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We are here today in the Clearview Today studio with Dr. Abbadan Shah, who's a PhD in New Testament Textual Criticism alongside Perma-guest Nicole Shah. That's the Perma-guest salute. It's fun to push the air horn button and also make the air horn sound with your mouth. You always got to.
You can't just have it. Like anytime you do it, you know, any show anywhere, if you hear Nicole, welcome to the show. Thank you. Welcome. Welcome Dr. Shah and Nicole. Wonderful to have you guys in the studio today. It's good to be here, especially with Nicole.
Yes. Right here on Valentine's. Are you cold, Nicole? You got your sweatshirt. Oh, it's just the red sweatshirt. Clearview merch. I pointed it out, not to ask if you were cold, but just to show off our merch. Product placement.
Yeah. It has a varsity look, which is pretty awesome. And it is so comfortable. It's so comfortable. It's like buttery soft.
It's buttery soft against like your skin or whatever. Available in the Clearview store. Yes.
In the Clearview corner behind yours today. Our verse of the day today is coming to us from Joel chapter two, verse 13. So rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness.
And he relents from doing harm. Thank goodness for that. Yeah. That's a big wrath of God.
Something we don't like to think about a lot. And it's because of love. Yes. You know, in his wrath, he should destroy us.
Right. But it says love that sort of a counterweight. Yes, that holds him up. And this is not something like God is conflicted within himself. He is a God of wrath. He's a God of justice. But he's also a God of love and God of mercy. And it works together.
Nothing, no conflict there. This is just part of who he is. That's right.
And every one of those attributes are at full max. And no contradictions there is this perfectly works out. He is going to punish sin, but he gave his son.
All you have to do is trust him. That's a great point that God's love isn't tamped down to exercise his wrath and his wrath isn't restricted to exercise his love. Everything is at full capacity. I think that shows that shows where we are as humans, because I think as humans, we're really quick to try to point out contradictions. We want someone to be the hypocrite. Right. So we search for those contradictions. But where we see contradictions, God is just showing his fullness in both areas.
It's more complimentary than contradicting. 100%. Well, tomorrow is Valentine's Day. So we were kind of thinking about gifts that we could give, you know, our spouses.
You know, there's always, you know, some flowers, chocolate, whatever from the gas station, you know, a little big, a little honking diamond necklace, a little card with a, with like a little pun on it or whatever. But I was thinking, but about a million dollars, Ryan. A million dollars, Nicole. I would take that. Women love money. One thing you can count on is that women love money.
All right. So here's a million dollars. This one I think is going to, I think Nicole would actually turn this one down. Million dollars.
Dr. Shaw, I'm going to give you a million right in your account, but every Valentine's Day dinner that you have for the rest of your life, you will never have a Valentine's Day dinner alone again. It will always be accompanied by no less than two toddlers. Toddlers? Toddlers. Two toddlers. Toddlers. With us and then two toddlers. You will have two toddlers at the table with you.
Yes. And if you get a million dollars for that? You get a million dollars. One time payment. I'll take it.
Now, Nicole, would you let him take it? Grandkids. It can be grandkids.
Okay. If it's my grandkids, then sure. But if you, but, but in years where you don't have the grandkids, I mean, you can choose grandkids.
Yeah. You could choose, like you can choose the toddlers. Like if you don't, if you don't choose, if you're like, I declined to choose any toddlers, then you'll just get two toddlers.
But if you want, you can take like Gavin Holden. A million dollars. I just imagine that a couple of hours a year. Absolutely. We're in that stage where like, we just went out for a Valentine's Day dinner yesterday and we had two, two kids with us. It just, that's the season of life we're in. I mean, it's okay. I mean, the tranquility is fine, but so what?
It's, it's, it's just one of those. No, wait a minute. Tranquility. Yeah.
I mean, I mean, it's peaceful. Was that the secret word? No. I mean, why, why wouldn't that be a secret word? Did you think that was a secret word?
I didn't, but then I, something kind of, something kind of flagged in my mind. I mean, if I said, placidity, what would you say to that? I would say I shouldn't have just, uh, gone prematurely. I said, I want to say I should've just, I should've just went for that.
