't make it a practice to listen to them often because come on, if you're listening to that person and you don't agree with their theology, how long before what they're saying is going to start affecting you. So I don't personally, I don't listen to pastors or leaders who just have a bad theology because I know that's too much of a risk.

I don't want anything to shift upstairs. That's true. Yeah, that's true. Michael D, why did you want to major in a secular field when you were an undergrad in college? Oh, I've talked about that before. My dad sent me to America to have just two years of biblical education. He was concerned about me. He was concerned that I may go out there and then lose my faith.

Not that I will stop being saved, but I will lose my way, go down a secular path. In fact, when I was doing pre-med work, I was going to medical school, taking exams, studying for this big exam. In India, it's a big deal.

I don't know how it is nowadays in India. The pre-med exam? That exam was a huge deal. You go away from home and you go to a tutoring institution and you stay there. I did that. I didn't study, but I did go there and I stayed there for a good three months. I played video games. You were in the arcade?

Oh yeah. I spent some time in the arcade. But anyways, I did study. I did do a lot of studying. So my dad saw that and he even came and talked to me one time. He said, I know you are intellectually minded and you may either become a medical doctor or you may become an engineer, but I want you to have two years of biblical education and then move on and do whatever you want to do. So when he said that, I was like, Oh, okay.

All right. So I came to Tocqueville Falls College, which was a Christian missionary alliance school. Our church growing up was the CMA church, Christian missionary alliance church. And so it was sort of like, okay, you're going to your own denominational school. So I came, but I was so sort of set against going into ministry, not because ministry was something to look down upon. It's just, I felt like I'll never be that good or godly of a person to ever be in ministry.

That's not me. So I looked for the most secular subject or major that was in college. And this most secular major was broadcast journalism.

I was like, okay, I'm doing that. But isn't it crazy how God works that now, all these years later, where you've got a daily radio show, where that really comes in handy? It really shaped my way of thinking, because if that hadn't happened, I was always technologically minded.

I always loved audio visual and things like that. But if I had not gone to Tocqueville Falls College and learned broadcast journalism, I would not have that sense of creativity or desire to capture the flag for Christ in broadcast arena. Making movies, you know, that's one of our goals.

Making documentaries, traveling, filming. That would have never happened. It has shaped us as well. I never had that mindset that you have, which is, hey, listen, if you don't capture this... When I say that, I mean if you don't get pictures of it, if you don't document it, it didn't happen. Even in your scholarly field, you have to document things.

You have to make notes of any changes or any variations in the text. All that stuff has to be documented, or else you haven't studied it. And I wouldn't have that if it hadn't been for your background.

Because I didn't go to school for what we're doing here, but you did. And so building on that foundation has really helped me a lot. Absolutely.

It's helped me a lot. Next question comes from Lawrence T. If you had to summarize your core message or philosophy as a pastor in just a few words, what would they be? The mission at Clearview. Our goal at Clearview is to lead all people into a life-changing, ever-growing relationship with Jesus Christ. That is still my life goal. And if I could just enhance that, it would be something like to help other people, also help others to have a life-changing, ever-growing relationship with Christ. So that's it. That's my goal. I love that. I love that heart that you have for equipping other people and elevating other people to educate themselves, to better themselves, to grow in their relationship with God, and to give them the tools to then take that and replicate it. That's right. Multiply.

Because it's more about impact than just influence. For those who are looking to plant their church or looking to plant and begin their ministry, how carefully thought through were those words? Clearview's mission is to lead all people into a life-changing, ever-growing relationship. We did not just take it from some big church. Some big church, when we were coming up, like when I came to this church, some big church would have been Saddleback. Some big church would have been Willow Creek, Bill Hybels, Saddleback, Rick Warren. Some big church at the time would be Memphis, Tennessee, with Bellevue, with Dr. Adrian Rogers. Some big church would have been First Baptist Church Atlanta, with Charles Stanley.

These are just a few names I'm giving, but other big names were coming up too. So we didn't just take their mission statement and then ran with it. We actually sat down and began to put together who we are and what is God saying to us through his word to be the church in our context to change the world.

Thank goodness about that time, my father-in-law, Nicole's dad, who's also one of my heroes, and talk about communicators, he was also a phenomenal communicator, and I learned a lot from him as well. His motto for his church was making the invisible Christ visible. That always stayed with me, and I was like, making the invisible Christ visible, making the invisible. And it took me years to learn that that is the essence of Christian life.

And so when we went through this process in 2008, that's about 10 years after his death, 10 years after he died, when we went through that process, I used that statement to build upon. So instead of making the invisible Christ visible, we simply went making Christ visible. So that is our motto, and our mission is to lead all peoples into a life-changing, ever-growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Hence, we have to make Christ visible. Amen. Amen. I know this has been answered before, but just for the sake of not turning this guy's questions away, Chris K. wants to know, what's one book of the Bible you've never preached on? Oh, there are several.

Several books of the Bible, like some of the minor prophets. I preached heavily from Malachi. So we went through that series here on the radio. Yeah, we did. We did.

