Gotta make him proud, right? We're gonna try and have some sort of method this time. Just spooky. Is there not a vet? No, not grazeball. Shit, he was the one who stabbed me. Me, Felix, and Julien were all together on the map. Yeah, I was just gonna say that. Bro, I'm with you guys at the top. I don't even know where the body is, but I'm with you. Wait, so, Amber, you reported the body. What, what, give us something? Right? Oh, it's a sauce. I did it. Oh, no, you're good now. No, okay, wait, wait, wait. So the body was in cafeteria, and the person I literally just saw bent. And I can't remember if it was pink or if it was purple. So, Julien, I'm sorry if it's not you, but I saw one. I have an alibi. Now Felix and Chris were with me, so I definitely didn't go. Wait, okay, so then it must be corpse, because I saw somebody bent, and it was like pink or purple. This tour sucks, dude. I literally saw someone bent. Are we skipping? Are we skipping? That's interesting, man. Why are we skipping? Why are we skipping? Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, we saw it. Because we had three seconds. You just saw someone bent, and you're like, never mind.  How did we accomplish such a thing? How did we do it? Hey, buddy. Hey, buddy. Nice. All right, we're voting out Amber now.  Oh, well. But then it's Julien, right? Because they were the one that... Well, wait, who's in the top decontamination room? Who's up at the reactor? Me. It's me, you and Chris, right? No, we're before it. Who's in the room? Me and Dave were walking to the reactor. I saw him standing in the hallway behind me. It is. Is there a body behind me? No, I'm ahead of you. It's ahead of us. It has to be Chris then. I'm ahead of you and Dave, and I found the body on the way into the thing. Oh, so you used a vent, because you found a vent then, because both of us went into decontamination together.  I did the wires, and you walked by me, do the wires, and then I went in and found the body, because Chris came in after us, and I thought he was going to kill me, so I went in with Dave. It's Chris. It's Chris. It's not me. It's not me. Why? You're literally standing still. Because he said I vented, but he walked by me doing wires in the hallway. You convinced me to vote for someone, and I'll do it. I just told you to vote for Chris. Chris and Sean, and I saw them both go towards, like, into the decontamination.  It's right there. Ethan's very quiet, by the way, and when he's quiet, it's fine. I'm going to vote for Chris. There is not a hope that I could have vented for Chris. I won't. GGs, I'm skipping vote, because it's not me, but that's fine. What do I vote? I haven't voted. I'm voting Chris. He's trying to throw us a sentence. It's not me, dude. I skipped. I don't know. Thanks, man. That's it. It's okay. Well, those of you who believe me. It's probably Felix. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I still think he's doing from the vent earlier, because she's dead now.  This is horrifying. This is horrifying. I don't like being here. I don't. I don't like being here.  I'm so afraid. Okay. So I was just trying to type in that code. I untyped and there's a body right below me, and I'm with Corpse.  Yes. There was a third with us, though. And then they bailed. Yes. That's Ethan then, because I was with Jack. Yeah, I went back up and Dave thought I was going to kill him, but I could have. Yeah, I was going to come to the table. Because he has Corpse. You wouldn't have just stayed there. So we were doing the code. Someone died. I have no clue, honestly. Ethan, what were you doing? So I was running up towards office. That's it. Sounds like Julian. What? Hello? Did you hear how? Yeah. It's Julian or Corpse. I was standing on the body with Corpse. It was against you last round as well. But that's like two times. But yeah, we were. I think we should vote Ethan because everyone has seen him in a such spot at one point. I'd say Julian, then Ethan, then Corpse. I think Corpse has three times. What? Julian, then me if you want to win. I'm the Julian's been suss with the whole vent thing. I think I was with you. Okay. Let's see. Okay. It's Corpse and Ethan. If it is, then we're dead. I think we got it.     Dude, I meant. I meant. I meant to kill Julian while we were there. But I, I, I messed it up. I murdered someone. I just stood there because I was like, we can't get the double kill now. Where'd he go? I'm so sorry.  You started accusing me out of nowhere. Bro, because you made me seem weird. Sean, did you report the body? I was literally about to because I, I. Yeah, I did. Okay. So I saw you and Julian. It's Ethan. 100%. Yeah, I agree. He was accusing Amber last time. Wait, hold on. Hold on.  You went to the body before me because I was walking up to reactor. I think it's Sean. Oh, no, you were coming back down. What are you? I was not coming back down. I didn't give you any tasks. I think it's Sean. So I, I went. No, you were not. I went from the beverage. I was, I was next to Julian. If he, if it was me, he would have easily saw me do it. Why would he choose Ethan over me? No, I was above. I had just seen the body the same time you did. So I didn't see anyone kill anyone. So hold on, Julian, Julian, if you were above, if you were above, did you see me up there with you? No, but you just saw, you saw me leaving a body, which I didn't. So I assumed you're just blaming me.  I was on my way down. I was on my way down. I went up, I went up to the greenhouse up towards the office area to do my task. And then, because I was looking at you, because I thought you were going to kill me. And then I went up and I found the body. I, I was way down. What was the kill animation? What do you mean? I'm running Sean. I'm running Sean. I'm running Sean. Was, was Ethan the one that we were? I didn't see a kill animation. I saw the body and Ethan was on his way down from greenhouse. No, I was on my way up. And that's when I saw the body. Oh my God, we were not. Julian, you were coming down, correct? I swear, guys. Well, good luck dying everybody. So did we vote the other person that was us? Because if it's not me, it's literally not me.   Oh no. It's not Sean. How is it not Sean? All right, so we're voting Ethan. We have to cover our bases. So if it wasn't Sean, it's Ethan. Yeah, you're right. If you, if you want to. Thank you. We will then. Thank you. We will.  Good win. I'm just, uh, I just voted for you because you were the only other person by that body. That's fine. That's fine.   It's... Holy. GG's guys. Let's go. If you look some Dave, I honestly don't know. I, I really, really don't know. I have no idea. I'm just going to try and do my tasks. Who is it? Is it Felix? Oh, Felix is going to kill Julian. It is Corpse. I just saw Dave kill Julian. It's Corpse.  I thought it was Dave. It's Corpse. Oh my God, it's Corpse. It's Corpse. Sorry, it's Corpse. All right, all right, Dave. Give me top three reasons why it's not you. Okay, number one, it's Corpse. Number two, I knew you saw three. It's Corpse. All right, Corpse. Top three reasons.  He killed him and he had no reason to give you. He just gave you the same thing over and over again. So I saw Dave kill him. I saw Dave kill him. I saw Dave kill him. Okay, that's fair then. It's Corpse. I'm commencing arguments. It's Corpse. Dude, I don't know what else to tell you. Like it's him. I have nothing else to tell you. Should we just all skip? It's Corpse. It's 100% Dave. I don't know if that's going to skip. If you see him die, he's going to win. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You both said the same thing. If you skip, we're going to skip. Who do you like more, Felix? I'm going to pick who do you like more.  You just lost. It's never been wrong so far.  Felix, you wanted to skip? It's never been wrong. Oh my god.  Oh my god. I also haven't gotten to report anybody yet. I haven't seen anything. Unless I'm dumb, I haven't seen any dead bodies. I'm about to get murdered. Motherfucker. I just don't know this map at all. Where is everybody? Why is no one going to come? What is, what's Julian doing?  Oh my god. Oh my god. Julian. It's Amber. It's Amber. It's Amber. It's Amber. It's Amber. It's Amber. Yep. She was up in the admin room doing absolutely nothing. And then I came down, I came down and found the body and she was chasing me.  I don't trust anyone. If I'm doing anything, everyone's like, it's her. She's sus. Chris, if it's you, I'm so, I'm going to be so upset. But Amber was up doing nothing in the corner. Yeah, she was standing there with Julian's dead body. Come on, baby, come on. And if it was you, Shawn, then Gigi's. Chris, I hope it wasn't you. I'm going to be so upset. Oh my god. Oh my god. Woo. I was so sus of you, Amber.  Please. Amber, Amber, no. Amber, no. Amber, no. Please, for the love of God. Amber, please. Please, for the love of God. Please. Everybody's just watching me do the fucking. Somebody else do it. Don't be shy.  