Placidity, I might, I might buzz in on. Oh, I know. I know. I'm gonna leave it. I'm gonna leave it.
All right. Flem. Flem. Flem. Flem. Flem. Flem. Flem. I mean, not like Flem as in like spit down your throat, but Flem as in, uh, calmness. I've never heard Flem be calmness.
P-H-L-E-G-M. Unless we were talking about Flegem. No, I think, no, I think Flem is, Flem is definitely like what you cough up when you're sick, right? Like I don't want to have a Flem Valentine's Day. Maybe if you're listening, you want to have a Flem Valentine's Day, we can come back for the break. And Dr. Sean and Nicole are going to just fill us with some Flem.
Guys, don't go anywhere. We're going to take a quick break. Quick break.
Sorry, I got a little Flem. And be right back with more Clearview today. Hey Clearview Today listeners. Every day we invite you to join us in these conversations and explore the never ending truth of God's word. And if you've been following the show for a while, if you feel like it's blessed you, and you believe in the mission we're on, we invite you to partner with us through your financial support.
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That's right. We appreciate every single one of you. 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 Clearview Today show.com.
If you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028. Talked about this in our phlegmy intro today, but Valentine's Day is tomorrow. Today is February the 13th, which means you've still got a day.
It's not too late. But rather than just go out and buy some useless little thing, some chocolate whatever or some plastic whatever and try to just pass it off as an empty gesture, why not take today, listen to this episode and learn how to actually make your relationship last? You know what I mean?
Maybe, maybe. And this is something I think women have been telling us for a number of years now. Maybe it's if you start acting right.
If you go into your relationship, if you go into your marriage or your relationship doing stuff well on purpose, maybe that'll change some dynamic. I mean, I'm being kind of cheeky, but I think we, you know, Dr. Shah, you and Nicole just did a message together, which is sort of a play on the 30 days devotional series that you have 30 years to a better marriage because I think we did an episode on this, but you just celebrated your 30 year anniversary. January the 7th, 1995. So what are these 10 per, you want to do five today, five tomorrow? Let's do it. All right. I'll begin.
I'll kick us off. You know, you heard the adage. It takes two to tango. What it simply means is that, you know, you have two people coming together and both have to give a hundred percent. You know, in Christian circles, it's not just 50 50. It's a hundred hundred.
Great. But we believe it's not just the two people. You need a third person. And the third person cannot be your best friend. The third person cannot be one of your family members. The third person cannot even be your pastor.
The third person is Jesus Christ. That's true. Right. And both of us grew up in homes where we saw that. Yeah, we did. We both grew up in homes where our, both of our fathers were pastors and I grew up, well, two years or three years out of growing up, I grew up overseas. So, um, I had some experience, you know, being in foreign countries, but just the, just the fact of growing up as pastor's kids, there's specific, you know, experiences that nobody else can say that they understand except for pastor's kids. And I imagine that you also went into marriage with the same convictions and the same like expectations of what this is going to be. Well, also having two sets of parents who, who were together until death parted them was huge for us because we both had those examples of parents who were committed until death. And so to have that example and to, and to know that that was the legacy that we were continuing, it takes commitment, you know, and it is that commitment that you need.
Right. And I would also say it's, it's, you know, if you grew up in a home where parents didn't make it grew up, you know, I hate to even use the word broken home because it sounds so harsh and heartless, but you have a choice. So don't spend your time saying, well, I grew up in a non-Christian home where I grew up without, you know, both parents being at the house.
I understand you have a choice. You have a choice and you can choose to let Christ be the third person in your home, just like Nicole did. And just the way I did, you can choose your home now, your marriage now to have Christ at the center of your marriage. You know, the Bible says in Psalm 127 and verse one, unless the Lord builds the house, you labor in vain, who build it. So let the Lord build your house. And that's more than just a foundation. That's, that's daily. Jesus is building your marriage.
That's right. I think you preached a message. Not, I think I know you preached a message a while ago called becoming a chain breaker and it wasn't about marriage specifically, but about that, like, you know, it doesn't necessarily matter how you grew up. You can be that chain breaker in your family's legacy. Absolutely.
