Thursday, November 16th. | The Blessing of Marriage (pt. 1)

Hello, everyone. Today is Thursday, November the 16th. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com, 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.

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We're going to leave a couple of links in the description so you can do just that. And today's verse of the day is coming to us from the book of Proverbs in chapter three and verse 31. It says, do not envy the oppressor and choose none of his ways for the perverse person is an abomination to the Lord, but his secret counsel is with the upright. Not everything is always as it appears. Not everything is always as it seems.

So sometimes we'll see people who are in positions of power or prominence, who are wealthy or who have like a certain level of prestige. And we're like, man, I wish I could have that. I wish I could have that life.

I wish I could be in their shoes. But you don't realize two things. Number one, you don't realize what's going on behind that facade that they push out in front of everybody. And you don't realize who or what they have done to get to that position of prominence, who they've stepped on, what they've done to get to that place of prominence. So God reminds us here through the words in the book of Proverbs, don't envy someone else's position, especially someone who has maybe used underhanded means or who has usurped that role and pushed people down in order to get there. So I can think of a couple of like TikTok influencers that come to mind, a lot of these red pill podcasters, these like alpha male podcasters that everybody knows exactly what I'm talking about. And just like Ryan said, they're all they're all based on or they're all centered around this facade of we care about men and we care about all this stuff that's going on.

But again, you have no earthly idea or even worse, you do know what has been done to get them to that level of prominence and that level of notoriety. It says don't envy the oppressor, choose none of his ways. A lot of times the success that we see in life modeled for us costs something from us that we should never ever be willing to pay because the perverse person is an abomination to the Lord. Look at the promise at the end too, God's secret counsel is with the upright. I would 10 out of 10 times much rather have the secret counsel of God than public accolades.

A hundred percent of the time, I would much rather have that have that close relationship, that connection with God than to be deemed successful by worldly standards. I think another translation actually says that don't envy the violent people. Don't envy those who are moved to violence. We got a phone call a couple of days ago that almost moved us to violence.

It definitely almost moved you to violence. Yes. Okay. So we're going to intro into this segment, advice no one asked for. Okay, here we go.

Here's the advice no one asked for. We're going to toss it out there like breadcrumbs to the pigeons. And if you decide that you want to nibble on them, be my guest. Here we go. Ready?

Here are the breadcrumbs. Take a breath. Calm down first. Sorry. I'm just a little bit agitated.

You're a little bit absolutely livid. Here's what you do. We all have various profiles, subscription services, account based offerings, if you will. That's right. And I will.

It means that you have a likely username and password associated with these accounts. That's two things. Now to keep tracking.

Now here's the thing. You can do this a couple of different ways. You can have one set of like logging credentials that you use for everything. That way you remember it. That's what I do.

You can have like this kind of cipher or code that like takes two letters from the back of the website and the, this string of numbers and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's what my wife does. Yeah, I have seen her do that because I've seen, I've seen Elizabeth. It's always and the password every single time is one. Why on earth would you just put it in? I saw her put it in.

That's how I know it's right. We just talked about keeping your username and password. I think the fellows over at the truth network will have enough wherewithal to bleep that.

Anyway, a couple of different ways you can do that, but what you don't want to do, what you don't want to do is lose your login credentials. You will be them later. You will become a thorn in Ryan's side. Here's, here, here's the crux of this. We, uh, we're interacting with, uh, an individual the other day. She's married to someone on the clear view today. She is, and it's not my wife and it's not my wife and it's not my wife because he doesn't have a wife. Not married.

Neither is Nick. It was, it was, it was Dr Shah's wife, Nicole. I was trying to, yeah, it was Nicole. I was trying to show before lever dearly, lever dearly. Um, I'm growing to love her again after this, this, this saga of trying to get into a certain website based around her login credentials was comical.

It was unreal. She called David. So I wanted to log in stuff because we needed it for, uh, one of the series that we were trying to download off of the website for some stuff coming up. And I was like, okay, normally this site is associated with Nicole, so that means it'll be her login information.

And if she can give it to me, I can get in, get everything downloaded. Easy peasy, right? It's supposed to be. You, you were like, do you have your family life login information now? What is this for? Yeah. Yeah. Why, why do you, why do you need it?

