Acts 27 beginning at verse 1, and when it was decided that we should sail to Italy They delivered Paul and some other prisoners to one named Julius a centurion of the Augustine Regiment so entering a ship of Adrimidium we put to sea Meaning to sail along the coasts of Asia Aristarchus a Macedonia a Macedonian of Thessalonica was with us and the next day we landed at Sidon Julius treated Paul kindly gave him liberty to go to his friends receive care When we had put to sea from there we sailed into the shelter of Cyprus because the winds were contrary and When we had sailed over the sea, which is off Cilicia and Pamphylia we came to Myra as city of Lycia There the centurion found an Alexandrian ship sailing to Italy. He put us on board When we had sailed slowly Many days and arrived with difficulty off Newport Beach. Oh, excuse me off Snedus The wind not permitting us to proceed. We sailed under the shelter of Crete off Salmonee Passing it with difficulty. We came to a place called Fair Havens near the city of Lycia And so let's begin this and this you're going to see is basically a travel log Paul is traveling from Caesarea Which is in Israel to the north on the Western on the Western coast? He's traveling from Caesarea to to Rome and He's going to be having a trial that would be held in what is called the imperial court He's in custody of a centurion a Man by the name of Julius and you may not know him at this time, but later on he invented a drink called orange Julius He became very famous Okay, I'll stop. I'm sorry his name was Julius who Was part of the imperial cohort and they sailed 70 miles north they stopped in Sidon They made their way up and then off they went to the west and so this is what is called a stop-by-stop narrative as We look at this. Let's look at those who are with Paul you have Paul But you also have Luke and notice we have a man there who has been mentioned his name is Aristarchus Now Aristarchus is found several times in scripture and we find that he is a faithful friend And he's also a minister from northern Greece a place that is called Macedonia He's mentioned fairly often you see him in Acts chapter 19 verse 29 you see him again in chapter 20 Verse 4 he's mentioned in the book of Philemon verse 24 Colossians chapter 4 verse 10 says Aristarchus my fellow prisoner greets you and So he's somebody that is mentioned fairly often in scripture and again He's a faithful friend and he's a minister from northern Greece As a close friend Aristarchus was willing to undergo hardship and long travel with the Apostle Paul We first saw him when he was taken by angry rioters in the city of Ephesus Again in chapter 19 of Acts verse 29 it had said the whole city was filled with confusion and rushed into the theater with one accord Having seized Gaius and Aristarchus Macedonians Paul's travel companions So the fact that he was willing to accompany Paul through so much hardship Reveals to us his love for the Lord as well as his love for Paul Now tradition not scripture tradition holds that he suffered martyrdom in Rome under Caesar Nero and so that's what you're seeing here. You're seeing a travel log It says in verse 3 the next day we landed at Sidon and Julius treated Paul kindly and gave him liberty to go to his friends and receive care So the church that he's going to to receive care from May have been founded after the persecution following Stephen's death But notice he went there to receive care in other words. They provided provisions for his journey They took care of him because he was a minister You see in the New Testament the church is often reported as caring for those who are ministers of the word And so that's what we're saying take place here We're seeing take place when it says they gave him liberty to go to his friends and receive care So the church actually Would work together to care for the needs of those who are taking the gospel out and Paul was being cared for because He was a missionary as well as an apostle when you look in 3rd John in verses 5 through 8 John said this and this gives us insight into what's taking place. He said Beloved you do faithfully whatever you do for the brethren and for strangers who have born witness of your love before the church If you send them forward on their journey in a manner worthy of God You will do well Because they went forth for his namesake taking nothing from the Gentiles We therefore ought to receive such that we may become fellow workers for the truth They went forth for the Lord's sake and what stands out to me when John was writing is this when he said taking Nothing from the Gentiles the church really isn't supposed to rely on those who are not part of the body of Christ The church is really supposed to rely on brothers and sisters within the confines of the body of Christ for their needs and One of the one of the dangers and one of the problems that we have seen in the church Especially in these latter days has occurred when the church began to receive funds from the government So that they could perform spiritual duties Because whenever the church takes funds from the government the government of the United States will always have certain restrictions on the use of the funds Years ago. I had opportunity to go to Washington DC and there was a meeting that was being held concerning the What it was what would it have been called it was concerning a a It wasn't a ministry, but it was It was some kind of program that would wanted to get the church involved Doing good things under government funding and I went to Washington DC for the meeting and in the meeting It was pointed out that anything that the government wanted to help But later on it was pointed out that anything we received from the government would be under government guidelines and restrictions So anytime you take money from the government for anything, especially as a nonprofit corporation They will put guidelines and restrictions on how you use that money So if you have a ministry that's going to feed the poor clothes those who are naked Help those who are without a home and you receive money from the government The government will monitor who they give that money to and how that money will be spent And so if we were to see a need and we were to receive a government grant They will have people monitoring how that's being spent and they will put restrictions on us And they will also evaluate whether or not what we are doing Meets government guidelines and thus if they want to put if they if they if we want to have some money to do Something they will say you have to make sure that you are doing it in a non-discriminatory fashion And then at that point they begin to tell you who can work for you How they're going to do that and the government begins to intrude It's always been better for the church to take care of its own people from the very beginning That's how it was. We saw that already in Acts chapter 2. We saw that in Acts chapter 4 We've seen that in various New Testament books That the body of Christ Would put together funds and they would use those funds to disperse them amongst those in need Paul is now on his way to trial and As he has stopped in one of the places to be sheltered He went to his friends It would be a church that has been planted and the friends are giving to him Support so that he can continue his ministry in Galatians chapter 6 verse 6 He said let him who has taught the word Share in all good things with him who teaches and that's how it takes place The ones who are receiving are supporting the one who was teaching And so these believers minister to his needs because that's what Christians do in Titus 3 verse 14 Paul said it like this He said let our people also learn to maintain good works to meet urgent needs That they may not be unfruitful in Romans 12 verse 13 He speaks of distributing to the needs of the saints And so he went to his friends and he received care in verse 3 verse 4 When we had put to see from there we sailed under the shelter of Cyprus because the winds were contrary And when we had sailed over the sea which is off Cilicia and Pamphylia we came to Myra A city of Lycia There the centurion found an Alexandrian ship sailing to Italy He put us on board When we had sailed slowly many days and arrived with difficulty off Sinaitis The wind not permitting us to proceed We sailed under the shelter of Crete off Salmoni Outright yeah Salmoni passing it with difficulty We came to a place called Fair Havens near the city of Lycia So all of these geographic