All right, Nicole, tip number two. All right. Your family, your earthly, your family, your biological family is great for support, but you need your church family to be for accountability. And this means that, you know, we, I said this from the pulpit Sunday, you know, that in this community, we have a lot of families who have their extended families next door, just down the street, in town, you know, and it's great. It's great for that support for those young couples, but you need a church family because they can keep you accountable in ways that your biological family cannot.
That's a great point. There's only so much your biological family can do. I mean, like your earthly family is there, but at the same time they've got their own, their own lives and their own problems. And what all can they really do for you that a village of church, I mean, I'm not, I know like it takes a village and all that stuff, but there's so many contributors with a church family who, like you said, are there to keep you accountable. And even your, you know, even if you go to church with your biological family, your church family can speak into and interact with your life in ways that your biological family can't, or maybe wouldn't feel comfortable doing because you grow up around your biological family. There are certain issues that, you know, you don't want to push there and, you know, there's kind of some tenderness there, but your church family exists to help you walk through those difficult parts of life, those, those hurts and those hangups that you have.
And they can do that in a way that your biological family isn't set up to do. That's true. It's very true. You know, years ago, they used to say, it doesn't matter if you go to church or not. People get the same amount of divorce.
And it has been debunked, right? What is the new now? The new now is saying that, yes, there still is divorce in the church, but it is definitely much less, much less than couples who are outside the church, much less because they have found that the support that you have within the church, within that church body helps to keep marriages strong. I mean, it seems like just common sense that when the husband and wife are both plugged into the church, their chances of making it would rise because there is so much support and there is so much love and community there that, that it sort of speaks into their marriage. And they're also seeing godly marriages lived out and you're able to say things that parents cannot say to their kids or their in-laws because it destroys their relationship. You can never be the same, but in a Sunday school class, in a small group, from the pulpit when I'm preaching or in counseling ministry, you can say things and the other person cannot say, well, now I hate you because you did this to me all my life. No, I'm telling you this because you're here for spiritual benefit, for spiritual growth. This is why you came here. Hence, I'm telling you these things. The relationship is different.
Exactly. One of the things that has helped us more than anything else is having a vision for our marriage. Very early on, we sought God's vision for our marriage. And our word to couples is seek God's vision for your marriage and seek it early. It means don't wait, you know, years down the road to say, okay, let's decide. No, your kids are grown.
Your health has, you know, taken a turn. So you cannot really sit there and say, let's, let's craft out that vision. Craft it out much earlier. Okay. I would say even in your, in your engagements period. Before you even get married.
Yeah. Before you even get married, spend some time deciding and you don't have to like, you know, come down to ride the nitty gritty of your strategic plan and, and, you know, steps to take and accomplishing this vision goal and that. No, just overall, what do you see us doing? Five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years from now, what do you see us doing 50 years from now? We did that. And what do we see?
Oh my goodness. The, the one thing I think we agreed on was just the fact of, we, we said Thanksgiving, but it could be any, you know, any special time, Christmas, whatever, that we envision the fact that we'll see our children, their spouses and our grandchildren around the table. And she's sitting on one end, I'm sitting on the other end and we can see people we've never met in our lives because some of them hadn't been born yet. You know, some spouses haven't been born yet. But, but now seeing these new people that have come into our family and then through them, children, maybe even grand, great grandchildren. Maybe.
Yeah. It's, it's a, it's a, it's a worthy dream because you know, a lot of people like, like someone like me, I've grew up with that. That was always my family was just right here. So I think I always took that for granted. But then you think about the fact that like you're from India, you had to leave, go like 3000 miles from home.
You're from Georgia. You know, you, you just don't, that's, that's, that dream is rarer than a lot of people think. And I think that's, that's something that even when you guys said that, I remember having that check.
Well, like, like, well, wow. You know, but then I've had that my entire life and a lot of people don't, I mean, you don't live near your family as well. So I think that joy and that piece of having that, that family all together around the table, I think it's a very worthy dream. Yeah, I really do think so too, because it's, it, I think it makes it more special, especially with, and not to say that it's not any more special that your family's here as well, but knowing that we don't have our extended family right next door or right down the street or that to have our children come home, you know, and then you realize how special was it for our parents to have them home. But I would add that it's not just that dining table or having your kids and grandkids around you. That is the, the ultimate vision.
