Who is Dr.Shah?

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This is the Truth Network. If God is such a loving God, what about evil? What about crisis, cancer, war, plague, COVID, corona? Is the earth trillions of years old and did we evolve from monkeys or is God truly the creator? These are just a few questions, issues that you're going to face if you live in the world that we all live in.

What are the answers? Well, enter Dr. Shah. Dr. Abaddon Shah, I'm in his church with him in Henderson, North Carolina, and he's so passionate about reaching young and old with the truth of God's word and apologetics, which you're going to tell us what that means, doc, here in a second, that he is hosting a huge conference.

Dr. Shah, first of all, who is Dr. Abaddon Shah? Thank you so much. I am the pastor of Clearview Church in Henderson, North Carolina. We've been here for 24 years. My wife and I have four kids. We're really blessed at what God is doing right here at Clearview Church in Henderson.

Awesome. And you have a unique testimony that kind of got you into this whole thing. God saw fit in his grace to bring a young man in India to Christ, and he was subsequently kicked out of his house. Tell us about your dad and how he came to the Lord, how you came to the Lord, and now here you are. My dad grew up in a Muslim home, an affluent home in India, and didn't want anything to do with Christianity. He was very satisfied.

Everything is taken care of. And he saw his grandfather praying one day. They pray five times a day. And he was a haji. He had been to Mecca. He had done all the five pillars, very pious man. And when his grandfather finished praying, my dad just said to him, Grandpa, you're such a holy man.

God will surely give you heaven one day. And when he said that, my dad said, tears came rolling down his face, his grandfather's face. And he looked at my dad and said, Son, there is no guarantee I'll be in heaven. And when he heard that, as a little boy, it planted that seed of doubt in his heart that something is not right with what he's believing.

How could this be? And that began his journey. And in his teenage years, he came to know Christ. And of course, yes, as you mentioned, his family kicked him out, and he followed the Lord. And he followed the Lord. And he met your mom and married her. And I guess, I mean, how did that happen?

Just real quick, you got me so fascinated. How did you get here spiritually and physically? Talk about how your parents, you know, how they met. Well, very interesting, because my dad went to seminary, and a missionary helped him by the name of Dr. Fred Shellander, a man who translated the Bible into Marathi. So finished seminary, and when he finished, they said, we can't let you go.

Because we feel like you graduated great, you know English very well, you've aced all your classes, but we just don't trust you. Why would a Muslim man with so many degrees and can speak so well, why is he in seminary? So we're going to keep you one more year. So they kept him for one more year. And he wasn't happy about that, but he did. And when he finished, Cary Baptist Church in Calcutta, called him to come be their pastor. Now this was a big church. This was well known. And he was like, you know what, God is finally rewarding me for all the good that I've done.

You know, the Muslim mindset is still there. And as he is walking back to his room, he sees on the notice board, small church, 30 members, if no one comes, we'll close down. And he goes back to his room, he's like, no, that's not for me.

And the whole night he couldn't sleep. And God said, you're not going to Cary, you're going to that small church. He got up that morning, snatched that note off the notice board, went to his dean and said, tell those people I'm coming, because God won't let me rest. And so he comes to this church in Basawal, dirt floor, it's nothing like Cary, because he's already done supply preaching with them.

It just does not meet the expectations. But the man who wrote to the seminary asking for a preacher, the one who put that notice on the board, that was going to be his father-in-law one day. So it's an amazing story. So I wouldn't be here if my dad had said no, I want the big church.

Wow. And it's interesting, we wouldn't be here in Henderson, North Carolina, which is not this skyscraper, massive city, even though it's exploding in growth, because it's really a bedroom community to Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, the RTP. But 23 years ago, a young man who was the product of that marriage, you're a PhD student at Southeastern, you've got the world by the tail spiritually, and you're thinking, okay, Chicago, here we come, Toronto, LA, New York, and you get a call from Henderson. And take us to how that ended up here.

Oh, yeah, exactly. A lady and my wife worked with, they needed a youth pastor in Henderson. And so they asked me, I said, yeah, absolutely, I'll come help you out. And we came here and a year later, the pastor moved on.

And the church asked us to consider coming here. And so it's been quite a journey. And I will tell you this, I'm amazed. I'm so glad that God has brought us here.

I'm so glad. But this real whole thing is a testament, God's powerful word. And you just said, you called your dad and you know, you said, Dad, what am I thinking? What should I do? And what do you tell you? He said, No, you stay there and preach like you're preaching to 5000 people.

As a dad, there's only 30 people barely on a good Sunday. He said, it doesn't matter. Preach like you're preaching to 5000 and let God do the rest. And I love what Dr. Steven Davey once said. He said, preach to the seat that's full. Quit preaching to the empty seats. God will take care of that. And you have drilled deeper into feeding your people.

Now you're bulging with growth. You've got to add a facility. And you have an event coming up at your church. Talk a little bit about that. Apologetics. Why is apologetics so important?

And what are you all doing about it? Apologetics has been with the church for a long, long time. It's not, of course, not about apologizing. It's about defending the faith is what Peter talks about. Give a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. And more and more, I believe apologetics is not as much for the lost person as it's for the even the saved. Because we have people in the pews who, yeah, I just believe, you know, whatever is being said, they don't know why they believe. And to me, the tragedy is kids who grew up in church and they go off and they're sitting in a university class or college and have someone purposely dismantle their faith or mock them.