Corpse. Corpse. Do it. I don't know who to trust. I really don't. T, honey, thank you so much for the sub. No. How? They had to a.  Wait, why is, uh, why is Mark trending right now? Mark's trending because he's attractive.  Make me trending for being attractive. Come on, guys. That's really funny.  Is that really why he's trending? Chris, which one did you find? Julian or? I found the, I found the blue body. It was in a navigation. I was coming up from, uh, communications. I did the communications and I went up there. And there was a body just top. I can't come right next to a vent. So I can't confirm he, uh, did, he did fix the comms. I know that this mean a whole lot, but. And Dave did his carrot swipe. I was about to do it to prove myself, but then the body. Amber and Ethan, where were you guys at? I was all over the place. I was. Killing people. I was everywhere. It's crazy.    I did the leaf thing. The, like, uh, the O2 leaf thing. Yeah, I did weapons. And then I went over to med bay. And then after, and then after med bay, I went to, uh, to the security cams. That's a lot of things to do in that space of time. Yeah, that was so many things. There's no, he did all those. I think so quick. I think Ethan and Amber are sticking up for each other. Oh, it's Chris. And he's being big brain by sat on my arms and fixing them. My brain's smooth. I'm just saying sometimes it's easy to get the task done, but you can win quicker. But that's, if that makes me guilty, then guilty is charged. Vote for Chris. Do you want, uh, oh. He said, uh, good strat, bro. I didn't have a choice.    He did say that.   He's a good strat, though. Okay, here's Amber. Yes, dude.   Goddamn, we were so on point and we didn't vote in anyway. Why?  Uh, anything in here? Okay, uh, means wipe card. Nice. So I think Sean is confirmed. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Why didn't I just go to report the body? Why didn't I report the body? Okay. I don't know why I didn't just report the body. I saw Charlie kill Sean. I saw it happen. In reactor? Yes, in reactor. Yeah, because I sort of run out as well of that double back. Charlie, any, uh... Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.  What do you mean you didn't report the body? I came from the top of left and I went straight down. So you, yeah, so you came from top left and went down to reactor and then killed Sean and then I panicked. No, I went through the reactor. I didn't go into any of the locations. I went down. I'm not in my turtle. I was watching security. I think I saw Orange go through top left, right? No, I went by Amber. I went by Amber. I saw Amber, like, twice and she didn't kill me if that's all I got. Yeah, I didn't love Dean, so I killed him. Killed cooldown. So you literally saw him, like, murder them is what you're saying. Like, there's a hundred... Yeah, it co-ops. Yes. Why are you sitting on cams?  There's no way you could be feeding. I'm on a med bay. You just said that you were in security cams. Wait, wait, wait. I don't know who reported the body. Wait, since he didn't report the body but saw me kill him, who reported the body, then? Amber did. Because I walked in there and that's when I saw you walking. If Amber was in Ocean Bay, it was Charlie, and then he shifted to Corp. Something's fishy. I don't understand what you're... I was in security cams. Right. I went up to the med bay. I walked past Orange. Orange ran down, reported the body, and then said they were sure that Charlie killed them. So I thought, they're 100% sure. Wait, hold up, hold up. So Corpse, you said earlier I was on security cams. No, you said I was on security cams. I saw it. Voting for Charlie. No, it's preschool and it's Corpse. Okay, so now I'm, uh, I'm sauce of, uh, of Corpse. He gets... He's the imposter so often. Oh no. Interesting. I just watched her murder him. Absolutely. Uh, it's either, it's either Corpse or, or Paladin Amber. And that's what I'm saying. Yeah, I'm telling you right now this is a deciding vote. It's Corpse. I just watched him murder Ethan. You really just watched it. She's using the fact that you guys were sussing me against me and she's getting you guys to vote me. It's her. Julian, what do you think?   I'm watching you, dude.  Convince me and Chris. Convince me and Chris. Okay, okay, so listen. Ethan came to me in cafeteria. He was very, very scared. I followed him all the way down to navigation to do his last task. And that's where he slaughtered him. He hid himself for a while. I was with him. No, no, no, no, no, no. He got my attention because he was scared of you. And then I watched him murder him. Amber knows. You guys are together. Amber knows. It's her. I'm telling you. I like, I don't know what else to say. Oh, that's how you said the last time and you got me. I don't know what else to say. I watched her kill him. I don't know what else to tell you. Like, there's- No! Let's go for Amber. And then if it's not her, then it's Corpse and- Dude! No! What did Ethan? I don't know! I have to know! No! I don't know what's on your hands, Chris. I don't know, I don't know! Fuck!  Again? Let's go. Oh, my god! I'm in the killer in 20 years. Of course. I literally called into my chat. I said he's going to go in, kill one of them, and self-reported. And that's exactly what you did in that second. Sorry for slightly- I didn't kill- Amber, you knew exactly how to read. I was just like, oh, Amber will know. And you saw the fear in my eyes.  You were running towards me. I was like, oh, no, Ethan. I thought if- But he knew if he killed me. No one would believe you. Oh, no. Oh, no, Charlie. Oh, no, Charlie. So definitely not Charlie.  Oh, report. Okay, Ethan. What were you doing on that body? I literally was going to report it. I was walking. I will tell you play by play what I did that round. Okay.  But I went from- Play by play, skip ahead. I went from cafeteria over to here because I had a- I had to rewire some stuff in security. So as I was going down to security, that's when I found the body. And then I went, oh, no. Julie, it's going to suspect me. Deadass. Deadass, I did not kill anybody. Julian? What do you have to say? Ethan's standing over a dead grease ball. That's all I saw. I walked into frame and Ethan's just standing on him. He said yes to deadass last time. I think he may have learned and changed his answer to no. Maybe. That's true. I also suspect Chris, because he's been chasing me a lot, and I haven't seen him do tasks. Julian, what were you doing? I was going up to cams and you were standing on a body. I literally entered the frame and you were standing on a- No, it looks bad. It looks really bad for me, because I was- I was standing directly on top of a body, but- I don't think Ethan's that good of a liar. I think we can usually tell. And now he sounds earnest, so it could be Julian. I'm going to skip. I'm going to skip, man. I'm skipping, I don't know anything yet. If you want. Okay, all we got is electrical and weapons. Oh, no.  Okay. Wow. That literally didn't happen. What were you doing over by weapons?  Because I went from electrical- I went from electrical to divert the power from electrical to weapons. It was my very last task. I went to do that, and then the O2 went off, and I went down to go and do the O2. Okay, that doesn't matter.  I did not. Yes, you did. Where? Where is his body?  Right, right where you killed him? Right where you killed him?  I voted against Chris. Why? Because you're lying. No, I'm not. I'm eating a sandwich. Chris's story is not concrete. If I had to know you were eating a sandwich, I wouldn't have voted, but sorry. I voted before that. What kind of sandwich is it? Oh, it's a burger. Odd tuition for you. See, that's not really a sandwich where I'm from. Thank you guys for voting. All right, well, good luck guys. It wasn't me. That's sick. While it was. Dude, that wasn't me. I got him, dude.  I'm all done with my tasks, so... Come up this way. I don't want to be alone. I'm gonna follow Julian. All my tasks are done. I'm sus of Julian. The O2. Guys, I'm scared. He's stalking me, dude. He's literally following me everywhere. Okay, okay. I've done all of my tasks. Amber and I went up and down for like 10 minutes because I was just like, I'm all done with my tasks and I just want to be around somebody.  I'm not blaming you, man. I just want to say that we're one task away from winning. So if we can all gather together and... Yeah, I think it's my task. Is there a person not doing it, Beth? I've just got one left. I'm gonna wait for the timer. Yeah, I'll just chill that. Okay, let's bring it in. I'm suspicious of... Of Dave Andrewleon. Yes! Great. Who was it? Nice. Who was it? It was me. I knew it. I knew it.  I'm not trying to get caught, dude. What do you mean? Go ahead. Their tasks were blown away, man! This is the literal one game all afternoon that you guys take your tasks. Chris, you would have not reported it to the body at weapons and been fine.  I know. Yeah, I thought he saw it.  No. I thought he saw it. Yeah, I didn't see anything.  I was yelling at your tasks. Twice, twice I've died. I'm done. Twice I've died from an Ethan and he never reported it. I'm so sorry. I'm just oblivious most of the time. I heard the honesty in his voice. I can't believe you didn't see that murder. Yeah, I don't know how I didn't see it. What is something crazy true?


