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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 Clear View 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 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. That's right, and we want you guys to help us keep the conversation moving forward. You can support the show, 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 leave a link right down there in the description so you can do just that. It's just right there. It's just right there, folks. It's available.
I don't understand why y'all aren't just thinking. It's okay. It's okay.
No. It's all right. It's okay. Take a deep breath.
No, because they're giving us the five-star reviews, and it's like, they don't even want to at this point, but I still would appreciate it if y'all did. It's okay. Take a deep breath. Happy Friday to you.
Happy Friday to you, to me, and to everyone you love. I got a question. Okay. We talked yesterday, or actually, I think it was Wednesday, about being dorks, right? I was kind of a dork in high school. You were a little bit of a dork in high school. No, I was a dork. Not kind of.
I mean, you don't have to sugarcoat it. I was a dork in high school. I want to know if I'm still a dork today, and here's the impetus of my question.
Here's the crux of the matter. I was watching Friends with Ellie. I like Friends.
You know, I grew up in the 90s, grew up in those early 2000s. Friends was like the show. That's a great show.
Love Friends. That's what everybody watched. Everybody watched Friends. Have you seen it all the way through? Yes. I have to.
Yeah, this is us going through and watching it for the second time. Falling back in love with Ross. I genuinely... And this is my question. Am I still a dork? Because I genuinely ... I'm not ironic.
I'm not saying... I think Ross is the funniest character. I think Ross is the funniest character on that show, and I just relate so much to him. He's real bookish. You know, he's real kind of... He's unsure of himself. Loves his dinosaurs.
He loves dinosaurs, yeah. So here's the thing with Ross. I'm watching the episode with the routine.
Oh, no. The dance routine with him and Monica. The one with the routine. The episode's called The One with the Routine. They go to the Dick Clark's New Year's Rocking Eve, and they're dancing, and they want to get up on the platform so they'll be on camera, and so they do this dance called the routine.
Now, the first time I watch through this show, and also this time, I don't get the joke. Is the joke that Ross and Monica are kind of dorks, but this dance is actually really good? Or is it that, hey, this is a really dorky dance? Because they do the routine.
I think it's fire. I watch the routine, and I'm like, yo, that was really cool. But the studio audience is cracking up, and then the guy with the clipboard says, make sure you save that.
Dick Clark's going to want that for the blooper reel. So now I'm over here thinking, am I a dork? Because I thought it was cool. Because I thought it was a fire dance. So the joke is that, number one, they're trying too hard. To get on TV.
Yes, yes. The routine itself is trying too hard. It's like going to karaoke and you treating it like an American Idol audition. Nobody sings well at karaoke. I bring Elton John with me to karaoke. Right. Yeah, no, no.
Nobody sings well at karaoke. The second part of the joke is that in order to get this routine down, Ross and Monica had to practice this as siblings on their own. On their own time, they were as siblings working like five, six, seven, eight, working on this routine. That's a dorky thing to do. With your sister. With your sister.
A hundred percent. They're trying to do it to get back at their parents or prove themselves to their parents or whatever. She said, we haven't done the routine since middle school.
He said, we came runner up in the brother sister dance competition. Gross. Hate that already. Absolutely not.
Immediately no. But the dance is good. The dance is good. And that's the joke because it's like choreographed dance.
It's too good. In order to get on the platform for the New Year's Rock and Eve, you just have to like, you know, you have to have the vibe. You have to look the part and they're like, we're going to show off our dance skills. No, that's a dorky thing to do. I've been so confused about the routine because legitimately I thought it was a great dance and I thought it was funny, but everyone's cracking up and everyone's like, get a load of these with this brother and sister.
It's funny because it's so cringy. Would you have done that with your sister? Absolutely not. Not even to get on TV. No.
For Dick Clark's New Year's Rock and Eve? You wouldn't have done that with your sister? Well, maybe.
Maybe. I would have done it. I don't know that she would have been down. Can she dance? Yeah. I would have done it with my sister. Yeah.
I don't know that. She and I, we don't have a routine, but we danced together at her wedding and, you know, we did the whole thing where like you pull each other in and like spin each other. If she had wanted to do the routine, would you have gone with it?
Like Monica and Ross's routine? Sure. I would have done it just to be funny. I want to show, but you would have done it knowing.