Oh, Dr. So we can download this video series. Now I don't have a, I don't have a login for that video series because that video series I believe is on family.

It's on family life. Right. Right.

Now I do have a login for family life. Yes. That's what we've asked for. Yep.

Can we get that? Yes. So yes. So give me the family life login.

Yes. Now what are we doing with the video series? I'm going to download the video series, but I don't have that login.

Right. There's no login. Nicole, there's no login for the video set, but you just asked me for the login. I want it so that I can get the video series off of family line.

I have a login for what is it? That video series. I think we got through family life. We did. Okay.

So I don't have the login for the video series, but I have it for family life. It got to the point where like we, he put, David had to put her on speaker and we had to start talking her through it. It was like, Nicole, we did this on right now.

Media. No, Nicole, we didn't. We did it over a DVD. She was like, Oh, I don't have the DVDs, but I do have a login for family life. Nicole, we have the DVDs.

I can't give you the login for the DVDs. I'm getting ticked. I'm getting, it got to the point where you were, I'm actually getting ticked here in the reenactment, but you were getting angry.

It got bad and it got to the point where she was like, okay, but the ones that were on those DVDs, those videos, that's not the conference we're doing. It's like, I know we're trying to archive them in case they take it off of right now. Media, please give us the login. Did you ever even get it? Did you get the login? We have the DVDs. Long story short, we did have the DVDs, physical copy. We're able to just use them from there. We still don't know the login to family life. No, that was what was most frustrating.

We went through all that rigamarole and all of that circus routine on the phone and still didn't get it. Do you have a login code for the ad read? Text in your login information to 252-5028.

No, don't send us your login information. But let us know if there's been any of those discrepancies between men and women, husband and wives. Guys, if you've been like, I need this right now.

Ladies, if you've been like, I need more information, let us know if there's been any, I don't want to say tension, but just I would say differences and approaches. I'm feeling a little tense. We're going to grab Dr. Sean. We're going to see his take on this whole Nicole conversation situation. Stay tuned.

We'll be right back. Elizabeth, my darling bride, what would you say is the most beneficial thing you could do for yourself in the morning? Probably drink an entire pot of coffee when sitting.

I'd say that's a close second. No, the best thing you can do for yourself is to start every morning with a daily devotional. Only be one to talk about.

Well, as it turns out, we have two. Right now you can unlock the power of daily inspiration, wisdom and spiritual growth in our devotional series, 30 days through a crisis and 30 days to a new beginning. Written by our pastor, Dr. Abaddon Shaw and his wife, Nicole, the 30 days devotional series is designed to reveal new biblical truths every single day.

That's right. And every day is a new revelation to guide you on your Christian journey toward a more meaningful and purposeful life. You can pick up your copy today from our website.

That's ClearviewBC.org or you can grab both books on Amazon, Apple Books and Audible. That's 30 days through a crisis and 30 days to a new beginning by Abaddon and Nicole Shaw. And don't forget, these are only the first two in an expanding devotional series. So keep your eyes peeled for future installments. Thanks for listening.

Now let's get back to the show. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abaddon Shaw, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com.

If you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028. It's right here in the Clear View Today studio with Dr. Abaddon Shaw, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor and host of the Clear View Today show. Dr. Shaw, we had a conversation with your wife this morning. I was going to say a delightful conversation. I was going to say lovely.

It's probably better not putting any adjectives in there. We talked to her. We spoke to her. On the phone. In a conversation. You got my attention.

What happened? Have you ever had a conversation with your wife? Nicole is Dr. Shaw's wife, by the way, for anybody who's just joined us right now on the radio. Love her to death. Shout out, Nicole. You're wonderful.

I'm not just saying this because Dr. Shaw is here. Nicole is one of my favorite people in the world. She's like an older sister. I love to mess with her. Love to like kind of get a rise out of her, poke and prod her. This conversation made me want to hurt myself and those around me. Have you ever been talking to her on the phone and it was just like a ring of confusion?

Is this like a counseling session? Yeah, it happens. It happens more than I would like to admit. But I mean, it's because she's focused and she wants to figure this out or that.

And then I'm like, we're over here. But yeah, it happens. Sometimes that'll happen. I guess that happens in every marriage because I've had it with Ellie before too. Maybe it's just one of those weird marriage quirks.