Good day to you all at Arhos University. I'm sorry I can't be with you in person, but it's a pleasure to join you at a distance. And that's appropriate since the mission of my organization, The Commonwealth of Learning, is to help developing countries to use distance learning and technology to expand and improve education and training. By agreement with Mikkel Godst, I shall be using a well-tried combination of technology, a video to get my message to you, and then the phone to interact with you afterwards. I've sometimes given speeches with the title, Technology is the Answer, What was the Question? Form should follow function, so I shall spend some time explaining my question and how technology can answer it. At that point, I shall recall the fundamental principles of technology and show how they are indeed an answer to my question. My worry is that with the effervescent development of technology over the last many years, we are in danger of losing sight of the key principles of technology and therefore missing out on the potential of technology to provide answers to some of the big questions facing humankind. And that's why I've entitled these remarks, e-learning a cottage industry for the 21st century question mark. In the last part of the address, I shall explore what I consider to be some of the most promising aspects of e-learning in terms of the goals that I espouse. These are open educational resources, wikis, and the collaborative development of courseware, which is all exemplified in a very interesting development that we have facilitated the virtual university of small states of the Commonwealth. Let me begin with a word about the Commonwealth of Learning so that you can understand my perspective. The Commonwealth is a free association of 54 countries that are united by the values of equality, democracy, good government, peace, and the cultivation of respect and understanding between their peoples. Two thirds of the Commonwealth member states are small states with populations of less than one and a half million, and they are of special concern to us. We are an intergovernmental body created by the Commonwealth Helps of Government, and our mission is to help Commonwealth countries use a variety of technologies to expand and improve learning for development. By development, we mean a blend of the Millennium Development Goals, the Dakar Goals of Education for All, and the Commonwealth values that I alluded to earlier. So what do we actually do? We work in two areas. One sector is involved in expanding and improving formal education. The first of its four activities is open schooling, which is the use of distance learning to attack what I believe is currently the world's greatest educational challenge, namely to scale up secondary schooling. Second is teacher education, another huge challenge at a time when the world needs 10 million new teachers, not just in the developing world. Third is higher education, where we focus particularly on quality assurance for higher education involving distance learning and ICTs. And finally, there is the virtual university for small states of the Commonwealth. The other sector addresses the challenges of informal learning. Another huge global challenge is skills development for tens of millions of youngsters so that they can earn livelihoods. A particular facet of this is farming, because despite massive migration to the cities, improving the prosperity of rural farmers is key to both food security and global development. Closely allied to that is the health of people where we encourage them to use their community media to take charge of some of their own health education. And finally, in both the formal and informal sectors, we face a huge demand for training in e-learning. So that is what Kohl does, but why do we use technology in education and learning and what is our interest in e-learning? I said earlier that form should follow function so we should define ends before means. So what is the public through its governments trying to achieve in education? I often meet ministers of education and they will tell you that the challenge they face is to pursue three goals simultaneously. They want to widen access so that education can be available to all citizens who aspire to it. And worldwide, despite valiant efforts, many citizens are not achieving their aspirations for education at all levels. Second, that education must be of good quality because there is no point in widening access to education unless it makes a difference to people's thinking and to their lives generally. And third, the cost must be as low as possible. Governments and individuals never have enough money and it's wrong to make education more expensive than necessary because low cost will enable more people to take advantage of it. So the government and people want three outcomes from their education systems, access to be as wide as possible, quality to be as high as possible and cost to be as low as possible. And the nature of this challenge becomes clear when you create a triangle of vectors. With the traditional methods of face-to-face education, this triangle is an iron triangle. You want to stretch the triangle like this to give greater access, higher quality and lower cost, but you can't. Try extending access by packing more students into the classroom and you will be accused of damaging quality. Try improving quality with better learning resources and you will increase the cost. Try cutting costs and you will endanger both access and quality. This iron triangle has hindered the expansion of education throughout history and it is created in the public mind, and I expect in your minds an insidious link between quality and exclusivity. And this link still drives the admission policies of many universities, which define their quality by the people that they exclude. But today there is good news. Thanks to globalization, successive waves of technology are sweeping the world and technology can transform the iron triangle into a flexible triangle. By using technology, you can achieve wider access, higher quality and lower cost all at the same time. And this is a revolution. It has never happened before, but that is what educational technology can do if used properly. What is technology? We define it as the application of scientific and other organized knowledge to practical tasks by organizations consisting of people and machines. So it draws on non-scientific knowledge as well as applied science and technology is about practical tasks rather than theory and always involves people and their social systems. Expanding and improving education is a very practical task and people and their social systems are at the heart of it. But how does technology work? The fundamental principles of technology articulated two centuries ago by Adam Smith, our division of labor, specialization, economies of scale, and the use of communications media and machines. Before explaining how this works and exploring my worries about the development of e-learning, I shall give an example of the success of this technological revolution. I choose one that I know well, the UK Open University, and I shall cite recent figures for access, quality and cost. With 220,000 students in award bearing programs, the UKOU has clearly expanded access. And furthermore, this is not just in the UK because 60,000 of its students are overseas and then there are another million students around the world taking UKOU courses that are embedded in local programs. Many of these courses derive from the open educational resources on the UKOU's OpenLearn website. More surprising to you and more embarrassing for some of the other top universities in the UK is the UKOU's performance in national comparative assessments of teaching quality. The Open University places above Oxford where I once studied. Moreover, the government now conducts annual surveys of student satisfaction with a very large sample of students and the Open University has come top three years running. Finally, the last time costs were compared, the cost per graduate of the UKOU was between 60 and 80% of the cost of conventional universities depending on the subject that they looked at. So the Open University has achieved the technological revolution of wider