You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abaddon Shah, 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. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028, or you can email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com.
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Link is in the description below. Absolutely nothing less than five stars. I like it, and it makes me feel real good. I like it, and it's nice to me. It's very nice to me. Speaking of things that are nice to me. Sorry. What just happened?
I was going to say, speaking of things that are nice to me, please welcome Dr. Abaddon Shah, who's a PhD in New Testament Textual Criticism Professor at Carolina University. Author. It was just a really ham-fisted segue. I wanted to make it make sense, but it just didn't.
Definitely didn't. Dr. Abaddon Shah, welcome to the show. It's good to be here.
Thanks for that laughter. I don't know if I should be offended or should be confused. I don't know which one it is. It was mainly confused.
I was trying to make the segue work, and it just didn't work. We are confused, bamboozled, and flummoxed. But more than anything else, we are here. Welcome to the show.
Welcome. The verse of the day today is coming to us from Galatians chapter 3, verse 11. But then no one is justified by the law, and the sight of God is evident, for the just shall live by faith. Dr. Shah, something that you taught me was that people try to make it out that faith is a New Testament thing. In the Old Testament, it was always law and rules and regulations and strict and justice and punishment.
Here in the New Testament, Jesus brings faith. But I think one thing that I've seen from your preaching is that Paul is telling us that it has always been this way. It has always been by faith. That's right.
That's right. The plan of salvation hasn't changed. It's always been through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Prior to his physical incarnation, it was something that they were waiting for. But since he came, there's something tangible back there. Two thousand years ago, we can look back and say it has happened. But both prior to his coming and since his coming, it's always been through faith.
That's right. And it's always by grace through faith. So that part hasn't changed. People think that the Jewish people, like the ancient Jewish people even in the Old Testament, they didn't know. They had no clue what God was up to. But that's not really the case. They had a great understanding of who Jesus was going to be.
Absolutely. I mean, when you read the scriptures with that understanding that they knew, then it makes sense. Everything that you read, it makes sense. But if you read it with the understanding that, oh, they didn't know, they had no clue, it was a shock to their system to know that Son of God has come, or Trinity, God is triune, it's all new.
Okay, then that's what you're going to find. And then all these, yeah, and all the characters like, I call them characters, but all of the characters who are in the Bible, their choices don't make sense. Like all these weird things that Abraham does, like telling people that his wife is really his sister. It's like none of that makes any sense. But then when you explain, like, no, he's trying to preserve the line of Christ. He's trying in his own foolish way. And he thinks it's just through him, not through Sarah. And he forgot that it was the seed of the woman, not the seed of the man.
So everything is there. And when they remember it, it's like, yeah, of course, yeah, I don't know why I forgot. It's like stumbling around without glasses. Do you remember the time before glasses? Uh, no. Do you remember a time before you got glasses?
I do. I vaguely remember a time before I got glasses. I was playing baseball, and I had such a hard time playing baseball. I could not figure out why I couldn't hit the ball. I couldn't figure out why I couldn't catch the ball. Did he hit the ball now?
No. Now that I know it's my lack of athleticism. But prior to that, I was like, I'm trying.
I'm trying. The biggest thing now is you can just see the ball coming. I have such a headache in class. I can't figure out what's going on. And then my parents got me glasses. And I look, I remember looking at a tree and realizing, oh, you can't see the individual leaves on a tree. That's what it was for me.
It was the headaches. Yeah, the lens, the lens of scripture does that for history. When you look at history, you look at the Old Testament and you see it through the filter of Christ.
You see it through the filter of the Christian life. Everything lines up. Makes sense. It locks in. Absolutely.
Speaking of speaking of glasses, I do have to say this, and I really hate to be this way, but welcome. Well, right. Oh, sorry. I forgot. I forgot that the grapevine was thunder now.
Yeah, the grapevine is thunder now. Check it out. Oh, it didn't do it.
Where is it? Oh, there it is. I knew it was in there. I like that little burp.
All right. So this is the segment of our show where we talk about those things in life that really just make you irritable. Just make you just want to just pull out. You mentioned glasses. It curdles your cheese. Yeah, I had something else that I wanted to talk about. It curdles your cheese. Very nice. I like that a lot.
My cheese is roughly curdled. I'll tell you why. It's really hard when you have glasses to find a pair of sunglasses that make you look cool.
So I spent... Next to impossible. Have you ever had prescription sunglasses, Dr. Shah? No. So when you go out in the sun, you don't even need sunglasses, do you? I don't wear sunglasses. I used to. I mean, I have Ray-Bans.
