Monday, March 11th | The Eusebeia Lifestyle

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A healthier, happier you is just a click away. With that said, let's start the show. Welcome to Clearview today with Dr. Abbadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. You can find more information about our show on our website, ClearviewTodayShow.com. Or if you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, or if you want to write in and say hi, we'd love to hear from you.

252-582-5028, or you can send us an email at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com. You guys can help us keep the conversation going by supporting the show. You can share it online with your friends and family. 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 is March the 11th, which means that our Date the Word... Congratulations, March the 11th. Our Date the Word is coming from 1 John 3-11. For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

Dispensationalists beware. That's what they're saying, man, is that from the very beginning we should love one another. That's really the heart of the gospel. It's, For God so loved the world... Wow, can you believe something like that?

I'm going to power through. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, if it wasn't for that love, that godly love that He had, not only for creation but for us, for sinners, for His enemies, then we wouldn't be able to love one another because real, true, godly love comes from God. I've heard Dr. Shaw say it this way, but we have an opportunity in every interaction that we have to be a conduit of God's love into the world.

That's right. So, examine your words. Examine the tone behind your words. Examine your actions. When people walk away from an interaction with you, do they feel the love of God? That's right.

Or do they feel something else? And oftentimes what the world will give you as love is not actually love. And you always have that check in your spirit. You know, when you have to check and you have to clarify and you have to bargain, then you know that this is not coming from God's Word. I just want to remind you guys this episode is brought to you in part by the Date the Word app.

You can download it for free right now on iPhone and Android. Every single day connects today's date to God's Word with the hope of making it more memorable for you. We talked about love in the Date the Word today. I'll tell you something that I don't love.

What's that? My kids growing up. So I was actually going to talk to you yesterday because I saw your kids with my kids, and your youngest is friends with my oldest. And so the age difference doesn't look so grand. Then I see your oldest partly with my youngest holding, and it's like the Grand Canyon.

It's such a drastic difference. Why are they growing? So I don't know what it is, man, especially my oldest two. So my oldest two are twins, and they are 11. They are ending their sixth grade year. They're going into seventh grade? They're going into seventh grade. That's the hardest time of their life.

I'm not going to lie to you. They're going to be 12 this summer. 12 years old. That's rough. 12 years old. Last year before they become official teenagers. One of the hardest things. So you talked about my youngest being friends with your oldest.

You're right. One of the hardest things for me was after our youngest hit two. So all of our kids are pretty much two years apart or less.

Some of them are a year and some change. Two of them are just a minute apart. So after our youngest reached two, it was that point where another baby would be born in our family. And we knew that we were done after five, but we kind of felt that tug like, oh, this would be the time where we would have another baby, but we're not going to have another baby. So it was almost like mourning that chapter of our life.

And then not, I mean, it was maybe a couple days, maybe a week after Elizabeth and I had that conversation that we found out you guys were having a baby. Really? That quick? Yeah. It was that fast. Wow. I didn't know that.

It was that fast because we found out you guys, we found out Ellie was pregnant and then Gavin was born. I was like, perfect. Fantastic.

I would call nonsense though. I think you could have another. I think you could have another. Six kids. You need six kids. The sound guide at our church has seven kids.

And I love that for him. I'm just saying that it's not impossible because you and Elizabeth are like, no, not going to happen. It's impossible, but there's evidence that it's possible. It is not going to be possible in the Hill household. Parents, write in or grandparents or people who have kids in your life, write in and let us know what your experience has been with your kids growing up.

And if you have any tips on softening the blow for the dads sitting over here, we would greatly appreciate that. Write in and let us know. Write in and let us know. Or you can visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com. We'll be right back.

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Anywhere digital music is consumed. We've got a few singles out right now. We have an EP out as well. And right now, at this moment actually, we are working on our first ever full-length original album.

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Let's hop back into the show. Welcome back to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart from 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 at 252-582-5028. All right.

We are here in the Clearview Today studio with Dr. Abbadon Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism. Dr. Shah, we were talking about kids earlier and how you just, each of us are kind of in those different stages of life and parenting. And you still got two kids at the home, two kids married, two kids still at the house, but sort of on the groan side, I would say, most of the time. They're groany.

They're kind of groany, yeah. Some days it's sort of sad when you think about how they were just young and we could go places, do things and all that. And then on the other side, you also are happy because they have their own life. They are doing what we planned and hope they would do one day is build their own lives. And the girls are married, of course, two wonderful guys.