access, higher quality and lower cost. It has stretched the iron triangle. And how has this been achieved? It has been done through the combination of Adam Smith's technological principles. In the category machines and ICTs, the UKOU offers a multimedia system of distance learning with strong student support. This multimedia system includes some of the world's largest deployments of e-learning. But the key issue is not e-learning or any other medium, but the focus on division of labour, specialisation and economies of scale. You could say that the OU divides the teaching and learning process into its component parts, gets different people to specialise in doing each part well and then puts it all back together again in an integrated system. And I emphasise that the UKOU is not alone in achieving this revolution. In 1996 I published a book entitled Mega Universities and Knowledge Media, Technology Strategies for Higher Education. That identified 11 distance teaching universities each with over 100,000 students. And since then these institutions have grown and multiplied. Now we are seeing the same principles applied to secondary schooling. As I described in a book that was published last month called Mega Schools, Technology and Teachers Achieving Education for All. In that case I set the threshold at 10,000 pupils because schools are normally smaller than universities even though some open schools such as India's National Institute for Open Schooling with 1.6 million pupils are very big indeed. My key point is that to operate at scale with low cost and consistent quality all such operations, independent of the learning media that they use implement the principles of division and labour and specialisation. You can usually always identify the three subsystems of administration and logistics, course development and student support. And there are of course finer divisions of labour within each subsystem. And now we get to the nub of the argument the title of this talk and the source of my anxieties. I believe that if you want to do e-learning well you must use these principles of division of labour, specialisation, economies of scale and the use of machines. But in higher education my observation is that people often do not. Indeed some say that one of the attractions of e-learning is that it does not require faculty to teach and operate in a different way. They can continue the cottage industry approach with each academic doing his or her own thing and taking care of every step in the instructional process. My fellow Vancouverite, Professor Tony Bates calls this the lone ranger approach to e-learning. Earlier I cited Adam Smith's list of the principles of technology and some of you will have recognised from that his description of the pin factory, one of the classics of economics that you can find in seconds on the web and I recommend that you read it. His basic point was that when you make pins in a factory they are a lot cheaper of more consistent quality and can be produced in higher volume than if one artisan makes them individually. I can safely assert that no one would dream of making pins individually today but this inefficient, poor quality approach persists in higher education. Worse, e-learning is often used to embed it and make higher education less cost effective than it was before because it is simply an add-on to existing practice. Now this may not matter in rich jurisdictions like North America where the monumental function of universities has always been more important than considerations of cost effectiveness and where until now at least institutions have been able to raise the fees that they charge to students faster than the cost of inflation instead of giving the student better value for money. I would love to be proved wrong and as your assignment after this conference session I beg you to send me any studies you have found that shows e-learning to have increased the overall cost effectiveness of a higher education institution. Please send them to Jay Daniel at Collorg and I will give you a free copy of the Commonwealth of Learning's Plan for 2009-2012. Now I'm not talking about those rather pointless studies that show no significant difference in learning outcomes when e-learning is compared to classroom teaching. I want to know if the overall efficiency of a college or university has been improved classrooms have been decommissioned and there has been a genuine substitution of capital that is to say technology for labour. As I said this may not matter in rich jurisdictions but it matters a lot in the places where I work where resources are scarce and access to education woefully limited. In such places the insidious link between quality, cost and exclusivity is a ball and chain holding nations back. In the final part of these remarks I shall highlight three facets or applications of e-learning that seem to be very promising in the context of scaling up learning, improving its quality and cutting its costs. The first is open educational resources. These are learning resources in digital formats that are freely available for adaptation and use by anyone. I find this notion of a global intellectual commons very exciting provided that it is not perverted into an exercise in neocolonialism. OERs are an opportunity to draw on resources from around the world not to try and impose our own materials on developing countries. And at the Commonwealth of Learning we are increasingly involved in OERs because they can contribute to our objectives of scaling up quality learning at low cost. For example, my colleague Dr. Abdulrahman Umar is deeply involved in TESA, Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa which is a consortium of 18 African universities and the UK Open University that has produced a huge range of OERs for classroom focused in-service teacher education at the primary level. And they were used by half a million African teachers last year. A second application of e-learning that we have found useful and which has made us think hard about the nature of open content is wikis. A few years ago, our cold colleague Wayne McIntosh created Wiki Educator and it very quickly attracted thousands of participants. With support from the Hewlett Foundation he used it in a very original way to train thousands of people through face-to-face and online workshops. And the deal is that teachers can learn wiki skills free provided they use those skills to contribute one lesson to the global pool of OERs. Wayne's successor, Carl, Trudy VanVik who was responsible for the policy for computing in South African schools until she joined us a few months ago. She will continue to respond to the many requests that we receive for help with policy and training in e-learning and will use the learning for content and other approaches. So let me conclude these remarks by talking about a project that brings together several aspects of our work in e-learning the virtual university for small states of the Commonwealth. Now, calling a new institution a virtual university has usually been the kiss of death. But let me stress immediately that this is not a new institution but a collaborative network that allows 32 small states to work together to create post-secondary skills-related course material in the form of OERs. And let me make a few quick points. The project was conceived by the ministers of education from the Commonwealth small states in the year 2000 in the middle of the dot-com frenzy which you will all remember. They judged that their small countries which are dotted around the globe did not have the critical mass of infrastructure or IT skills to go it alone in the e-world. So they thought that by working together as a group of small states they could become players in online learning and depend, as usual, on their bigger neighbors. So we start the development of each new subject area with a face-to-face workshop like this one that was held in Mauritius where participants from the interested countries learn a range of IT skills and begin content development that they will continue by online collaboration once they get home. And they also have the obligation when they return home to train five other colleagues in the skills that they have learned. And in this way, some 500 people in 32 small states have now acquired skills in the collaborative development of courseware online. And this has had a transformative impact on education in these small countries. To facilitate the use of its courses around the world, the Virtual University of Small States has developed a transnational qualifications framework. This does not replace national qualifications frameworks, but is more of a conversion table to help someone in, say, Samoa to see where a course originating in Trinidad and Tobago fits into their own framework. And establishing the credibility of courses within