And they come back and go, I don't know what I believe anymore. The burden is on us. We have to give them the tools. We have to give them the reasons. And so we began this conference in 2019. And of course, past two years we couldn't do anything. So this year we came back. And the theme of this conference is the original text of the New Testament.

Which is right in line with the book you've written. And you've got some heavy hitter guys from all over coming to speak. Who are some of the guys speaking and what's the date of this event?

All right. So this is on September the 24th, Saturday from nine to four. And we have some of the best people coming. Peter Gurry is coming from Phoenix Seminary. He's a Cambridge PhD. We have Dr. Maurice Robinson coming, the Byzantine priority text, Robinson Pierpont text. He is coming.

Dr. David Allen Black is coming from Southeastern, of course. And so we're going to hear the history of the study of the original text, the importance, and then looking at it from various perspectives. When you look at your Bible, the NIV, NASB, KJV, whatever it is, what is the text behind it? And can we go back to the original text? Because again, people like Bart Ehrman and others have said, oh, there's more variants than even words in the text. And so by giving jarring remarks like that, it almost seems like I think we have the text that has been put together through the centuries. It's not the original words.

And that is so far from the truth. Wow. Wow. So this is open to anybody, but I know the seating is limited. So what's the best way for folks to enroll? It's an all-day thing. I think included in the price of admittance is, you know, obviously curriculum for notes and things, and then some lunch. You got some Chick-fil-A food coming, which you hear that some folks might just come for that, but then they're going to find out the spiritual meals even better than that. But tell everyone a little bit the nuts and bolts.

Absolutely. So you can go to our website, clearviewbc.org, and follow the link on the homepage, or you can go to the event on the Facebook page on Clearview Church Henderson. And then it's only, the early bird pricing is thirty dollars and forty with the meal.

And so we would love to have you come. Now, for ministers, for pastors and staff, it is free. Oh my. Oh wow. So they can really, the youth pastor can come and really beef up on the word and on equipping his own young people in the word, defending God's word, and really evangelizing this next generation.

Absolutely. So we want ministers to come, we want pastors to come, staff members to come and take back resources that would help them do what they need to do in their context. That's pretty awesome. So you're putting on a high-level thing, and people can come from all over to this thing.

It's in Henderson, North Carolina, which is right outside of the Raleigh Durham area. And you can hear this man of God, Dr. Shaw, on the radio, I believe every Sunday morning, right? At 8 30 a.m. on a.m. 10 30, 105.5 fm, 105.7 fm, 106.5 fm, all over the triangle, and then, Lord willing, soon we're going to find ways to put you on more places because your message is so important. What's your challenge to people out there listening about not just knowing what they believe, but knowing why they believe it? I believe it's so important for our next generation. It's not enough for us to say, oh I know what I believe and I know where I'm going. It is imperative that we pass on that faith to our next generation because the battle, it's terrible what's coming their way. So it's important that we as a church take that as a mandate to teach the truth, but also give them the reason for the hope that is within them.

I love it. Well thank you for sticking out there. You know, a lot of folks are planning, procrastinating, and noodling on what to do about it. You're bringing some heavy hitters in here to your church and you're opening your doors, and of course people need to sign up kind of quick, especially if you're bringing in a group for this apologetics event. One of the, I mean, I can't think of a more critical battleground than the text of Scripture, how to know the Word of God, how to know we can rely on the Word of God. It isn't just a bunch of guys' opinions, it isn't full of contradictions, and Dr. Avidan Shah, thank you for pastoring and for leading in this space, for writing books about this, and for hosting this apologetics conference. The date one more time in the website before we say goodbye to everyone.

Absolutely. September 24th and the website is clearviewbc.org and we'll have book sales, so there'll be books here and impressive artifacts and codices as well, so a lot of good cool stuff to see when you come. Okay, clearviewbc.org and you also can learn about Dr. Shah's books, Changing the Goalpost of New Testament Textual Criticism. So all those lies from people destroying, trying to destroy the New Testament, which is what Satan did at the beginning. Have not God said, you know, twisting God's Word.

You approach it and attack it head on in this book. Thank you for this, endorsed by some pretty big hitters. Dr. Black endorsed it. He's going to be here speaking at your apologetics conference, you and your wife, for this wonderful little devotional, 30 Days Through a Crisis, and these books and other resources at your website, clearviewbc.org. Folks, listen to this guy preach. You will hear a man of God who's bouncing that, you know, grace and truth and really feeding the Word, but going deeper, and thank you so much for your testimony, Pastor, and we're excited about the event coming up. Thank you, Stu. Thank you for being here today. That's an honor. Henderson, North Carolina Clearview Church.

Check it out. Get on the radar. Be encouraged and be blessed, and let's connect people to Christ everywhere we go. So you've been trying to reach that college student that's just outside Henderson. Well, now there's a place they can go where they can get discipled and built up. You've been trying to get your young person. Well, bring your kid, before you send them off to college, bring them to this one day apologetics conference.

You can afford it, and you get Chick-fil-A, and you get all kinds of riches. It's like taking a college class one day. What time of the whole thing again? It starts at 9 and ends at 4. Oh, that's perfect. Wow.

And you'll be home in time for your ball game. So God bless you, Pastor. ClearviewBC.org. This is the Truth Network.