You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shaw, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill.
I'm John Galantis. You can find us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. If you have any questions for Dr. Shaw or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028, or you can email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com.
That's right. You guys can help us keep the conversation going by supporting the show. You can share it online with your friends and your family. Leave us a good five-star review on iTunes or Spotify, anywhere you get your podcasting content from.
Link is in the description below. We are here in the studio with Dr. Abbadon Shaw, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism. Dr. Shaw, welcome to the show. It's good to be here. To start off the week. Not a case of the Monday.
Yeah, but it's not Garfield style though. Yeah, I got a case of the Mondays over here at the Clearview Today Show. That means I'm ready to roll. That means it's a good week. I'm ready to roll, baby. We got a good week.
Starting with a Monday. Speaking of starting the day off right, here comes the verse of the day for you. The verse of the day today is coming to us from Philippians chapter 3 verse 10. That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death.
Conformed to his death. That's something that I think a lot of Christians don't think about. And not only that, but I think you said this from the pulpit one time, to know him. You know, that is the most earnest desire of our hearts is to know God. And I think every single human being lost or saved wants that.
It's just the difference is they don't know they want that. That's right. Conformed to his death. You know, we talked about the perspectives on Paul. How, you know, at one time it was the old perspective, which is justification is a declaration. New perspective is something, you know, is different.
It's something I'm not too comfortable with. But there is a perspective known as the participation or the transformational perspective of Paul. And in this perspective, justification is looked upon as being my oneness with Christ. And I'm not completely sold out on that view, but it is a very important view. I think that view supplements the old perspective very well.
Okay. So justification is a declaration of my righteousness through Christ, my sins upon him, his righteousness in me, I've been declared justified. But also justification can be that I am now one with Christ. Now where does that oneness happen? Or really, how does that oneness happen? That happens when I'm conformed to his death. So yes, I am one with Christ, but how does that actually work out?
Because people often say like, I'm one with Christ, I have become a God because he and I are now the same. Right. And we disagree with that. Right. Right. Right.
They won't necessarily say that they are God, but they will say like, I am one with God. And I'm like, well, no, you are connected to the holiness of the human side of Jesus. Right.
Right. The human nature of Jesus. You're not touching the divine.
Why is that important to us? Because you know, God is always God and always will be God. There will always be separation. You always will be separate. Yes, you are connected to God, but to the humanity.
That's where you can relate with him. Right. With his deity, you will be obliterated. Yes.
Okay. But the conformed to his death, how does that apply here? And I don't mean this may be a little too deep for people, but I hope not, is when I daily die to myself or reckon myself to be dead and that it's not me, it's not about me, it's not about my likes and my dislikes or my preferences. It's about him. I am being conformed to his death.
I am dying or I'm already dead, but I am by faith accepting my death so that Christ can live in me. So being conformed to his death is a very important passage. And an author by the name of Michael Gorman wrote a book called Cruciformity. Ooh, I love that title. Yeah, Cruciformity.
I wish I could take that. Again, I'm not completely sold out on that view, but Cruciformity is, I think it's a good supplement to the old justification as a declaration of my righteousness in Christ. That I'm also, justification means I'm connected to Jesus and daily as I learn that I am dead and I'm conformed to his death, I can see the life of Jesus real in me. You don't think he patented the name of the book, do you? You don't think he copied it? It is the name of his book. I know, but you don't copyright the title, right? There's some theobros out there wanting to get their podcast off the ground. They want Cruciformity. I know they do. Unfortunately, if you say that in theological circles, they will say, did you get that from Michael Gorman?
Should I lie or should I tell the truth? Is he a doctor? Dr. Gorman?
Dr. Gorman, you win this round. Yeah. I mean, I followed Michael Gorman for a long time.
He is the one who wrote a book back in the early eighties on how the early church's view on abortion. Really? Oh, wow. Yeah. Remember that sometime back I preached a message on that? Oh yes.
I got it from Michael Gorman. I didn't realize that. He is more on the Methodist side of things. So I think there's a little bit of Wesleyan losing a salvation thing happening there. That's why I have to go like, I like you, but not there. We can only go so far together. We can't go all the way, Dr. Gorman.