this Virtual University framework is especially important for small states because they are, sadly, a prey to the degree mills which prey on innocent students and so many people are suspicious of qualifications emanating from small states. Let me end this part by saying I'm rather proud of having produced this transnational qualifications framework because bigger groups of states have tried to produce similar frameworks but so far without success. So as a result, this framework from the small states is becoming a reference for the bigger states. Let me wrap up. What have I been saying? First, that the world's challenges of education, training and learning are too big for us to play around the edges. We need educational methods that can increase access, improve quality and cut cost all at the same time. Secondly, technology can do this if it remains true to its fundamental principles of division of labour, specialisation, economies of scale and the use of machines. Following these principles created the Industrial Revolution with the result that we take for granted that every product we want will be widely available of consistent quality and costing steadily less each year and this is also true of many services but it is not true of education although things are changing. The steady evolution of teaching and learning media incorporated into open and distance learning are finally beginning to stretch the iron triangle in the way that is needed. But I worry that e-learning which should be a wonderful addition to the toolkit of educational technology is provoking a throwback to pre-industrial times and allowing the cottage industry approach to teaching and learning to reassert itself. Please prove me wrong. Thank you very much and now I look forward to interacting with you by phone.


Okay, we're in Colossians, we're in chapter four. We're gonna be looking at verses two through six, and what I'm gonna do is I'll take verses two, three, and four together, and then we're gonna move into the transition in verse five, and close with verse six. And so today we'll look at Colossians chapter four verses two through six, and I'll read verses two, three, and four, and then I'm gonna give you some background, develop a foundation, and then move into the application of these verses. So let's begin together here in Colossians chapter four verse two. Paul writes, continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving. Meanwhile, praying also for us that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ for which I am also in chains, that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak. So in the previous verses, Paul had written concerning family and work relationships. He now writes concerning the Christian's personal spiritual priorities, and the reason he speaks concerning the Christian's personal priorities is because without prayer, we will not be able to fulfill the duties that were required of us.  So wives are to pray to become better wives, and husbands are to pray to be better husbands. Children are to pray to become godly, and slaves and slave owners, which we also say in terms of today, we'll say, you know, those who are working, and those who are the bosses if you will, are to pray to become godly also. And so what he's doing here is he's speaking concerning prayer because the commands that he's giving to us will not be fulfilled without the power of the spirit, and without us being fervent in prayer. And so he begins in verse two by saying, continue earnestly in prayer, be invigilant in it with thanksgiving. So notice he says continue. That word continue means to devote yourself or stand ready. We are to do certain things. We're to continue earnestly. And he says that we're to pray. We're to pray habitually, earnestly, vigilantly, and thankfully. We need to remember that prayer is one of the earmarks of the early church. In Acts chapter two, verse 42, the Bible says that they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread and in prayers. And we know that prayer in its most basic form is simply conversation with God. But it's a conversation that reveals that we have faith in him, that we believe he hears us, and that he answers our prayers. And the writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 11.6 said it like this. He said, without faith it's impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. When Paul was writing to the Philippians in chapter four, verse six, he said be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. So prayer is the habit of a Christian's life. In Romans 12, verse 12, Paul said rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer. I wonder the writers that I appreciate, his name is A.W. Tozer. A.W. Tozer said, a life lived in Christ becomes, in the true sense, a life of unceasing prayers. Prayer is the habit of a Christian. According to 1 Thessalonians 5.17, we are to pray without ceasing. In Psalm 55.17, evening and morning, and at noon I will pray and cry aloud. And he shall hear my voice. In Matthew 7, verse seven, ask, it shall be given you. You shall find, knock, it shall be opened unto you. And when Jesus said, ask, seek and knock in the original language, which is called Koine Greek, in the original language, it is really literally, keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. It speaks of persistence. It speaks of continuing in prayer. So we continue in prayer, but notice he says in verse two, we continue earnestly in prayer. The word earnest means to devote or continue yourself in, to be steadfast or strong, to be persistent. We are earnest, we are fervent because prayers that are not felt are seldom heard. In James 5.16, it says confess your trespasses to one another, pray for one another that you may be healed. The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. C.S. Lewis said, I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It does not change God, it changes me. And so we pray, we continue, we continue earnestly, and we are vigilant. The word vigilant means on guard. We're wide awake when we pray. Now there are two reasons to be wide awake or vigilant when we pray. One is the Christian life is filled with spiritual warfare and temptation. We're to watch, we're to stay alert. Why? Because the enemy is constantly on the prowl, seeking whom he may devour. We watch and we pray because the enemy is after us. And he indeed is. And so the Christian life, Christian life is filled with spiritual warfare and temptation. In 1 Peter chapter four, verse seven, the apostle said, the end of all things is at hand, therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers. But we're also praying because we want to be on the alert for opportunities for open doors. In verse three, he speaks of that when he says, praying also for us that God would open to us a door for the word. And so we pray one because our life is filled with temptations and trials that we're walking in spiritual minefields all the time. We're praying and on the alert because the enemy is after us, but we also are praying for opportunity. Father, open the door. Help me to preach your word, help me to share about you with people. There's so many needs. There's so many lost. Help me to have eyes to see. You know, I've told my staff before, I've said, you know, the Lord Jesus Christ uses visuals sometimes. You know, one occasion when he's speaking to his men, he says, he says there to look at the fields, he said, for their white for harvest. You have to have eyes to see. Sometimes we ask the Lord, help us that we might see me. May we behold wondrous things from your law. Help us to see what's going on out there, Father, and help us to be ready. And so on the one hand, Lord, I am watching and praying that I enter not into temptation. My spirit indeed is willing, my flesh is weak, but at the same time, I'm looking for opportunity. I'm praying that today you'll give me an opportunity to be a witness for Christ, to share with somebody. And that's what we're supposed to be doing. Ask in the Lord for those opportunities. And so we pray to be alert for opportunities and open doors. But also, the spirit in which we pray is the spirit of thanksgiving. We have thankfulness of heart to God for all he's done and all he's doing for us. You know, I was 30 years old when we planted this church. 