I mean, really nice, nice stuff. But I don't wear them because I read somewhere or I heard somewhere that your eyes, when they meet the sunlight, it creates what is melatonin or something like that that helps you sleep well at night. So I keep my eyes open. I let the sun rays come in because I want to sleep better.
So I don't know if it's a power of suggestion or if it's real, but I do sleep better on the days that I'm driving into work and the sun is coming down and I'm just like, take it, bring it on. See, here in the South, you always see people travel. I'm sorry. You always see people wear sunglasses on two main occasions, when they travel and when they go to funerals. Always at a funeral, even in the dead of winter, got to have your sunglasses. But you want sunglasses that go make you look cool. Now, if you don't have to worry about these right here on your face, the world is yours.
You can get whatever. But if you've got prescription sunglasses, your choices are like this right here. So I spent maybe like $90 on a pair of like Avia. They weren't real Avia. They were knockoff like Zinnia optical, but they were like Aviator mirrored sunglasses for when we went to NRB and I was like, oh man, I'm going to rock these.
And they came in like the day before we left. The lenses are so close together. They are so close together. You gotta cross your eyes to put them on.
They look like a cartoon characters. Like, like I'm not going to pull up what it looks like, but you should have brought them in here. I should have.
I should have. They're there at home. They might be in my car.
I don't even know where they are right now. I was so angry because I was like, wait, expensive. And it's not like, like right now these look like they're spaced enough apart, but these are like the eyes are mushed together.
And so you got all the space. What are they called? Well, they're knockoff aviators. What brand? I don't know what brand.
I don't know what brand I can, I can find out. They're knockoffs, but I hate the fact that you got to spend, when you, when you have glasses, your, your choices and sunglasses just go way down. When did you not, when did you, you didn't have glasses as a kid? No, never have. You got them as an adult?
As an adult. And that too, because just reading purposes was never, even now, but now I think I need them. I need them. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah.
So he, he tried to pull them up. None of those, those all look normal. I'm going to, I'm going to find mine and maybe on tomorrow's episode, I'll bring them in and I'll show you, but they're just, that's it. It's just one circle, right? That's it. In the, in the second, look at the second one. Yup.
That's it. Look how close together they are. I look like Jar Jar Binks. I look like a stinking Star Trek alien.
I'll bring them in tomorrow. Anyway, that was, that was my gripe. I had a completely different gripe, but she just reminded me of that. Glasses and sunglasses don't, they don't mix. They don't go well together. Resign yourself to the fact that you're not gonna, you're not going to use them. Not at all. No, I'm not going to use them guys.
Don't go anywhere. We're going to take a quick break and be right back with more clear view today. Hey, clear view 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. Abaddon 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, I've been perusing TikTok a little bit. Probably ought to get off of there because everything I see, everything I see on there is real negative. Pretty trashy. Pretty trashy.
Pretty negative. A lot of trashy people on there. And speaking of trashy people on TikTok, I found something that I thought would actually lead into a good discussion today.
It's not about, it's not about the Bible, it's not about Christianity, but it is about leadership, particularly male leadership. There's a TikTok community. So we, okay, so we can, we can zoom out for a second.
Do you remember the episode we did where I asked, you know, what's an acceptable amount of time to get groceries and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Posted that on TikTok. A lot of women got angry with me, like over like 90,000 views on that.
It was the most viewed TikTok ever. Everybody angry, angry. And so my algorithm on TikTok said, okay, this guy wants angry women in his audience.
Seriously. And boy, howdy, that's all I get in my feed now is just angry women. And they're talking about angry birds, angry birds, yep. Angry hens.
And they're cluck, cluck, clucking. And they're talking about how miserable their men are and how terrible men are and how men aren't leaders. And so it came across, I came across this woman here and I thought, seriously, instead of getting angry, it actually prompted me to think that I think this is a good discussion we could have about the nature of leadership, particularly male leadership on the show.
Okay. Sexism is so funny to me because at like every stage of development in a woman or a little girl, we kind of agree that like little girls outpace boys. If you have a little girl and she's talking early, everyone's like, well, yeah, girls just like are early talkers.
They're just like better at that. They just like boys talk later. And then when they get to elementary school and like middle school, it's like, well, yeah, girls just mature faster. And you know, boys will be boys. They're just boys. They're just little boys and they're just rambunctious and you know, okay, they're just little boys.
You get to high school, boys are still little boys. Boys will still be little boys and they're impulsive and they make bad decisions and they can have affluenza, not for everybody, but specifically little boys. What is affluenza? What is affluenza? Is it like a affluenza? Let me look it up here.