I'm sorry. Losing the salvation thing is just not working for me. People always want to be losing their salvation. I don't understand what it is. What they're doing is they're trying to keep people straight.
I'm not talking about like getting straight. They're trying to keep people accountable. So cruciformity is saying like, if you're not showing any evidence of having died with Christ and being conformed to his death, then maybe you are not where you thought you were. Is it a scare tactic? Like to keep you in line?
Yeah, I think so. I think anytime they're challenging that old declarative view, the justification in the sense of declaration, like the old Lutheran reformed view, Protestant view, it's usually done to sort of fix the problem of that guy I know who goes to church Sunday morning, but man, the rest of the week he lives like the devil. So how can I now make him realize that your salvation might be taken away. Some of the things you do, I'm going to hold this over you. Wow. Yeah, that's where it comes from. Most of these perspectives, by the way, whether it is the new perspective or the participationist perspective, they're coming from that desire to hold people accountable. I just don't think that's right.
Right. Because I know their motives a little bit, hard to judge people's motives, but at least having read them and seen their theological backgrounds and some of the things they say and have said, I know what their motive is and it's like, hmm. Well, it is weird, right? I mean, it is weird to try to shape theology in order to achieve a goal. Even if you feel like it's a good goal, it's like I have a goal in mind, which is to keep people on the straight and narrow for Jesus. Don't give them a free ticket to do whatever they want to.
Right, right. So I need some sort of threat to keep people accountable. And wrap your theology around that. Yeah, and find a few verses and a system that overall looks good, but then it has this thing, you go, something is not sitting right. Is that the difference between exegesis and eisegesis?
Like, eisegesis is I'm trying to put meaning into it. I'm trying to achieve something, so I'm going to take the words and make it say this. Right, and I would never accuse N.T. Wright or Gorman and others as eisegesis because they're tremendous New Testament scholars, but there are times that I go, I'm not going to say that you're like a horrible interpreter of the Bible, but I will say that some of the ways you're doing it, hmm. And I still think you are. Your bias is coming through.
Yeah, it's coming through. I can at least say I disagree. Yeah, I'm not too much a fan there. I'm with you on that. That's a good point.
Guys, don't go anywhere. We're going to take a quick break and be right back with more Clear Read Today. Hey, Clear Read 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. Shaw and you want to see Clear Read 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.
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 ClearViewTodayShow.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 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. Dr. Shah, we were kind of talking about this a little bit before the ad break, but these different perspectives on Romans, right? These are just for the Book of Romans, right, that we were talking about? No, no. They're all on Paul's epistles.
All of Paul's epistles. So one of the things that we were talking about—we were kind of talking about this off mic—we were going to talk about just how the end times prophecy has been going. There were some people—I don't know if you knew this.
I don't know if you told him, but there were people who came. There was someone who was coming and selling insurance, and they saw the banner down by the road, and he said, so y'all are doing end times prophecy. They were like, oh, yeah. They were like, okay, so what do you think about it?
Are you pre-trib or post-trib? Are you this or that? And I was like, bro, we're in Romans. And I remember the look of it. He was just a salesman. He was selling stuff. But the look of confusion on his face, he was like, you're in Romans? So I kind of talked him through how we were talking about Israel and God's plan for Israel and that. He was like, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, my church, we're doing end times prophecy, but it's in Revelation.
I was like, yeah, nah, I'm sure it is. Yeah, we're getting there. We're on the road there, but we're in Romans right now. I think it's important to talk about—maybe we can kind of go into it a little bit deeper on the show today—these different perspectives that people have on Paul's writings. Because it seems like if Paul wrote something in Romans, or if Paul wrote something in the Bible, we should all pretty much know what it is he's trying to say. But there's so much disagreement on what Paul is saying. There is, because we don't really always understand what Paul is saying. We know what he's saying, but we don't understand cohesively what he's saying. So take, for example, justification by faith, which is one of the biggest things in Paul's letters, especially Romans and Galatians.
What does he mean by that? Okay, so the old view was that it means declaration, right? That God has declared us righteous. He has imputed our sins upon Christ and Christ's righteousness on us. That is the accepted view for most of church history, especially emphasized during the time of the Reformation.