30 years old. I was a month shy of 31. We started in a house. It had a handful of people sitting around the front room. And at the end of the very first service we had, I still remember how I closed it. I said, if you want to be back, we'll be here next week. Because I didn't even know if they'd come back the next week, why would they? You can never count on the fact that someone will come back the next week. How can you? So I said, if you want to be back, I'll be here. And so my dad, who was at the Bible study that first morning said, Dave, we know that you love us. But you have a family. You don't have a job. How are you gonna take care of your family? I said, the Lord supplies dad. He says, we want to give an offering. I said, no. I said, dad, we're not even an incorporated church. We're just a Bible study meeting in a house. He says, but David, we know that you love the Lord and love us. What if we want to give? I said, if you want to give, put your offering in that macrame pot, there's a pot being held by that macrame, put it in there. I said, remember, they gave $380. 280 were designated for incorporations. I said, listen, if you want this to go on, we'll incorporate so that you have tax deductible gifts. And anything you think that you'd like to give to us for my family, because I had three kids at that time and all, I said, we'll be grateful for that. So they gave us $100 to live on and $280 to incorporate. Well, my mind goes back there because look what God has done. Look what God has done over 38 years. It just, so how can you, how can I not be grateful? How can I not? How can I not be thankful for what God has done? The blessings that he has poured out in our lives, in my life, in the life of many of our church. How can you not be grateful for all the good that he's done? Started out with Marie, me and three kids and now I've got all these grandchildren and my daughter, Corinne, you know, my daughter, Corinne, I don't think she'll mind. She's 42 and she's pregnant. She's gonna give us another baby before Thanksgiving.  It is just, it is just, God is, God is so good. God, we have to be thankful. Where would you be today without Jesus Christ? Where would you be? I mean, we just saw, we just saw a man who's been set free from prison. He'd been in prison for nine years, should have been their 60 or more and God was gracious to him. How can we not be thankful to our God? And so we pray with Thanksgiving, we pray with faith, we pray with certainty because our God loves us and he's on the throne and there's nothing that enters into my life that doesn't first pass through his will for me and I know that my God intends good for me. Now I don't know how that will take place, but I know it will and ultimately, I will see him face to face and I am not gonna be questioning him. I'm gonna see him for what he's done and the tears in my eyes will not be of sorrow but of gratitude for the goodness of God and so yeah, we're thankful. We give thanks. In Hebrews 13, 15, by him, therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. Ephesians 5, 20, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we're going through a trial, it's easy to forget to be thankful but Paul reminds them that they have been incredibly blessed and they should be thankful. In 1 Thessalonians 5, 18, in everything he said, give thanks for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. So we pray, continue earnestly in prayer, be vigilant in it with thanksgiving. Verse three, meanwhile, praying also for us that God would open to us a door for the word to speak the mystery of Christ for which I am also in chains. Paul's deepest desire was to be used by God to preach the gospel throughout the world. Jesus had set him free from his self-righteous life. He'd been refreshed in the grace of God and this thankfulness, this love for Christ impaled him to share the gospel wherever he went. In 2 Corinthians 5, 14, he said it like this. He said, the love of Christ compels us. In Romans 15, 20, he said, I've made it my aim to preach the gospel. Now where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man's foundation. I wanna go out, he said, and take this message to the world. So he's concerned that he may be faithful and effective in proclaiming the gospel. So to be effective requires people lifting him up in prayer. And one of the things that I like to mention when it's proper is this. He's saying to them, pray for me, pray for us that God would open to us a door for the word to speak the mystery of Christ. Well, even right now, some of you know this because some of you men participating in this, but right now, right now, I have men praying for me. They're praying first service, and while I'm preaching, they pray, and then another group comes and prays second service. And then on Wednesdays, they're in here praying for me for the Wednesday night. I am covered by prayer because Paul says it. Paul says, pray for me because I know that without God I am nothing. But with him, all things are possible. And so when we pray, we know that God is able. And so we trust him to give us those words. And Paul's deepest desire was used to be used by God, and he was thankful for what God has done. You see, there's much opposition to the gospel and prayer is necessary if we're gonna minister his word. In 2 Thessalonians 3, 1 and 2, he said, finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified just as it is with you and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men for not all have faith. Now he had a similar prayer request when he wrote to the Ephesians in Ephesians 6, verse 19, he said, pray for me. That utterance may be given to me that I may open my mouth boldly and make known the mystery of the gospel. He desires opportunity and he needs power. And that's why he asks for the prayers. He says in verse three, pray that God would open to us a door for the word to speak the mystery of Christ. Jesus is the one who opens doors of opportunity to share your faith. In 2 Corinthians 2, verse 12, he said, I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel. A door was opened to me by the Lord. In Revelation 3, verse 7, these things says, he that is holy, he that is true, he that has the key of David, he that opens and no man shuts and shuts and no man opens. So he says, pray, pray that God will open to us a door for the word to speak the mystery of Christ. My desire is to speak the mystery. When he speaks of the mystery of Christ, that's the gospel, the word mystery speaks of something that was once hidden but that is now revealed. And so the gospel reveals things that would be hidden if they were not revealed to us. Jesus said in Luke chapter 10, verses 21, 22, Jesus rejoiced in the spirit and said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babies. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in your sight. All things have been delivered to me by my Father.  So we pray, God, that your word would go forth and that you will open the eyes of the blind and stop the ears of the deaf so that they may hear and receive you and be born again. And that's his desire that people would be set free and that he might speak boldly, and courageously, and accurately God's word. But notice how he refers to himself. He refers to himself as being in chains. He's in prison. Although he was in prison, the gospel still was being preached and was having an impact. In 2 Timothy 2, verses 8 through 10, he said it like this. He said, remember that Jesus Christ of the seat of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel, for which I suffered trouble as an evildoer, even to the point of chains. But the word of God is not chained. Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. God's word is not chained. Though he at that time was chained, he was able to share with the guards. Somebody once said, I can take a man's liberty, I cannot touch his freedom. In Philippians chapter one, verses 12 and 13, I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard and to all the rest that my chains are in Christ. The prison ministry that we have here has fruit. You had an opportunity to hear Joe sharing about how the Lord got hold of him. We were talking in the back as he was robbing me and as we were speaking, we were remembering how that at a retreat several years ago now, he was there at the retreat and I was sitting at the table with some of the guys and he shared with me the situation and how that he had carried a false ID in all and got pulled over and instead of giving his false ID, he gave his true identity knowing that he was gonna go to prison. And we had a conversation and when he went in, we remained as a church, we remained in contact with him and he's done ministry in other facilities and the Lord used him and I was thinking about that as we were speaking in the back, how God used him to do great works and how Hosea has been going with several of you men to different prisons and how the ministry, like he was saying from the California border to the Oregon border, he said that God's word is going forth and it is setting the people free because that's what God's word does and so when we had Joe here today sharing as he did in first and second, in between services, there was a brother who's been attending here since Father's Day who went to the gazebo and spoke to them, a man who has done time himself and he