Hang on. Affluenza is a term used to describe negative social and psychological effects of wealth and consumerism. I can also refer to the affluenza like a play, a play on words, affluence and influenza. It's, it's, it's the pursuit of wealth and success as an addiction. I guess so, yeah. I guess it's like a, um, I don't know.
I think she was waiting to drop that word in there. There's a Wikipedia page on it. Affluenza describes the psychological and social effects of affluence.
What is that? Affluence is like money, wealth and all that. What is the etymology of that word? Etymology, let me look that up real quick.
I mean, it's on the same Wikipedia. There should be an etymology. Yeah, I'm looking for the etymology. By the way, for the benefit of those who want to know what etymology is, it's the root of the word.
Yeah, that's right. It's the study of words. I don't see the etymology here.
Uh, why don't we, why don't we keep listening to this woman and I'll find out what they are. Not for everybody, but specifically little white boys. Again, they're just little boys.
You can't hold them accountable. They're just little tiny little boys, but it's not when they get to college because frat boys are a nightmare and they do frat boyish things and again, they're just boys. They're just little boys.
So where does the jump happen? Where men run ahead and women fall behind so much so that women are not leaders. It's men. Men are intelligent, rational leaders because it's not after college because I think we all know we'd rather have a small rat find us groceries than a male Instacart worker.
And we also know the trope of kind of like, what do you mean mom is out of town and dad has to take over like dad is running the house. So where does it happen? Where's the age that men run ahead and women fall behind? What is it? Is it 40?
Is it 50? Where does it happen? I just, I just love, it's not rational. It's just pretty emotional. Sexism is pretty emotional and I guess I just don't think people who are so emotionalist would lead.
Well, I don't know where to begin. There are so many levels of logical fallacies in her monologue. Right. And that's what it was. It was a theatrical monologue. It was just an attention grabber. Yeah.
A little white boy. I thought it was funny. Like you take these little nuggets of truth that like, and I see a lot of people online do this.
It's like you, you obviously hasn't met little Indian boys back in India who would do a lot of crazy things or little African American boys who would do crazy things. I mean, come on. I don't know what beef she has. I think maybe she has beef with somebody, but I think probably she wants to get lots and lots and lots of likes.
And boy, Audi, you are in the right place for it. You post something like that online, especially on TikTok. I mean, you're going to get lots of likes.
Like flies to honey. And I think that's, well, go ahead. I don't want to cut you off.
You were saying, well, I was just saying like, there's a lot of people that will do that. Like they'll take these things that I don't even want to say they're true. They're just relatable. Like all these little stories of like, well, the male, the male Instacart worker messed up my order, or, you know, men can't do the laundry and men can't do this. And men can't, overall, typically it always falls under the umbrella of men can't run the house or men won't run the house. Therefore men are incompetent across the board. And so I got to thinking about like all the stuff that women have done for society. Like of course they built, you know, infrastructures, they built governments, they waged in wars, they, they went through, you know, conquest, they established all this infrastructure in the internet and things that we have today. And of course we know that that was, that was mostly by and large, that was men, but none of that seems to matter because if you can't or won't run the household, you are not a leader. That seems to be what a lot of this online, this online discourse is centered around is around their domain and why can't men assimilate into their domain? And if they can't, then it means that they're not leaders.
And so I guess my question is like, what is a leader? Yeah. Well, let's back up for a moment and let's talk about her hasty generalization. That's one of the fallacies that came through that what she's saying is all boys are like this.
That's not true. I was not one of those boys who went out there. I mean, remember some of the stories we talked about in high school, some of my friends said, Hey, come join us. We're going to go, you know, steal sugar cane from sugar cane. I didn't want to go.
I was like, and then I went and then realized quickly what that boy, that was a mistake and I don't want to do that again. Yeah. So look, I'm a leader today, right? I'm a leader doing important things, good things.
Hopefully, you know, continue to do those godly things. So for you to put me in the same group as those frat boys, I didn't do those things, right? I didn't go out hazing people. I didn't, you know, and I know people who are in those, those kinds of societies.
I don't, it's not, it's not my thing. Right. You know, as some, I work a lot with, with kids and with students here at Clearview and seeing boys and girls as they're growing through various stages of life, you might be able to point out developmentally as they're growing. Sometimes girls will outpace boys. We have twin boy girls, one boy, one girl. And as they were growing up, our daughter would often do things before our son would.