But then, you know, in the past, I would say 50, 60 years since the 1960s, that view has been challenged. That, you know, Paul may not have been contrasting our works' righteousness with the free gift of grace. People like Christos Stendhal, who kind of initiated this conversation, he said, you know, when we talk about the Jewish people trusting in their own righteousness, well, based on his research, he said, that's not always the case.
We don't find that. What we find is that they trusted God's grace. And so the whole idea that Jewish people were trying to get to heaven by, you know, keeping the Sabbath and all that, that's just a misunderstanding. And then later on, another scholar by the name of E.P. Sanders comes along, and he wrote his now-famous book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism. And in this book, he really explored this topic, which became known as the new perspective on Paul.
And in this book, he said, you know, he brought up a category known as covenantal gnomism. According to this category, it's not, Second Temple Judaism was not about good works. It was about, it was about grace. So you get into the family of God by grace.
It's not by good works. But then you stay in the family of God by good works. So if you don't do good works, do you get kicked out of the family, God, or was it like you were just never in the family?
You probably get kicked out of the family. So you're elected by grace, but then you are kept there by works. And so he brought out these boundary markers like Sabbath and circumcision and food laws. You know, these are things you did to stay in the family.
So you are in by grace, but you stay in by works. Is he saying that's how the Jewish people, the Jewish people of antiquity, that's how they stayed in the family? Or is he saying that's how it even still is today? No, that's how he was talking about back then.
That period, 200 BC to 200 AD. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. Now the question is, is that accurate? Is that a good description? And the answer is no.
E.P. Sanders' work has been challenged. In fact, back in the, I want to say early 2000s, maybe, a two-volume work came out called Justification and Variegated Gnomism. It means it was not just one particular view that people had of the law. So according to this view, yes, there were some Jewish people who believed that I have to do the Sabbath and the circumcision, the food laws to stay in, but many of them were trusting in their own righteousness. I mean, don't you think? I mean, that's what Jesus was talking about with the Pharisee.
I don't do some of the things that this tax collector does. I think you've said that from the pulpit before, and I think you've said it on the show, too, is like you'll hear people get up, maybe even pastors from the pulpit, and they're saying, what you got to understand about Judaism is this. Before Jesus' time, Judaism was this. And it's like, I think you said there was many different sects within Judaism where it's like, it's very difficult. Not everybody who was exactly singing from the same songbook.
It's very difficult to pin down. And I even think, like, think about like a thousand years from now if people were like, Christians used to be this. In the year 2025, Christians were this.
Yeah, I'll be like, wait a minute. What, are you talking about Baptists or are you talking about Methodists? Look across the board now. Today, you say Christian, but that means lots of different things. Yeah, we line up on certain things, but there's lots of different expressions, lots of different denominations. And if you really drill into it, I mean, you're going to find differences.
And theological persuasions. I mean, they're not, we're not all on the same page. Exactly. It's annoying because I want history to be simple. You know what I mean?
That's like, I want to just know, tell me what happened. We're just as complex as we are today. Just as complicated. True. So these different perspectives on Roman, you would say that you are more of, you lean more old perspective. You would say that?
Yeah, I would say that. I would say that's where I find the evidence. And especially, you know, some of these people who are going into the new perspective, they're doing that because they're trying to bring up Ephesians and Philippians and other letters of Paul and putting them on the same level as Galatians and Romans. This may be a diverting question. I don't want to divert the discussion.
Maybe we can bring this up another day if this gets us into a new field of conversation. But I think about your dissertation as well, where you're talking about changing the goalposts, where it sort of runs all in the same round. It's like, what we had was working and has worked for hundreds of years, for a long time. And same with the perspectives on Romans, same with your dissertation on the state of obtaining the original text, which seems to be what we had and have had for a long time is working, and these new methodologies that you're bringing in are harmful. Do you find that they're bringing in, whether it's these new perspectives on Romans or whether it's the methodology of textual criticism, do you find that—it's a weird way to say it—are people getting bored? Are they like, we just want to bring this back up or find a new way to do it because we don't like it or because they genuinely think the old methods or the old perspectives don't work?
Or is it just like, we have to do something to shake up the conversation? I'm not against revisiting a so-called established theology or doctrine. I'm not against that.