says, I've been going to this church since Father's Day. He says, but I wanna receive Jesus right now and so Hosea and Joe led him to faith in Christ right out there in between service. Why? The word of God is not chained. God's word is free and it still sets the prisoner free in Hebrews 13, verse three, remember the prisoners as if chained with them this message of the gospel sets you free and so he says pray for me in verse four that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak. I want it to be known. Pray that I communicate this mystery in an understandable way. You see, I have a great compulsion to preach this message. As a believer it's something that I ought to be doing so pray that I do so faithfully. In 1 Corinthians 9.16 he says, if I preach the gospel I have nothing to boast of for I am under compulsion, woe unto me if I do not preach the gospel. So there's this need in me, this desire in me, pray for me that I might do it in a way to honor God. You see, there is a proper way of proclaiming the message of the gospel. So pray that I communicate it properly, communicate it clearly and wisely, gracefully. Pray that I communicate it and it remains centered on Jesus Christ. In 1 Corinthians chapter two verses four and five, Paul said my message and my preaching were very plain. I did not use wise and persuasive speeches, but the Holy Spirit was powerful among you. I did this so that you might trust the power of God rather than human wisdom. So he preached the gospel to people and he preached that they needed to repent. They needed to yield their faith to Christ. He wanted to make sure to keep Jesus in salvation the center of the message. You see, the gospel is often presented and presented in various ways and not all the messages actually are presenting the message clearly. There's something I've referred to as experienced centered evangelism. What I mean by that is the presentation revolves around stories and feelings, experiences, testimonies, but the fruit of this is people enjoying the stories but not repenting of their sins. They like what they hear, they claim to be saved, but when difficult times come up, they give up and then there's a kind of preaching that promises to make the person feel better. It promises health and prosperity, popularity and plenty of earthly comfort. But when the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches crowd in, they fall away. In reality it was a man centered gospel. Or we can tailor the message to the audience but fail to give the whole counsel of God. We try to make Jesus acceptable to people instead of making people acceptable to him. And Paul's concern was that he may be faithful in proclaiming the message of the gospel. He was concerned to continue effectively sharing the gospel. He needed the power to do that. You see in 1 Corinthians 1.18 the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. But to us who are being saved, it's the power of God. And so he says, pray for me that I might make it manifest as I ought to speak. That I be careful not to dilute it, pollute it, add man's wisdom. Pray for me that I don't get caught up entertaining ears, but tell them the truth, even if they don't like it. In our day, we need to pray for our ministers. All of us should be praying for those who take the gospel out and preach it in pulpits. Because there's a great temptation to flatter the hearer. There's a great temptation to mold the message in such a way that it becomes entertainment and no longer has the cutting edge of truth. We wanna have people in the church. We wanna be known for being wise communicators or eloquent speakers. We wanna be spoken well of. When in fact, I discovered a long time ago that sometimes truth hurts. And sometimes people get upset when you speak the truth, even if you love them when you do it. But a long time ago, somebody shared this with me, I've never forgotten when he said, you throw a rock into a pack of dogs. The one that barks is the one who got hit. And very often, when we're convicted, the first thing we wanna do is kill the messenger instead of looking within to say, is that me? Is that me? Remember when Jesus said, one of you will betray me. Remember how his faithful apostle said, Lord, is it me? Lord, is it me? But there was an unfaithful one by the name of Judas who said, Lord, is it me? Went all along, he knew it was him. And under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, we ought to always say, Lord, is it me? And what do you wanna do in me? But when I start saying, Lord, convict him because he or convict her because she. Well, my mom told me a long time ago, you point one finger at them, you got three pointing at yourself, always remember that. And when the Holy Spirit works, it's in order to correct us so that we might be used by him. And Paul said, I want to be used by God. So pray for me that I might communicate this in a proper way, that I might speak as I ought to speak. And so he continues on in verse five in a practical way. And he says, walk in wisdom towards those who are outside, redeeming the time, let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one. So walk in wisdom. What he does is he encourages believers concerning their conduct because what they live like gives credibility to what they're saying. In Proverbs 20 verse 11, the writer said even a child is known by his deeds, whether what he does is pure and right. So the way I live, our manner of life makes an incredible impact on people. The gospel is not simply something we talk about, it's something we live out. And if we're gonna have an impact for the Lord, how then should we live? And so he tells us, he says in verse five, walk in wisdom towards those who are outside, outside, meaning unbelievers. Walk in wisdom towards those who don't have a relationship with Christ. He's saying, don't live foolishly.  And if we live wisely, the watching world will see the power of God at work in us. In Titus, he said in verses seven and eight of chapter two, he said in everything, set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching, show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us. When I church began, and I had already turned 31, it was probably around November or so of 81, I walked off the pulpit and was standing talking to people and somebody approached me and introduced themselves to me and said to me, I was the assistant pastor in such-and-so Calvary Chapel. And I said, oh really? I'd heard him of the church and all and heard of the senior pastor and all. So I said, oh really? It's nice to meet you. And he said, yeah, I'm visiting here today. I'll never forget this conversation. I was 31 years old. I'll never forget this conversation. He said to me, he said, you gave a good Bible study. He said, but you're so serious. And I looked at him and I said, the gospel is serious. Parenthetic thought, what's it supposed to be entertainment? What's it supposed to be a joke? And when we're talking about heaven and hell, we're talking about loss or gain. We're talking about eternity. What's it supposed to be a show? What am I supposed to do? Ride a unicycle and juggle and sing? Of course I'm sober-minded. As a matter of fact, at the age of 31, that's kind of refreshing because I was living in my parents' basement. I had my own life. I had my own home. I had my own children. I had things going at 31. Why wouldn't I be sober-minded? Why wouldn't I preach a sober-minded message? We're talking about where you're gonna end up for eternity. I appreciate preachers who take it seriously. And that's what the Bible says. Be sober and be serious. Why? Because the stakes are that high. Because it's that high. We don't understand it.  