What's going on Clearview Today listeners? It's David here from the Clearview Today Show and I just want to let you know that today's episode and today's secret word is brought to you by Mighty Muscadine, king of the superfoods. Mighty Muscadine offers a variety of products from their signature Muscadine grape juice to powerful dietary supplements.
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Just joking. Don't leave a two-star review. If you guys are joining us for the first time, we are here with the host of our show, Dr. Abaddon Shah, who's a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and of course, the host of today's show, Dr. Shah. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Merry Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas Eve.
Yay. It's Christmas Eve. It's the day before Christmas and all through the house.
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. There you go. You got a Christmas Eve verse for us?
I do. Our verse of the day today comes from Matthew chapter one, verse 23. Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son and they shall call his name Immanuel, which is translated God with us. It feels like I've heard that somewhere before.
Like if you're a Jewish person living in those times, you would probably have... Like something would go off in your brain and say, I think, maybe I've heard that. Now, hold on a minute. That sounds vaguely familiar. That's right. That's right. Well, this is a promise God has given, had given to his people hundreds of years before it came to pass. And in the fullness of time, God sent his son. That's right.
Amen. And the baby, when he was born, I'm sure he cried. I know the song says he doesn't make any... No crying he makes. No crying he makes.
Well, maybe he did, but I don't know if he cried like that. That's why I was busy trying to get that picture up. Yeah, he... Oh no, I love that picture so much.
We tried to take, we tried to take pictures last night. Yeah, Gavin's like, Gavin's loving it. Gavin's cheesing. He's having a good time. Gavin's loving it.
Gavin is the ultimate... I don't know if your kids did this, but like when one kid was like really out of sorts, the other was like... But let's, let's sort of explain to people who are listening, what exactly just happened. So if you're listening on the radio, if you're not watching the, if you're not watching the show, this is our Christmas card where we announced that baby boy three is on the way. My wife is pregnant with our third son. It's a Christmas picture of us in front of the Christmas tree. My oldest son, Gavin, is holding the sign that says baby boy three rocking around the Christmas tree, June, 2025.
Holden is crying beside him, losing his mind. So last night we were taking the, well, well, when these pictures were taken there, we're all in our matching PJs. He's trying to knock the light over.
We have like a little ring light, like a little makeup light that girls use, and we were using it to light it. And all he wanted to do was knock the light over. And Ellie was like, no, stop, stop, stop. And it got to the point where he just wasn't listening. He just wanted to knock it over. He thought it was funny. So she popped his hand and he just... And I don't know what she was thinking, but she was like, quick, take the picture. I was like, no, he's crying.
And she was like, three, two. And so everyone goes, geez. It's hilarious. It's so funny. On this side of it, we know that he's crying because his hand got popped. But in the picture, it looks like he's crying because he's displaced as the youngest child. It's perfect. It's hilarious.
We wanted to send it out as the Christmas card and as the announcement where he's he's sad that he's no longer the baby. Y'all remember taking those Christmas pictures where kids were just not cooperative? No, they were not bad. The girls would get annoyed with the guys, the boys. That's the kind of stuff that went on. It was not like they were bad. None of them were ever bad.
He would just say, Nicholas, stop. That was you or that was the girls? No, that was the girls. Me and Nicholas never did anything that was bad. The girls just got on his nerves.
Or he got on the girls' nerves. Was it difficult to wrangle five children for Christmas pictures? This year, no. Surprisingly, everybody was locked in.
They just stood on their marks and smiled. In years past, though, it's been really difficult to have everyone looking at the camera, everyone smiling, and no one blinking. Those three aligning, that's really hard to do. Your oldest daughter. I love her with all my heart. She's the world's worst blinker. She's terrible.
I've never seen a picture of her with her eyes open. I know someone worse. Who's that? Rebecca. Really? Our daughter. She knows window. She blinked in that picture we have of her family from like three weeks ago. Really?
Like we're standing here. I didn't see it. Did you post it? No, I think Nicole has it. I might see it. She's looking, but you can tell it's on the way down or up.
I don't know which one it is. Oldest girl problem. I think it's the oldest girl problem. Because somehow everyone I've ever seen of Hartley, it's like her eyes are so synced with the camera's shutter. She squints her eyes to smile, which she and I both smile like that.
