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Link in the description so you can do just that. And we are here once again with our gracious, enigmatic host, our voluptuous host, our voluptuous. That does not sound right. Voluptuous like charismatic, right? Are you trying to fake a secret word right now? I was trying to fake a secret word. Don't take the bait.
Oh, no, voluptuous is not a good word. Okay, nevermind. Don't look up that.
Dr. Shah, I want to formally apologize. That does not sound good at all. I thought it was like charismatic, like charming. That's not what that word means. No, it's not.
It's not. I don't even know how to introduce them. Do you want to do the introduction? Dr. Shah, welcome to the show today. Thank you. Good to see you, Dr. Shah. Good to see you. Thank you for joining us for the first time.
I do want to say Dr. Shah is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full time pastor, and the host of today's show. I'm about to resign from hosting duties. I feel like I need to just see myself out if you want to just hit them with the first of the day. Why?
Nobody who wasn't watching would know what I just happened. I just pulled John's mic away from him before he says another adjective that doesn't need to be said. Yeah, right, right, right. The first of the day today is coming to us from 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 20. For I fear lest when I come, I shall not find you such as I wish and that I shall be found by you as you hold on. Sorry. For I fear lest when I come, I shall not find you such as I wish and that I shall be found by you such as you do not wish.
Lest there be contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, backbitings, whisperings, conceits, tumult. Has Nicole ever called you up? Dr. Shah and said, when you get home, these kids need a whooping. And you said, I know going like you pull into the driveway coming in and saying, you know what?
I hate to do it, but it's whooping time. She never uses that. She never I mean, this is years ago. Right, right, right.
She didn't use those exact words, but she did say it. You're like, I've had it. I've had it. I've had it. The girls are are just on a like a warpath warpath.
And it's kind of hard because they're Indians. They walk in the room and they're like, oh, I feel like Paul sat down to write. I feel like this happened. Paul sat down to write to the Corinthians, just knowing in his mind is whooping time.
Yeah. Well, the very next verse says, lest when I come again, my God will humble me among you and I shall mourn for many who have sinned before me. Like he's talking about like, you're going to be brought to task if you keep acting up. Paul had a really, I don't want to say strained, but just a complex relationship with these Corinthians. I would say, yes, the relationship with the Corinthians was a little tense. But Paul, in my opinion, OK, in my opinion, demonstrates what a good pastor is supposed to be. Right. Yes.
Yes. That's how a pastor is supposed to be. And Paul was sort of a founding pastor of that church.
We tend to put Paul as a we frame him as a missionary or a church planter. And we think, you know, that's not the norm. The norm is this mild mannered, very gentle, you know, you know, very gentle and kind and kind of like someone you'd want to go get coffee with at a Starbucks. Like grandpa type. Yeah.
Let's just do a lunch. Yeah. That's what a pastor is supposed to be. But I don't think that's really the case.
Right. I think Paul demonstrates for us what a pastor is supposed to be, how he's supposed to be with his people. So he is, on one hand, very kind and gentle and loving. But at the same time, he's also very forceful and he doesn't back away from correcting them. And at times he is, you know, he is just like we see, ready to give them a whooping.
Good point. And I think I feel like when pastors are asked about that or when you when they when they're asked, like, you know, why aren't you more like that? They're like, well, you think I'm on the same level as the apostle Paul? You think I'm anything like Paul? And it's funny because doesn't Paul say imitate me as I imitate Christ?
That's right. Like, why wouldn't you want to be like the apostle Paul? I guess it's one of those things where it's just like they put and he is Paul's on another level.
But that doesn't mean that you don't you don't try to get to that level. It comes back to what you view as affection and care. Like the opposite of love isn't hatred. The opposite of love is apathy.
Paul didn't love the Corinthians. He would just be like, OK, whatever. You all do what you want to. But he's bringing him the task because he cares for him and he wants to see them walking with God. Very true. Otherwise, he would be like, OK, I mean, you live your life.
Very true. But he's not doing that. He's saying this is what it takes to live the Christian life.
Straighten up because God's called you to better than this. Absolutely. Absolutely.
So we can learn from Paul. Don't don't go and just stay on the extremes with him. Just like this. You know, when he talks about how he is, you know, doesn't he talk about like kind of motherly towards them in one passage? Just don't be just that. Right. Don't be just the Corinthian Paul, which is, you know, I'm going to come there.
I'm going to deal with you and I'm going to deal with you behind your back and do it to your face. Don't just be there. Somewhere in the middle is the proper balance.