The ultimate vision goes deeper than that. And I don't want to mislead people into saying, just picture the Norman Rockwell painting for your family. No, the real image I think was best described by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
If you know, he was a German theologian, pastor and even one who fought against Hitler. Unfortunately, he lost his life, but he said this about marriage. He said, marriage is more than your love for each other. It has a higher dignity and power for it is God's holy institution through which God wishes to preserve the humanity until the end of time.
Wow. In your love, you see only each other in the world. In marriage, you are a link in the chain of generations that God, for the sake of his glory, allows to rise and fade away and calls into his kingdom. In other words, the real vision is much more than the big dining table, tons of food, people laughing, you know, children running around, beautiful sun shining, and now we're out on the lawn. All that is great. All that is great. But that's not the ultimate vision that you need to have for your marriage.
The ultimate vision you need to have is of you being part of this very important, critical, beautiful link in the generations of marriage. Don't break that link. Don't let your pride or your anger or your frustration or your selfishness or your momentary lapse of judgment or I'm just going to cross the boundaries.
None of that. Don't let any of that take you away from that link. That's right. Be that link.
That's beautiful. It adds weight to what you're doing. It adds, you know, kind of a gravity to fighting for your marriage because it's not just look at this little beautiful little family that I've built for myself. It's look at this this strong link in a line of unbroken marriages that are showing the world what the gospel is. It's almost like I talked earlier in another podcast that I was on with y'all and I said something about, you know, that if it doesn't have an eternal significance. Wow. I mean, what eternality does it have when you're talking about your family being that link in the chain but of God's family? Yeah, good point.
It brings a sense of placidity. I think you already did it, didn't you? Did I buzz it?
I'm going to buzz it. No. Now y'all are done.
I can throw things in there. Placidity was twice. Was it twice? You said placidity twice. What was the secret word?
I mean, there could be many like there could be unexcitability. I mean, I don't know what to do. He's just going to ride the wave until he says it. All right, Nicole, I know you've been looking forward to this one.
What's the next tip? Sex matters, right? And a lot of people don't realize this, that your parents' attitude towards sex really makes a difference in how you view sex. Yeah, that's true.
That's true. I remember my parents never, there was nothing. Like when I say zero, I mean zero.
No mention of it. Everything I learned, I learned from school. I mean, it was bad. The first time I think I ever talked to my parents was after I was married. For real. Like after we had kids. I mean, it does. There are some points that you guys make that I like kind of take for granted. And then there's some point that you guys make where I'm like, yeah, that's true.
That's really true. I mean, if you really think about it, I mean, I was fortunate enough to have a mom and a dad who it really didn't bother them to talk about it. And especially, I mean, now of course I talked more to my mom because I'm a girl and she never shied away from anything. She never acted embarrassed. She answered my question to the best of her ability.
And that made me realize, you know what, I think she's right. This is a gift. This is not something that's dirty. It's not something that, oh my goodness, I have to do for my husband. Yeah.
And just to clarify, it does not mean that every Christian home mom and dad will sit down and talk to you about something. Because my parents didn't. It did not happen. But it was never communicated that it was bad either. Same. Yeah. It was never like, this is evil.
This is dirty. Don't talk about it. None of that. It was just not talked.
But it doesn't mean that it was ever looked down upon. Yeah. That's a good point. That's okay.
That's all right too. But I love the way you put this, Nicole, is that God created it. It's a good thing. It was a good thing. I mean, that's what he says in the scripture, that everything that he created was good. And something you said, Dr. Shaw, that I thought more people need to hear.
I think they know it, but we don't want to confront it, is that the enemy has completely captured it. Like that's- Yes. Out of all the things of Christian life, like he's got that one on live stream. He doesn't have to fight for that one.
No, he doesn't because we're all too embarrassed to talk about it. And the moment that we become more bold and the moment that we become brave enough to talk about it and to not be embarrassed because it is a gift that God created, then I believe that's when we begin to take it back. That's right.
That's right. Both ladies and men have to realize certain things. For ladies, what does sex mean? Sex means that women, we need emotional closeness. We need like hugging and kissing and cuddling and words. I always say that women, we are creatures of the ear and men are creatures of the eye. So that means that, you know, what we hear helps us be in the mood. And men- Yeah, more sight. And so we have to be careful men because, you know, your wives need emotional intimacy before they're ready for sex.