Like she crawled first, she walked first. But that's not to say that's the true in every case. And there have been plenty of times that I have seen little girls make poor choices, but that's not an exclusively male trait. There are plenty of times that little girls or young ladies have done things that I'm like, you didn't use your full brain on that decision. And the stereotypes are there, you know, like, especially in the teenage years or if we're acting like a little girl, like teenage girls don't make dumb decisions. Like it's not even that, well, yes they do, but boys do it more. So the stereotype exists for a reason.
But the stereotypes against, especially teenage girls exist as well. Yeah. And it's not about being emotional. Right.
Yeah. You know, I could have a long rant just like, or just about as long as her rant on girls are emotional, girls are emotional, girls are emotional. Why do we trust them with children? Why do we trust them with being, you know, in any capacity out there? They're just emotional beings. So what is the point where they stop being emotional? Huh? So sexism is pretty emotional thing. I mean, come on.
Yeah. It doesn't say that. Of course it doesn't do any good to say that.
And here's another question I have for you, Dr. Shah. Outside of the church, do you even hear any discussion saying that leadership is a male domain? Now, of course, in the church, you know, we, if we're following the Bible, that's one thing, but outside of that, yeah, you, you will hear that.
I've heard it before. People talking about this, ladies, especially talking about, you know, how they have to, you know, get paid less or they don't get to be part of that girl boy's club because they are female, but they have these, you know, quick meeting before they show up. And it's not fair. It's not right.
Nothing is right about that. So I'm not saying bad things don't happen or sometimes there's not an inbuilt bias against women, but the way she portrayed that, that's faulty, that part is called faulty. And it's, she's portraying it as like men are never responsible, never get their act together.
What they were in, you know, as a preschooler is who they were in high school, who they were in college, who they are after college, when they have a career, when they have a life, midlife, they're all just about the same. And that is a false narrative. Is there any danger of videos or rhetoric like this creating a self-fulfilling prophecy? I don't know about self-fulfilling prophecy. I know it's just lies.
It's just, just made up stuff with three or four things that people can identify with because they have some, some bad experience in their life, or they've been hurt by somebody, some male at their job, or they've been hurt by some boyfriend or some ex-husband or somebody who was just not a nice person or a boss who was a jerk. And this just kind of reinforces that and only breeds hatred and animosity, especially sometimes towards their own sons. Right. Yeah. I think that's true.
I know women who are, who are, they will do anything for the children, but there is that thing about those boys and it's not right. Yeah. I agree. I think there's a lot of, there's, there's maybe there's some truth to this, Dr. Sean, you can speak to it, that at the heart of leadership, there are characteristics that are neither masculine nor feminine. They're just characteristics of a good leader. And maybe it is the case that more often than not, men and boys exhibit those characteristics, but they're not masculine characteristics.
Do you know what I mean? Like they're not barred, women are not barred from being good leaders inherently. It's just that more often than not, men gravitate towards those character, those characteristics of being a good leader. Like I think about president Trump, you know, we just had an episode last week on what made him a good leader. One of them is that he's aggressive and one of them is that he stands on business.
He, he has a standard of respect for the office of the president and he enforces it. And I think even if we saw women with those same characteristics, I would still say that's a good leader. Yeah. A hundred percent agree with you on that because that's, that's what we want. We want somebody who cares, somebody who will fight for us, somebody who will be the most knowledgeable person in that room on that particular subject. That's what I want. Right. A person who, who, who will not betray your own people for extra money or some foreign government. That's what we want.
Whether it's a male or female, that's, I'm fine with that. Now in the church context is different, right? Oh, come on.
Here we go again. Why is it different? Because you're maintaining the dynamics of the family. Yes, that's right.
Okay. God has set up the family in a certain way where the man is, is a leader and the woman is a follower. But it's not in the sense of I'm the boss, my, my way or the highway, I'm going to prop up my feet and you bring me things because that's, you know, that's who we are.
No, nothing like that. You are the spiritual leader of the home. You are to be the servant leader to your family. It means you serve, you work hard so they can have the good life. You are the first one in church so that they will follow you.
That's what it's supposed to be. You control the thermostat of your home means you don't wait for your wife to fix the problem. You fix the problem.
You find ways to reconcile even if it's not your fault. You know, that's, that's the male leadership we're talking about. Maybe you can kind of expand on that with your father and with your mother because I think if you, like if your mom, if your mom and dad were both living and they were here today and they saw that video and your mom was hearing that message that because the husband isn't the one doing the housework, he's not doing the dishes or doing the laundry or doing all these things because I'm the one doing them.