What a pastor is supposed to be. Amen. Amen. Gentlemen, I don't know if you all know this, but we're five days away from Christmas. That is crazy to me. Christmas is in five days and it does not feel like it.
Crazy to me. Have you all been having Christmas movies on nonstop at the house? I mean, not nonstop, but we had Christmas movies on. Christmas music nonstop. Yes. OK. But not Christmas movies.
Dr. Shaw Christmas movies at the house? Now. Now, because my sister is with us, you know, she is. We're so glad. Praise God.
A lot of prayers were answered. Yes. She's here attending college. But for Christmas, she's at our home. She loves watching. She loves binge watching shows.
OK. OK. So if she gets in her zone, zone, zone to watch NCIS, then it'll be NCIS nonstop. That's what she's binging? She was at one time. And then she got on to Monk. OK. Monk, Monk, Monk, Monk, Monk, Monk, Monk, Monk. Monk is a good one.
I like that one. And then then so finally we said, you know, we're going to we're going to let's watch some Christmas movies. You're like, yes, let's watch. Like, oh, there's no fight there.
So I thought there'd be there was some fight in my house because Ellie's I don't know what that what is going on this Christmas. But she's so obsessed with Home Alone 2, which I thought was a really weird one. Like everybody loves one. And for some reason, everybody loves three.
But Home Alone 4? No. Yeah.
No, I barely. Three is the other kid, right? Three is a different kid. Four is a different kid still.
It's a third kid. I barely tolerate Home Alone 3. Home Alone 2 is a weird one.
That's played in my house at least like five or six times this. Two is an odd pick. The New York one? Yeah. You don't like it?
I like it. It's just the same film. It's the same as the same as the first one, just in New York, which is fine. It's just like I was watching it and like every beat is the exact same one with the pigeon lady at the end. Right.
Yeah. Like like if you like, I had never seen it. And so last year we watched it for the first. I was like, let me actually watch Home Alone 2. And I was like, we just watched Home Alone 1. So watching them side by side made me realize, like, it's the same beat. The story beats are the exact same. They just changed the dialogue and changed some of the setting. But it's the same movie.
That one also has pre-presidential Donald Trump. Yeah, true. Yeah. Yeah. That was kind of cool. That was kind of cool to see. But I guess I was just like, I don't know any circumstance. I told Ellie this this year.
I don't know any circumstance where someone would watch. If you're going to watch Home Alone 2, you may as well just watch Home Alone 1. You know? Yeah. I like personally, I like them both. Now, I know you like I know you like the scene where he gets electrocuted, where he gets like electrified and like this, like the skeleton.
He's just like a skeleton. That's a great scene. That scared Gavin to death. Oh, really?
Yeah. He was watching it. He was like, blah, blah, blah.
He was watching. He was like, I don't like it. I don't like this. I was like, it's okay. It's just pretend. I was like, it's funny, Gavin.
I don't like this. I would take an interesting development this year in Christmas movies. I have watched since we did A Christmas Carol. After that, I have watched several versions of A Christmas Carol.
Really? And I have found myself infinitely more emotional at those versions than I was prior to doing A Christmas Carol. Which ones did you watch? So I watched, there's an animated one that's a musical on Netflix. It's pretty good.
Oh, no. It's pretty good. I watched that one. I watched and this is, I watched several leading up to A Christmas Carol, but this is since A Christmas Carol. I watched, I'm up A Christmas Carol.
Of course. And then I watched, I watched some of the one with Patrick Stewart, the one that came out in the nineties. And just like, I found myself more gripped by the story than prior to us performing A Christmas Carol here.
I was thinking about that. I think, you know, anytime you want to go see a play, you need to either watch that play in a movie form or something. I agree. Because it really helps you appreciate the play. If you don't know the story. I agree.
If you know the story very well, then okay, no big deal. But if not, it always helps because now you know what's happening on the stage. A hundred percent. Some people, they don't. And it's, it's, it's tough to really appreciate it. Yeah.
I agree. Some people, some people that we know came to the show and had never seen A Christmas Carol before and never read the story. That was wild to me.
That was really wild. Totally like enraptured by the story, which I mean, it was a great story, but people like they, they know the outcome. They know what happens to Scrooge in the end. But there were several people there who had no idea. They were just blown away by the ending.
That was bizarre to me. Like people were up there watching us do A Christmas Carol for the first time ever. Yeah. They're like, wow, that was such a good story. Did y'all write that?
Huh? We need to move on for this, but I learned this yesterday. Yesterday, December the 19th is the 181st anniversary of the first publication of A Christmas Carol.