I think it has its place. But you need to have some good research behind it. You need to have more—a fresh new methodology that is solid, sound. So when you don't have any new research and you have a broken or a faulty methodology, then when you say, ha, see, this is what you had all this time, but guess what, guys? Guess what? Now we know better. What if we don't know better? Can you think of a single instance where something like that happened, where someone brought in this fresh new methodology or this fresh new research and it actually changed the game?
Yeah, I would say so. I mean, people often think Calvin really brought us the sovereignty of God. So it's all Calvinist, the sovereignty of God and election and predestination.
No, he was kind of invoking categories that were always there. Augustine and others had already talked about that. There were precursors to Calvin that he borrowed from. The one thing that Calvin did do more than probably other people was emphasis on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
So with his coming, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit did kind of jump up and became more important. So is that good or bad? I would say it's good.
It's good. But then there have been aberrations. There have been excesses when it comes to the Holy Spirit.
It means people have gone off the rail. And that's where we go, well, I don't know about that. So does that mean we need to say, okay, Calvin, you really messed us up because we were doing great before that? No, I would say no, thank you to John Calvin because through his study and his knowledge and his writings, we have a better understanding of the Holy Spirit today. Even though some people may have taken it in the wrong way, we can take it in the right way and give the Holy Spirit the correct emphasis. Not necessarily the more emphasis because his job is to put the spotlight on Jesus.
So the spotlight would be on the Father. So Holy Spirit is not saying, hey, I'm being neglected. Yes, we are neglecting the Holy Spirit, but he's not saying, okay, now you pay attention to me. Okay, great.
I feel better now. No, he's saying, pay attention to me so I can point you to Jesus. So in that sense, I would say yes for what John Calvin did, it helps us today.
Yeah, that's a good point. Or the modern missionary movement, right? The missionaries were going all over the world, even prior to William Carey. I mean, we have missionaries in the medieval times going to China, going into India.
Many of them were martyred for their faith. But then with the coming of William Carey, modern missionary movement began where people like average people are saying, I'm going to go. I'm going to go on a short term mission.
I'm going to go to seminary, learn and then take my family to the other part of the world where people are completely different from me, eat different, drink, dress different, everything. But I'm going to go there and share the gospel. Thank God for the modern missionary movement. Church planting, you know, the church growth movement that came about in the 80s. I know some people talk bad about it, but man, it wasn't the church growth movement.
You say, well, the small church, it doesn't work like that. Thank goodness for those big church movements. A lot of good things happened in America. A lot of good things happened in the world. Of course, there are excesses where people went off the deep end and big churches became very consumer minded and just, you know, just business focused and no heart in it.
And then sometimes they went off the deep end theologically or even personality wise and they did things that were wrong. So your stance, scholarly, is not like, hey guys, what we have is fine. Don't fix what ain't broke. Your stance is more, your research is flawed and you're rushing to get to a conclusion. Right. Just so you can have something new and fresh.
Right. But let's check you again. Let's do some peer review. Do you risk, I didn't mean to cut you open. You know, I was just saying that's a great point because, you know, you told me before, Dr. Eshat, when you get into a place or you get into a position or you get into a field, don't immediately rush to change everything. Don't immediately rush to shake up the status quo just to kind of make your mark. Those boundaries are there and they're there for a reason. So if you're going to challenge them, if you're going to push against the boundaries, make sure that your research is solid.
That's all I'm saying. So I'm not against the scholars who came up with a new perspective. I just disagree with them. Right. And I think that their goal behind it to somehow keep people accountable is not what Paul was doing there.
Yeah. And it's not in line with the current research on first century Judaism or second temple Judaism. It doesn't line up. I don't mean to make biblical scholarship sound like a high school clique, but do you find that there's any risk when you're like, hey guys, what we had is good. Let's not go shaking it up with some new fresh thing.
Will people label you like a fundamentalist or will people like a salute? Like there's a real risk of people saying, hey, he's a stick in the mud. He's not, he's not on board with the current. They don't know what's happening, man. They just like, and they have this, I've been around those circles. I've been around those people, some of them in my field, some of them in other fields and they act like that. They act superior.