I'm the leader. Like would your mom buy into that, that way of thinking? Or would it be more like, no, even if he's not the one necessarily doing those things, he's still the one setting the, the spiritual and emotional thermostat of our home? Well, my mom and dad both believed in the biblical foundation for marriage and the biblical foundation for marriage, the man is called to lead, but it's not lead in the sense of this authoritarian bully who, who just dictates orders and shouts and barks orders. And the wife, the little, you know, little wife just runs around and fulfills his, his needs and demands and the little children just line up perfectly to do whatever he wants to.
It's, it's not like that. But he is, he is to lead the family in God's way. He is to be, he needs to be the one who leads the family in spiritual things. He needs to be the final authority in that family. I mean, that's what it's supposed to be. He's like, he's like your own personal built in security guard. That's, that's what a father is supposed to be.
Your own personal built in security guard. So to answer her question, when does that happen? Number one, if he's not a Christian, more than likely he's not ever going to be that leader that you need him to be. I think it can still be because marriage is not just a Christian institution or a Judeo-Christian institution. It's God's institution for the whole world, right? So there are great marriages out there between non-believers who, who somehow follow that pattern and they're doing great. And then there you see marriages among Christians who are not following the pattern and they're not great. The difference between a non-believers marriage that, that are, that is great in their pattern and the marriage of believers who are not following the pattern, what is the difference? Well, believers marriages go on in the sense of what we're doing here has eternal consequences.
Non-believers marriage, as good as it, as it is, and it's following God's pattern, it ends in this life. For example, in India, you know, most marriages are arranged and they follow that pattern where the husband is sort of the head of the house and the wife is a support. But they don't have the same kind of love. It's not always servant leadership. It's not always servant leadership. It's more of, you know, he's, that's a dad. That's the listen to the dad. But it's not like this love, like Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.
It's not, it's not there. So even though they're following the pattern, it's not the biblical true model of Christ's church mystery. But since they're at least following the pattern, their marriages are sometimes better and more successful than sometimes the marriages in the West in a Christian church because they're not following the pattern.
Even though they have the Christ's church mystery in their heart, since they're not following the pattern of the husband being the head of the house and the wife being the follower and helping support him, they are missing out. It's, I mean, as you're saying that, the, the picture that's in my head is somebody who goes and builds a house. Like let's say you're the, you're the general contractor and you build a house, you pour the foundation, you build the walls, you have the blueprints and everything. Great. Fantastic.
That's a great, I know where you're going with this. And I, and I look at your house and I'm like, wow, I want to build a house like that. So I, on my own, think about what a house should look like and I collect all the materials I think I need and sort of piece together a house. It's probably not even going to look like a house at that point.
It's not, it's certainly not going to stand and it's going to fall over. John says, I want a house like Dr. Shaw has. You skip the foundation step, but you look at his blueprints and build up your house. Mine's going to fall apart. It's not even going to resemble a house. Yours will at least look like a house.
I may stand if the weather is fair, but it doesn't have the foundation that Dr. Shaw has. So it's, it's a cheap invitation, but at least it's an invitation to the right thing. Right. I think great illustration because that's perfect. That's, that's, so I want to encourage Christians out there, follow the pattern where the husband leads and the wife supports, but also follow the great mystery, which is you're exemplifying before your children, your family and the watching world, how Christ loved the church and gave himself for her and how the church has submitted to Christ.
Demonstrate that great mystery before the watching world because that will go on for eternity. That's right. That's right. So I love it.
So beautiful. That's been so helpful to me. I mean, I've heard you say that from the pulpit, but it's been so helpful to me in thinking about my marriage and thinking about my home. It's not just, hey, I want to get along. Hey, I want everybody to be successful.
No, what we're doing is a picture of the gospel to the people around us. And it's a, and it's a, and it's taking on a responsibility as well. You know, for all the, for all the women out there who are, who are upset that they have to submit so that their husband can have all the control. I can assure you, I do not feel powerful in my marriage. You know, I don't feel like, like I'm, like I'm controlling anyone.
In fact, I feel that the responsibility and the, the wellbeing of three people, almost four people in my house are dependent on my holiness and my actions before God. Guys, make sure you join us tomorrow. Same time, same station. We're going to be diving into another great topic here on the Clear View 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 are you going to plug as we close today? Lots of great changes coming to the Clear View Today Show. We're going to be announcing those very shortly, but in the meantime, you can get Dr. Sean Nicole's book, 30 Days of Praying for America, Daily Devotions to Heal Our Nations as book three in the 30 Days Devotional Series.
Book four is coming out very soon. We're going to be announcing that very shortly. You can also get all of our original music from Clear View Worship.
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