December the 19th is the day that it was published and it sold out in five days. By the way, we did talk about A Christmas Carol on the show, didn't we? I think so. I think we talked about it after the play.
Yeah. For those who may not know, but Nicole and I were able to go to London to his house, which is now a museum. Now he lived at that place maybe two, three years, and I believe he wrote Nicholas Nickleby while he was there. I may be wrong, but I think he wrote that one. Oliver Trist? No.
No, I think it was Nicholas Nickleby. He wrote that there. So walking through that house and just knowing that this man was here and that his mind was just creating these characters and storylines and these interactions and these build ups and these let downs and all this was happening right in this area. Imagine him walking around and thinking, no, that's not the way to do it.
I'm going to try this here. I'm going to have to come back to this again tomorrow. It just does not seem to really lead to where I wanted the story to go. And just thinking about how this was working, this was very touching for me. It's crazy to think about how influential and impactful Ebenezer Scrooge, like if you say the word Scrooge has really become a... It's a metaphor now. Don't be such a Scrooge.
Yeah, everybody knows exactly what you mean. Okay, cool. Don't be like this.
And to think that you're sitting there looking at the desk he sat in when he thought up who Scrooge was or just any of those characters. It's crazy. That's really cool.
Don't go anywhere, guys. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back with more Clearview today. That's right. Every single donation, big or small, goes directly to the production of this show. It helps us keep the lights on in the studio.
It helps keep the mics hot and running. So if these conversations are making a difference in your day, or if you just want to help us keep the gospel of Jesus Christ in the airwaves, we would appreciate your support. You can give by visiting our website. That's Clearview todayshow.com and just click on that button that says give today. And remember, your support truly makes a difference in our show. Thank you for being part of this community. Now let's get back to the show. Welcome back to Clearview 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 Clearview todayshow.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're in the Christmas spirit here in the Clearview today's studio, but we're also remembering today that there's people around the world who are trying to celebrate Christmas who, you know, are having a harder time or they're in need of prayer.
And there's a lot of things going on in the world that are sort of hindering that Christmas spirit. Yeah. Yeah.
I know you were talking to us a little bit about what was going on in Nigeria before we started the show. Do you want to kind of just catch us up on on what exactly has been happening? Sure.
Sure. So, you know, while we are here talking about Charles Dickens and the Christmas story and about how people can be like a Scrooge and we need to enjoy Christmas. Right.
You know, in all of this, we tend to forget there are people across the world who who cannot even begin to think about enjoying Christmas. Yes, true. Because of persecution. And many, many Christians across the world are persecuted in different countries and different regions.
But there is one country that is topping the list, and that is the country of Nigeria. And this is a place where more Christians have been killed than any other place right now. Or at least that's that's what we know for sure. Right. And it's very, very tragic.
Christmas is not about, hey, get together with family and we're going to eat a lot of good food and celebrate and go to church. And they have to fear for their lives because their women, their children are being raped or killed. And these are being done by these Islamic groups, these terrorist groups like Boko Haram and, you know, other groups like that.
And that's that's very tragic. Does the violence ramp up at Christmas time? Well, violence is there throughout. This is a constant threat. But, you know, groups like, as I mentioned, Boko Haram or ISWAP, which is an Islamic state invest in West Africa province, African province. These are, you know, military style assault groups and they want to just destroy churches. I mean, that's the first thing they go after. How can we kill Christians? Wow.
How can we kill them? And they've had a change in presidency, both of them Muslims, by the way. So you went from Mohammed Buhari to now a different president. I forgot his name.
If I can find his name. The current president of Nigeria. Yeah. It's Tenubu.
Bola Ahmed Tenubu. And same thing. It's I guess it's it's we'll see.
We'll see if this president will do things right. Yeah. Well, I just wonder, like with Christians being so prominent in Nigeria, it's like almost half the population is Christians.
I think so. And yet there's there's so much violence against them. You know, I guess I just thought if you were in the in the majority of the population, there's like an implicit safety. But that's not the case. That's a good point. Yeah.
That's not the case. Whoever carries the weapons. Yeah. Whoever has the arms, you know, makes the rules. So also here, because the government and the military or the police or whoever has the weapons, they get to dominate the other group.
Even if the group has a large population, they don't have anything to defend themselves or fight back. Right. And this is happening like today. This is happening right now as we speak. It's happening right now. Twenty, twenty four.
December twenty, twenty four. It's happening. Is the persecution coming from other religious entities or is it coming from a government standpoint? It's sort of governments, you know, is complacent about it or complicit, I guess. And so they don't care. They're OK with these terrorist groups harassing and killing or raping Christians.
