Tuesday, March 12th | Brotherly Love

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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, write in and let us know, 252-582-5028. Or you can email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com. That's right, and you guys can help us keep the conversation going by supporting the show. And you can do that by sharing it online. Leave us a good review on iTunes or Spotify, anywhere you get your podcasting content from. We're going to leave a link in the description so you can do just that. And this Date the Word is coming to you on March 12th, which means we're in 1 Thessalonians 3-12.

You see how that works? 3-12, March the 12th. It says, May the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all just as we do to you.

I love the back-to-back. If you listened to yesterday's episode, we talked about another verse that talked about love. Today's Date the Word is about love, which means that somebody out there needs to hear that they need to love your brothers and sisters in Christ. And really, love, we have misconceptions about what love is, what love looks like, because the world, I think you said it yesterday, Jon, the world will present something and call it love, but it really is just a cheap imitation of what love truly is. Love is best displayed through the cross, through Christ laying his life down for us. Now, we're not telling you you have to go lay down your life for somebody, but in a spiritual sense, you do. You lay down your life, you put yourself last, and you allow others to be loved on through you. You allow them to be taken care of through your actions. The world's love is very passive.

It's very passive. Listen, whatever life choices you make, they're yours to make, and I accept you. Even if you're going to destroy yourself. And, you know, the love of Christ is not that way, and so that's why a lot of times true brotherly love from Christians involves confrontation and involves accountability, and that's not pleasant. And so it gets labeled as unloving. But the more time you spend with God, the more time you spend around your Christian brothers and sisters, you do start to see through that thin veneer, that veil of what the world calls love.

That is a great point. Love is not the same thing as acceptance. No, not at all.

Or tolerance, or passivity. No, no, no, no. Just want to remind you guys, this episode is indeed brought to you in part by the Date the Word app.

You can download it for free right now on iPhone or Android. That's where all these verses are coming from. Every single day connects today's date to God's Word with the hope of making it more memorable for you. Speaking of keeping our Christian brothers accountable, it's Tuesday.

It is Tuesday. And you know what that means. I know what it means. It's time for the gripe vine. Welcome to the gripe vine.

What are we griping about today? This is your gripe. It is my gripe. This is your gripe. Shall I share my gripe? Share your gripe, because we're going to be holding some Christian brothers accountable today on the gripe vine.

Oh, boy. Specifically staff members here at Clearview Church. Buckle in, because here we go. One of the things that we pride ourselves on and we do very well as a team is utilizing and leveraging technology. Sure. That is a core value of ours. That's one thing that we strive toward is being on the cutting edge, sometimes even the bleeding edge, of technology and being able to implement it in creative ways to communicate the gospel. That's right. Sometimes in order to do that, you need adapters.

You need things that will convert one power source, one input source to another type so that you can run things, you can move things around, you can utilize things to the best of your ability. That's right. I utilize technology every Sunday morning as I am teaching the Sunday school class for our sixth through 12th grade student ministry. Now, here's the rub and here's where the failing happens. This is what rubs you wrong. Oh, yeah. Is taking the adapter using it? And then the end. The end. And not putting it back? And then when I'm like, hey, who used my adapter?

I need to find it. Everyone's like, I've never seen it. I didn't know you had an adapter.

Here's what they hear right here. Right? Right. Right. If you have had an adapter thief in your life, you may be titled to compensation.

No, I'm just kidding. We can't offer compensation, but we can offer our condolences. Write in and let us know.

Two, five, two, five, eight, two, five, zero, two, eight, or visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com. We'll be back after this. Hey. Hey, you. Me?

No, not you. You, listening to the Clearview Today Show. You're here right now because you love Christian talk radio, and I'm 100% down for that. But what if I told you that Clearview Church also produces original music?

That's right. At Clearview, we're more than just a church. We're a vibrant family where everyone is encouraged to worship God right where they are. We wanted to make sure that your worship doesn't stop when you walk out the door on Sunday morning. Our music is more accessible than ever.

