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David, how many bottles of water do you think you drink a day? Well, actually, I only drink Flamin' Hot Mountain Dew, Strawberry Yoo-Hoo, and the occasional Pepto Bismol. Flamin' Hot Mountain Dew? Do they even make that anymore?
Fun fact, no. I have to make my own with McDonald's Sprite, and you guessed it, Texas Pete. I am genuinely horrified to hear that.
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Where's my Mountain Dew? You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abaddon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm John Galantis, and you can find us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. If you have a question for Dr. Shah, anything you'd like to write in, suggest we talk about here on the show. Any questions you want answered, send us a text at 252-582-5028. You can also email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com. You guys can help us keep the conversation moving forward by supporting the show. You can share it online with your friends and family. Leave us a good five-star review on iTunes or Spotify, anywhere you get your podcasting content from.
We're going to go ahead and leave a couple of links right there in the description, so you can do just that. Today's verse of the day is, of course, coming to us from Matthew, Matthew, excuse me on that, Matthew, chapter seven, verses seven and eight, it says, Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened.
There was a guy way back in the annals of history, I'm talking a long time ago, called Blaise Pascal, and he talked about this. He talked about this vacuum, this emptiness, this craving in every single person that we can't fill with any created thing, right? It can only be filled with the presence of God.
A lot of us have heard that. There's this God-shaped hole in all of us, and it's really true, because God made us to seek after him. He made us to find him, because without him, without God's presence in our lives, we're empty human beings. We're shells. Yeah, we have the appearance of being happy. There's people who don't have God in their lives, who have money, and they've got cars, and they've got women, and they've got all these things that the world says makes you successful. At the end of the day, even the richest and the most successful people will tell you, they still feel empty. They still feel unfulfilled.
It's because there's literally a God-shaped hole inside of them. My encouragement for you guys today is try to take a moment and just imagine the reality of this truth, the God of the universe, the one who spoke in galaxies and planets, and all these things just came into being. That God made you, and he made you to need him. He made you to desire his presence. That's the very reason that he created you. No wonder he wants you to seek him. No wonder he wants you to ask him for the things that you need.
He wants you to... He waits. He expectantly waits to welcome us into his presence, just as what was the prodigal son.
He sat, and he waited for his son to come home. God also does the exact same thing with us. In Matthew, Jesus is urging us. He says, ask, seek, knock, pursue God. Father, Son, Spirit, all of them are longing to welcome you in.
They want to bless you and bless us with what we need most, which is their presence. That's an encouragement for me today. I just wanted to share that with you guys. It's encouragement straight from the Word of God. That's encouragement that does not come up empty.
It doesn't come up vain. You can get the Word of God on your phone every single day with the Date the Word app. They're a partial sponsor of today's show. We're going to leave a couple of links right there in the description of this podcast. We're going to bring Dr. Shai in just a moment, but if you have any questions, anything that we can be talking about on the show, any suggestions for new topics, go ahead and send us a text, 2525825028, or you can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. You can also make a monetary donation at that same place. We want to thank you for doing that. A lot of donations have been made over the past couple of weeks. We've been seeing an uptick in response and in your generosity. We just want to take a second and thank you for that, because everything that you give, every dollar you give to The Clear View Today Show goes towards taking the Gospel out into the world.
I did want to just take a second and say thank you for that. We're going to grab Dr. Shai, and we'll be right back. Hey! Hey, you! Me?
No, not you. You, listening to The Clear View 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 Clear View Church also produces original music?
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Amen. Let's hop back into the show. Hey, welcome back to Clear View 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 you can always write in, text us, let us know any topics that you'd like Dr. Shah to address here on the show. Any questions about Christianity, the Bible, New Testament textual criticism, anything like that that you may have.
That number is 252-582-5028. We got a really special episode coming up on textual criticism tomorrow, but we're going to talk about that here in a little bit. For right now, Dr. Shah, welcome to the show. So good to see you. Thank you so much. I just want to say before we get going, I really appreciate all the hard work you do.
Thank you for week after week, day after day. What you guys are listening and hearing are coming from John's mind. So all the crazy stuff, I don't come up with that. Neither does Ryan come up with it.
Neither does David or Nicholas. We go along with it. Sometimes it feels like that's all you can do. So Ryan is the voice, but John is the mind behind it. Well, listen, thank you. Thank you for saying that. And then Dr. Shah makes it easy. We have a great team and we've talked about this on episodes, even here this week, but when you have good leadership, it makes it very easy to build. And I think that's something that I particularly, and I think everybody on this team is very good at.
We have a solid foundation to build on and to escalate. So I appreciate you for that. For those of you guys who are listening for the first time, Dr. Shah is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, a 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 abidanshah.com. Dr. Shah, we had a whole episode kind of laid out, but we kind of turned on the news and saw that today is day one of Alec Baldwin's trial for this thing that happened on the set of his movie, Rust. And this is something that happened a long bit ago.
If you guys haven't heard about this, Alec Baldwin, of course, is an actor who was very, very famously liberal, very anti-gun, very anti-gun rights, anti-Second Amendment. And so we were going to talk about some things out of your new book, which is 30 Days Praying for America. It's a 30-day devotional. We've been talking about it all week. But it's kind of crazy because this happened and today is the beginning of that trial. There's actually a chapter in your book regarding the Second Amendment.
So we thought maybe this was a day that we could kind of talk about that. And this debate that seems to be ongoing and everybody's pretending like there's this obvious solution, which is just get rid of guns, just like the rest of the quote unquote civilized world. Every time there is some mass shooting or some senseless violence with a firearm, immediately it is, you know, the media pundits and talk show hosts are talking about it. Politicians start weighing in on it. You know, it's about time.
And I've been in this country for now 30 years and it's like clockwork. Election year, they're going to talk about either abortion or they're going to talk about gun control, maybe some immigration, but that really doesn't benefit anybody. So it's like, let's talk about abortion or gun control. And it's for me coming from outside, it is sad that Americans have such limited and misguided understanding of this very, very important benefit that was ratified back in 1791, part of the Bill of Rights.
And to give it up so easily, so quickly without thinking through is a huge mistake. That's what you just made, because I think we were talking right out, right before the show began, but there's no, like a private citizen cannot own a gun in India. But it's safe to say that India is not crime free. Well, there are people who own a gun. My cousin, who's now, you know, he died years ago. He had a gun. He showed me his gun.
He was a revolver, looked like a Dirty Harry type, pretty massive or whatever he had. But anyways, I'm like, wow, you're not supposed to have this. He said, I know, but I have it. I said, what are you going to do with it?
Well, if anybody comes against me or my family, I'm going to use it. He was sort of a mafia type person. He didn't have like a huge following or like a big family. Like we think mafia means a crime family, and that can be.
But here it was just some shady things would go on and he was sort of connected and Barbie never could figure out what he exactly was doing in them. But he had a, he had a gun. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And so people have guns.
They're not as common, but crime will always find a way. Right. That's, that's what I was, I think that's kind of what the, the point I was driving at is that advocates for gun control say that if you get rid of guns, crime will go down. And I don't know that there's any evidence that I think about England, right today in the news came out, some guy with a crossbow going around killing people with a crossbow. So it was like, well, Daryl Dixon style, just like, what do you do now?
Kill three women. Yeah. I guess we got to ban crossbows because people can get a hold of crossbows.
It's weird. And I think with Alec Baldwin, it's, it's sort of shining a light on this idea that I've been seeing ever since the last presidential election, which is, and it's probably gone away before that, but I'm just now growing into it and becoming cognizant of it is where for some reason, giving the microphone to celebrities, not politicians, not people who actually do these policies or experts in firearms, but actors and musicians. And we're saying, how should this government be run? And if it was like people who were really thinking through the issues, educating themselves, truly understanding facts and logic and all of that, I would say, okay, all right, weigh in on it, please.
But that doesn't always happen, especially from the liberal side, especially from the leftist side. I was listening to, I was listening to a podcast years and years ago when the, when the presidential elections were going on, it was between Trump and Hillary Clinton and all these celebrities were coming out against Trump. And I was listening to a podcast that are by these two comedians. They're on the liberal side, but they're not typically a political podcast.
There's a comedy podcast. But they said, you know, one of the things that really shocked me about this is there's a whole gigantic portion of America who does not care what Beyonce thinks. And to me, that sounds like a joke, but they were really floored. They were like, you know, Kanye West, Beyonce, these are the people who give their opinions and we listen to it, but there's a whole portion of Americans who don't care what they think.
And I was like, that's a revelation to you, but it really was. I don't care what they have to say. Frankly, if they weigh in, I know exactly which side not to go, because they're not, they're not educated. Neither are they, neither do they care about the average person. They don't care about the average person.
100%. I think something that we're seeing today, and this is something that I don't know is really a discussion that is making a lot of headway right now, but there are those who say, you know, if you take guns away, we're not going to have those crimes anymore. But then there's others who say, if you take guns away, only the only bad people will have the guns. Where do we fall on something like this when we look at it from a Christian standpoint? In fact, to truly understand this issue is a very important issue and has been for the American way of life. You have to examine it from three different angles. The first is constitutional angle.
Second is the historical angle. And third, of course, is a biblical as a Christian. What does the Bible have to say?
What did Jesus have to say? So constitutionally, I would say the debate sort of centers on the Second Amendment, which states, and if I can state that, it says, a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Okay, let me read that one more time. A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. So the question is whether this amendment protects individual citizens, or are we talking about those in armed services or law enforcement? Because it does say something about a well-regulated militia.
That's a great point. You know, if I've got a gun to protect my home, but I'm not in armed services, and I'm not in law enforcement or the military, am I breaching the Second Amendment? Right.
Was that what they intended? You know, back in 2008, Supreme Court, there was a case called District of Columbia versus Heller. And in this case, the court upheld the right to possess a firearm. And they upheld this decision that it is unconnected with service with a militia. The word militia was defined to include all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense.
Concert doesn't mean like a musical concert, means they're able to work together to protect each other. This is not just about a militia from some, you know, colonial times. This is about a right that was given in our Constitution or in that time period for us to protect ourselves.
That's a great point. Our Justice Scalia, he said that self-defense was the central component of the right itself. This was revolutionary at the time that this was written. Like for us, it feels like, yeah, of course you should have the right to defend yourself, but no other world government would grant its citizens this sort of right. Right.
You have the right to defend yourself. And then again, George Mason, at the ratification of the Constitution, this is in 1788. Okay. 1788, he said to disarm the people, that was the best and most effectual way to enslave them. This is powerful. To disarm the people that was the best and most effectual way to enslave people, enslave them. I asked, sir, what is the militia? And he answers, it is the whole people. Yeah.
Because if I'm in government and I want to become tyrannical, the last thing I want is for my people who make up 99.9% of the population to be able to defend themselves against me. Exactly. Yeah. It's a great point.
Or defend themselves from outside threats. Yeah. There was an interview that was a long time ago. It was Ben Shapiro and Piers Morgan, and he was defending the Constitution. He was defending the Second Amendment. It was right after Sandy Hook. It was right after Sandy Hook happened. Which was horrible, tragic, very sad. And so Piers Morgan asked, why does the average American citizen need a gun?
Why do you need one? And he said, the Second Amendment says it's for self-defense and in case that the government ever turns tyrannical, we as the people have a... And he started laughing. He started making fun of him. Like, do you seriously believe that that can happen? Also, I would add to that, the historical perspective is also very important because Americans are not like just any other nation. I know that it kind of grates on other people's nerves when I say that. It's kind of shocking. At one time you could say that and be like, yeah, that's right.
Now it's like, what are you talking about? Especially from Americans. What makes that so special?
Like, you are special. You'll live somewhere else and you'll see that. That's right. Guns have been integral to the American way of life.
That's true. I mean, you've been to the west. They're as American as it gets. I can't think of a time where America existed and guns weren't there. There weren't some new concept that we invented in the cowboy days. That's what they fought and won our freedom with. They needed guns. I mean, even in colonial times, they needed guns during the, you know, the go west period where you were going into frontier land.
There are animals there. There are outlaws there. There are hostile tribes that are there. So you needed guns to protect yourself. Guns, if you think about it for a moment, okay, guns are the greatest equalizer.
Yeah, that's a good point. When you are outmatched or outnumbered. Like imagine a pioneer out there with his family and his children and like three grizzly bears come up and attack that wagon.
It's like, well, You're not going to make it. No, absolutely not. But guns very quickly increase your chances of survival. Yeah, they level the playing field in a great way. Even more than that. They don't just level it. They give you an advantage. Good point. Very good point. So it allowed honest, law abiding citizens to make a successful living.
And that has been the mindset for the American way of life, right? People. We're going to protect our loved ones. We're going to protect our property. We're going to stand against any kind of threats or intimidation.
We will fight back in the face of incredible odds. How do you how do you respond to people who say, you know, this is the America is the only nation who can't figure this out. This is a uniquely American problem, right? I mean, usually it's said by people who are who are born and raised here. And when problems happen, they very quickly call the police.
Yeah, exactly. And I can tell you, as someone who's born and raised here, there is definitely this sheltered naive view that you think like, okay, our victories are our victories, but our problems are only our problems. And everybody else has it figured out except for us.
And there's not that's not the case in the outside world. I mean, it's rough. It's rough where I grew up. Yeah. I mean, we lived in peace and harmony.
Our neighbors were great, but there was always that thing. If somebody ever were to attack us, what are we going to do? Yeah. I mean, we had sticks, we had knives, but I'm not I'm not like a knife thrower.
How am I going to equalize the chances if like a four or five people are coming at me? Yeah. And they all got some knives.
And I've got I've got one, too. It's like, how is that going to equalize? Right. But guns give you the ability to outmatch and outnumber the competition.
And in that situation, you want to win. Yeah, that's true. And I agree. And I agree with you in that sense. That is uniquely American.
I just don't think this is I guess what what I'm trying to say is this is not a problem that America is struggling to catch up with on the very opposite. This is what makes a America such a world superpower is this. It's not the guns, but it's the mindset that comes across with them. So if guns are outlawed, as a friend of mine once said, only outlaws keep their guns. Good point.
Good point. Can you imagine when people say, you know, we should get them all to turn them in and, you know, trust the those in charge? Do you ever think that the bad guys will ever say, oh, you know, the law's been made? Here's my gun. Here are all my sawed off shotguns. Here's my Uzis. Here's my AKs.
Yeah, here's my homemade domestic. I hate to say it because I spent so much money on these and I even got some of them illegally, but I got to turn them in. Yeah. I mean, I have a, you know, a drug, a drug ring to run around. But hey, since guns have to be turned in, I got to turn them in. I got to follow the law. No! They'll never turn that in.
Yeah, law abiding people will do it. Now they've got nothing at all. Right.
Nothing different themselves. It's crazy because we're pretending like this is normal. We're pretending like this is obvious, you know, and, and it's, it's really, I'm not even the one to say, well, it's complicated. I don't think it's complicated. I think it's a very easy cut and dry thing that the founding father set upon us and for us to be changing it.
Here's, here's my question. Why change it? Why, why introduce gun control? You know, what, what, I don't even want to say the left, but that's really what it is.
What do they gain? Control? Partly is, yeah, it is control. Partly is, it's a very naive idea of the human wickedness and sinfulness. They think if we just take away the weapons, people won't hurt each other.
Think about the guy with the crossbow. People will find a way. Go to these countries where gun control is strictly enforced and you'll find that crime is horrible, is terrible. It's, I would say worse than it's over here. I've, I've heard, I don't know if this is true.
I haven't looked it up, but I've heard that England has like very strict gun control and has the highest rate of knife violence in the entire world. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. They do. People will find a way. Yeah. Where I grew up in India, people found a way to steal, to hurt people, mob rule, mob justice.
I mean, it was horrible. Imagine a mob of people coming at you and you have nothing to fight back. That's common in India? Not, I think it's going to get more common. Growing up, depends on who you were. Like nobody will try to do that with me because you know, we're an established family. You don't do that or you're going to pay for it. But a common person.
Like in poorer sections of India? Yeah, you're done. It's over.
Nothing to outmatch or outnumber. You know, this is, this is something that I know a lot of Christians feel strongly about. And then there's people who will obviously say, well, the Bible doesn't say anything about gun control.
And even if it did, Jesus was meek and mild and he would never advocate violence against someone. Right. The common passage is Matthew 5 39, which is, but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. Right. Which means obviously don't defend yourself. Right.
Well, context, context, context. Jesus was not opposing self-defense, but vengeance. There's a difference between self-defense and vengeance. There are people with a vengeance mindset.
Maybe one day we can talk about that. Even in American life, there are people who came to America who were more of the live and let live, or don't come in here. This is our home.
You do your thing over there. Then there is the people who had a very vengeance full mindset, which is you do cross me one time. I'm going to do everything I can now take you down, take you out. And that, that mindset has never helped us.