Your eyes squint naturally when you smile. I don't know if it's just kind of like they get really close to close and then all of a sudden they're just sort of like close. I guess. I don't know if it's just like a slippery slope for her. I don't know.
I look at all these family photos and I wonder, like, how do you get such great cooperation? Because Gavin Gavin is just like, I want this over. So he's like, yeah, like his is trying to make the smile not look so forced. He's like, yeah. Holden is like, I'm going to wreck this.
I'm going to destroy this. I mean, that's what that face is like. That face is you just crossed the line.
Oh, man, that's so funny. So I look at all these other all these other families and I'm like, how do they get their kids just to cooperate? Like even with your kids, yours are like, yeah, I'm good.
Let's take the picture. But my youngest is six. True.
When they were that age, they didn't cooperate. But one son did cooperate. Oh, yeah. It was Jesus. That's right.
That's right. John, for a moment, like, really? Who was it?
What's the secret? Was it Thomas? Was it Nicholas? No. It was Jesus.
He cooperated with his father and agreed to come into this world to give his life for us. That's right. That was not just a picture taking moment. That was a life giving moment. Amen. Amen. Maybe we can talk about that later on in the show. I'd love that.
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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. Abbadon 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. If you're just joining us after the break, we're talking Christmas Eve. Dr. Shah, you got any fun Christmas Eve traditions?
So this is something I also wanted to know. And I think we've talked about this on the show before, but for anybody who's joining us since last December, Christmas Eve back home in India when you were a kid. Did it look different than Christmas Eve here today? Because everybody's got their Christmas Eve traditions. Christmas Eve back in India was, I mean, Christmas Eve was really where we're out Christmas caroling. That's when the Christmas caroling is happening. Yeah. Got you. So it would begin somewhere, my goodness, five, six o'clock.
I'm back at the house. Because in about 30, 40 minutes, everybody's going to be arriving at the church, which is literally 10 steps in the church parking lot. So it was not that much. It was a lot of excitement. Everything is happening. And then people would show up one by one, and the teams would be ready. And then by eight o'clock, we got to roll out. And this is like, typically, by nine o'clock, you're in the house, right? Unless you're some special function going on or something like that, and you're going to be out of the house. But typically, by nine, 930 max, you're home. Here, at eight o'clock, you're leaving the house legally and going out there with people, and you're going to be all over the city till like four or five o'clock in the morning. All night long.
And then come home. And Christmas Day, there's a message. There's church service. There's a church service.
And you can ask Libna about it. I mean, she was there. And you can tell who all were Christmas caroling, because they're tired of nodding. Did your dad go Christmas caroling? Never. Never? Never. Never. I never remember him going.
Ever. But because, I mean, he's the pastor of the church. He's got to write the sermon. He's got to write the sermon. He's got to be ready.
He's got to be like that point person. So he never went. Now, he may have gone years prior before I started going, but yeah.
Nice. He never did. Christmas caroling was not something that we did growing up. I mean, we would sing Christmas songs, of course, but actually going out as a group and going Christmas caroling was not something that, I mean, I'd heard about it, but it's not something that we did. So when I first started coming here and we talked about like, hey, we need to go ahead and set up Christmas caroling, I was like, oh. Like Scrooge? We're actually going there.
Christmas caroling on the street corner. What? We're actually going to sing at people's houses? Really?
Yeah. But it's become something that I look forward to every year. I love doing it. It is pretty fun. It's so much fun to just go around with different groups of people and hang out and talk and laugh and go see people that you don't normally get to see and sing Christmas songs for them. A lot of times we go in nursing homes and we sing with the people there and they're so appreciative and so thankful. I mean, it's such a sweet tradition. I love it so much.
I like Christmas caroling at Clearview. I know I say this all the time to the point where it starts to sound cliche, but I always did it. Like it was kind of fun, but I didn't start really, really enjoying it until I had kids and I started taking them and now seeing them like it.
They go to our church members' homes and they see their church members that they know and love come out of their houses with their little Christmas hats and they're like, hey, we're going to sing. That was when it started getting really, really fun for me. Yeah. And these are traditions that unfortunately, you know, the third world kept going and the Eastern world kind of turned them off. We kept doing them. And now in some ways, in a small, small way in our part of the world, we're bringing them back.