So it's not necessarily persecution coming from the government, but the government's doing nothing to stop it. Right. Or they're they go along with it. They're part of this. They just pretend like, yeah, we'll do something.
But they're not going to do anything. Yeah. There's a lot of I know there's a lot of fear and distrust in those Nigerian communities, especially around Christmastime. And I remember I think we mentioned it on the show last year, but it was happening a lot last year. And I think now that it's starting to happen again in larger numbers. And I think Christmas, it's so sad and it's so tragic because Christmas is becoming a time of fear. It's becoming a time that you have to hunker down and just try to survive. And it's the exact opposite of what goes on here in the West.
You know what I mean? Yeah, it's very tragic. Yeah, very so we're talking about this today so that we can bring some kind of an awareness to people. Right. And tell them, hey, pray for your brothers and sisters in Christ. Right.
Pray for them across the world. And thank goodness for the change in government that is coming. Yes. Or has already come that we can now speak out.
And under President Trump, we can tell these countries it's time to cut it out. That's right. You're done.
That's right. Don't don't do this to Christians. What have they done to you? Stop.
Stop. So that hasn't happened. It hasn't happened in the past four years. That hasn't happened, you know, prior to President Trump coming in office during the Obama years.
I mean, it wasn't the same. And it's been rough on Christians. It's I think it's good to have talks like this because this is like sort of the exact opposite of like bringing in the Christmas spirit.
But at the same time, it's good to have these talks, I think, especially at Christmas, because a lot of times like me growing up in America, like this was this is all I've ever known where it's just like this happy, festive, joyful, free time. I've never known persecution. You know what I mean? I don't know what that's what that's like.
I know that it happens, but I've not experienced it. And so I think it's good because you not growing up here in America, you grew up in a in a situation where Christianity was not welcome, where it was sort of more on the dangerous side to be a Christian. I mean, I know you grew up in a Christian community, but in India, it wasn't. Well, yeah, I did go through persecution. But when I was growing up, at least people were not as antagonistic towards Christianity.
So, yes, there were people who would cause persecution to come. For example, you know, you heard me talk about this for us as it happened, where our power was cut off for an entire year. Now, this is where the temperature gets to be about, you know, 120, 125 degrees Fahrenheit. Imagine your power is cut off. You don't run air conditions.
It's not possible. It's you don't have air condition. You have fans because running a fan at least keeps the air from being, you know, kind of just this thick, like stagnant, stagnant. So the fan helps. OK, so imagine losing power. Yeah.
Right about March, April time. Golly, that air is so thick. And it's so hot. I mean, this is where you get sunstroke when you go outside. This is where people have a heat stroke. And this is what they did to us. And it's because we were in a railway area.
Right. The church was located in a railway colony means this is where railway workers lived, drivers, engineers. We have a railway hospital, so railway doctors and railway nurses. We had a railway police force that guards all the goods and and the offices and and the train depots and all of that.
So you have the RPF, the railway police force. So all these people live. So we our house and the church is located right in the heart of the railway colony. OK. And it's pretty wide. I mean, it's acres and I mean, several miles.
So it's not like a little colony. Right. Right. No, it goes on.
So anyways. So there was a change in the general manager. A new general manager came who was very kind of a militant, nationalistic Hindu guy. And when he came, he said, why is the church getting the railway electric power?
Because they're in the, they're in that grid, in the grid. Yeah. But they're not charged and they're not railway.
Is that a railway church? No. Well, then they don't get our power. Well, you can't do that because they're sort of, you know, grandfathered in. Right. Because, yes, they can get the power that is more municipal, which is, you know, for the whole city and the county and all that. But but since they're in this zone, we have to, by law, do that. No, we don't.
Railway doesn't have to help anybody, which is which was against the law. Right. Right. He wasn't right.
Yeah. But he cut the power. He said cut the power. So they had to go. They had to go out of their way to cut you out of the grid that was already there. It wasn't like you guys were like a like a like a parasite added on to the grid. You were already there.
Right in the middle. You know, the church was originally built in the 1880s, 1890s, somewhere there. It came out of a revival.
I've talked about this before. But anyways. But it was built so that railway British officers could go to church in walking distance. So even from its inception, it was built linked to the railway.
It was. Its very existence was was tied to the railway. So the fact that it was getting railway power, I mean, just that they go ahead.
It's crazy. They had to go out of their way and spend more money and cutting the power than just leaving it alone. Even if there was a solution to tap off municipal power to get to the church. Yeah. Why not run that power first, then cut the right power source? I mean, even our address to this day, it's not our address anymore.