I wouldn't have done it like, this is my shot. So the joke is. The joke is that they were so serious about it. They didn't see themselves as dorky, but it was a dorky thing to do.
They were completely not self-aware. Okay. That's the joke.
Okay. Cause I've been, I've been confused. I've been watching it thinking, I guess they can't dance, but I thought it was a good dance. They're talented, but the joke is that that's a dorky thing to do. I'm going to show them. It would be dorky if like Justin Timberlake came out there and like busted out choreography. Like, no, this is not what this is.
Calm down. I'm going to show. I want to pull up the routine and show it to Dr. Shah after the break and just get his read on it. Cause this joke has confused me for years, but I think I'm with it now. What is the, what is the dorkiest thing that you've called on it? Did you clock it that you were a dork in the moment or did it occur to you after you used your reticle? Send us a YouTube link to your dorkiest dance.
Cause I'd love to be able to dance. I just can't. The original text of the Bible, the original people out there saying that the original text is lost forever or that it's hopeless to actually try to find it or that there's many texts of the New Testament, but alongside Dr. David Alan Black, Dr. Shah has actually compiled papers for some of the world's leading experts in textual criticism, including one written by himself on various methodologies for extracting the original text. And listen, if you're interested in textual criticism, this book is a great introduction to the field. You can pick up your copy on Amazon or you can buy it from our church website. It's ClearviewBC.org. We're going to leave a link in the description box so you can get your copy today.
Love that. Ellie, let's hop back in. Let's do it. Welcome back to Clearview Today with Dr. Abidjan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com.
If you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028. That's right. We're here in the Clearview Today studio once again with Dr. Abidjan Shah, who's a PhD in New Testament textual criticism. Dr. Shah, happy Friday, my friend. Happy Friday to you guys. Happy Friday.
We have made it. Ah, here you go. Happy Friday. Hooray. Well. Yay. Okay. All right.
Well, yeah. Well, just imagine that there was going to be a fun sound effect there. That's going to sound in 10 minutes. So, Dr. Shah, I want you to take a look at this dance. There's a dance on the TV we're going to react to today. I genuinely, in my heart of hearts, thought this dance was fire.
I thought it was clean. Okay. Ryan has informed me that it's a dorky dance and that... I'm not even going to give you the...
I just want you to tell me if this dance is cool or dorky. Okay. I'm ready?
If you're listening on the radio, sorry, you're just going to end up missing it. Yeah! Get it, Ross!
Okay. Yeah, Ryan's gonna say I'm leaving some things out. You are leading an important break. That pays. Yeah, this is the greatest part.
He's so confident. Do we really need to ask who's going up on the platform next? Oh no. You get up there and do that again exactly like that. Alright, alright, alright. So, first and foremost, cool dance or not cool? Uh, it was a dorky dance.
Do you like it? I thought it was the greatest, yeah, I thought the dance was fire. I was like, cause everybody's joking and laughing, the studio audience is going wild. I'm thinking like, oh, it's funny because Ross and Monica's a dork, but they can really dance. But it's not that. So, that's a brother and sister. I don't know if that makes it any cooler or dorkier. Like, if you saw Abigail and Nicholas do that, would you be like, wow, that was really cool, or would you be like, ah, that's kind of dorky? Yeah, I mean, if it's a Rebecca, if it's Nicholas and Abigail, I would probably laugh and be like, oh, that's still funny. What if Libna came up to you and was like, I want to do this to get on TV? With me?
Yes. To dance? My sister wouldn't be with me. Well, she'll be dancing alone. I just don't, I just don't dance.
That's the thing. Like, it's fine that they can do the dance. It's not the dancing ability, it's the fact that they're a brother and sister and they have rehearsed this for decades, and they're trying so hard to get on television when everyone else behind them is just kind of like, doing this thing. They bust out choreography. It's like treating karaoke like your American Idol audition. No one does that. Alright, take the brother and sister thing out of it.
If you saw Ryan and David doing that. Uh, no. Not cool?
It would be like, alright guys, have a seat. Let me talk to you. Let's chat. Dancing? No, not for you guys.
Let's have a chat. They're like, we wanted to do this on like, at Christmas Carol or something. Yeah, Scrooge and Ghost at Christmas Present. That was their, they bust out the routine.
Hashtag the routine. No. Alright, I concede. It's dorky. It's dorky.