locations are familiar to all of you in this room Well, obviously not. I don't know where these are either It's difficult enough to read the words let alone know what he's talking about It's just given to us a geographic location in his direction that he's traveling And so traveling against headwinds. They're sailing slowly They arrive in a bay a bay in Crete They give the name of that bay. It's called Fair Havens And it's called Fair Havens simply because it has a good harbor So continuing now verse nine When much time had been spent and sailing was now dangerous because the fast Was already over Paul advised them saying men I perceive that this voyage will end with disaster and much loss Not only for the cargo and ship But also our lives Nevertheless the centurion was more persuaded by the helmsman and the owner of the ship then by the thing spoken by Paul And because the harbor was not suitable to enter in The majority advised to set sail from there also If by any means they could reach phoenix a harbor of Crete opening toward the southwest and northwest And winter there and so continuing the the description. I'll give you a couple of things here He speaks here concerning in verse nine. He said it's dangerous because the fast was already over That's simply a timetable the fast speaks of the day of atonement So that helps us to know what season this is that would fall in september or early october And he's simply saying travel at this time is dangerous And travel is dangerous from mid september to mid november And it would become easier to travel from Or actually it would cease travel would cease from november to february So his point is is they're moving into a dangerous season For sailing and so notice what happens in verse 10 Paul stands up and he says i perceive that this voyage is going to end in disaster Now interestingly enough the apostle paul when he was writing in second Corinthians in chapter 11 He spoke concerning the fact that he was experienced With shipwrecks he mentions that he had been in three of them So this is an individual with some experience And he's saying i perceive that this voyage is going to end with disaster So his travel experience as well as sensitivity to the holy spirit moves him to warn them So as he does so he says look this is going to end with disaster and much loss And so we need to be concerned he said not only the cargo and ship but also our lives This is going to be a dangerous thing. So they're looking at him and they're ignoring him And so the centurion is more open to listen to the experience of the sailors Now he's aware of the fact that the port that they're at wasn't suitable to winter in There were no comforts there for them So they decide to follow the experience of the sailors and they set sail By way of application This is very typical of the world when it comes to listening to warnings from believers Very typical When the church stands up and says i'm warning you if you go in this direction, it's going to end in disaster Those who aren't Christians very often Don't listen And that happens all the time That happens all the time and and it's interesting because we see we see it happen Regularly it's pretty much the culture that we're growing up in that we're living in at this moment If the church stands up and says If you're not careful these things will follow because you're doing a certain thing It's a slippery slope if you do this it's going to move to that The world doesn't listen Because the world listens to its own experts and doesn't listen to the spirit of god I was sharing years ago now how When columbine occurred I it was in this hall right here. It was on a sunday morning as I recall. It's been a number of years Some of you perhaps were there But I said this I said And I asked the question to the congregation. I said this to the church. I said With the columbine shootings the killings of those children so many years ago now I said How many of you believe that a classroom Should be the safest place for a child That's a reasonable question, right? How many so let me ask you this and and raise your hand How many think that a classroom should be the safest place for a child? Do you think that's true? And I and and I don't do this to embarrass you now. I didn't do it to embarrass them then I said you're wrong And of course that causes people to think well, why would I be wrong? Well, I'm always right. No But I said you're wrong and I'll say you know why Because the safest place for a child should be the mother's womb And if you take the life from a womb You will take the life in a classroom That's the slippery slope When you begin to say life has no value unless somebody determines it does Then at what point do you stop killing? Because if you can take the life of a child in the womb Then what is to keep you from taking the life of a child anywhere? And see that's the kind of slippery slope thinking That people have to date even to this day The church has stood up and said these things Are are right before the Lord we need to hold fast to these things Of course, let me let me hasten to say this That is not a word of condemnation to any in this room who have made poor choices And have made the decision for abortion. I'm not preaching about that at the moment I I hope that you don't think that I'm Trying to harm some who are dealing with with memories of those things that have happened I'm not doing that's what I'm saying is I'm saying that when the church has said but no don't do that there are other ways The experts get involved And the experts of the world are saying oh, no, you're wrong. We will listen Somebody will say we will listen to these experts. It happens all the time the church very often Is is shouted down and that's what paul's doing. He's saying sirs. I perceive that if we continue on This is going to create a place of great harm not only for the ship, but also for our own lives And so the centurion does what he does he gets He gets information from an expert and the experts say no, it's no problem at all. And again That's what happens People will listen to the experts of the world before they hear the cries of the church The world sometimes cannot hear what we're saying when we cry out warnings And so their decision is well, we will sail 40 miles west On the southern coast of crete The port in this area would not have have the wind blowing so fiercely and and couldn't provide better shelter as their reasoning And so that's what they choose to do verse 13 When the south wind blew softly supposing That they had obtained their desire putting out to sea they sailed close by crete But not long after not long after a tempestuous headwind arose called urocladon So when the ship was caught and could not head into the wind we let her drive And running under the shelter of an island called clauda We secured the skiff with difficulty when they had taken it on board They used cables to undergird the ship and fury unless they should Run aground on the certisans they struck sail and so we're driven And because we were exceedingly tempestossed the next day they lightened the ship On the third day we threw the ship's tackle overboard with our own hands Now when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and no small tempest beat on us All hope that we would be saved was finally given up And so he's basically just giving blow-by-blow description of what took place Just briefly in verse 14 when it says Not long after a tempestuous headwind arose called urocladon Um urocladon just speaking of a strong wind that comes from all directions Um, it's a very strong wind that that causes great problems So what are they doing verse 17 says they try to secure the ship from breaking up hoping to avoid the shoals The certisans another way of referring to the shoals And notice again It says in verse 21 after long abstinence from food Paul stood in the midst of them and said men Nani, nani, nani you should have listened to me And not many and and not have sailed from creed and incurred this disaster and loss And now I urge you to take heart for there will be no loss of life among you but only of the ship For there stood by me this night an angel of of the god to whom I belong and whom I serve saying Do not be afraid paul You must be brought before Caesar and indeed god has granted you all those who sail with you therefore Take heart men for I believe that I believe god That uh, it will be just as it was told me. However, we must run aground on a certain island and so