You can worship God in any situation, in the car, at home, in the gym, while cleaning your house. Wherever you are, we'll be right there with you. You can check us out on Apple Music or on Spotify, 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.

Hopefully that's going to be out sometime this coming summer. Clearview Worship on iTunes and Spotify is your 24-7 place for inspiration and worship. Follow us today and let God's message of hope, love, and faith be a guiding light in your life. Amen.

Let's hop back into the show. Welcome back 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, or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text, 252-582-5028.

That's right. And we are coming at you from the Clearview Today studio with Dr. Abaddon Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism. Dr. Shah, we do a lot of tech-related stuff around the church.

Have you ever gone to look for an adapter or an SD card reader or a flash drive or something small like a charger, and you know it's not in the place that you left it, but everybody in the church has put their word on the line that they have not touched it. Yesterday, we were looking, we were actually planning out for the month of April for Clearview Today and Dr. Shah was like, has anybody seen this mug? It's got my face on it. And I was like, well, it's got my mug on it. It's a mug with his mug.

Very nice. And I'm telling you, we had everybody looking around this church and it's just on a whim. And it just got worse because the fact we couldn't find it made it worse. Like how could this mug, now I can see a coffee mug, like a generic Clearview Church or UNC, NC State, Duke mug, you know, whatever could go missing.

Okay. It's somebody may have picked it up and said, oh, nobody's using this, but it has my face on it. How could that go missing? There's one mug like this. And everybody is saying, even me, everybody is saying, I haven't seen it.

I haven't seen it in weeks, which is, which is true. So I was like, well, maybe, maybe it's, maybe I took it because David said, did you take it home? And I was like, why would I have taken it home? I took this one home with my kids on it. Right.

Which makes sense. So I took, I just texted Ellie, hey, have you seen this mug? She said, yes, it's here at the house. I was like, how is it there at the house? And she was like, I see it.

So Nicholas said, tell me, he's going to be looking, Nicholas went to go look for it. It's got his face on it. Somebody text him. Tell him to come on back. I'll text him. I'll text him. He's, huh? Okay. He's going to come back and be like, I couldn't find it.

It's literally got his face on it. And it was just at my house and I, then I had to do the lie of shame where I was like, oh, I, I lied. I did that. I took that, but I have no memory of taking it home.

So that happens with your chargers and all that stuff. We run into this problem at our house with our kids, like who did this or who took this? Nobody. Nobody. Nobody.

So we've come to the conclusion that there is an invisible person who lives in our house named nobody who takes and moves all of these things and just likes to play hijinks on it. Blame it on nobody. Nobody did it. That's a very sibling thing to do.

Yeah. You know, that's something that brothers and sisters do. Nobody took it. Nobody.

I didn't do it. So that's our daily encouragement for the day. Dr. Shah, you want to kick the show off and leave our listeners with something they can take with them. Absolutely. Everybody needs that brother in their life.

Okay. And there is one out there for you. Maybe it's in your family or maybe things are not right in your family, but they may maybe somebody in your church family, someone who has the same faith that you do in Christ. And if you don't have one, just consider us your brothers in Christ. Amen. That's right. So we are here for you and I hope you'll be there for us.

Amen. One of the things that that you and I kind of share love of, it's not a, it's kind of a secondhand love for me, but it's my dad coming out in me is Bonanza. You know, those three brothers on Bonanza and how close those guys are. Adam, Hoss, and little Joe.

Little Joe. I remember Hoss was always my favorite. There was one where, oh my goodness, Hoss, Hoss was with this woman.

I can't remember. They're always with a woman. They're always with a woman.

He was trying to impress her. And it never works out. The woman either moves, moves, I mean leaves town or she dies. They are so unlucky with women.

Yeah. They cannot figure out. Even the dad, Ben Cartwright is unlucky. I mean, just by the end of the show, I'm sorry, you have to go. And sometimes like they, they, they leave town or they got to go somewhere or sometimes they just die.