They're like, yeah, she just don't get it. I mean, have you read this? Have you read that? And it's like, you have to say, yeah, I have read that and this and this. Have you read this too?
No. How did you know that? How did you know about it? Like we, we did do our research. We did do our, just because we're not ready to jump on that same bandwagon does not mean that we're not aware.
And at the same time, I'm not in the same category as those sticks in the mud, right? I do want to learn new things. I do want to, I do appreciate the shake things up, but I also want to say, wait a minute. Yeah, we can shake things up and get some benefit out of it, but I think there's some losses there too. I mean, losing the declarative understanding of justification is a huge loss. Yeah.
Yeah. And there's a lot of things that you're not willing. There's, there's a lot of things, especially like to kind of narrow back down in the book of Romans that you just shouldn't be willing to lose. Well, I was going to ask, what does that have to do with us?
Like what is the average Christian listening to this and being like, man, I don't know anything about what these guys are talking about. What, what does that old perspective have for us that, that the new perspective might be lacking? Well, I mean, I can say much about that. I mean, it's, it's, it's, which I've already said, but what I will say is, is this, studying the Romans is a very, very important thing.
We need to do that. I'm not saying that other books don't matter. I'm not talking for proposing a canon within a canon.
Some people do that. You know, there's the 27 books, but then really is these four right there. That's it. The others are, oh, it's great if you want to, but they're not as important. They're filler. They're filler.
I don't think so. I think the gospels are important. I think the book of Acts is important. I think the book of Revelation is important. Paul's, Peter's, John's letters, they're all important. Hebrews, if you, if you believe it's written by Paul, which I do, is very important. All those things, all those letters are important, but I think letters like Romans and Galatians are such, so important to the heart of Christianity, especially salvation. Okay? So important for that, that you cannot neglect them and go do something else.
You cannot minimize them and go study other things. There are times where you can, you can not leave certain books out of the conversation, but they, they can be brought in later, but you always have to work from a groundwork of Romans and Galatians. Especially Romans, I would say. Especially Romans. Galatians, yes, absolutely. But Romans is a must because when it comes to our salvation, human beings have always tried to help God out. And I disagree with that.
I say salvation is by grace through faith. Now, of course I don't believe in election. Some of my Calvinist friends are like, what, what? I mean, I thought you were sounding like us. You thought you were in our camp. Yeah.
Ah, he's a semi-Pelagianist. And I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm not. But I do agree with the sovereignty of God. I do agree with God's grace. I do agree with, you know, eternal security, you know, I do agree with that.
But then there are other things you have to go, maybe not. I think that approach is just so helpful, that balance of, you know, think for yourself. That's a good reminder to everyone who's listening. As you're hearing these things, as we're talking about these things on the radio show, think for yourself.
Dr. Shaw is giving you the tools that you need to be able to handle scholarship, to be able to handle research that is out, and form your own opinion. And don't think just because these camps exist that you have to buy in wholesale and believe everything that this group identifies with. Think for yourself. And if there's a better view, find a middle ground. Great point. Great point.
Great point. So good. Guys, make sure you join us for tomorrow's episode. Same time, same station. We're going to be diving into another great topic here on The Clearview Today Show. 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 or share it with a friend. You can always support us financially at ClearviewTodayShow.com. Jon, what do you want to plug as we close today?
Definitely want to plug. So first and foremost, I got to say great, great, great news coming about The Clearview Today Show. We're going to be announcing that in just a couple of days, maybe another week or so.
But you really don't want to miss a huge, huge announcement. In the meantime, make sure you get Dr. Sean and Nicole's book, 30 Days of Praying for America, Daily Devotions to Heal Our Nation. This is book three in a three-book series. Book four is being written as we speak, as well as some original music in the pipeline. Definitely our new single, Great and Awesome. It's going to be available the next week or so. We pushed it back a little bit to coincide with our Easter releases and other stuff that are coming.
But Great and Awesome is coming. It's got the final mix. I was listening to it in the gym yesterday. It's a good workout song. I'll tell you that Dr. Sean listened to it as well. Great, great workout song. You can also get our original album, Heaven Here and Now, available on iTunes, Spotify, anywhere digital music is streamed or sold. Make sure you guys join us tomorrow. Lots of great content coming your way. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clear Me Today.