They haven't eaten And in the midst of all of this paul is about to stand up Notice with me how it says in verse 21 It says all hope that we should be saved was finally given up After all their efforts and all their experience there was no way they were going to be saved After three days they're fatigued They haven't been able to eat because of nausea and the impossibility of preparing meals in a fierce storm What you have is a picture of the sea it's tossing Salt spray is stinging their faces their backs are strained their arms legs are cramping The wind makes the boat rock violently They can hardly stand let alone walk They're seasick They've had it and all that awaits them is drowning And so in the midst of all of this paul stands up and he says you should have listened to me Now notice they are no longer professionals and amateurs there They're all in the same boat literally They're all going to drown And I know only men fighting for their lives so they're equal So he says you should have listened to me yet even though you didn't listen Do not fear because god is taking care of me and he'll take care of you too. Let me give you a principle God is taking care of me And he's taking care of you also When the lord blesses someone Others may partake because they happen to be there As the lord is blessing that one All the way back in the book of genesis in chapter 39 There's a story there About joseph Joseph who had been sold into slavery And in genesis 39 verses one through five We read joseph had been taken down to egypt And potiphar an officer of ferro captain of the guard in egyptian bought him from the ishmaelites Who had taken him down there The lord was with joseph And he was a successful man And he was in the house of his master the egyptian and his master saw that the lord was with him And that the lord made all he did to prosper in his hand So joseph found favor in his sight and served him Then he made him overseer of his house and all that he had put under his authority So it was from the time that he had made him overseer of his house and all that he had That the lord blessed the egyptian's house for joseph's sake And the blessing of the lord was on all that he had In the house and in the field there are those Those who do not want the church to exist You say oh you know that's with you pastors are all the same you exaggerate you You you guys are paranoid No, I got a letter from a guy in the neighborhood And he said that he wrote to me here at this church and he said I can hardly wait until the that church is gone That's what he wrote So I wrote him back and I said the day is coming when the church is going to be gone And then that which restrains evil The holy spirit in the church will be gone too and all hell will break loose For those who don't like the church They don't understand that this nation has been blessed because of the church You need to understand that this nation has been blessed because of the church Because god blesses his people And from its very foundation to this day There have been influential believers who prayed and sought the lord and god blessed them and others were blessed alongside of that That's what you find in scripture all the way back in egypt When joseph who had been sold into slavery by jealous brothers because they didn't like the idea that this was a man with A coat of many colors and his father showed him preference And they were so jealous that they sold them to the ishmaelites who intend in turn sold him to the egyptians He ends up in the household of potifer And god is blessing his life and potifer is smart enough to see that he's got blessings taking place in his home because joseph is there in homes When you have a believing husband or a believing wife That home can be blessed and the unbeliever can partake in the blessings Simply because god is blessing the believer that happens and so Paul is simply saying god is preserving my life. And by the way, you're on the same boat.  I was on a plane And a guy seated next to me Asked me, what do I do for a living and we're in flight What do you do for a living? I said i'm a pastor And after a while he turns to me and says, you know, I feel much more comfortable now knowing that you're on this plane with me We're flying in from A trip to israel. We're flying into new york We entered into storm conditions severe storm conditions We had never been in a storm like that off the coast of new york. We had never been in a storm like that It was so severe That the oxygen masks were dropping from the little specialized containers that they have they were dropping Because the plane was depressurizing And people were screaming and there were people crying And now we were on all airlines and jewish people were coming up to us as christians saying come into the back and pray with us I mean it was that serious And as this was all taking place and i'm telling you if you've never been in a plane that drops and comes back up and drops and come It's quite an experience And as that's happening. I had the newspaper and I was reading it I just was I was just talking to my daughter about this because my daughter karin was on that trip and she was 15 And she was seated two seats behind me with her seatmate and they were singing christian songs Which was not her at that time There she is singing and she said I talked to her just about this the other day and she said yeah daddy I wanted I wanted to go to heaven singing. I wanted to make sure I got in So and i'm reading the newspaper and i'm seriously when I do this this is how it was And we finally made a turn went to montreal. I believe we landed Later on my daughter approaches me karina approaches me and she says to me dad Why Were you so calm? Why were you not afraid? and I said I said because I knew that the lord was not through with our church I know that god isn't through with our church and she looks at me all 15 years of her wisdom and she says Has it ever occurred to you that he doesn't need you to finish the work? I said i'm glad I didn't think of it at that moment Also, I'd have been sitting next to you singing The lord has a way you know, I'll be honest with you there have been many times I was traveling with pastor Chuck Smith and I always felt a little more secure But you know, that's the whole thing he's saying God is going to take care of you because my god Will take care of me notice verse 25 therefore take heart men For I believe god That it will be just as it was told me however We must run aground on a certain island And so he's saying my god Is is is going to come through it will be just as he told me In other words, I trust the lord's word and I believe that god is faithful and I believe that god is true Numbers 23 19 says God is not a man that he should lie Nor a son of man that he should repent Has he said And will he not do Has he spoken And will he not Make it good In first Samuel 15 29 He who is the glory of israel does not lie or change his mind For he is not a man that he should change his mind So paul knew that god's word was true and that he could trust the lord So that includes the words of comfort that we find in scripture A lot of us go through our bibles and we discover beautiful promises God's word is true and we claim them that includes words of comfort But it also includes his words of warning We love to claim his promises of good, but we also need to heed his warnings In verse 27 when the 14th night had come And we were driven up and down in the adriatic sea about midnight the sailors since that they were drawing near some land and They took soundings and found it to be 20 fathoms and When they'd gone a little farther They took soundings again found it to be 15 fathoms then fear unless we should Run aground on the rocks they dropped four anchors from the stern And prayed for day to come So they're in the adriatic. That's if you looked at a map, it's it's a it's a Mediterranean it's in the center of the Mediterranean off to the the west of israel And they can sense that they're now coming near near shore They're approaching if you were looking at a map they're approaching south of sicily The isle of malta is only three miles south of the bay And there they are as this is taking place and notice what it says here What they're doing and they prayed for day to come. Have you ever done that? Oh god may the sun shine for some reason we feel safer when the sun is shining And they were just praying for the day to come verse 30 And as the sailors were seeking to escape from