That's right. Christmas caroling through people's homes. And I like, I also like that we are a church and I think a lot of churches feel this way, but maybe it's not like contextualized or specified, but we're not a church that shies away from tradition.
You know what I mean? It's not that like tradition is what our faith is built on, but at the same time, we're not like, hey, tradition is bad and we're going to get away from that. We're going to blaze a new path in the wilderness. Like a lot of these traditions have a lot of biblical value. Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely. Christmas caroling. I mean, that's about, you know, the angel singing to, well, I don't know if they sang or not, but they spoke to the shepherds out in the fields at night. So we're doing the same thing. We're being heralds of the gospel. Right. That's right. And going out there and carrying out.
And then of course, as you watch or you saw the performance of a Christmas carol, you see the Christmas carolers out there. Right. You know, one thing I would love to do, and maybe some churches do that. You know, they do that.
They go through the mall and sing. Yeah, absolutely. I would love that. I mean, that would be pretty awesome. Yeah. If we can get some permits here and there and just stand there and just sing. That's right.
Yeah. Just be there. And invite people to come join us. It's a great, it's a great evangelistic tool, this Christmas caroling. Any other Christmas Eve traditions that you've kind of fostered with your family that you'll be doing today?
Well, in our home, like home today. Yeah, yeah. Right. Growing up, Christmas Eve, we went to church. So, you know, here we don't go Christmas caroling. We have a Christmas Eve service. Right.
That's right. So we will come together and we will, you know, our church has two. One is at six o'clock, one is at eight o'clock, and we will sing Christmas carols, Christmas songs, and then I'll have a brief message and then we will have communion and then candlelight. And if you're listening to this right now, it's happening tonight.
And so you can, you know, if you're in the area or if you just want to even join us online, if you want to watch it later on, please feel free. Because the Christmas Eve service at Clearview is not just like another service at Christmas. There's a level of excellence and specialness to it.
That's a great word. It's a very, very special service. Yeah, it is.
It is. And a lot of people come with families because they're there with their children, their grandchildren, and the candlelight is a special part of that service. We have kids get up there and sing. Thank you to Ryan and Elizabeth for helping getting that going where children sing.
And we have a lead singer, but they're singing behind them and they do a great job. And parents love that. Grandparents love to see their children up there singing. Yes. The children's choir was a huge hit.
Huge, huge hit. People love that. And it's a chance for the kids to understand, like, worship is not something that I just get to watch on stage.
It's something that I can not only participate in, but help lead in. That's one of the values that we have for our Clearview kids is training them to be worship leaders. That's right. That's right.
So it's a good chance for them to do that. You know, think about that night, like that story that we've heard. Because that's one of the things you always read Luke to. But I also think about just the scripture behind that passage. I think sometimes in the hearing it over and over and over, it can be like, oh, yeah, that's the cute Christmas verse. But, like, think about, like, the gospel message of those angels coming and proclaiming the birth of Jesus.
And, Dr. Shaw, this is something you talk about. Like, the Jewish people have been looking forward to this for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, century after century. They're waiting for this one figure to come, this Messiah to come. And then imagine being the shepherds out in the field who the angel appears to you and said, hey, guess what? It's time. Everything you've been waiting for is happening right now. Well, we tend to think that this was all a shock to the people.
And that is not true. If you read, of course, the biblical prophecies, but also if you read extra biblical literature, what you find is that the Jewish people were expecting someone to come. Simeon was not shocked, right? Simeon at the temple was not shocked when he saw Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus.
Anna launched into a praise to God when she saw Jesus. So, why do we keep thinking that this was a shock? It wasn't a shock. This was something they were awaiting. Right. That's right.
This is something they long to see. Hebrews talks about that. You know, the Hall of Faith. The Hall of Faith is not just about, you know, you need to be full of faith like these people. No, these people did not receive what you are receiving. That's the message of Hebrews 11. It's not just like, you know, this is the Hall of Faith.
Be like them. No, at the end of Hebrews chapter 11 is all these people were waiting, but they did not get what you're getting. That's a great point.
Yeah. So, it was not a shock. It was a fulfillment. Even the Pharisees and the scribes, the religious leaders, when they were asked by Herod, where is he who has been born King of the Jews? They were not shocked. They were not like, what do you mean King of the Jews? What do you mean he was born?
What do you mean? And they're like, oh, of course, by the prophets, it's in Bethlehem of Judea. So, they knew that. They just didn't want him. They just didn't like the fact that he did not come through them.
That was annoying to them. Was it a tribal thing or was it like that he didn't come through the elite scholars, like the elite? Like, was it that we want him to come through our tribe? It was not a tribal thing. It was more of their guild. Gotcha.
If you know what I mean by a guild, like we are the gatekeepers of religion. You have to come through us. We have to validate you. Yeah. You need our support.
Right. And Jesus is like, I don't need anything that you have promised I don't. I don't need any of you. The whole message here is that you need me.
You need me. And where I stand, that's where the line begins. It's not like I got to get in line behind you or where do I stand?
No. Where I stand, that's where the line begins. How do you think that happened to where if their whole thing is their subservience to God, but they know that this figure, this Messiah, is going to be God, but they seriously in their hearts wanted God to go through them, to go through their elitism. I mean, isn't that what happened? Jesus even talks about that in the parable of the vineyard. The vineyard owner goes away, and then he sends people to check on his crops, check on his vines, and they abuse them, misuse them, kick them out. And then he says, okay, I'm going to send my son. They will listen to him. And when they saw the son coming, the corrupt, evil, wicked workers, they said, let's come together. That's the owner's son. Once we kill him, this whole vineyard will be ours. Oh, wow.
The audacity. I know. But also just the sheer, what you call it, like you thought that would work. You really thought that's how it's going to work. This plan is foolproof.
It can't backfire. See if you can find that parable, because it'd be worth reading today, because it's about how they were so naive, I guess. Mark 12. Okay.
Mark 12 it is, because there's several parables of the vineyard, but maybe Mark 12 is the one that talks about the one for, is that the one? Yeah. You got it in KJV. Right. Yeah.
So here it is. So Mark 12, verse one. Then he began to speak to them in parables. A man planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a place for the wine vat and built a tower. And he leased it to vine dressers and went into a far country. Now at vintage time, he sent a servant to the vine dressers that he might receive some of the fruit of the vineyard from the vine dressers. And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty handed.
Y'all can't do that. Again, he sent them another servant at them. They threw stones, wounded him in the head and sent him away shamefully treated. And again, he sent another and him they killed and many others beating some and killing some. Therefore, still having his one son, his beloved, he also sent him to them last saying, they will respect my son. But those vine dressers said among themselves, this is the heir. Come let us kill him and the inheritance will be ours. So it's not even like, it's not even like he just keeps sending these goons. Like they know before they kill him.
This is the guy, the guy we work for, this is his son. Let's kill him. So they took him and killed him and cast him out of the vineyard. Therefore what will the owner of the vineyard do? Oh, he will come and destroy the vine dressers and give the vineyard to others. Have you not even read the scripture?
The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. What is the response to this? This is the Pharisee scribes. And they sought to lay hands on him, but fear the multitude for they knew he had spoken the parable against them.
So they left him and went away. From them the kingdom will be taken and given to Peter, a fisherman. Given to Matthew, a tax collector, given to Simon, a zealot. Given to Paul, a future Pharisee or a Sanhedrin, you know, member of a sign. So it's not just that this was taken and just given to the Greeks or the Romans or the Babylonians or the Egyptians or the Syrians.
No, no, no. This is about giving it, taking it away from the religious guild. And give it, because that's a good point. Peter, Simon, Peter, Paul, all these people you mentioned, they're still Jewish people. Do they imagine that once Peter and Paul and all these other disciples, once they became Christian, that they're no longer considered Jewish? Well, that's a big debate. And I would say they were still Jewish by ethnicity, not by religion.
Okay? And what do I mean by religion? Because we need to be careful how we say that too. Because up until that point, the religion was the religion we believe today, which is that the Old Testament is not necessarily fulfilled in the new, but I would say it's confirmed in the new. There's a big difference.
Mm-hmm. Is Judaism today, you wouldn't say it's incorrect, but would you say it's incomplete? Well, Judaism is different than what the Jewish people were doing at the time.
Gotcha. Judaism is something that evolved after, after the rejection of the Messiah, after the destruction of the temple, after the loss of the land. So all this that happened led to what we know today as rabbinic Judaism. Rabbis are the ones who are leading the discussion and they're giving wisdom and advice. And they may be the, you know, the descendants of the Pharisees, maybe in a sense. But that's who, that's what Judaism became. Similar, do you think, to... That's what we know as Judaism. Right, right.
Do you think it's similar to what Peter and Paul, we're kind of running out of time, but do you think it's what Peter and Paul is similar or do you think it's totally divorced from what they practiced? Oh, totally divorced. Gotcha.
Divorced. Because Peter and Paul, all these people were very close to who we are, but we know Jesus has come. Right. They were waiting for his coming. They believe the Old Testament like we believe the Old Testament.
They were very much like us. That's a good point because that's one of the things that you, I know, are very, very vocal about and very insistent on, and I think you're exactly right, is that the Jewish people of that time, when they were crucifying Jesus, they knew he was the Messiah. They weren't, like, blinded or they weren't deceived into accidentally, oops, we just killed Jesus.
Did it take a couple of generations or maybe even more than that for that to set in that, well, maybe we're still waiting? Great question because that is the question of early church history. Where was the parting of the ways, right? And if you read Acts and Paul's letters carefully and even Peter's letters, some John's, what you will see is that this is the background in which they're operating. What do you now do with our brothers and sisters who are refusing to accept the Messiah, right?
Good point. Who do they become now? Well, they still hold to the same Old Testament as we do. They still seem to have the same morals and ethics, okay?
I think in that period, okay, and again, I have to reveal my research and all that, and maybe some of the time I can do that. I think from there it became very strict monotheistic. Not that we are not, we are monotheistic, right? But we believe that it's one God in three persons.
We still believe in one God, right? Three persons, not three modes, not three forms, one God in three persons. I think with rejecting the Messiah, they locked themselves into this sense of this one God and lost sight of, you know, the Lord said to my Lord, lost sight of, you know. Like let us make man in our image. Let us make man in our image and all those messianic prophecies all of a sudden became so very weak and also the Holy Spirit, what do we do with the Holy Spirit of God, right?
The third person, the Godhead, now what happens there? So I think that's where they became, I wouldn't say strict monotheists because we are also strict monotheists, but they just became very, it almost didn't make sense anymore, right? That's where Judaism is now. That's where it has been, whether you call it reformed or liberal, whatever it is, that's where it's stuck now. Is the coming Messiah still a thing?
Will He be God? Not in all of them, but many of them, they still have that mindset, but for the rest of them to also follow through is not easy. When they do, it's like a life-changing experience, literally. It's almost like a theological choice that led to a willful oblivescence. Yeah, get the heck out of here. Well, you didn't even try. Oblivescence.
I was like, we're at 29 minutes, there's no way, there's no way I'm going to work this out. What does that word mean? The experience of forgetting. Oblivescence. Oblivescence.
There was no way. He just put an oblivescence on his neck. Yeah, I was about to say. He was sitting there the whole conversation, the whole episode, like, how am I going to work an oblivescence? I really was. I was like, how in the world?
And it got to a point, I was like, there's no way. I was thinking about how we were going to- I was just saying it before the end and throw it in at the end. That's the best conversations, though, because I was like, how are we going to tie this back into Christmas Eve? But at the same time, you know, that promise was fulfilled, that what they were waiting on happened, and we have that confidence.
Amen, that's right. Make sure you guys join us tomorrow, same time, same station, we're going to be celebrating with you on Christmas Day. That's your gift for today on Christmas Eve is the word oblivescence, the gift that keeps on giving. Thanks again to Mighty Musketine 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 or share it with a friend. And you can always support us financially at ClearViewTodayShow.com. Jon, anything you want to plug as we close on this Christmas Eve? Yes, our 24-hour prayer vigil is happening very, very soon. I believe it's happening next week on January the 3rd. We're going to be going live on the air from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Make sure you join us. You can call in that number, 252-582-5028. We will pray with you live on the air.
You can also get Dr. Shot and Nicole's book, 30 Days of Praying for America, Daily Devotions to Heal Our Nation on Amazon, and our debut album, Heaven Here and Now, is available on Spotify and iTunes right this very moment. That's right. Make sure you guys join the conversation tomorrow on Christmas Day.
We'd love to celebrate with you. That's right. We're having a great Christmas episode. That's right. We ain't taking it off. That's right. We're coming right at you. Merry Christmas Eve. We love you guys. We'll see you next time.