It's dorky. The verse of the day today is coming to us from Hebrews chapter 10 verse 25. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. It's sad, but it's becoming more and more and more common that people are just forsaking the assembling. You know what I mean?
That's right. We're just seeing it. Even among Christians where they're like, you really don't need this. This is not an essential part of your life.
It's popular now. It's, you know, COVID-19 or the pandemic really brought out what was already in people's hearts. Yeah, good point.
Which is, I don't have to deal with you. Good point. People were talking about that. Now, you know, there's coming a time where you can have your church from home. It's a cyber church. And I never understood that concept. Cyber church. Okay, unless you're like locked up in prison. Even though they have chapel.
Yeah, they do. I mean, what do you mean by cyber church? So you don't have to get out. You can have church from your home. And then the worst part is they try to play like, and that's how it originally was. That's how the early church fathers, they did it, man.
They logged on to Google Hangout and they just Yeah, I'm sure they were worshiping over teams. Yeah, they did it. And the whole idea of, you know, that house to house is the way to go.
House to house was a necessity. Right. It was not the pattern. Right. The pattern, if you really want to talk about the pattern, the pattern is synagogue, right? Synagogues are synagogues.
Which didn't take place in people's homes. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, coming together. That's what synagogue means, coming together. And so they came together. This is a place where they read the scripture, sang songs, even you know, were informed of what's coming up for the for the community and all that. And then they would go the separate way. This was a place where they met their future wives and husbands. Okay. That's also happened at the synagogue.
So that when synagogues were barred to Jewish background believers, they had to meet in homes. Right. But you don't want to recreate that as though that were the template.
Yeah, because that was not a good thing that happened to them. It means you're playing with the box. Right. Right. Yes.
Yeah. There's a gift. There's whatever that instrument is that you paid for. And then there's a box that you're playing with the box. Like you get a present. You're playing with the box. If that's not my children, golly.
Yeah. They climb inside the box. Forget the toy. Mommy and Daddy spent a lot of money on that toy. I like the box.
I'm just being here. I believe a lot of Christians, either that's the way of making a living or they feel like this community of home to home, house church type thing is the way to go. The way to go is Jesus Christ. That's right. The way to go is the word of God, the old and the New Testament. The way to go is life in Christ through the Holy Spirit. The way to go is to glorify God, the great father.
That's right. The way to go is love each other. The way to go is to win the lost world. The way to go is is to go to the ends of the earth. That's right. Take the gospel of Christ. The way to go is to be the salt and light in your community. I mean, that's that's the way to go.
Not got this little home thing going. That's right. It's the word of Jesus Christ.
And you know what the word of Jesus Christ says? Don't forsake the assembling of yourselves. That's right. Go to church, y'all.
Absolutely. Go to church. That's right. The Bible says so.
Go to church. If it's about Jesus, man, y'all agree it's about Jesus, then do what Jesus says. That's right. Exactly.
Exactly. Well, you know, as we've been headed toward the elections, Dr. Shaw, we've been talking more about your book, 30 Days of Praying for America, and you have a great chapter in here, chapter 18 called Awake, Not Woke, which is one of my favorite titles ever. Turns out, yeah, it turns out it's not just Christian culture that is askew these days. Turns out culture at large is, well, it's not doing good. Yeah, it's not.
It's not good. But in that chapter, you reference Dr. Sandy Ray, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church. Tell us a little bit about Dr. Sandy Ray. Dr. Sandy Ray was, of course, the pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Brooklyn from 1944 to 1979. I came across his preaching sort of by accident. You know, Dr. Gardner Taylor, who was a great, great homiletician, he was a preacher, pastor, you know, I think he was a homiletician for all people. But yes, of course, he was African American. So, you know, people unfortunately don't know about him in other circles. Right.
But I had the privilege of taking the pulpit with him. What? Yes. Really?
Yes. Dr. Gardner Taylor is right there. So he was in Henderson one time at one of the churches, one of the larger churches, and they told me, Dr. Gardner Taylor is here.
Would you mind coming and opening in prayer? That's him right there. That's Dr. Gardner Taylor.
Okay. And I was like, the Dr. Gardner Taylor is here? Is it?
Yes. Because he was also the preacher of preaching or the professor of preaching at Shaw University. So I was like, I know who that is, but are you talking about the Dr. Gardner Taylor? He's like, yeah, yeah, he's here. So I walk in and he was probably in his 80s at the time. Wow.