Since my dad is, you know, passed away, mom's gone. But it used to be 12 blocks. So that that area had 12 blocks, 32 blocks, 16 blocks.
What do you mean by blocks? That's how many homes were there. And the people who lived in those homes, 12 blocks were for the medical doctors. So did the 12 blocks around the church get their power cut to?
No. Just that one address, that one home. One home. And the church. And the church.
Makes sense. So anyways, I say all that to say it was wrong. It was unfair. It was unjust. You know, it was hate induced. So I know what these Christians in Nigeria are going through because they're going through wars.
It's not just cutting power. Right, right. It's people coming in and beating them and slapping them and killing them and raping their wives and their daughters. Imagine that somebody doing that to your daughters. I can't imagine.
So it's horrible. But as growing up in India in those years, in the 80s, 70s, 80s, it was a different world. People were not as as antagonistic against Christianity. And and we as Christians were, I guess, had.
Courage, I guess I can say, or maybe we were more active or we were brave that people didn't try much. Right. And we'll fight back.
If it came down, they will fight back. Now it's not that way. Yeah. Even in India?
Definitely in India. Gotcha. Gotcha. Wow.
It's a different world. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's one of those things where, you know, as we're prepping for Christmas, it's good to keep that in mind that there's people over the world who want who are joined with you in spirit. But the circumstances of their Christmas are very different. Yeah.
Yeah. How should we as believers, as we're prepping for Christmas, how should we approach Christmas with this information in mind? For one, pray.
Secondly, talk about it. And hopefully in the upcoming year, 2025, more Christian organizations will talk about this. Yeah. And speak out. There are one or two Christian organizations that do, but they have ulterior motives.
Like there was one who was talking about persecutions against Christians and all of a sudden they became antisemitic. I'm like, what? What? What? How does that work?
What are you doing? You know, stick to the task. Right. Right. And they had a big list of signatures. I was like, oh, I'm going to sign on that. And then I read the rest of their manifesto and it was like garbage. Yeah.
So make sure you read what they believe in, what they truly stand for, and then speak out about those issues. And if you can financially help, let's make sure. Please don't just send money to anybody. Right. Right. From Nigeria.
Do your research. Especially. No princes, no royalty.
No, no, no, no. They don't need that because they're probably, if they are from Nigeria, you know, they're not the good guys. Right. Right.
But hopefully you can help missionaries and maybe organizations that may be doing work there. That's right. Yeah.
And it's good. Like, I think you, I think you hit the nail on the head there. It's good to talk about it. These are awkward topics at Christmas. And these are the things that every, all Christians want to cry. Someone should be talking about this more. It's like, look, talk about it with your family over Christmas dinner. Oh, well, I don't know about that.
I want to bring everybody down. And be glad. I mean, we in America, we are, we are protected. That's right. Thank God for all the freedoms we have that we are unassailable. That's right.
That's right. Amen. That's a blessing. Very much.
Make sure you guys join us tomorrow. When he said unassailable, I was like, yeah, yeah. Amen. And then I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute.
That's the secret word. He got to the button first. He got to the button first. I sat there and agreed with him. I pulled an Adam painter and I just like, I was like, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I was like, wait, Adam, you just threw Adam painter under the bus? I just sat there and agreed. And then I was like, wait, no, I couldn't get to the button. I thought it was totally legit. I was like, yeah, unassailable.
I didn't get it. Very nice. Very nice.
Unassailable means immune to attack. Very nice. That was good.
That was a good, that was a good way to get it in there. Make sure you guys join us tomorrow. Same time, same station. We're going to be diving into another great topic right here on the Clearview Today Show. Thanks again to Le Bleu Ultra Pure Water for sponsoring today's episode. And don't forget, 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. Jon, what do you, what do you want to leave our listeners with today? I definitely want to plug our upcoming live stream on January the third that is going to be from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. We're going to be hanging out right here in the Clearview Today studio in our 24 hour prayer vigil.
In those two hours, you can call into the show, 252-582-5028. And you can just, you can talk to us. You can let us know how we can be praying for you. We'll pray with you right here on the air over the phone, but it's going to be a great, great time. And also by Dr. Sean Nicole's book, 30 Days of Praying for America, Daily Devotions to Heal Our Nation, as well as our debut album, Heaven Here and Now.
It's available on iTunes, Spotify, anywhere that digital music is streamed or sold. That's right. Make sure you guys jump in. Lots of great conversation to be had tomorrow. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clearview Today.