Yeah. Well, I think that illustrates an important truth about marriage, especially in the age of social media. People put all this glitz and glam out on Instagram or on TikTok of like, look at our perfect life. Look at this vacation that we took together. We're so happy.

Look at my man crush Monday, my wifey Wednesday. All those hashtags. Love those. And nothing wrong with having the day, but don't send an impression that life is just great because that's not really. Sometime back we said something like put a, put a picture like hashtag life between posts posts. I love that. I remember when you said that and that was so that was such a great idea because there's so much life that happens in between the posts.

We get this one snapshot frozen in time where you're smiling, very airbrushed and polished and filtered at the camera, but we don't see all the nitty gritty life that happens in between those posts. That's right. Marriage is blessed and I'm not saying it in the sense of in the south where we say have a blessed day, right? We say that when we leave an establishment, they'll say, have a blessed day.

What they're saying is maybe have a good day, maybe not terrible. May God bless you. Maybe if that person is a Christian, maybe they have that God part in it, but they're not saying it, but they're saying it without saying it. But marriages are also blessed and the institution of marriage has been blessed by God is God's idea and it's God. God has his hand upon it and it's not just Christian marriages. By the way, folks, marriage as an institution across this world, Christian or not, is blessed by God. Now it cannot reach the potential God has for every marriage and that potentially comes in when Jesus Christ enter into, enters into that marriage relationship, when he is welcomed in as the third person, the mediator, the one who draws the couple together, the one who brings that sense of wisdom or grace or forgiveness or joy and peace and contentment. Unless Christ does that, your marriage will reach a level and it'll be great, but it will never reach the level it was intended to reach.

So how to have blessed marriages? Maybe that's what we need to talk about today. Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like there's so many people out there, especially like, I think just people out in the world, even some of those, like, have you ever seen those like alpha male, like red pill podcasters that are like, you know, for a man, they never benefit from marriage. There's absolutely no benefit for a man to enter into a heterosexual monogamous relationship. They should just be with as many women as they possibly can because biologically that's their drive. People have got it so twisted that they don't even think marriage is good, let alone necessary.

Many reasons for that. One reason definitely I would say is the whole theory of evolution. If evolution is driving the philosophy of life, then no wonder we believe that a man can do whatever he wants to do or a woman can do whatever she wants to do as long as it's the survival that is at stake, the survival of the fittest, right? So you go out there and have as many promiscuous relationships as you want to because what you're doing is something you can't help. This is how you have evolved to propagate the human race or whatever. And then if we do have parameters, it's only to sort of help our society because can you imagine what society would be like if there were no parameters?

So even that sort of somehow slips into the evolutionary theory of society, I guess, civilization. But when you look at things from God's perspective, we realize that God created marriage and it is his idea and he blessed it repeatedly and it is very special. Marriage is very special. Now it does not mean that marriage will not have its struggles.

Nicole and I have had our struggles. It does not mean that singleness is bad. In fact, I know some single people who are very happy, satisfied. That's God's calling on their lives. Paul was, some people say was a single person. Some say he wasn't. Some say he was a married person, but he chose this life of a missionary because God called him.

So we don't know for sure. But anyways, what we're saying here is this. A God honoring marriage, a Christ-centered marriage is blessed by him and it is a beautiful representation of true love and of the Christ-church relationship. I love that you bring that out because it gives such a purpose to marriage. It's not just two people coming together because they're happy or because they love one another or because they want to have a family. I mean all of that's wonderful, all of that's great, but there's a deeper truth behind marriage and that points back to just what you said, Dr. Shah, that it's God's institution.

Right. And God blessed it twice. The first time he blessed it was with the man and the woman. We know them as Adam and Eve.

The name Eve came after the fall. That's something I think I forget a lot and I think a lot of people forget that. And there's a reason why I mentioned that.

It's not just like a little interesting point, you know, a fun fact. It's important because the woman was taken from man and this is not about hierarchy. This is not about patriarchy, male chauvinistic garbage. We're not talking about that.

This is just a fact of life. The woman was taken out of man and it has a deeper mystery behind it that Christ and the church mystery that I will sort of explain in a message very soon. But we mentioned man and the woman or Adam and the woman because we're talking about that connection.