the ship When they had let down the skiff into the sea under pretense of putting out anchors from the prowl Paul said To the centurion the soldiers Unless these men stay in the ship you cannot be saved Then the soldiers cut away the ropes of the skiff and let it fall off And as day was about to dawn paul implored them all to take food saying today's the 14th day you have waited and continued without food and eaten nothing But therefore I I urge you to take nourishment For this is for your survival since not a hair will fall from the head of any of you And when he had said these things he took bread and gave thanks to god in the presence of them all And when he had broken it He began to eat Then they were all encouraged and also took food themselves And in all we were 276 persons on the ship So when they had eaten enough they lightened the ship and throughout the wheat into the sea And so as the sailors are seeking to escape Paul Says don't allow that to take place Notice he's become a respected man. He earned their respect And incidentally that is how you generally become respected You become respected over time And the accuracy of the things that you say you'll become respected over time And and the way that you live and so they saw this and they realized That he was right and it's funny how people will listen to a person who seems to be right And they did so now according to verses 33 through 38 He's encouraging them to eat because they haven't eaten for several days So because they won't he leads by example. He takes some food. He prays he eats So that gives me insight into leadership and i'll just make a Brief comment about that because he's leading now. He's earned the respect and he's leading So leadership is demonstrated very often by example When people see that god is working in somebody they have a tendency of wanting to learn why And when they begin to speak to that person who's a leader very often They will ask questions pertaining to how they got to where they are And what can they do to help us to be there too? I've said this to you before but it bears repetition When you read your bibles when you read the gospels matthew mark luke john when you read those I would encourage you to do this as you read through the gospels Look for a time look for a time When the apostles say something like this to jesus look for a time when they say to jesus lord Teach us to preach You will never find an instance where they say teach us to communicate. They don't you never find it He sends them out to preach, but you never see him Giving them preaching 101 You go to seminary. They call it homiletics It's a class teaching you how to preach jesus never taught them how to preach isn't that interesting or jesus teach us to heal You never see jesus saying do it this way never you can't find an instance in scripture Where he says put your hand here say these words look up in this way You don't see any of that, but you know what you do see You do see it when they approach him in luke chapter 11 verse 1 And they say to him lord Teach us to pray Now isn't that interesting The one thing that they saw about him that they knew they needed Was they saw he communed with the father Teach us to pray even as john also taught his disciples Teach us to pray Because that's the one thing they saw in jesus that he actually said I want you to teach me to do that So you'll observe and you'll see something significant And that's how leadership occurs in somebody's life You see mark 135 says In the morning having risen a long while before daylight he's speaking of jesus went out and departed to a solitary place There he prayed they were aware of these things Matthew 14 23 When he had sent the multitudes away he went up on a mountain by himself to pray When evening came he was alone there They saw this in their master and so they say to him I want to know because by example you have shown us that you pray but teach us how That we might have communion to Paul could point to himself As an example to follow in first chrithians 11 1 Imitate me in so far as I imitate christ So he could point to himself in philippians 4 verse 9 The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me these do And the god of peace will be with you So he's earned their respect because he's lived before him in such a way That now as he's speaking they are listening You see this reminds them of who it is who's in charge It isn't rome And it isn't paul The one who's in charge and they've come to see this is the lord And that's why they're respecting him. You see he's the god of creation And he's sovereign over all he's created In psalm 107 verses 25 through 29 it says he spoke and stirred up a tempest tempest that lifted high the waves They mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths In their peril their courage melted away They reeled and staggered like drunken men. They were at their wit's end Then they cried out to the lord in their trouble and he brought them out of their distress He stilled the storm to a whisper the waves of the sea Were hushed They've experienced that they're experiencing god's hand in his control And they're trusting that this god whom promised paul That he would survive and the rest would they're now trusting him In verse 39 when it was day They did not recognize the land But they observed a bay with a beach onto which they planned to run the ship if possible And they let go the anchors and left them in the sea meanwhile losing the rudder ropes They hoisted the mainsail to the wind and made for sure But strike in a place where two seas met They ran the ship aground And the prow stuck fast and remained immovable But the stern was being broken up by the violence of the waves The soldier's plan was to kill the prisoners Lest any of them should swim away and escape but the centurion Wanting to save paul kept them from their purpose and commanded that those Who could swim should jump overboard first and get the land and the rest some on boards and some on parts of the ship And so it was that they all escaped safely to land This is the first surf ministry notice there were some on boards They wanted to kill the prisoners Because if any escaped they would be held responsible It's because paul had revealed his worth at the centurion spared him And because he had they make it to shore And so in this We see elements of leadership and i want to close with just a few things Elements of leadership that are revealed through this incident And these are things that if you want to lead you might want to take note of one paul took the initiative by giving counsel from the beginning He took initiative He saw and he spoke So that's one of the ways that you establish leadership you give counsel and you do so from the beginning to The counsel that he gave was sound. It was good advice So it's not just that you open your mouth and speak There has to be wisdom in it third He spoke with authority He wasn't kind of mincing words and suggesting he was speaking with an authoritative tone fourth He encouraged those who were afraid In the midst of all of this you will always have timid or weak fear-filled people And so when you're giving advice and when you're beginning to speak with this authority You also have to give a word of encouragement because many people are afraid and you saw that in this particular instance A fifth thing is he remained firm in his understanding of the leading of the lord. He didn't waffle or compromise God spoke to me and I know this is what we're to do and then finally he led by example They saw that what he was saying was what he was doing If there's anything that undermines your leadership or your Impact in somebody it's when you say but don't do now. Does that mean that every one of us is always 100 percent Totally doing exactly What we say no every one of us has weakness and there are times that we just don't live up to what we know But if you've got a good track record if If people can say that he is consistent she's consistent And though they have made mistakes and they have done things that were not proper at times They still have credibility Because you're moving in the right direction And that's what we see with paul here He gave advice from the beginning his advice was sound He spoke with authority encouraged those who were afraid remained steadfast in his understanding of the leading of the lord He held fast and led by example