They just die. Yeah. It's just a sad, sad reality. But nonetheless, what you see there is a, a love between brothers.

They're willing to fight for each other. That's right. And you see that. That's right. You see that throughout the show. Yeah. I mean, we have this in sisters too, but I've always wanted a brother. And then when we found out we were having another son and that Gavin was going to have a brother, I remember I was sitting on the stage in the sanctuary when we found out. And it lit my heart up. Yeah.

I just, I thanked God and I praise God because there is something special about that brotherly love. That's right. That's right. So we had our, for our kids, we have our two oldest are twins, boy and girl, and then we had two other girls. So we had one boy, three girls and thought that was the end of the lineup.

Right. And I was like, Oh, I mean, I wish he could have had a brother because I, same thing. I have a younger sister.

Just like you, John. I always wanted a brother growing up. So I was like, I really wanted that for my son, but well, you know, he's got sisters to love on. And then we found out number five was going to be a little boy and there was, man, that feeling was indescribable to know that they were going to have brothers.

I mean, that was just such a joy. That's right. That's right.

And so also in a Christian life, when we talk about the levels of growth, one of them, or the second last one is brotherly love. That's right. So let me read that passage again. And I hopefully by now, our listeners, our viewers, you probably have this passage memorized, but what better passage to memorize, right? Exactly right. But also for this very reason, giving all diligence add to your faith virtue, which is excellence, to excellence knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness, here we go, brotherly kindness. That's right.

So as we've been talking about throughout the series, they all build on each other. So the ground is the ground of salvation. So if you're not saved, you're not ready for this list. But if you are saved, then the first rung is your faith, faith in God, faithfulness to God. If you don't have faith in God, you will doubt his will for your life. If you doubt his will for your life, you won't strive to live the life of excellence.

You will just cut corners. If you don't strive to live the life of excellence, you will cut corners, which means you will live by worldly wisdom. That's right. So if you live by worldly wisdom, you will lack self-control, you'll do whatever feels good in the moment, and you'll give in to various lusts. And if you give in to various lusts, you will lack patient endurance, perseverance. You'll do whatever feels good right then and there.

That's right. And if you lack patient endurance, you will fall into temptations and trials. And if you fall into temptations and trials, how can you be godly?

Because the next level beyond this self-control is godliness and perseverance and godliness. So let's focus on brotherly kindness. The word in Greek is philadelphion.

That's the one I knew. Which means brotherly love. There are two Greek words there. Philos is love, of course, as you know, and adelphos is brother. So this is different from philanthropia, which is love for humanity. This is love in a family between brothers and sisters. Which is pretty easy, I think, for us to grasp, because of course there's the I love people. I just love people in general.

But I don't think anybody would say I have the same type of love for humanity in general as I do for my brothers and sisters. That's right. There's a difference there. There is a big difference there. So I saw a t-shirt sometime back.

It said, I smile because you're my brother, but I laugh because there's nothing you can do about it. Yeah. Nice. Walmart t-shirts. Yeah, I've seen those. I like those.

Yep. I think I got my sister a coffee mug that says something very, very close to that one time. I smile because I'm your brother.

I laugh because there's nothing you can do about it. Did you have sibling rivalry in your home growing up? Oh, a lot.

Really? Unfortunately. You and your brother are, how many years? About seven years apart. And then same with you and your sister?

Sister is about almost nine years apart. Wow. Wow. Yeah. It's a big age gap there.

A little bit longer. Yeah. Yeah. Did the age gap exacerbate the rivalry or did it dampen it a little bit or it was still pretty much fair?

Between my brother and me? Yeah. Yeah, it didn't go well.

I'm sorry. My parents did that on purpose so they could spend just more time with each of us. They were educators and I mean, our home was sort of very education minded home, very thinking people and very much up on what's happening in the world, philosophy, current events, trends.