And that's the first time God blessed marriage. When he said to the man, he said, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth. And this is right after in Genesis 127. So God created man in his own image.

In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. Then God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth. That's the first time the marriage blessing was given to the first man and the first woman. So even from the foundation of the world itself, marriage has been there. Yeah.

And has been blessed by God. Wow. It's not some stage of an evolutionary development. This is not just some institution that has been created by the what we call the heteronormative people.

Heteronormative meaning heterosexuals who want to impose their one man, one woman mentality or liking over everybody else. This is not about that. This has been instituted by God. Amen. And then God, after the flood, he came back and he gave the same blessing this time to Noah and his three sons.

And of course their wives. Right. And I think that's important for us to remember that, like you said, like you pointed out, it's been blessed by God. And then after this, this kind of great reset, that that was one of the things that God made sure to point out. This is staying. This is still good. I'm not resetting this. Yeah.

You know what I mean? I established this and this continues. This is not one of the things that was corrupted by all.

You're saying to me it was, but in my design, I'm not willing to reset. Yes. Right. And let's go back and talk about why did God blessed not just Noah and his sons, but why did he originally blessed Adam and the woman or man and the woman? Well, he saw Adam's loneliness and in Genesis 2 18 and the Lord God said, it is not good that men should be alone. And as you guys have heard me say, Nicole usually reminds me that God did not say it's not good for the woman to be alone. That's just wrong. Yeah.

Well, that's how they do, man. God didn't have to remind the woman because she wasn't alone. Yeah.

There you go. And God said to himself, I guess I will make him a helper comparable to him, helper comparable to him. So God had made the cattle, the birds of the air, the beast of the fields, the creepy crawly things, but none of them were a helper comparable to Adam. Right. Until God put a deep sleep upon Adam and performed the first surgery.

Nice. And he took from his side and created the woman. I think it's, I think it's so important for us to remember that too, that the woman was created from the man. And even though she was, there's a definite order that doesn't imply that there's, like you said, there's no hierarchy of value.

It's not that the man is more valuable because he was created first. Right. You know what I mean? And I think that's the narrative that gets twisted so badly. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, people focus on the order and they think, well, that means that the woman is subservient. That means the woman is weaker. That means the woman is less than, and that's simply not the case. In fact, Dr. Shaw, I love that you remind us so often that the Bible and Christianity, everywhere that it has gone has elevated women, has brought their status up.

Where the Bible is not present or where Christian influence is waning, the status of women is lower. Right. So order is there, source is there, authority is there.

Okay. So all these things are represented in that surgery. And again, as you know, old timey preachers used to say, he didn't take it from his head for the woman to dominate the man. He didn't take it from his feet, take her from his feet for her to dominate the man. But he took it from his side so that they would be side by side in their relationship and in their walk with God.

So they're equal and yet they have different roles. And what was man's response? This is Genesis 2 23. It says, Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. Why didn't he say this is my flesh and blood? It means structurally she is built like me.

The bone structure is like mine. So it's not just about how beautiful she is. It's about their partnership together.

It's about their similarities more so than even their differences. Yeah. And flesh of my flesh. He did not say this is now organ for organ. If he had said that, we'd be a little confused because it's like, oh, does he have male organs? Does she have male organs or female organs? No, he's talking about the skeletal structure and he's talking about the skin, right?

Flesh of my flesh, which is what is covering us up. It looks very similar. But he leaves alone certain things that he doesn't say, which is the sexual organs or something else that makes a woman a woman. Yeah. He's allowing for that difference to be there.

Yeah. And I think that maybe that's what gets us in trouble is so hyper fixating on those differences. You know, I mean, across the board, I would say we're more alike than we're similar. I mean, we're more alike than we're different. And maybe it is that focusing on those differences creates a chasm between men and women. Yeah. Not to say that the differences are bad, but hyper fixating on them and being like, I wish he was more like me or I wish she was more like me in this way. These differences are irrevocable. Maybe that's the root of a lot of our problems.

Yeah, that's true. I mean, if you think about Ephesians 5.30, the longer reading, okay, this may kind of take our listeners, our viewers to a realm that they were not aware of where there is a longer reading in Ephesians 5.30 where it says we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. Some manuscripts do not have of his flesh and of his bones.