So take the time to talk to them, take the time to be loving to the day, take the time to go out on dates because all those things are building up towards something. That's right. Right. That's right. So as a wife, if you realize, okay, I need emotional intimacy to be close to my husband to want to have sex. Then we also, as women, need to realize that in order for our husbands to feel emotionally close to us, the same thing, well, they need sex. That's right. So it kind of works together. And so there are certain things you can do in case, you know, sex has been a dirty word in your vocabulary or even men, you know, you've learned the wrong kind of sex.
That's what happens. You know, when you don't learn it the right way, then of course there's pornography out there. There are friends who will, you know, show you pictures or, you know, now unfortunately in the world of the stuff- Yeah, you don't even need friends no more.
The supercomputer in your palm, you can see things in a matter of seconds that would take somebody going down to a store, to a shop or a gas station and purchase when people are watching you. Now it's like, it's right here, nobody knows. And it's all filthy. I mean, the worst kind of filth is out there.
It's terrible. So, you know, to fix that problem, I would say, you know, three things. Number one, pray.
You need to pray and ask, I know this sounds really, I mean, it's jarring. Pray and ask God into your bedroom because if he created sex, then he is, he wants the best for you and he will make it the best for you. And then adopting the intimacy lifestyle. And the one thing I did forget to say on Sunday was not only decide how many days a week that you will have sex, but also, you know, you take turns initiating because that is one big complaint that I have heard from a lot of men is that men are the only ones initiating and women are not. And men appreciate that.
Men feel like, okay, well at least I'm wanted, I'm loved. Like when my wife initiates sex with me and I, and a lot of times as speaking from the mind of a woman, that doesn't cross my mind. But now that I know that, you know, I try to be more cognizant of that.
That's right. And there can be other issues like medical issues going on, you know, go see a doctor. If you say, what if, what if my medical issues cannot be resolved? We understand there are times like that can happen and, but we do want to encourage couples as much as possible. Seek help, get help and try to live the intimacy lifestyle. First Corinthians chapter seven, verse five says, do not deprive one another, except with consent for a time that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. So if you want equanimity in your marriage, Nicole, you can, you can buzz in whatever you want. Equanimity, is that it?
I didn't know if that was it or not, but calmness, calmness, some peace, some placidity, some phlegm, some phlegm in your marriage. Do you want to, do you want to cover them on tomorrow's show for Valentine's day? We can easily do that since we set up this and took us a little bit longer. But anyways, I hope you will realize the reason we talk so much about sex is because as a pastor and wife, being, having been at the same church for the past 27 years, we have seen it all. And it's sad when we see people hurting and then they go to the wrong therapist or they turn to the wrong podcast or they turn to some friend or family member giving them advice.
And it's horrible advice and it destroys. Make sure you guys join us tomorrow. Same time, same station for our continuation of the conversation. Permiguess Nicole Shaw will be back with us tomorrow.
We're going to be diving into furthering this conversation about learning some tips for our marriages. Thanks again to our sponsors for making today's episode possible. And don't forget that you can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes if you want to re-listen. And you can always support us financially at ClearViewTodayShow.com. John, anything you want to plug as we close?
Dallas, Texas. We're coming your way. Clear View Today Show is going to be at NRB 2025 in just two weeks.
That is very, very, well by the time this, yeah, yeah, two weeks. So we're going to be there. We're going to be on the floor. Make sure you come up to us, say hi, maybe, maybe jump on.
We're going to be doing some shows from the floor. Maybe we'll shout you out in your ministry as well. Also want to plug Dr. Shaw and Nicole's book Thirty Days of Praying for America, Daily Devotions to Heal Our Nation.
It's book three in the Thirty Day Devotional series. Got some new translations coming out, by the way. We're going to have some of those at NRB. Some more are coming on the way. But they will be out soon. Book four is also going to be out very soon. We're going to reveal that title in just a little, little, little bit. So stay tuned. Also, our original music is on Amazon, iTunes, Spotify. You can get that. The new single, Great and Awesome, is coming out very, very soon.
That's right. Join us for tomorrow's conversation. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clearview Today.
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