And he stood up to shake my hand. Do you remember what year this was? This was, this was 2000, I want to say four or five. Okay. Somewhere there. Wow.
Maybe even six. Okay. And so I'm like, oh, Dr. Taylor, it's good to meet you. He says, good to meet you too, young man. So I heard you're a pastor down the road.
I mean, very nice to me. And so I was like, wow. And so, and they said, the pastor of the church said, you know, so you're going to open in prayer.
And then Dr. Gardner Taylor is going to preach for us tonight. I was like, I'm honored that you would ask me to do that. So I got up there and I opened in prayer. And I think they asked me to say a few words and I did.
And I was not prepared at all. So I was like, it's a great honor to be here. And opening tonight, our service with Dr. Taylor coming up in a few moments. I mean, you don't, I don't know if you know that, but he is a legend in the field of preaching. And I've read many of his works. And then he preached and it was so powerful, powerful message. And in fact, like it was like three messages in one.
But it was really, really good. I can't even remember what he preached on, but it was so impactful. So I went back home and I'm like, I got to research more of his sermons. And in the process, I ran across Dr. Sandy Ray.
And I was like, yeah, Dr. Gardner Taylor is great, but who is this guy? So basically, what you have here are just chapters from his sermons. And I've heard at least three or four of these chapters because the audio is available. But this was kind of like the main one because he's talking about the depravity of the culture, how low they have gone. And he's preaching this probably in the early 70s, this particular message. I think it probably gives the date, if I'm not wrong, journeying through a jungle. It's the very first one. Let's see. It doesn't give the date of the message.
So unfortunate it doesn't do that. But just reading and hearing what he's saying, it's probably I would say 60s, 70s. The civil rights era is going on and then maybe it's coming to a close or whatever.
But it's a time of turmoil. So I want us to hear bits and pieces and then towards the end because he's talking about John the Baptist. The message is about John the Baptist.
So. To talk about his career. Because when you call to preach, you don't have a career. When you call to preach, your life becomes a mission. A career is something you call out and pray. A mission is something someone else plans for you.
And a preacher can't have a planned career. Because he's under order. And he might plan to go to New York. But his orders might set Birmingham. They love it, man.
They eat it up. Oh, yeah. When he came to this church, I think he's preaching at Cornerstone. When he came to this church, it was not growing.
It was struggling. It was in Brooklyn, still in Brooklyn. And Dr. Sandy Ray, just to give a little understanding of who he was, he was born in Stranger, Texas. One of eight children. His father died when he was a little boy. And his mother was left with seven sons and seven cents on a sharecropper's farm. So he came from a very, very humble and poor home life. And so he dealt with racism. He dealt with all of that, segregation, everything. And in spite of all of that, he followed Christ. He got saved.
And when he got saved, I mean, God radically touched his life and used him in a powerful way. He pastored churches. Of course, he talks about in his biography, if I can find the right information. He pastored in Georgia. He pastored in Illinois. I think he pastored near Macon, Georgia. Nicole, my wife, is from Warren Robins. And her grandmother was from Macon. So same community.
Illinois, Ohio, and New York. And he was a well sought after preacher. He knew Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was very well known in those circles. So anyways, yeah, he came to that church and it boomed. It just blossomed.
So let's just jump ahead. There are many types of strange animals in the jungle. This jungle is full of dope addicts and hustlers and hippies, harlots and hoodlums, pimps and punks. Bro, he talks like my dad. That's hoodlums. That's my dad's language coming through. Freaks and phonies, fillers and killers, con men and lewd and shrews.
He's right, man. And every conceivable brand of animal is in this jungle. This is a dangerous jungle. And in this jungle, anybody can get hurt.
In this jungle, there's no regard for one's character or for one's devotion and compassion. In this jungle, it's always dangerous. And the better you live, the more dangerous it is. Bro, he's right.
The better you live, the more dangerous it is, man. You're right, man. That's why, that's why this jungle God just kept on telling children of Israel when he got kind of contented and people kind of night stood him and said, don't settle here.
This is not your rest. So one thing about him was he was also biblically astute. A lot of times he had preachers who were great in delivery, but the content is weak.
His content was never weak. It was rich, but it was so simple you could just take it. And I've learned a lot from him. They're nice to you, but don't stop here. Your home is not here. You're headed to a better land. You're a pilgrim, and you can't settle here. And I don't want you to fall in love with the people of the wilderness.