So the question is, what do we do with that? Based on my text critical analysis of his flesh and of his bones should be in that verse. By the way, for our readers, you're listening to textual criticism happen right now. If we say it at the beginning of every episode, Dr. Das, a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, you're like, well, what is that? This is what it is.

This is what that is. The shorter reading, thank you, it has the Alexandrian text and has some virginal support and some church fathers quoting it kind of loosely. But the longer reading has a support both from the Western text, which is very early and at the same time, it's sort of kind of a renegade type text. But the Western text, which is very early, goes into the second century, at least that we know of, supports the longer reading. So also the Byzantine text, which is, you know, people say it's a later text. I believe it does have reaches into the second century and even earlier. So both the Western and the Byzantine agree that the longer reading is better. And then of course the Syriac Peshitta agrees and the old Latin agrees, which is also taking it further into the old.

So I believe the longer reading is the original one. And I think it is a great loss to the church. Again, no fundamental doctrine is in jeopardy, but it's a great loss of a beautiful doctrine that is coming from this passage, Genesis 2 23. Yeah. Do you want to speak to that doctrine for a second?

Why it's such a big loss? Of course, because how are we connected to Christ? Now you have to think folks, okay, don't take your eyes off the road or wherever you are, but really think. Ephesians 5 30 says, we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. He said, well, of his flesh and of his bones.

I don't believe it was in the original text. Okay. But still you have to deal with we are members of his body. How are we, how are we members of his body? Yeah.

Before you jump in and quickly give a pat answer, think. Are we members of his body spiritually speaking? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Hold on.

Hold on. Are we members of his body in the sense of the Adam and Eve relationship? Because in Ephesians 5 31, guess what he quotes from? From Genesis.

Genesis 2. And he talks over for this cause, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. And Paul goes on to say, if I can pull up that verse right quick, our time is running away, but if in Ephesians 5 and verse 31, it says that this is a great mystery.

He says in verse 32, now I'm in Ephesians 5 32, this is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. So how, how is Adam and Eve's relationship or Adam and the woman's relationship compared to the Christ church relationship? How are we connected to Christ as Eve was connected to Adam or the woman was connected to the man? Yeah.

That's a very important thing. For one, he became like us in a sense, so we can become like him. But I don't think that completely covers this because he became like man, like every human being, not just saved people. Right. Right. So do you really want to go there and say, well, because so we can become like him, he became like every human being, even the ones who reject him. So we can't really say that's the real meaning.

Yeah. Could it be that this is talking about the order that we come out of him? How does that work being his flesh and his bones?

How do we come out of him spiritually, physically? It's a good, good question to ponder. I'm thinking, I'm thinking it through. Yeah. There's so much.

This is not great radio because I'm sitting here trying to mull it over. It's like one of those where you start to start to peel it back, start to start to really think it's not a big deal, but you start to dive into a little bit and you're like, this is a lot deeper than I thought it was. Yeah. It's like a diver that goes swimming on the surface of the ocean. He, I mean, he's just swimming.

Obviously he can't touch the bottom, but he, he's just swimming and then he dives down and the further he goes, the further he realizes, wow, this is really a lot deeper than I thought it was. Yeah. And there's so many riches down here. Yeah. Be careful what we say, because if we say, oh, just, um, this is in some, some, some spiritual way. Of course it is. But what exactly does that mean?

Because we don't want to end up in some Gnostic heresy either. Right. Right. So, so how do we do that?

Maybe we need another show on this. Yeah. I was going to say, maybe we can, maybe we can pick this up tomorrow, but do you want to give just a brief glimpse of the application that we're actually driving towards?

Our connection with Christ and our connection with one another. Amen. Yeah. Let's dig into this a little bit more. Let's pick it up tomorrow. Absolutely.

Let's dive a little bit deeper. If you guys enjoyed today's episode, if you learned something about marriage and about your relationship with Christ today, text in and let us know two five two five eight two five zero two eight. Or you can visit us online at clearveetodayshow.com. You can partner with us financially on that same website. Every gift that you give goes not only to building up this radio show, but to countless other ministries. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow.