Monday, December 2nd | Getting to the Heart of an Issue

What's going on guys? It's David here, the world's best radio engineer and the most humble. And I'm just here to let you know that today's episode of Clearie Today Show and today's secret word is brought to you by Lebleu Ultra Pure Water. Unlike other bottled waters, Lebleu's Ultra Pure Filtration System provides water that's free from contaminants and infused with only the essentials your body needs. Make the smart choice today and experience the difference of Lebleu Ultra Pure Water.

You can order online at Lebleu, that's L-E-B-L-E-U dot com. And when you check out, use the promo code today, that's T-O-D-A-Y, to get 10% off your next order. It'll save you money and it supports us here at the Clearview Today Show. Before we start today's show, here's the secret word for today, vergency.

Vergency is the act of verging, approaching, or bordering on something, and today's contestant is John Galantis. How's the conversation going by supporting the show? You can share it online with your friends and family. It was a good five-star review on iTunes or Spotify, anywhere you get your podcasting content from.

Absolutely nothing less than five stars for any reason under the sun. We're going to leave a link in the description of this podcast so you can do just that. And introducing for the first time ever from the four corners of the earth in the intro, I got you right there, my friend.

It is Dr. Abaddon Shah right here in the intro with us. Woo hoo! There we go. We got delayed sound effects.

Nice. Dr. Shah, welcome to the intro, my friend. Welcome to the intro. This is a very, I mean, this is a dream come true.

This is. This is a dream come true. This is, I hope our podcast listeners will go to YouTube and actually see our new studio. Our new studio. Our new place.

It's not just a studio, because then the studios are just a place where you record. Right. This is a phenomenal place. This is not, I mean, this is really nice. Yes.

I wish I could, I wish I could take credit for this, but this was, I would say, 90% Nicholas. My job. Your job. I did it. Dr. Shah, you did it from San Diego. I did it by myself.

I was in San Diego and I was working here. Nicholas did it. So thank you, Nicholas, for your hard work. Thank you, David, for your hard work. Ryan, thank you. I didn't do anything for this room, but you're welcome.

You are here. And then John, thank you for all you do. Thank you, sir.

Thank you as well. Thank you. Absolutely. Absolutely. So exciting.

So exciting. Well, I feel, I feel like we should begin at the top of the episode with, you know, God's word. God's word.

The verse of the day. It's good to read. Absolutely.

Really cool. Let's do it every day. Every episode, let's do it. Isn't that crazy?

Isn't that what y'all do? And verse of the day kind of lends itself to that. Yeah, I just thought of it on the spot. All right.

Wow. The verse of the day today is coming to us from Matthew, chapter 11, verses 27 and 28. All things have been delivered to me by my father and no one knows the son except the father.

Nor does anyone know the father except the son and the one to whom the son wills to reveal him. Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Oh, I love that verse. It is.

It's good. I mean, no, I mean, I was going to say it's one of my favorite verses. Oh yeah, absolutely. I think about Jesus taking away our burden because, and it's not even just the burden of like everything going wrong, but also that burden of just seeking to please God through my own power. You know, whatever I'm trying to do to please God. At the end of the day, Jesus says, that's a burden that you don't have to worry about. That's right.

Come to me. The reason I love this passage is because it talks about the exclusivity of Christ or say it a little differently. You cannot bypass Jesus. That's right. That's right.

That's it. I mean, you cannot say, well, I'm going to get to God by my good works. I'm going to get to God because God is a loving father. And if you try to get to God and bypass Jesus, he's going to say, oh, go back, go back to square one, start with my son. That's where you connect with me.

That's right. I love that we have these two verses that we read them together because a lot of times I feel like people separate these. You hear a lot like, no one knows the father except for the son, that on its own. And then come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden.

But the reason that we can find that rest is because we have gone that route, which that's what you just said, Dr. Shah, the reason that we can find that rest is because it's only found in Christ. You know, a lot of things change here on the Clearview Today show, I should say, but a lot of things stay the same. And Dr. Shah, it is Monday, of course. That means it's Million Dollar Monday, my friend. I'm going to give you a million dollars.

But any time that you receive an automated telemarketer call, you got to see that through to the very end. Oh, my word. Easy. I'll do it. You know what?

For real? Yeah, like I just need to listen to them all the way. Listen to them all the way. And you've got to get like up to the point where you would pay like you would give them money and then you don't have to actually pay them. You just have to you can't hang up.

You just have to sit through and listen to their own. You know, I already do that. Why? Yeah.

Now, I will talk them out of it and say, hey, thank you so much for call because they're working. That's true. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. That's true.

They are working. As busy as you are, you sit there on the phone with the telemarketer people and say, OK, so you can improve my rate, my insurance. What I do is like, hey, thank you for calling me. I'm not interested right now. But thank you. For real? Yeah.

Wow. I don't hang up. So let me let me clarify my microphone. Let me clarify here on automated telemarketer call. Is this is this a bot that's calling a machine or is this an actual like cold call person? Both.

Both. Like it's the machine because the machine will connect you with someone. Right. You sit there and listen to this is a that's so that's a that's a good point.

I didn't I didn't consider like, hey, there's a there's an actual living, breathing human being on the other end that's just trying to work and make a living. Maybe. Maybe I've reconsidered my position. Dr. Shah.

Dr. Shah. This revelation is kind of making me feel bad because I definitely just started to work. That's all they are. Perhaps. And I know it's annoying and I know it's frustrating. Now, I tell you what, who I don't like to hear from are the scammers. Yeah. True. You know, like there's somewhere trying to scam me.

This is a call from the IRS. That annoys me. Yeah. That I don't like. Yeah. I don't like it.

You know, you you're annoying me, but you're trying to work. Yeah. Have you ever bought anything from a telemarketer? No. Never once. Never. No.

This isn't a telemarketer. But I remember one time my mom did this. Did you ever have those encyclopedia salesmen come to your house to try to sell you a volume of encyclopedias?

I grew up in India. That doesn't happen. Oh, OK. No.

It's like we would have special toothpaste sellers and really come to the house. Yeah. Yeah.

But back in this is the 80s. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

In light of this information and the shift in my heart that has just happened, I think I would do it. All right. That's three million. Let's get it on the table. We'll see if we can get a checkbook out here somewhere.

Yeah. Please write those checks into the Clear View Today show for a million dollar money. That'd be great. We've got a great show planned for you guys today.

Don't go anywhere. We'll be doing a quick break and we'll be right back with more Clear View today. Hey, Clear View Today listeners, we want to take a quick moment to thank you for tuning in. As you can imagine, producing a show like this takes a lot of time, effort and resources. And we're grateful for the Truth Network for giving us a platform to syndicate our show. But the vast majority of our support comes from listeners just like you. If you enjoy these talks with Dr. Shah and you want to see Clear View Today continue to grow, consider making a donation today because your contributions help us deliver fun, relevant and biblical content right to your phone every single day.

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Thank you for being part of this community. Now let's get back to the show. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com, or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028. That's right. Dr. Shah, we mentioned at the top of the show that you spent last week in good old San Diego, California. I did.

Oh, yes. Never been. First time ever flying past Arizona.

Really? So you've never been to California at all? No, never have.

Okay. Never have passed. The farthest I've gone towards the west is Arizona, New Mexico.

To the north would be Utah, but not really spent time in Utah other than like driving through like the south eastern corner of Utah. That's about all I did. So San Diego was, yeah, first time ever. Wow. How was it? It was exciting. Was it beautiful?

Oh, yes. It was very pretty. I mean, it's like you're going to one of our coastal cities like Wilmington or what else do we have through the coast, like Savannah? Like really sunny. I'm thinking of really sunny, like vergency sort of towns where like the sun rays are coming through. But with mountains.

With mountains. Okay. So now how do you justify that?

How do you have both of those together? That's interesting. Right by the beach.

There was no weather in San Diego last week compared to. Sorry, I got vergency in there and I was really excited about it. I didn't want to scoot right past that.

I heard that. It was the eye contact that I thought had it. I was like, I shouldn't have made eye contact with this dude. He was the one? That was the one.

What did he say? Vergency. So it's a measure of convergence or divergence of a pencil of rays entering or issuing from a lens of a mirror. It's like sunlight. It's like sunlight streaming through.

I heard that, but I thought I misheard you. You were talking about a city. And I was like, where is that? It's light reflecting off of like glass. I was trying to get like sunny, sunny cities.

I heard that, but I was like, I think he meant to say Pacific. You asked it pretty well. It was the eye contact that I thought had it. Now here's what needs to happen about this word of the day. It needs to be said very clearly. You cannot be like Vergency.

And then when we're talking about it here, it's San Diego and you were reading a paper. Like okay, I moved on. You can't mumble it. No mumble it. Just get off the mic. Yeah, just get off the mic.

Dip out real quick and just kind of whisper it. Mumble, mumble. Okay. Yeah. Well done. Good job. Thank you.

Thank you. Well, you were saying something though, for real. I was asked, well, the weather, the comparison between San Diego last week and the weather here.

Surprisingly, it was colder. Really? Yeah.

At times it got into the, the, the, the upper forties, upper forties or lower forties, upper forties, upper forties would be like 48, 49, right? Yeah. That's where it got. Yeah.

That's the lowest it got. Yeah. But the good weather was like in the sixties. How was it rooming with Dr. Robinson? How was, I always room with him. This was not the first time I've been rooming with him since I want to say, oh my goodness, two thousand and sixteen, seven, seventeen, I think it's every year at ETS. Y'all are roommates. Y'all are bunk mates. We haven't gone every year since 2017.

But altogether, I would say we've gone like four times, five times. Yeah. Do you have McDonald's going on? I'm assuming.

Yes. He loves McDonald's. Dr. Robinson loves McDonald's. He's so funny to me, which I guess, I mean, he's a person just like anybody else, but like he is, he's Dr. Robinson. I mean, he's like the textual criticism guy. I guess I would just think.

I think I'll have a quarter pounder with cheese. Yeah, the older you get. It's funny to me. I would think the older you get, the less you want that, but he just, he, he's all about it. But having gone with him so many times, I know what he's going to do. He's going to map out, okay, he's going to map out that entire area.

Yeah. I mean, I'm talking about like 10 mile radius. He was just going to map it out. Oh, not just the convention floor, like the city. No, he's going to map out the area where we can walk around, restaurants, what is out there. And if he's been there, then he knows, he'll tell you, this is where we can go.

This is what we can check out. And so one of the things he'll always have mapped out is McDonald's. Yeah, I don't know where those golden arches are. Yeah. Oh yeah. He, he had it mapped out at San Diego as well. We were staying at the Marriott, the convention center is there, and it was like eight blocks away and it takes, takes about a good 25 minutes to walk one way.

Wow. And so he was like, we can, you know, we can go that way to McDonald's and it's eight blocks away. It's just a little too far. I'm like, I know that's why we shouldn't go there.

I was like, we'll be late for our, this is okay. We can still make it back. It's just not that far. It's really not that far.

And I'm like, for one, I don't eat McDonald's that much. Right. Right. Secondly, it's not worth that walk. It's not worth the walk.

I'm with you. What am I going to go get? There's nothing that good that's worth a, what'd you say a 12 block walk? Yeah. Yeah.

It was eight to 12 blocks. Goodness. I'm good, man. I'm good. We can do an episode on this later in the week. But how did the paper go? Paper was amazing. So I did a paper for those who are listening viewing on acts eight 37.

Okay. So if you know acts chapter eight, this is where we hear about Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. He is the Ethiopian eunuch has come to Jerusalem to worship God. And as he is leaving on his chariot, he is a treasurer for the queen Candace. And as he's leaving, he must have purchased a scroll, Isaiah scroll, and he's reading from Isaiah chapter 53 about how this person was going to be killed. And he's going to be you know, he's going to die and all that stuff. And he is kind of confused. What's going on?

Who is this person? And at that moment, God sends Philip, the evangelist to go from wherever he was to this road to Gaza. And so all of a sudden, he's transported and right next to the chariot, he is running and he can overhear the Ethiopian eunuch reading and he says, do you know what you're reading?

He's like, how can I unless somebody explains it to me, right? I mean, that right there should tell you that the word of God is powerful, but explanation is very essential, right? Right. So the right explanation, the right interpretation of the word of God matters, right? So when people say, I go to a church, great, great, great, great, great first step. Second step is, are you going to a good Bible believing church? Which is a great point because not all of them are. That's right.

That's right. And the third step I would say is, are you going to a church where the Bible is properly taught? So Philip jumps in the chariot and he begins to explain who Jesus is, what he came to do. And so when he explains that, the Ethiopian eunuch's response is, see, here is water. Apparently they came by an oasis, saw the water. He says, see, here is water.

What hinders me now from being baptized? That's Acts 8, 36. The next verse is, or should be, then they both go into the water and he's baptized.

Everybody comes out. But there's a verse in between. There's a verse in between, which is Acts 8, 37, which says, if you believe with your whole heart, you may. And the Ethiopian eunuch says, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. Then verse 38, which is, they go into the water and he baptizes him. So the Ethiopian eunuch asks the question, Philip responds, he responds back, and then they go. But that middle section... Of him saying, you believe with your whole heart, and the Ethiopian eunuch says, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.

That section is not found in the manuscripts. So how did that verse get into our Bibles? That's a good point. Do we have time? That was the purpose of my paper. I was going to say, do we have time on this show to get into it, or would you rather wait and maybe do its own show? I would rather wait and spend more time on that because people need to understand there's so much that hangs on that passage because you need to understand how textual criticism is done. You need to understand how to evaluate that evidence.

All these things matter. So I would rather wait and do this later on. I think that's a good idea. And I think it kind of lends itself to another discussion that we've been wanting to have on the show, which is not really the new format of the show, but maybe the new focus. Like you just kind of touched on, every issue that any Christian faces has a surface issue, but then once you start to peel back the layers, you start to see there's other issues that are deeper underneath. There is a heart of the matter, heart of the issue. We want this to be a show where we not only explore that, but people rely on us and really rely on you and your expertise in the field to get to the heart of the issue. And then also, if I may add something to that, we need to see what is the issue at stake.

And those are two different things. Heart of the issue and issue at stake may overlap, but they are distinct. Heart of the issue is what is the essence?

What is the distilled part of that subject or that topic? Issue at stake is if we either follow that or if we deny that, what is at stake? What happens to society? What happens to church? What happens to us as individual believers? What happens to us as a nation?

What happens to us as a family, as a couple, as parents raising our children? So heart of the issue, issue at stake. Those are two things that I thank you guys, all five of us, John, Ryan, David, Nick, because you all have helped me clarify that and hoping as we move forward in this show, people will come to the show and listen to it diligently and consistently and share it and ask other people to listen and watch so they can understand on every issue that we talk about.

Right? Now on this show, I'm not going to talk about cooking. I'm not. I love to eat and I can cook to the heart of the issue of red meat versus what's the other white meat? White meat. Which one do we really want to go with, Dr. Sean?

I like them both. I was going to say, could we have both? But the issue at stake is if we don't eat meat at all, I don't know, maybe you'd be a protein. No protein. No gains.

Absolutely no gains. The issue at stake is we should have an issue of steak. There you go. I got to give you that one, my friend. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you.

I can't wait to see the rest of you guys at the end. Make those checks payable to the Cleary Today show. No, I'm just kidding. But I do appreciate, Dr. Sean, having...

I've worked alongside you for over a decade now. Yes. That's crazy. It is crazy to think about it. I was thinking about it this morning. I said that to somebody.

I was like, I've been here for over a decade. Is that right? Yeah, it didn't feel real when you say it. You know, that is right. That's right.

That's amazing. But I've always appreciated that about you in our personal relationship as my friend, as my mentor. then as my pastor, and then even now on the Clear V Today show, cutting through to the heart of the matter and the issue that's at stake, the heart of the issue and the issue that's at stake, because so many times people stop at the surface. So many times people just just kind of like, okay, this is what's at face value. But you have always in in us as a team, you have helped us to distill those issues, you helped us to see what is really going on. And what are the implications if we don't chase this to its logical conclusion, and it's helped us as individuals to think critically. And really, that's why we talk about, you know, this being the Clear V Today show.

We want to provide a clear view on those issues. It's more than just a name. If I may, before I say a word about that, I am blessed to have you guys along in this journey. Ryan, as you said that, and also John and David and Nick, I've known him for almost his entire life.

I think I was there when he was born. So anyways, the whole point is that, you know, this show would not be possible. What we're doing here would not be possible. Going to San Diego and reading this paper on Acts 837 would not be possible without everybody, not just in this room, but on the team here, the supporters. But yes, we want to help people when they tune into the show, whether it's on a podcast or a radio show that they listen to or YouTube channel that they visit, whatever we're talking about, they should walk away from this going, I may not understand everything about that topic, but I do know the essence of that topic. And I also know the implications of not following it or following it based on what it is. So in this situation with Acts 837, what is the heart of the issue, right? What is the heart of the issue? One heart of the issue is if we add to the scriptures, when text critically that reading is not supported, we are adding to the word of God. That's right. That's right. That is an important heart of the issue.

What is the issue at stake? By doing that, we cheapen the word of God. Momentarily, it'll give us something like, oh, there's a baptismal confession there. I believe that Jesus Christ is son of God. Or there may be an early church confession there.

Wow, that sounds good. Maybe we should examine those who are being baptized. Maybe we should ask them a question. Do you believe with all your heart? No, not if the text doesn't say that. Now you're adding things to a list of to-do's that are not even validated by scripture. If it is, or some of the passage does it, great. But if you're using a verse that doesn't exist to make a pattern for believers that shouldn't be there, then you're adding to the word of God and you're putting unnecessary hurdles in the paths of people who otherwise would be, hey, I'm ready to be baptized.

Great. You're putting conditions on people's salvation. And if Jesus didn't tell us to do that, there's no reason for us to do that. If it's somewhere else, praise God, do it. But if this is the only verse that you're relying on, don't. God has called us to do this.

I truly believe that with all my heart. And as we are going forward in this new season, I wouldn't even call this season two. It's just really an adding on to what God has already called us to do. The show's not going to, I mean, it'll feel different, but it's still going to be the Clearview Today show. It's not a drastic departure, but it's really a maturing, I would say. It's a maturing of how we want to talk about these issues. Because before we were just kind of talking about the issues, laying it out, giving our thoughts and our opinions on it.

But now there's an understanding that there's a little bit of gravity to it. And I like that, Dr. Shah, that there's something at stake here. Because if there's nothing at stake, why talk about it? You know, why waste time on people's commutes?

You could be listening to something else. But there's an issue at stake. And so if we don't sort of mature the show, like, yeah, the show's going to go on, but people's questions will remain unanswered. I think people are really, and I think this is something that you say that I really think every Christian should take to heart, especially if you're going to do stuff like this, is that people are counting on you for the answer.

If you're a spiritual leader, you should do it with the understanding that people are counting on you. That's right. That's right. So important for us. And there's a reason, you know, here at Clearview, our logo is a lighthouse. Yes. That was chosen very intentionally.

That was not just kind of a random logo generator online. Oh, a lighthouse sounds good. No, we want to be that lighthouse for people when other sources fall short. We've seen that time and time again. We see that more prevalently now with the media, even with other sources that kind of proclaim themselves to be religious, reputable sources.

They fall short. They report a biased opinion. We want to be that voice that calls you to truth. We want to be that voice that calls you to the word of God. That's especially where textual critical issues are concerned.

This is not, if it's not God's word, let's not call it God's word. Right, right. Dr. Shaw, you've been, you majored in journalism, you majored in broadcasting journalism. There's people out there, we got a few minutes, I think we got about six minutes left on the show. There's people out there right now who want to do something like this.

They, they, maybe they lack a platform, maybe they lack funding, maybe they lack listeners, but they want to get the message out there and they want to dive deep into topics like these. What, what advice would you give someone who's, who's going down that road? I would highly advise you not to go out there and buy some equipment.

There you go. You're not ready for that. What I will tell you to do, cause you know, that's what typically the advice is. Go ahead and get started. Buy a small system and start recording, guys. Just start talking.

You just got to press record. You just got to start talking. No, you shouldn't. I would strongly urge you to go educate yourself.

That's not a popular answer either. Cause people want to start, write this exact sentence. You want to do this? Start, just start, just stop. Just talk about anything.

No, don't talk about just anything. Educate yourself. Read, study. A lot of things that I'm talking about on this show and have been for years now are coming from 35 some years of studying these things diligently. I'm not even talking about my life growing up in India because I went to college there as well. And I came here in 1991, 17 years of age, began college in Georgia. So all those years of studying and I always had that mindset that anytime I study a topic, anytime I study a subject I am going to get to the heart of the issue.

I'm going to get to the essence of what that issue is all about. I want to know names. I want to know places.

I want to know dates. I want to know the circumstances behind why this took place. I want to see a pattern that is there. I want to know if this person did this, then where did they get their idea from?

Who was influential in that person's life? I mean, I like to kind of connect the dots. And so this is not happening because I read an article or a blog or a book review and let's just talk guys. No, it's coming from years and years of knowing this and there's still so much I don't know. Very, very, very true.

And I think for us as well, I'm not saying very true. Like there's so much you don't know, but no, I don't. Yeah.

But, but I, I, anytime we talk about a subject, I will go back and I'll look in my notes, I'll go through my file folders and I'll say, okay, yes, I read this back in, okay, 1997. Okay. The research has advanced since then. Let me see if I can do some research and not just on Google.

I will go to EBSCO. I will go to ATLA, which is a theological, you know, search engine. And then I'll find the latest article on that. Then I'll read it. Then I'll go to a dictionary or encyclopedia, not just something from the forties and fifties.

One that is happening right now. You know, one that has been published in the past four or five years. And I'll find that article, look down, find the bibliography and see what are the references. If there's a parallel article, let's say I'm doing something on the Septuagint, I'll find a parallel article on the Septuagint and see which resources are being mentioned again and again. Then it's like, okay, so this is an important resource. Either I'll purchase it or I'll find it online or some other way I will get my hands on that article or that chapter.

And then I'll educate myself and then I'll find things in there that I don't know. Right. So this is that. So my advice to people, if you're starting a show and you want to start a show, OK, great, great. Educate yourself.

That's right. And this is going to help Ryan and I as well become better radio hosts, better Christians, I think, more diving deep into the word of God. And I know we're running out of time, but one of the episodes that I really think that you guys should listen to and one was that was really beneficial for me was the party switch. We did an episode on this supposed party flip, because if you read anything online, it'll just tell you, hey, here's what happened. But what we did was we went to the end of we went to it. What's really happening here? What's the heart of this issue?

Did this happen the way that people say it happened? And if not, why? Why twist it? Why?

Why cover it up? Yeah. What is the issue at stake?

How does this false thinking false line of reasoning? What implications does that have? Maybe that was sort of the unofficial beginning of this this switch on the show. Yeah, I think so. Absolutely.

Absolutely. So helpful. Make sure you guys join us tomorrow.

Same time, same station. We're gonna be diving into another great topic right here on the Clear View Today show. I want to say a big thank you to Le Bleu Ultra Pure Water for sponsoring today's episode. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Nice and crisp in case you're thirsty. And don't forget that you can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes if you want to re-listen to any episodes. And you can always support us financially at ClearViewTodayShow.com.

John, anything you want to plug as we close today? As always, make sure you pick up Dr. Sean Nicole's book, 30 Days of Praying for America, Daily Devotions to Heal Our Nation. It's available on Amazon right now. You can also pick up our debut album by Clear View Worship. That's Heaven Here and Now, available on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, Rhapsody, anywhere digital music is sold. That's right. Make sure you guys tune in tomorrow. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clear View Today.