However kind they may be, don't fall in love with them. You're a pilgrim. You're going somewhere. And you're not going back along the way.
You just take out enough for overnight. Because you are sojourners. You are pilgrims headed to another land.
We must not become satisfied. With a pillow cloud and a pillar of fire feeding them all along the way he was a defense for his people. And whatever may be the hardships and horrors of this jungle God's people must believe that our God will deliver.
Young people, I think are tempted as well as older people by the vicious and the many dangers of the jungle. But I think they must be assured now that God can deliver them during this hectic period. I think they ought to know that they don't have to run from the church. They can find adequate expression.
And I think we ought to give avenues where they might have adequate expression of their hopes and their aspirations and their discontent through the church. See, what is great is that he is talking to that peer. So he talks about hippies.
It's somewhere in the late 60s, early 70s. He's talking to that culture and he's saying instead of turning your back on them, let's reach them. And his church did reach a lot of young people.
So that is Dr. Sandy Rea and he asked me why I like him is because how he preached and how he stayed true to scripture and how he addressed the things that people in the culture were dealing with at the time. Sometimes I think some preachers are scared to talk about things. How many people do you know will talk about wokeness? Maybe if they're in on it, but very few will speak against it.
Because I'm against wokeness. Most of us do it in our friends circles. They will not do it out front because they're afraid.
They play in the shallow safe water. You're in an echo chamber. You're talking to the people who agree with you. And what I liked about Dr. Sandy Rea is that he was willing to take on these tough topics and that's why young people came. Because they're like, oh, he's not afraid to talk about that.
I don't agree with his conclusion, but maybe I may come to the same conclusion if I listen to him long enough. Well, we're seeing that here, too. With your willingness to take those deep concepts of scripture and those tough issues and confront them. And people are coming because they're hungry for that.
They haven't maybe even experienced that ever. And that's one of the things I think people are gravitating toward your preaching because you are answering questions that they don't know to ask. You're dealing with topics that people have either swept under the rug or have considered taboo, but you confront that in a way that is biblical and in a way that points people to the cross. It points people to who Christ is. Those are the things that you preach on or things that matter. They're not deep hypotheticals like what if this or what if that, but they're actually things that we're struggling with in the world. And those are the things that matter most. You know what I mean?
Those are the things that are as relevant now as they're ever going to be. Yeah, the best compliment I can get is to hear women, wives, mothers, sisters saying, I don't have to make my husband go to church. Good point. Young or old. I don't have to make him go to church anymore. I've heard that from people in their 20s. I've heard that from people in their 60s. That is very satisfying because what that means is those men who, again, I'm not saying men are perfect.
What I'm saying is sometimes men are sick of the phoniness in church, the phoniness. We come and play the game and we do this. I'm here. I'm going to watch a ball game because I know exactly how this is going to work. Or I'm going to sit here and watch this movie because I know what the good guy is going to do and what the bad guy is going to do. I'm good with this. I live in this make-believe world. And here at Clearview, we've tried our best to follow sort of a model like Dr. Sandy Wray and address these issues, but do it from a biblical perspective. And we are seeing a difference. Can we listen to one more quick clip?
30 seconds? Watch it! Isn't that a way better story than the system is keeping you down? My Heavenly Father watches over me. I love it. That's the hope that we need to cling to. If you guys enjoyed today's episode, write in and let us know. Or you can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com.
Don't forget you can partner with us financially on that same website. Be a part of what God is doing through the Clearview Today Show and impacting the nations with the gospel of Jesus. John, as we go into the weekend, anything you want to plug? Yes, absolutely.
Dr. Shot and Nicole's book, 30 Days of Praying for America Daily Devotions to Heal Our Nations is available on Amazon. Make sure you pick up your copy today. Also, our debut album, Heaven Here and Now is available on iTunes, Spotify, and where digital music is sold. Make sure you pick up your copy. We want it to be a blessing for you, for your worship, for your church family, for everybody who's involved in music ministry everywhere.
These songs were birthed out of prayer that God is bringing heaven here and now to our nation and to our world. We believe that and we know you guys do too. That's right. You guys have a wonderful weekend. Make sure you join us next week. We've got great episodes planned for you guys. We love you guys. We'll see you Monday on Clearview Today.