And we're happy for them and we're praying that God will continue to bless them and use them. So in a sense, it's sad because time moves on. But in a sense, it's what you want. At the same time, I do want to say this for the benefit of some listeners because they want the same thing as well, but they can't because of circumstances or because of life decisions or job or whatever it is that their families are scattered. And this cannot happen. I just want people to know that that is not the ultimate goal. Because sometimes we have this idea that a heaven or this utopia is where our family is right there, nuzzled up to us, all together, having a great time with the kids and the grandkids and the cousins and the nieces and nephews, the white fence and the green grass, all that. And I just want to tell you that, OK, if you can, great.

But if it doesn't happen that way, that's fine. When you look in the Bible, most of God's people did not have that life. That's true. There's a lot of going. There's a lot of leaving your home.

For long, long periods of time. I mean, think about Abraham and Sarah and their son Isaac, right? And of course, Ishmael through Hagar, and he had to go away. Then you go down to Isaac and Rebekah, had Jacob and Esau, and the brothers fell out. And they had to go away. And then Jacob was swindled by his own uncle, father in law, and couldn't come back home for 14 years. And then if you go down further to Jacob's family, think about when was their family reunion. Rachel died before she could even have the family reunion.

And then when they did have it, it was after years of bitterness and pain. So just want people to know, yes, it'd be wonderful to have everybody together and just, hey, even name that lane after your last name. This is the Hill Court or Galantis Lane.

That one doesn't ring well. Or the Shaw Road or whatever it is. Shaw cul-de-sac.

There you go. I can't stand cul-de-sac. Anyway, not cul-de-sac. What do you call those roundabouts?

Roundabouts. Those just don't do for me. Same. But could it be that God has something different for you? True, yeah. And I love that you bring that out with sort of like the central family in the beginning of the Old Testament. Like this star family that God is working through, Abraham and his descendants. They're the ones who had dysfunction in the family. They're the ones who had family who went out and went away. And there was bitterness and there was hurt and there was— Skeletons in the closet.

—falling out and people brought back together. After years, it's God's people being relatable. It's us understanding, you know, we are not the only ones who experience this.

Sometimes the biggest trick is that you think you're the only one going through what you're going through. But people across history have experienced this, including God's own chosen people. Right, right. And our ultimate utopia or this sense of, ah, so much peace and comfort here should be God, not even family. That's true.

So what would you say as we're pursuing that godliness, what would you say your main encouragement for today is to leave our listeners with as we dive into the show? If you can make one godly decision every day, that to me would be the biggest thing. That's true. That's true.

That's growth. Yeah, one godly decision. I like that. Sometimes we think about godliness as like this sort of ethereal concept that we need to be striving toward. I need to be more godly.

Okay, what does that mean? I mean, you need to be clean. Because cleanliness is next to godliness.

Cleanliness is next to godliness. Not in the Bible, by the way. You know what's funny? I was a grown man before I'd realized that. Really?

I'm ashamed to say it, but I was like in my late 20s. There's like a list of statements that we grew up with here in the Bible belt. The book of Hezekiah.

Yeah, the book of Second Opinions. We grew up with these statements and we believe that they're in the Bible, but they're not really. It was way later that I found out that's not scripture.

That's right. Still important. Let's dig into this concept of godliness today. What does godliness mean and how do we strive for that one godly decision every day? And we're still talking about 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 5, where we're learning how to grow in the Christian walk. We're learning how to keep track of our growth.

And thank goodness God has given to us the tracking, I guess, the steps on the ladder. And 2 Peter 1.5 says, but also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith, excellence. First use the word, but the word means excellence. So to faith, faith in God, faithfulness to God, faithfulness towards God, faithfulness to other people.

Add to that excellence and everything be excellent. To excellence, knowledge, which means wisdom and discernment. Means don't just go along with what you're told to do. Have a sense of wisdom, discernment. To wisdom and discernment, add self-control.

Nowhere to draw the line or be under control. To self-control, perseverance. And to perseverance, godliness. Right.

And it's important to say that if today is your first time ever listening to the Clearview Today show, or if you're just listening to this on the radio and you just happen to land here, you really have to download the show on iTunes or Spotify and go back and listen to these. Because like Dr. Shah is saying, this ladder, it's not like we can jump straight to godliness. You have to have that faith first and foremost, but then that excellence and that knowledge. You have to build all these on one another.

The Greek word is ceritus. Yeah, they're sequential. They build on one another. I remember us talking about that. Again, this is from a sermon series that Dr. Shah preached here at our church, Clearview Church. So if you're interested in a more full manuscript of those messages, you can always find that on Dr. Shah's blog, abidanshah.com.

You can also find the sermons on our website, clearviewbc.org. Can we say, I don't know if it's too early, if it's too early, we'll take it out, but can we say that this is going to be a book in the near future? Yeah, we can.

We're working on it. And I haven't found a good book that deals with these Christian virtues or this ladder. And again, please don't misunderstand, this ladder is not leading to salvation. This ladder is standing on the ground of salvation. We're not telling you to, you know, somehow we need to work for your salvation far from that. We're simply understanding this passage in second Peter chapter one in its proper context, which is if you are a Christian, then you should be growing. And where should you be growing?

In these nine areas. Right. This doesn't lead to salvation. This is dependent on your salvation. That's right.

That's right. So that's, that's why all of these things come in where we talked about faith and we talked about excellence and knowledge and self-control and perseverance and godliness. And today we're going to talk about godliness. And the Greek word for that is eusebeia. Eusebeia can mean devoutness. Eusebeia can also mean piety. And it also has the idea of the fear of God.

Like a reverence for God. Found about 15 times in the New Testament. And Paul used it a bunch of times, eight times in first Timothy and four times right here in second Peter.

Wow. So this is, so this is a word that Paul is very familiar with. And this is one of the things that I think being a Greek scholar sort of, it sort of helps with because a lot of these words mean exactly what we think they mean, but some of them don't. You know, some of them, like if I think godliness, I wouldn't necessarily think reverence or fear of God. I would think like I'm upstanding and I'm righteous, but it's really that fear of God. That's right.

Yeah, that's right. Give you some examples. Let's look at a couple of these references. The first one is from first Peter chapter, first Timothy chapter four verse seven, where it says, but reject profane and old wives fables and exercise. The Greek word is gumnadzo, that's where we get our word gym. Gumnadzo, yourself toward godliness, eusebeia. For bodily exercise, which is somatike gumnasia, bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness, which is eusebeia, is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. There is that hands-on sort of application, whereas when you exercise bodily, you do get some benefits, so also when you exercise godliness. Right, I mean, you're not going to sit at home and watch TV and eat junk and expect to have, like, you know, really like Arnold Schwarzenegger muscles. You're not going to get yoked that way. No, you got to work out.

Right. Have you guys seen those, I don't think they're super popular anymore, they may still be out there, with these electrode things that you hook up to your abs and it's supposed to contract the muscles so that you just sit there and then it develops a six-pack for you. I tried them. I'm like, I don't, really?

I tried them. I mean, as a dare, not like to actually, not to actually, like, punch a bunch. So what did it do? It hurt. I mean, it just shocked me.

Now, we used them to, like, they cranked it up to 11. Like, come on, dude, try it, it'll give you a six-pack, and then they did it. I mean, it's just a muscle stimulator, it just contracts your muscles, it hurts.

So does it work? No. I mean, it does what it says it does, which is shock you and contract your muscles, but it doesn't build muscle. So the contraction doesn't make the muscles stronger? Uh, not really, not like that. It's, I think it would really, you would really have to contract, like, the fire out of them. I don't think it works that way. Now, we tried as a joke to, like, shock each other, but, uh, no, I don't think that, I don't think that just because they contract, they're necessarily, you have to tear the muscles, I think, that's when you work out. Yeah.

It's that time-tested principle, there are no shortcuts. Yes. That's right.

If you want to look good, if you want to have that confidence in your physical appearance, if you want to build muscle and burn fat, you gotta go to the gym. That's right. Same also with your godliness. Because I've even fallen into the trap of thinking that godliness is just gonna happen.

The older I get as a Christian, I'll just become more godly, because I am a Christian longer, I guess. Yeah. Right. Godliness also demands fleeing from the world. True.

Just like you want to have six packs, or you want to have a good muscular body, you gotta stop eating junk. That's right. You gotta flee from the dessert table. Exactly.

Very nice. I mean, once in a while having a muffin, right, Ryan? Because I had a piece of muffin. I had a muffin.

I like the clarification. I had a piece of muffin. If I'm being dead serious with you, it was a muffin.

It was a piece or a whole muffin. And it's not like you cannot have carbs. You just have to have low carbs. That's right. That's right. The key is low carbs, not no carbs. Right.

That's pretty good. And then put in the work to burn it off. Yes. Yeah, because I fell into the trap, even here like in the last year or so, thinking that what I do is way more important than what I don't do. But what I am doing over here eating all this junk is undoing all the stuff that I'm actually doing in the gym. That's right.

Yeah. Now, 1 Timothy 6, verse 6 says, now godliness with contentment is great gain. Verse 10.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierce themselves through with many sorrows. Now, verse 11 is what I'm trying to drive at here. But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. So you have to flee those worldly things and pursue these things.

One of them is you, sebeia. That's right. Godliness.

That's right. And I think it's great here, because this is one of the things that I think so many Christians misinterpret, where it says the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. It's easy to be like, but you guys ask for money every single episode. You're constantly asking people to donate to your show.

And it's because we don't love that money. We love the opportunity that it opens up, the impact it allows us to make. We can do more for the kingdom of God when you guys are, and a lot of you guys that do give to the show are extremely generous and you say, hey, it's really, really great what you guys are doing.

I believe in the mission. We thank you for that. And the reason that that's in there in every episode is not just so that we can receive money. It's so that you have an opportunity to give. By doing that, we're creating an opportunity for you to grow in your relationship with God and your spiritual development, in that act of sacrificial giving, being a part of what God is doing.

That's why we phrase it that way. Be a part of what God is doing through the Clear Read Today show, not just send us money. Right, because Dr. Shaw's heart behind the show is to help you grow in that godliness. It helps me. I'm on the show and it helps me grow in godliness every single day. The things that we talk about, we don't just say, cut the mics and say, all right, good show, guys. See you tomorrow. You know, we think about these things.

I go home and I listen to them and I say, man, I didn't catch that while we were recording, but that's a great point. And those who are giving thank you because you're partnering with us in building God's kingdom. Now, moving along in this Eusebeia references, one of them is also in Second Peter chapter two, where Peter gives us two examples of a Eusebeia life, of a godly life.

So let me read that. The first one is in Second Peter chapter two, verse four, it says, for if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved for judgment and did not spare the ancient world, but save Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly. This is Eusebeia. And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly, which is Eusebeia. And delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked for that righteous man, Eusebeia, righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds. Then the Lord knows how to deliver the Eusebeia, the godly, out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment. So those are a couple of examples of a Eusebeia life. Right. Even though you're living among the ungodly, even though you're living among an ungodly and fallen world, you can still have that godly life and God in his wisdom is, I guess that's a promise of deliverance or a promise of preservation, I suppose.

Which should encourage us as believers. I feel like a lot of times people default to the rhetoric of, well, you don't know what I have to put up with. You don't know the world around me. You don't know my context at work. No, but God does and he wouldn't have put you there if he didn't have a plan for you to be there.

Yeah. And it's also, I guess it's also like looking forward, not forward, like I'm excited about it, but just looking and seeing that coming judgment that's on the horizon. That is a very important theme in second Peter, by the way, you know, why should you work on your salvation?

Why should you try to climb this ladder? It's because there's a judgment coming. If there was no judgment, if there was no finish line, if there was no trophy, there was no evaluation, then you're saved, going to heaven, live like you want to. But since there is a judgment, what you do after salvation counts.

Do you think a lot of people think that Christians are exempt from that final judgment? Yes. And I get what they're saying. They're talking about the heaven and hell judgment. I get it.

Okay. That is settled in this life, whether or not you're going to be in heaven. We don't have to stay in limbo until we get before the judgment seat of God.

And that's when God says, all right, you ready for the good news? You're going to heaven. Woo hoo. Yay.

Thank you. After all these years of living in this world and then dying and staying in the grave and absent from the body, present with the Lord. And then those thousand years of earthly rule of God, you know, all that.

Now I finally figured out I am going to heaven. Right. Thank goodness. I've been sweating that for a couple thousand years.

A couple thousand years, finally. No, that's settled here. But how you live for God, that's a different judgment. Right. That's about godliness.

Right. Another example here is, or not example, really an impetus to live the godly life is a second Peter three 10, but the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise and the elements will melt with the fervent heat. Both the earth and the works that are, that are in it will be burned up. Therefore, since all these things will be resolved, what manner of persons are you to be in holy conduct and what's the word godliness, knowing that there's a judgment coming, how should you be, it should be godly. It makes me look out at the state of the world as it is right now and wonder how we got here, because it's one of the fundamental truths I think of American life is that we are founded on this per at least pursuit of godliness. You know what I mean?

This desire to be closer to God and found our nation and our, our, our world view on this. And yet you look out now and you see almost the furthest thing from it. Right. Yeah.

Right. And it just kind of makes me wonder how exactly we got here. Was it, was it really gradual? Did it erode away to where we couldn't even recognize it? Did we just seed ground too many times?

You know what I mean? Every generation had its waxing and waning, so to speak. Every generation, they began to lose the fire.

Every generation began to slide into ungodliness. In fact, if you go back in the history of the United States, just in a hundred years of arriving in the new world, things were already going downhill. And I'm talking about the first part of the 18th century. I'm talking about the 1700s, the early 1700s.

When I think about the pre-revolutionary era, when I think about the colonies, I think about Williamsburg, Virginia. Ever been there? Yeah. Yeah. You know, like nice broad cobblestone streets, someone's churning butter outside and all that stuff. You wouldn't walk out at nine o'clock at night, you may get slapped around and may get robbed.

Someone breaks a bottle and just cuts you with a cough. Yeah. I mean, would you think like that? No. Because colonial Williamsburg is like just beautiful colonial house on the prairie style.

It's an apple cider anywhere. Yeah. Crickets chirping. We're just sitting on the porch. I just wanted to make a horseshoe with my son. Get a little bag of popcorn.

Give me your money. Yeah. I mugged in colonial Williamsburg. I mean, that's exactly what was happening. It wasn't happening necessarily there. This was happening in Northampton, Massachusetts, but that was the situation in the colonies.

And so members of this one small church began praying for their neighbors. This is 1734. French Indian War hasn't happened yet. Wow. Oh, yeah. The revolution is not even on the horizon yet. Not yet.

You still are what, 50 years away? Yeah. And the pastor of the church, Jonathan Edwards, he wrote that the Spirit of God began extraordinarily to set in, and a great and earnest concern about the great things of religion brought more than 300 souls to Christ.

Now, keep in mind, Northampton had only 1,100 people. So that's a fair bit of people. Yeah. One third of the population got saved. That's incredible.

Wow. And a movement was born all over New England and the surrounding colonies. In fact, it was also spreading in Europe.

In England, it was called the Wesleyan Revival, in Germany, Pietism. And somehow, because few people are willing to stand for godliness, the colonies were saved. So anyways, I mean, this is the result of godliness, and what we need in our nation is godliness. I was just about to say that, like, if this has struck a chord with you, if you recognize similar deficits in our nation today, then just know that the stage is set for revival. The stage is set for God to move in an amazing way. Are you praying that way?

Right. Because it does us nothing to sit here and just recount how great things were. In fact, just like Dr. Shaw said, it was quite the opposite.

Things were really, really going downhill. And yet, Christians desired godliness, and they prayed, and God gave it to them. So our hope is that, listening to the show, that I would start to desire godliness more. And in time, we've seen that God is moving here in our church, in this little small corner of North Carolina, things that we'll be talking about in the future, really, really, really huge things are happening. And God is setting, just like Ryan said, God is setting the stage for something big. And that's our prayer for our churches, that from here, God would change this entire nation. Amen.

That's right. If you guys enjoyed today's episode, if it was informative for you, write in and let us know, 252-582-5028. You can visit us online at cleerviewtodayshow.com.

Like we said earlier, you can partner with us financially on that same website. Be a part of our Clear View Today show, family, as we together impact the nations with the gospel. Also, I want to encourage you to visit mightymuscadine.com, the sponsors for today's show.

Check out their products. Use the promo code TODAY, T-O-D-A-Y, when you check out. It's going to get you a discount, and a portion of those proceeds are going to come right back here to the Clear View Today show. Jon, what's coming up tomorrow? We only got two rungs of the ladder left after you have added, what was it, perseverance? What did we just do just now? Godliness. What I was thinking about tomorrow is because we are hitting brotherly kindness, and after brotherly kindness, love.

These are two of the final ones, but they can be harder to reach than you think. So make sure you stick around. We're going to be talking about that tomorrow.

That's right. So important. Love you guys. We'll see you guys tomorrow, and we'll see you guys today. Bye.