Hello everyone, hopefully third time is the charm. First time I got COVID when I tried to do this banana smoothies thing. And then just today, trying to do it as part of a live Q&A and technologically it all failed. So, although unfortunately this won't be live, won't be able to take questions, but I will get this information out there. And so hopefully this will work. Fingers crossed. Ah, right. Okay, well, so the first part of this is self-familiar who we're watching on YouTube or Facebook and don't all clash. But now you'll actually be able to see the PDFs. Hopefully actually see the studies that I'm talking about. Okay. We all know there are recommended daily intakes of essential nutrients like vitamins to prevent deficiencies, but recently, hopefully you can see that, but recently the first dietary recommendation for a bioactive food compound was published. Bioactive food compounds, as you can see in green here, are not necessary for basic human needs, but may have health benefits. For example, these plant metabolites here in red are known as flavonoids. Flavonoids are a type of polyphenol, which the most commonly consumed one is these flavon-3-ols, also known as just flavonols. A review of the literature here up in blue suggests that intake of 400 to 600 milligrams a day of these flavonols will be beneficial for cardiovascular protection such as, here in red, potential for improving blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugars. Now note here in gray that this is specifically a food guideline, not a supplement guideline, though really it's actually more like a beverage guideline since, if you look at the zoom out a little bit there, if you look at the primary sources, it's really a tea, green or black is the easiest way to reach those levels, though there's certainly some in a variety of berries and cocoa. However, dun dun dun dun, there's an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase that can break down these wonderful polyphenols like flavonoids. That is what makes certain fruits of vegetables, as you can see here in green. Brown, when you cut them, such as bananas and potatoes, now why would a plant do that to itself?  It's part of the plant's immune system, as you can see there in orange, and when exposed to oxygen, what happens is that polyphenol oxidase can oxidize polyphenols into these breakdown products which have antimicrobial activity. So, when a banana gets bruised, for example, there in gray, you cut up a avocado or something, the polyphenol oxidase can start oxidizing polyphenols into these defensive compounds that can glom together here in red, forming a dark compound called melanin. The same classic compound that darkens the skin of banana also darkens our skin, too. Okay, so no problem, we can just not eat bananas that have turned brown, right? Because that's visual evidence that many of the polyphenols have been lost. Ah, but what if you mix that banana, which you know is filled with that polyphenol oxidase enzyme, in a smoothie with polyphenol-rich foods like berries or cocoa, might that end up with less nutrition? Well, big chocolate-funded researchers sought to find out, and so, what they did is they put about a half cup of cocoa's worth of cocoa flavonols in a banana-containing smoothie compared to the same amount in a berry smoothie with no banana. So, here is a measure of how many cocoa flavonols make it into your bloodstream within hours, one, two, three, four, five, six hours after eating the chocolatey berry smoothie compared to the same amount of cocoa blended into a banana smoothie, right? So, the same amount of those cocoa goodies, but it's almost as if there was no cocoa in there at all, presumably because the banana enzymes chopped up all the chocolate goodies. Let's not presume, though. They blended up that chocolatey banana smoothie again, which was just banana, almond milk, cocoa flavonols, and then they just measured the level of flavonols as the smoothie sat for an hour. Check it out! That is what happened. The cocoa flavonols plummeted more than 90% a half-life of about 10 minutes. So, every 10 minutes, the levels of polyphenols drop in half. Now, how do we know it was for sure? It was this polyphenol-oxidase enzyme, because then if you add various polyphenol inhibitors, then they block the effect. So, no problem if you add bananas to your smoothies, just you have to chug them down before the enzyme does its job, right? I mean, presumably, the enzyme would be deactivated when it hit the acid bath of our stomach, but you don't know until you put it to the test. And I love that the researchers did all this, all these extra steps here. So, here you are in green here. What they did is this time, they had studied participants alternate sips between a straight banana almond milk smoothie and like chocolate milk, chocolate flavonoids plus the almond milk, right? So, there was no premixing in the blender between the banana enzyme and the flavonols, just mixing in the stomach. Such an elegant research move. Okay, so, here's how many cocoa flavonols. Here we go. Here's how many cocoa flavonols. Make it in your bloodstream sipping the chocolate milk alone here with these kind of brown, greenish-brown little data here. And then, here is when it's mixing just in the stomach when you're alternating sips with the banana smoothie.  It's starting to get dark. And so, my screen is going to start to yellow because I cut out the blue blocker, a blue bar artifact, but I just turned that off so we should be good. Okay. And indeed, in a simulated stomach acid, in kind of simulated stomach acid conditions, yes, the polyphenol oxidase is indeed down, but not out. Okay. So, yeah, if you drink some smoothie with a banana and it's better not to let it sit around, but even if you drink it immediately, you can get less polyphenols in your system than if you had to skip the banana. All right. But bananas make smoothies so rich and creamy. I mean, anything we can add to the smoothie to counter the banana enzymes' effects, that's exactly what I'll cover next. But not really next because that's what I would have said in a video, but we're all going to be covering right here, right now. Actually, let me turn down that light a little bit. Oh, it's not showing up. All right. That's okay. It's okay. All right. Let me just take a few seconds, though, before I continue with the story to ask for your help. We usually made this a YouTube fundraiser, but now it's not really on YouTube. But if you're watching this on nutritionfacts.org and you find this valuable, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to support this wonderful work. And so as a kind of end of year show of thanks, we don't accept money from food companies or supplement companies or kitchen gizmo companies or anything like that, just individual donors like you. So thank you so much for your support. Okay. Back to our regularly scheduled program. There's one food that has even more polyphenol oxidase activities than banana, and it's a vegetable that's not a potato. What vegetable turns brown? That's not a white potato. All right. Let's go look. Okay. 220. Let's find out. Aha. Here we go. So here's polyphenol oxidase activity in various fruits and vegetables and white mushrooms. White button mushrooms, as you can see, have more polyphenol oxidase activity than even bananas. Now, for those of you thinking, don't worry. I don't think I expect to be adding any mushrooms into my smoothies anytime soon. Now, some people do add avocados to smoothies or make like a chocolate avocado pudding. And here's a question. What if you eat mushrooms with a meal packed with polyphenol rich foods, right? Might it mix in your stomach and decrease the absorption like the anthocyanins in red cabbage or berries for dessert, right? And look, you could also be having some potatoes with your meal or eggplant with your meal, which also, as you can see, contains it. Now, note, though, however, this is for fresh produce, right? So, you know, we're not worrying about the eggplant potatoes. And the enzyme is utterly destroyed by cooking. So, this is inactivation of the mushroom polyphenol oxidase enzyme. And as you can see, it plummets readily. And look, remember, we should be cooking our mushrooms anyway, right? Because of the guarantee, most of our mushrooms, you don't have to cook oyster mushrooms, but the white and criminy portobello mushrooms, right? Problem solved, right? So, you don't have to worry about cooked potatoes, cooked eggplant, cooked mushrooms, okay. But who wants to cook their bananas, though, right? What else could we put in a smoothie instead? My personal favorite is mango, which you buy frozen when it's not in season. Do we have to worry about that? Having a polyphenol eating enzymes? Well, what happens when you cut open a mango? Does it go brown? No, it doesn't go brown, which should show you exactly what this data shows here. And that is, if you look, that mango, right here, has, oh, maybe 500 times less than that banana. This is polyphenol oxidase inactivity. This is the activity of that enzyme that destroys polyphenols like flavonoids, right? Now, the apple certainly doesn't surprise me, right? Because what happens with apples turns brown. But what is with these beet greens? I did not know about that. So, if you're making a green smoothie, better to use something like kale, which has enzyme levels so low, they're below the level of detection, okay? But, boy, this smoothie study raises so many interesting questions, right? So, forget smoothies. Should you not add bananas to your oatmeal, right? Because the bananas in your stomach would mix with like the berries or the cocoa that you put in your oatmeal. And indeed, that is what we should expect. So, I no longer add bananas to my Cran chocolate pomegranate breakfast bowl. That was one of my cooking videos, if you missed it. And since, you know, I don't want to lose any of those polyphenols. There's so many wonderful ingredients in that. I don't want to lose any. I don't want any of those destroyed, that 37% decrease in your stomach when it all mixes with that enzyme. Okay, but what if you're not making something chocolatey? The study only tested the effects of the enzyme on cocoa flavono. Like, they didn't check to see if mixing bananas with berries would affect the berry phytonutrients, but the presumption is that it would. And so, what does that mean for ready-to-drink bottled smoothie drinks that you might find in a store that may be sitting on the shelf? Well, if it's been pasteurized, then it should be okay, because the heat destroys that enzyme. That's why vegetables are blanched before they're frozen to destroy the enzyme. Even just heating bananas to 70... Let me see table two. That's figure two. I'm looking for... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so here, this is inactivation methods for that enzyme bananas. Even just heating in here, we're looking at the T2 data right here. Even just heating bananas to like 70 degrees C, which is like hot tea, 70 degrees Celsius, for two minutes in the presence of vitamin C and citric acid, which might come from lemon juice, for example, would suppress the enzyme by 80%. I'm not suggesting drinking hot smoothies, but rather that those pasteurized smoothie drinks, depending on the ingredients, may not have the same problem as fresh-made smoothies. What about just adding the vitamin C and citric acid alone, like putting lemon juice in your smoothie? That is the T1... Oh, here, let me move this over. That's the T1 data here. And as you can see, it only cuts the enzyme activity by about 13% without the heating step. However, it does work wonders for apples. So, as you can see here, a cut apple, you just add some lemon juice, and you can cut that activity nearly in half, explaining why adding lemon juice to your fruit salad keeps the apples and your fruit salad from turning brown. Anything we can add to a banana smoothie to inhibit the enzyme, so we can still use bananas, but somehow block the enzyme? Well, they used to put sulfites in fresh fruits and vegetables to block that enzyme until they were banned in 1986. Following cases of sulfite-induced asthma, they are still used in dried fruit, though, to prevent browning. The apricots on the left are sulfured with sulfites, and the ones on the right are not. It's purely cosmetic. You want to get the un-sulfured, so you don't have to worry about sulfite-induced respiratory problems. Okay, sulfites are kind of off the table, but what about other... What about natural agents? What can we do for natural anti-browning agents to block this puppy? Well, as you can see in orange there, onion extracts can prevent the browning of pears, and you see in gray, both fresh and cooked onion juice both work, but there has got to be something better for your smoothies, and indeed pineapple juice, as you can see in purple there, does seem to help keep apples from browning, and bananas too, for that matter, but that was after soaking in pineapple juice for three days. It's not clear if it would work right away. There was a study here underlined in yellow comparing lemon juice and white wine to prevent browning in pastry dough. You've heard of hard cider, hard seltzer?  Anyway, okay, so that's the... Let me stop sharing here. That's the story on bananas... Should you not eat bananas? No, you can eat bananas at any time. You just don't want to eat bananas. You just don't want to have the bananas in your stomach at the same time. You have other healthy foods like berries, cocoa, tea, and so, but like as a snack on its own, totally fine, but smoothies aside, still, you could impair some of the... You could destroy some of the phytonutrients if you had it in your stomach at the same time as meal and same thing with uncooked mushrooms and some of those other things, oh, like the avocado. Anyway, I'm sure this raises lots of questions, and I was hoping to take lots of questions today. That was before the tech disaster, but certainly be happy to answer next time I do Q&A. Thank you so much, everyone. Thank you for everyone who decided to support us this year. This topic will actually be up in actual video on nutritionfacts.org, all polished and fancy, but didn't want to wait for you to get this important information. Have a good night.


In this video, we are going to learn more about atoms, and in particular isotopes, and how you can find the mass numbers of elements from the periodic table. In the periodic table, elements are written with a small number and a bigger number next to the symbol. The smaller number is the atomic number, which is unique to the element. It tells us how many protons there are. The bigger number is the atomic mass number. It depends on the weight of the nucleus, that is, the number of protons plus the number of neutrons, because the mass of an electron is so small we ignore it. The atomic number of sodium is 11, and mass number 23. How many protons, electrons and neutrons does it have? Pause the video whilst you count them. Time for the answer. There are 11 protons in sodium, because this is the atomic number, so there must be 11 electrons too. There are 23 minus 11 neutrons, which makes 12. The atomic mass number in the periodic table is not always a whole number. It is an average of different isotopes, weighted according to their abundance. For example, the atomic mass of chlorine is 35.5. There are two common isotopes of chlorine, chlorine 37 and chlorine 35. Chlorine 35 is three times as common as chlorine 37, so the average weight is three quarters times 35, plus one quarter times 37, which gives 35.5. Look at the periodic table. Which other elements have mass numbers that are not whole values? The lighter elements have roughly the same number of neutrons as protons, but heavier elements tend to have more neutrons to glue the nucleus together. Electrons surrounding the nucleus of an atom aren't completely free. They are restricted to moving in fixed orbitals or energy levels. Each energy level can take a certain number of electrons before it is full, and any more electrons have to occupy a level further out. We call these electron shells and draw them as concentric circles, working outwards from the nucleus. The number of electrons each shell can take can be seen by looking at the rows of the periodic table. The first row has just two elements in it, hydrogen and helium. The first shell can take just two electrons. Hydrogen has one shell with one electron in it, and helium has one shell with two electrons in it. Look at some of our other videos to learn more about how electrons arrange themselves. By now, you should be comfortable with the idea that atoms are made up of protons, neutrons and electrons. You should remember that electrons weigh essentially nothing, and that protons and electrons are charged, but that neutrons are not. You should remember what an isotope is, and know how to use atomic and mass numbers to find out how many fundamental particles there are in an element. To learn more, you may want to watch our video on how the elements are laid out in the periodic table.


Hello everyone, it's nice to be here. We're presenting in our project Transforming Personal and Professional Digital Capacities in teaching a learning context, a collaboration between social policy educators and students of learning technologists. My first task was to absorb the name for teaching out of speeds which turn to the social policy education and have some different skills. I was just beginning to kind of launch our project identity to develop that and to develop our visual assets and your goals etc. But speeds from now on are great. So just very briefly to introduce, you can see that everyone's representing the second participating institution, so the UCC is the leading institution and we also have a social policy education and learning technologist representing IT Cardinal, CIT, IT Trevee, Waterloo IT, Trinity College of London and University College of London. And I'd like to add the very cool thing here who's represented CIT and treat me with a feeling that he's here from TCG Scotland and tell me more about the instructions as I learn using C. Other apartments could be important to be on the view of examples and trying to be like that but hello to them they are tuning into the live feed. So just very briefly to explain the genesis and the aim of the project so we're kind of starting here. This figure is representing the social policy education and he's kind of keen to develop digital learning but very unsure of what direction to go in. So the aim of the project then is to bring together social policy education and the structure and design of the learning technologist within each participating institution. With a view to developing the social policy education into the digital champions and tracing their journeys along those pathways so that others might learn from the process. We are developing that. One of the objectives initially is to engage in an assessment of social policy age's current digital skills and as part of that we're developing a new tool called the spiky profiling tool which Tom Omara is going to present about and Tom is going to give a little update on where we are at with that. Thank you Eileen. I suppose the working title of what we're doing is we're developing a spiky profile tool and that concept was explained in our application process stems from literacy. So my own background before I joined UCC was I ran the distance learning service for the national audit literacy agency in Ireland and the concept of a spiky profile was developed by the National Research Development Centre in the UK and the concept is that every single person has a different profile. Some people are very good at some things and very weak at other things. So we thought we'd apply that model to what we do in higher education as well. So I run the instruction and design team in UCC and part of what we do as we do two things really we support the development and the application technology to learning by developing content with academics but we also then do a lot of training with academics as well. So the picture up here in the top left this is taken from our presentation back in November I think. That's the write on to spiky profile tool if you go to write on that or if you want to see more of that you can see that. So this is what we said we would do. So the idea is that we would have every single individual that takes part in this project would have a personalised literacy profile digital literacy profile and a development plan. So if you see here for example the different bar charts or different bars explain where a person's skills might sit this is obviously literacy at level two and the national framework qualifications I imagine that will now be something different which I'll show you in a minute but as well as having identified people's gaps and strengths what we also do is we point people towards where they can actually get support around those things. We also have developed in the lifetime of the project information on what is an ideal literacy profile of someone working in the area of social policy. So how are we doing that? We're using I suppose four different I'm going to call them broadly frameworks right because they're all slightly different. We spent quite a bit of time over the last couple of months just looking at different contexts so what are we going to reference here? So we could come up with our own curriculum and we could develop our own series of learning outcomes and say these are the things we're going to reference but obviously we have due regard to these four things so the first one is the professional development framework by the National Forum for Enhancement Teaching and Learning particularly domain four. So these are the areas that we're looking at. We also have then of course the all aboard and I know that the guys from all aboard are here today as well. So looking at all of these things and we were very lucky we were involved in a U19 seminar with all aboard back in April so we actually got to talk to the guys a little bit more and find out what's actually behind this lovely tube map of literacy in higher education. We also then referenced the I suppose they've just developed a stations map as part of the all aboard framework as well so we're actually looking at the learning outcomes and the content that's up there. We also will be referencing the EU digital companies as framework 2.0 particularly I suppose items I think they're called Dimensions, Dimensions 1, 2 and 3 and we're also going to reference sorry it's not in there actually the ECDL framework so ECDL now have three different particular awards around information literacy struggling to remember the other ones at the moment but there's three of them. So essentially what we've done for the last couple of months is taking all of the content from here all of the learning outcomes and grouping them together and seeing how would we address each of these areas to see can we find some commonality and we've been quite successful in the sense we've begun grouping them into themes. We're now in the process of once we have all the learning outcomes together of probably the most difficult part of the project over the next two months is coming up with statements that people can answer yes or no to. So part of a spiky profile to it isn't we don't ask people a whole series of questions what we do is we make a series of statements and then they will agree or disagree with those statements and say yes, no. So it's quite a bit of work in terms of designing that and sharing that with our colleagues and coming to a common understanding. And the last part of that process then of course is figuring out well if someone does say that they have any for example around communication with students where would they then go to get support around that. So we're looking to leverage as much as possible what's already out there. So we have reference to the tellyou.me website which is developed by CIT last year as a national forum project. There's a huge amount of content up there. We have all the board content. We have a lot of content in UCC. All of our partners have a lot of content as well. So we don't want to reinvent the wheel. We're developing new content here so we'll be using existing content and sharing with our colleagues. The process and timeline is slightly revised on what was in the project plan. So we have already listed reference points. That's those four different frameworks. We're grouping the learning outcomes together. So that's more or less complete at the moment. We're now during July going to be writing the statements that come from those learning outcomes. And I was the one who wrote all the outcomes for right answer. I have some experience in doing this. We're going to build a prototype. We're going to build a prototype using something like Google Forms or even just using Excel. Just for people to use. There's a data protection issue here of course because we want everyone to take this content and actually own the data themselves in their own institution. So we want them to use that. Roll it out as a pilot from September onwards with their own colleagues and then give us feedback on the tool itself online. The tool is probably going to be something like a DHTML or a HTML5 form with a MySQL database underneath it and some sort of exclusive admin rights then for each of the institutions to be able to access their own profiles. So that's it in a nutshell. If that's okay. Thanks, Tom. So I suppose what we've really been focusing on or developing in the first phase of the project is just developing dialogue amongst the project partners were quite a large group so we have seven participating institutions which means we have 14 participating members representing social policy education and the learning technologist instructional design. And then those people themselves represent a huge staff cohort as well so within our school of applied social studies for example there are about 34 full time academics involved who will all be engaged in the project at varying levels and the same we're seeing that replicated. So we're looking at quite a significant number of participants who are social policy educated and learning designers or learning technologists. So part of that has been briefings we've been engaging briefings with our own academic colleagues within our individual institutions within applied social studies in university college cork because we're the lead institution, we've established an executive committee who are responsible for monitoring and overseeing the roll out and the implementation of the project and that's very important in terms of communicating I suppose the aims and the objectives of the project and encouraging buy in because I think that's going to be the significant thing is that we're trying to promote cultural change quite significantly and I suppose it's no problem engaging with the digital enthusiasts it's those who are a little bit more fearful and reluctant and resistant to involvement that are really going to be our target group. So the executive committee is important in terms of reaching out and the executive committee involves representation of social policy social work, youth and community work we have a postgraduate student representative who's also a tutor and from September where we're recruiting undergraduate students to sit on the executive committee as well and then we've seen your staff level as well so it's kind of to encourage I'm using this term of change agents that those involved in the executive committee will be representatives and ambassadors for other project within the school as well as adopting kind of monitoring role. As you may observe there's been a slight change in my life circumstances as well which wasn't quite anticipated in November but should have been known in November but I am recruiting a project coordinator which was written into the original budget and I hope that that will be achieved in the next couple of weeks so then I'll have like a two or three week handover to bring that person up to speed with not only the kind of the pedagogical aims I suppose of the project but also the administrative systems which is probably a lot more challenging in many respects. So that's at one level we have within academic unit dialogue. At another level then we have dialogue between the academic partners, the units and the the learning technologist or instructional design unit so what we've been doing, what I've been doing today is disseminating a monthly newsletter at the moment it's kind of been led more by me and there's kind of action points within that and that's been important just in developing as I suppose consolidating a new group because we are a very new group we have worked together in various combinations and permutations but we've never actually come together as a whole group before so that's been significant in trying to establish that kind of community of practice just within the project cohort and then expanding that community of practice ideally to the larger social policy education and learning technologist group and we also plan to use base camp to further interaction as well online and then we have interaction between academics and learning technologist and instructional designers within institutions so that's a further level of dialogue and I suppose we're trying to develop a common language to a degree as well I've rarely had the opportunity in the past to work with instructional designers so there's a bit of a getting to know you there as well we have had our first meeting, sorry first project meeting in May the first one was planned for February I think, March and unfortunately coincided with the first day of the transport strike so it had to be postponed very late but it was really good that we met in person in May and that was very productive in terms of establishing a sense of identity as a group as well this is research article or a model article, a scholarship of teaching and learning article that I came across that provides a really useful framework for thinking about how we are each positioned in the project in terms of the aims and the objectives of promoting institutional cultural change so again I'm going back to that idea of being change agents and here I suppose we're members of the project are engaged at this micro level at individual faculty level so we're the ones who are the kind of the initiators, the implementers the cultivators of change within the project and those concepts come from this article it's really interesting one for thinking about cultural change so I'd recommend reading it it's an open access resource as well which is always positive and then the idea is that at a micro level we begin to feed into meso level processes so it's important that we're beginning to interact with middle management within our own institutions but also with meso level organisations outside of the institution as well because the social policy is a very applied discipline so we're thinking not only about the academic context but also how that is linked to community engagement with various professional organisations so for example core who are the accreditation body for social work the same for social care within which social policy is a significant subject we have accreditation bodies relevant to youth and community work we have huge numbers of community based organisations with whom we engage so it's not only within the institution that this project will impact in terms of a cultural change but hopefully it will reach far out into the community also and then at the macro level we're looking at changing institutional policy or impacting or informing institutional policy again both within our own institutions but also within representative institutions of the social policy association for example and even feeding into institutional strategies through the national forum at a broader level so I really like this model and that's something that we'll be looking at in terms of research and dissemination then as I said we've been looking at the project identities and social media activity I have some prototypes of the logos but we're still working on those but they'll be out soon in terms of disciplinary identity that's something that came up as a key question that our partners meeting is interestingly social policy educators saying well what do you mean by social policy education so we've taken quite a holistic approach in that and we're looking at I suppose social policy is about well-being and people's welfare but social policy isn't really taught as an undergraduate degree as such it's more often taught as a subject within a social science degree a nursing degree, occupational therapy, public health promotion, government youth work, community development work so social policy education happens within a huge range of teaching and learning contexts and we're being quite holistic in terms of encouraging participation so hopefully the reach and the impact and the dissemination of our work will impact on huge numbers of students both undergraduate and postgraduate in terms of planning we've identified I've an eye on Terry there in my peripheral vision so we're planning the first digital day and really that's an opportunity for social policy educators to come together and to think about the possibilities of enhancing their digital skills and what's possible to engage in within their teaching within assessment practices so what we're doing is inviting digital champions from previous teaching and learning projects to showcase their work and to hopefully inspire participants to implement changes within their teaching practices over the following year which we will trace in the course of the project and we're going to put together a training calendar again from September 2017 and that's in parallel with the Spiky profiles assessment so we're linking digital skills needs with training resources and making that available as an open access calendar that people can link into just kind of expanding the impact and reach again and that's it thank you for the slightly borrowed time


The antibody mediated prevention trials are evaluating the effectiveness of VRC01, 10 mg per kilogram or 30 mg per kilogram, in preventing hiv infection through two models, a pre-exposure PE model based on studies with non-human primates and a five-fold model to account for differences between humans and NHPs. The results suggest that VRC01 may confer positive prevention efficacy, but the quantitative predictions are preliminary due to lack of available data. The models can be used to supplement decisions about advancing MAB regimens to efficacy trials and ranking them by their potential for PE in humans.