I mean, that's how, that's how both mom and dad were both educators. So they, they really thought we would spend more time with each child, so let's split them up. But I think doing that, I don't think was a good idea. Really?

I don't think so. And I think they later on realized it was not a good idea. Something that felt like a good idea in the moment, but then had consequences or implications to that.

Unforeseen results. Yeah. But if you think about it, it's a great idea, right? Because the father is like the only child and you get, give them full attention and you love on them and you show them and teach them and spend time with them. But then when it comes to the sibling part of things, the relationship is different. Yeah, you can't do that. Because I can't imagine Holden being born and Gavin being seven years old. Right. That's, that's so difficult.

He, Gavin, he was born when Gavin was like two. Now there are a lot of families that do have that. Right. And in our case, the third one, which is my sister, came nine to 10 years later.

So now think about that. Between my brother and my sister is what, 17 years. True. That's a big gap.

And how do you relate, how do you have that special connection with someone 17 years, you're elder? It's very hard to do. Yeah. I know some people who have that big gap in their families and it's tough. They, they, they've often shared with me that, you know, I don't know them. Yeah.

They were almost like uncles to me or aunts to me because they were not my level. And I mean, here I'm playing with dolls or little trucks and they're going to work. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

You, you just get to the point where you're aware of the world around you and they're graduated, going to college, going to work, living adult life. I mean, it's hard to, hard to have that sibling bond when there's such a discrepancy in age. Yeah. That helps.

So I don't know what's the best solution. I guess closer I would say would be better to be honest with you. Closer is better. That's what Ellie and I thought. And I know you guys thought that as well because I want them to be close, you know, like your kids are close.

Your kids are pretty close in age. But even there, it doesn't mean always that it'll be the best because then there is a lot of rivalry. There's a lot of fighting. True.

Yeah. There's a lot of arguing. There's a lot of fighting. I mean, we, we have in our family and with our kids, we've never had one kid at home. We started with two.

That's true. So there's always, there's always been that kind of rivalry pre-programmed in. Now they, they love each other and they get along and they're, and they're sweet to one another, but there is that element of like, we're fighting for resources. We're fighting for mom and dad's time. We're fighting for control over the TV. We're fighting for, you know, whatever. If you could remove sinfulness from humanity, from human beings, maybe a different world. Yeah.

It'd be a different story altogether. Yeah. I mean, admittedly the first murder was between two brothers. Sorry.

We're not laughing because of the murder folks laughing because it's just, it's just a sad reality is it is the first, I mean, the first murder was in the context of, it was not like some caveman came down from the Hills and killed your family. Yeah. It's because you wanted the blessing that your brother had. Yeah. Rivalry. Yeah.

Crazy. What was the struggle between you and your brother? Were you more the, were you more the like cool-headed I guess we're like, who was the instigator between you and your brother?

I was the instigator. Really? Not necessarily all the time, but I did, I did aggravate him and then get behind my mom and dad. That sounds like my sister. Yeah. That sounds familiar.

Yeah. I would aggravate him, get behind him and he'd say, I'll kill you one day. Like, Oh, okay.

There is something that I've seen in your brother, which is that fierce, I've only met him once, but the stories that you've told about your brother and the fierce protectiveness and the loyalty that he had over you and then eventually your sister is something that I did really grow to respect and I've seen that more and more like as my kids are starting to develop like Gavin, it's all on a completely different level, but sometimes I'll be messing around with Gavin. I'm like, Hey, I'm going to put Holden in the trash truck and he's like, no, that's my brother. You can't do that. Like I would think he'd be like, yeah, go ahead. As long as it's not me. I'm like, Hey, I'm going to put Holden in timeout and he's like, don't, that's my baby brother.

You can't do that. He didn't do anything wrong. And like he gets, he'll, he'll be like, Hey, he did everything, put him, put him in the trash truck. But that, that instinctual protectiveness that God has given brothers and sisters, that's something. Yeah. I agree. Yeah.