Still not helping us and it will never help us. Think about the Hatfields and McCoys, right? Fighting over two hogs and to the point, I mean, that was, that was how it started. Yes.
That's insane. Yeah. But they took the back country, no, the, the Northern Midlands, Northern England mindset of you got to take the other person out and they brought it to the back country here. We actually had, this is, this is kind of on a little side, but we actually had a dist, a distant relative or a relative, not an answer.
What's the opposite? Descendant of the Hatfield and McCoys here at our church. That was a really great guy. He still keeps in touch. He's back in Tennessee, but he still contacts me. And he'll, he'll send a time and again, he'll send a gift card. Yeah, he does.
We've gone out and eaten because of him. Oh, that's right. Yeah. You told me that. Yeah.
He, he sent like $50 for Christmas to us and young guy, great guy, great guy. Not like his ancestors at all. Not, no vengeance mindset with him. It's like they kept on killing one another and went on and on and on and on.
And it was like, Oh my word. Yeah. But Jesus had himself no, no qualms with self-defense. Self-defense is different. Yeah.
All right. So you heard it said that it was you heard that it was said an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. So Jesus actually advised his disciples to purchase swords and defend themselves. That's right. He says that in Luke 22, 36, he has a, he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.
Now that people immediately try to soften that. Well, that's not for, this is not for you know, this is for spiritual warfare. Right? No, he was, he was for one fulfilling prophecy, but he was also saying, protect yourselves tonight. This is not your battle.
Right? Well, I also think that like, even when he tells Peter like, Hey, put your sword away. When he's trying to cut off the high priest here, like he understands that there's people who are going to misuse violence and he doesn't want his disciples to be those who misuse it. The high priest servant for capturing Jesus. Right. If they come after you, defend yourselves because they look, if all those 12 disciples, well, one was rogue. If those 11 and the followers who were with Jesus, the women, the people, if all of them had died that night, let's say Caiaphas, Annas, Herod, the Romans had gone after all of Jesus' disciples.
And as they're taking him to be crucified, if they had systematically killed all of them, what would have happened? Yeah. I mean, that's it. Yeah.
I mean, who's going to carry the gospel forward? Of course, if you pulled the God card, then it's like, well, God would have found a way. Of course. But let's just talk about in a normal sense. Right. If they had killed everybody, then it's a mess. Right.
And Jesus had a plan specifically for those people. Right. So he told Peter, don't come after me. This is not your fight.
I have to go do this. Oh, I'm coming anyways. And they will deny I'm not.
It's like, you're going to deny me three times. Right. But then he also told them, go ahead and buy some sword and be ready to protect yourselves because they're going to come after you. I need you to live. Yeah.
I don't need you to die tonight. Now, of course, there's a prophetic fulfillment too. And so when Peter attacked the high priest servant, Jesus said, put your sword in its place for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.
Right. It seems like Jesus is contradicting himself. On one hand is like, go buy a sword.
Another hand is like, hey, you can sort up. Why? Because when he attacked the high priest servant's ear, he was trying to fight for Jesus. He never said, fight for me. He was saying tonight, protect yourself, not go fighting and killing people for me. Right.
Because you need to live tomorrow. There's a there's a great quote in the in the 30 days for 30 days praying for America that I really love. I think it's a great one to end on. It says, you know, at the end of the day, only the cross has the power to change a criminal's heart. My gun is not going to change a criminal's heart. And when Christ comes back, he's going to stop crime forever. But until he comes back, a gun is just going to have to do.
That's right. When I was editing that, I was like, that's a fantastic line. I think we need to get that blasted on the walls of the studio.
Dr. Shaw, thank you so much for this episode. Hope you guys have enjoyed this and just take heart that, you know, we have we live in a nation that allows us this right to defend ourselves. If you have any questions or any comments, if you want to weigh in on this topic, make sure you text us 2525825028. Every day we'd like to check those text messages. Maybe read some of your comments here on the air of the Clearview Today show or you can always email us contact at Clearview todayshow.com. We love reading those emails as well. Make sure you visit us online at our website Clearview todayshow.com. You can donate right there and every single donation you give helps us to take this show out further for the gospel of Jesus Christ. So we thank you. We love you and we'll see you tomorrow on Clearview Today.