Great series. But there are other minor prophets that are still on my radar to preach on them. In the New Testament, books like Colossians, I was able to visit Colossae this past April, and it was amazing to stand on top of this hill and know that the entire city is underneath.

And maybe one day I'll be part of that excavation project. So Colossians, I haven't preached through that. Many of the pastoral epistles, I have preached here and there, but I haven't systematically preached through them. And then, of course, Old Testament, as I mentioned, minor prophets, haven't preached through them. Isaiah, Jeremiah preached certain portions, but not through them. Ezekiel, haven't preached through it, just portions. So there's a lot I still have to cover.

I think that's the amazing thing about going through the Bible, is there's always more to discover. That's really cool. Next question comes from Brian H. What was your favorite subject in school? Wow, favorite subject in school. I loved math and science.

I did a lot of math and science, so that was, I would say, probably my favorite subject. Now, it's kind of, history is very dear to me. But growing up, I don't think history was that dear to me. Really?

No. I mean, I liked portions of history, but it just, either the teachers were not good, or I don't know what the curriculum was in India. I went to a private Catholic school, so very rigorous education. But history was not that appealing. Math and science, I did a lot.

I guess that's one of the things where it's going to be more or less the same math and science wherever you are. But history, did they teach Indian history and then Western history as well? Everything, world history.

They talked about Indian, ancient Indian history, like Mohenjodaro, Harappa. These are civilizations that go back. I know they say tens of thousands of years. I would say maybe 2000 BC. They go back 2000 BC. And then, of course, other portions of Indian history coming down to the time of Alexander the Great, how the Greeks came to India, those kinds of things. And then, of course, how the Mughals or the Mongols came to India, so that part of the history. And then the British coming to India, so a lot of history we learned there. But at the same time, we also learned medieval history, we learned world history, Chinese history, American history. I remember sitting there learning about the Revolutionary War.

That's incredible in India. Yeah, I couldn't figure out exactly how that works. How can people fight each other who look alike? That was the biggest confusion for me. It's like, how do they know who they're shooting at? How do you differentiate?

What are your team jerseys? Yeah, I remember thinking stuff like that as a kid. Yeah, because I remember looking in the textbooks and being like, okay, those guys are red, those guys are blue, no problem. But I never thought about...

But what if in the thick of the battle, how does that work? Yeah. And I never thought about like, oh, they're the same people. They're British colonists, but they're the same people, you know what I mean? Because in India, everything was like Indians versus the British. So here, I'm like, Civil War, or the North versus South, but they're one country. They talk the same. How do they know who to shoot at? Do you take the time in the middle of battle like, I think he's wearing the right color for me to... Oh, it's just dirty.

Oh, no. So you start to get more into history as you got older. When I got older, began to travel, then I realized how much... And especially when I went into the ministry, then my heart's desire was how to connect people to our past. And our past does not go to millions of years, folks. It doesn't go that far.

And the more you study... In fact, we're getting ready to do a series on our content apologetics, I guess, what do you call it? I would say season three.

Season three. And there, we're going to look at the various families and how they came about. And when Noah's sons came out of the ark, Shem, Ham, Japheth, where did they go?

Who are they? Do other ancient cultures talk about them? And the answer is yes. 99% of everything the Bible talks about in Genesis 10, 11 has been validated by other people's stories, which means the Bible is not just some strange little thing over here just with the Hebrews or the Jewish people or the Christians kind of tagged on and the Muslims kind of took it away with them.

No, no, no. There's one story. Yeah. Those ancient people groups have had no reason to support the Bible. It's just that they told the truth and it does support the Bible. Right. Because it was the obvious truth. And so we have, in the past couple of hundred years turned things very to a different skeptical empiricist approach where we don't trust the Bible and the Bible is full of errors.

When actually, when you study it in its context and look at world history and what other peoples have said about it, they actually just corroborated everything the Bible says. That's right. But we don't want to take the time to look at it. We'd rather be the skeptics. Well, over the next four weeks, we'll be taking the time to look at it. There you go.

I'm excited. And I love chances like we get like this, where we can just kind of sit and go through those questions. If you guys have questions that are still unanswered, what are you doing?

Send us those questions. How are we going to say this? I think I'm going to just take this off because this, I really don't like this hat. I'm going to let you be, I'm going to let you be the Riddler. This hat doesn't fit my head. My head's bigger than yours. All right, give me the hat. It doesn't fit.

Because now I'm the only one. No, no, I've got it now. Give me the hat back.

No, no, it's mine now. If you guys enjoyed today's episode, if you have questions that remain unanswered, you want your questions to air on lightning round questions, send those in to 252-582-5028. Or you can visit us online at cleerviewtodayshow.com. Of course, you can partner with us financially on that same website. Just scroll down to the bottom, click that Donate Now button, and become part of our Clearview Today Show family. Let us know that gift is coming from Clearview Today, as well. We'd love to connect with you and maybe even send you something in the mail as a thank you. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clear View Today. Bye. We'll see you tomorrow.