Well, he was like that towards me and it became very evident one time when I was in school, this is a, I want to say elementary school and my brother had already graduated because we went to the same Catholic school and he had already graduated, so he would come to pick me up. The way the schools are set up there, at least this school was that high school and part of middle school was in the morning and then elementary school was in the afternoon. So from seven till about one, the high school, middle school would go to school.

That sounds like a good setup. I like that. And one o'clock till about five was, or five 30 was when elementary school came in.

So the kids could sleep in and come in and by that time, the high school would be getting out. Yeah. I like that.

That's interesting. So with the kids, which I guess was, was your family, your brother being older, how did that work with him getting out of school and you going to school? Well, many times my mom would, not my mom, my grandmother would get me to school or my dad would get me to school when I was in elementary school because my mom was already a principal, so she was not there to get me ready for school and all that cause she was on her way out too. I remember that.

Yeah. But my dad would get me to school in those early days or my grandmother would get me to school. And your brother would pick you up? Brother would pick me up. Now, initially, like the first couple of years in elementary school, we would get off at the same, wait, wait, I mean, he, let me back up for a moment. He would, he was in school, so he would come pick me up, but he would be there to see me coming into school, but he would not necessarily bring me to school. But then he graduated and it was simply, he would come to pick me up.

From home? Yeah. Okay. He was not in school.

Right. And so I remember this one time he came to pick me up and this was a bad day for me. Typically, my days of school were wonderful. I was a good student.

I was a leader, never got in trouble. But everybody has those bad days. It was my bad day.

I don't know what I did. I can't remember now. And this one kid who was a tattle tale, he came looking for my parents, but he saw my brother. Recess Randall is what we call those. Yeah. Recess, always snitching to Miss Foster or whatever.

Yeah. And he came and he said, Uncle Fred, Uncle Fred, let me tell you what Abaddon did today. And I was like, ah, golly, how did you find my brother? And so sure enough, he came and my brother was like, oh yeah, come tell me over here. Let's go around the corner over here.

Tell me what's going on. And so we went around the corner and he started telling him and the moment he started, I had my head down. I was just looking away.

Just kind of eyes on the ground. Yeah. Yeah. He used this against me. And all I hear is this slap.

Wham. Yeah. And I look up and I see this kid completely like disheveled and my brother with his finger in that guy's kid's face, don't you ever talk about my brother again. That's the type of brother you want, man.

Yeah. Didn't you ever tell my brother? And I was like, wow. And now my brother did not like give me a hug or give me a fist bump for a high five or say, oh, I got your back.

Nothing. He just walked off. He just understood.

Yeah. It was like, okay, all right. I guess I rode with him back home. But we didn't talk about it until years later, what had happened. And I was like, okay, when I need him, he was there. Yeah. Now we still fought and we still didn't get along, but that at least proved that there was some something called brotherly love that was more than just something that was made to do. It was just instinctive. You know what I mean?

I do. And I think I've not only did that leave an impact in you, but I think it's left an impact in your kids as well because I've heard you say the same thing. Now, when I first started coming here, I think Nicholas was like nine, 10 years old and Thomas was maybe six or seven. My point in saying that is I've seen these kids grow up and I've heard you time and time again tell them that like, take care of your brother, protect your brother. And it's good because there's a lot of fathers and there's a lot of parents out there that I think don't talk to their kids that way, that you need to fight for your siblings. You can't side against them.

And I know it's tough because I know listening right now, there are people, men and women, who don't have a good relationship with their siblings for whatever reason. Things have happened. Things were said. Things were done. Some ugly things happened. Some sinful things happened.

I mean, who knows? We live in a fallen, sinful, devilish world. So you can't do that. My heart goes out to you and I'm sorry, but I hope in your heart, at least, even if you cannot let that person back into your life, at least in your heart, you can forgive them and pray for them and maybe even pray that they'll come to know Christ if they're lost. Because that's the most important thing because when we get on the other side, when sin is done away with, don't you want your siblings there? Don't you want them to be there and know, wow, after all I did by God's grace through Jesus Christ, I'm here.

Man, that'll be worth it. Even if in this life there are a lot of bad memories and horrible things. And this is the kind of kindness, kind of affection, love that Peter is talking about here. Not just kindness, not just in a general sentence, but brotherly kindness as it pertains to the church. That's right.

That's right. And in the Bible, it talks about this on the New Testament. There are many references. I want to read for us a few of them if that's okay. Maybe y'all can help me with them. The first one is Romans chapter 12 and verse 10. It says, be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love in honor, giving preference to one another.

Again, the word is Philadelphia. Give preference to one another. Yeah, you give preference to one another and just being affectionate to one another.

Look out for each other. And I think that's one of the things that is missing in our culture today because everything's so prickly. Everything is so snide and clever and witty and I see this a lot in a lot of the shows that I watch. I've stopped watching a lot of the sitcoms and a lot of the TV shows that I used to watch because everything, especially, well, I won't name any particularly, but if you watch any sitcom today, it's all about being witty and insulting and snide and clever and sarcastic.

And I think over time it shaped me into a person who was funny, but kind of harsh and kind of rude. Well, there were many shows that we've told our kids, hey, that one's off limits now. Because of the sibling dynamics on those shows, it was very much that snide, sarcastic, I'm going to pick on you, I'm going to throw you under the bus, I'm going to make you feel bad because that's the sibling rivalry that we're pre-programmed to look for. And we were like, hey, we don't want you speaking to your siblings that way. Yeah, and that affection in those shows only comes in in really, really, really special moments rather than this is the norm.

That's kind of what we were talking about Bonanza earlier. You see that affection that those brothers have as being the norm, you know, that's normal. And I know it's hard because, like I said, the sinful, selfish, demonic world, it's hard to have that.

So realistically, probably you have a bad relationship. But at least try, at least do your best to promote, to give preference to one another. Here's another one. First Thessalonians 4, 9. It says, but concerning brotherly love, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. Amen. I want that kind of praise from Paul. Yeah, he'd been taught by God.

That's right. So show that brotherly love. Hebrews 13, one says, let brotherly love continue. Again.

So it's assumed that it's happening. Let's keep fanning the flame of this kinship in the church family. So important for us to think about the church family that we have as our brothers and sisters in Christ. And like Dr. Shaw said at the beginning, if you don't have those people that you can look to as your brothers and sisters in Christ, man, we consider you our brothers and sisters in Christ. And when we tell you write in and let us know how we can pray for you, we really do mean that. Write in and send us your prayer request. We like to hear from our family. Yeah. We want to hear how we can minister to you, how we can pray alongside you with what God is doing in your life.

That's right. Today was helpful for you. Write in and let us know. Call us at 858-25028, you can visit us online at cleerviewtodayshow.com. Don't forget, you can partner with us financially on that same website, scroll to the bottom, click that donate button and let us know that it is coming from our Clearview Today Show family. I also want you to visit mightymuscadine.com, they're the sponsors for today's episode.

Check out their line of products and use the promo code today when you check out, T-O-D-A-Y. It's going to get you a discount and a portion of that purchase comes right back here to your Clearview Today Show family. Jon, what's coming up tomorrow? We are arriving at the very last rung on the ladder, the destination of our Christian journey.

And you know what's crazy? It's the one that every Christian tries to start with. We're talking about love.

Everybody, as soon as we get saved, we're like, all right, now I got to love harder. This is the destination. This is where God has been bringing us with all these things we've been talking about. We're going to talk about that a little bit tomorrow. And the steps that we've taken to get there are important. That's how you reach that destination. So if you haven't done so yet, make sure you download on Apple Podcasts or Spotify your podcasting platform. Go back and listen to those other rungs of the ladder because it's going to help you out tomorrow. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clearly Today.