It is a big deal. Sometimes we say, well, what are you talking about? I'm talking about life. I'm talking about eternity. What's eternity? I don't know, but I'll tell you this. It's like eternity. How do you define it? I think I said this recently. It's like going to every beach and every desert in the face of the earth, and one by one counting each grain of sand, one by one on the whole planet, and then starting over again. That's eternity. It never ends. It continues and never ends. Either I will be with Jesus Christ for eternity, or I will be suffering in punishment. I want to be sober-minded. We ought to be sober-minded because people's souls matter, and the church ought to care about those things. That's what we're supposed to care about. God sent His Son, Christ, to die, to suffer for me, and I'm not sober-minded about that. I have to be. Does that mean we don't laugh? Oh, I love to laugh. You know that. Believers love to laugh. We laugh amongst ourselves. We tease each other. We enjoy life, of course, but when it comes to the things of the gospel, there is nothing more serious than what Jesus did for us. Nothing more serious than eternity. We need to know that. It needs to be in our hearts. We need to understand that, and we need to preach with that kind of heart, and that's what He's speaking about. We need to walk in wisdom towards those who are outside. We don't live self-righteously, but we do live caring about Christ and other people. People will sometimes say, oh, you think you're better than me. Be ready for that accusation. People don't like sin being exposed. In John chapter three, verse 20, Jesus said, everyone practicing evil hates the light and doesn't come to the light lest his deeds should be exposed. So be careful. Be careful to seek God to help you to become humble and to really care. Micah chapter six, verse eight in the Old Testament says it like this. He has showed you, oh man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God? When we claim to be Christians, but don't live for the Lord, people see that. When we don't truly seek the Lord because we just live lives without Him, people won't listen normally. Non-Christians will reject the gospel because if I'm preaching a gospel that changes lives and my life is unchanged, they see that. And so we need to be careful to seek the Lord that we might be humble and caring. And notice also in verse five, he speaks of redeeming the time. Redeeming is a market term. It means to buy out or to use something completely. So the thought is, buy up those moments others seem to throw away. Use the time you have for the advancement of the kingdom. You see, God set boundaries for our lives and our service is bordered within those boundaries. And Christians must be aware that each moment is a gift. So live redeeming those moments. Like it says in Psalm 39.4, Lord make me to know my end and what is the measure of my days that I may know how frail I am. The Lord needs to make us to know that because when I was young, I had no clue. I had no clue. You know, when you're young and you wake up in the morning and you say, yeah, and you just jump out of bed and you go about your day when you're old, you lay there for a minute saying, I hope I can make it out of bed. It's a different attitude completely.  Man, when I was young, I didn't have an understanding. So naturally I should pray, Lord help me to understand. Help me to realize that when I'm sowing today, I'll reap tomorrow. Help me to understand that the habits that I am forming now will follow me the rest of my life. Help me to understand that the choices that I'm making are gonna resonate later on. So help me to lay strong foundations because the storms of life ultimately are going to affect me. I don't wanna build a life on sinking sand. I wanna build my life on something that's sure and firm because the storms of life come and will hit me.  Or I can waste those days thinking that later on, I'll do that when I have time. When in fact, the only time I have right now is right now. So help me to number my days like the psalmist says. Teach me to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Why must we redeem our time?  When the word evil is used in an ethical sense, it is wicked or it's bad. The days are wicked, bad, filled with labor, hardship, pain and trouble. This moment in history is identified as an act of opposition to the message of the gospel. We have little time left and much opposition. At that time, they were being tempted to live like the non-believers surrounding them. So Paul was exhorting them. You need to get away from lying and violence and stealing and profanity, malice and immorality. This is how they at one time lived and the culture was constantly drawing them back. You at one time lived in a certain way and the culture doesn't stop. Listen, the culture we live in today is not making us better people. We know this. We know this, that the culture that we have in every way that can be communicated whether it's in a book, whether it's in a magazine, whether it's on a DVD, whether it's in a movie, whether it's in the songs that are played that we hear going to college or going to school and hearing the lectures of our professors or teachers. The culture is ensnaring constantly, is always giving a message that is always making it appear to be not only true but to be preferred. And they'll say you're supposed to do certain things and feel certain ways and as a Christian I started reading my Bible and I said to myself the way that I've lived in the past is the opposite of what God says I'm to live now like. And so what made me change the way I think I was transformed by the renewing of my mind is by getting into the word and studying and then beginning to understand and grasp and put into practice. Because Jesus said to me, listen, he said if you obey my commands I will manifest myself to you. I'm gonna reveal myself in a deeper way. You're gonna know me not just intellectually but experientially.   You know I'm pretty much used to that I've been walking with the Lord for a long time now and I always expected the world I always have known that the world doesn't like the message of the gospel what I had to adjust my way of thinking to was the way the church acts towards the gospel because many people who don't read their word will correct me on Facebook they don't even read their Bibles but they're gonna tell me I shouldn't say this or shouldn't believe this or shouldn't do this and I wanna know what church do you pastor you know how long have you been in ministry and you need the word you need God's word you need it too I need it too everyday don't you my brains are dirty they need a good washing people say you're brainwashed of course I am by the blood of Jesus and by the word of God I need a new life I need that I need that but we're living in times when the people have itching ears and if they don't hear what they wanna hear there's one thing they do they vote with their feet they vote with their feet I don't like that I'm outta here didn't make me feel good not enough stories not enough interesting things I'll tell you what the word of God is very interesting because it changes the way you live and so Paul is once again he's saying walk in wisdom towards those who are outside redeeming the time he goes on and says let your speech always be with grace season with salt that you may know how you ought to answer each one as you walk in wisdom this is how you should speak in general in Ecclesiastes 1012 the words of a wise man's mouth are gracious the way we speak reveals the abundance of our hearts if we're saved our speech should reveal the work of grace in us if you're swearing one moment and preaching the next you undermine the message in Ephesians 5 3 and 4 it says let no sexual immorality impurity or greed let there be no sexual immorality impurity or greed among you such sins have no place among God's people obscene stories foolish talk and dirty jokes these are not for you instead let there be thankfulness to God so the way of life our speech should be seasoned with grace and season with salt and that speaks of the purity salt preserved from corruption salt is an emblem of value and wisdom and we season our food to make the meal more enjoyable while we're to season our speech with the grace of God which makes the conversation healthy and a harsh method of witnessing only serves to repel men from the way of salvation be careful how you share your faith you know me I get caught up in all when I'm preaching when I'm speaking to people you know I've learned that listening to them and trying to answer their questions is a good thing listening carefully you see over time you learn how to answer people with experience you learn how to respond to questions and objections Peter gives us insight in 1 Peter 3 15 he says but in your hearts in your hearts set apart Christ is Lord always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have but do this with gentleness and respect you see if we want to be used by the Lord our heart is first set apart for God and so you listen and you answer when I first began I've been teaching since 1973 and when I first began people would walk up with Bible questions and I didn't how would I have answers I didn't have them yet I had to learn and so very early I learned to to say if somebody had a question I very early learned to say to them you know I don't have an answer for that but give me some time and I'll look it up for you and that's what set me on the road of studying because I'd be sharing and somebody would ask and I would say I really I can't really answer that one but let me look and I still remember I was with Pastor Chuck Smith we were in Israel and I approached him once and I said Pastor I want to ask you a question where is that story about and I gave him a story and I remember Pastor Chuck just looking at me going hmm it was Dave I don't I really at the moment I really can't remember and I said gee thanks pastor and he didn't know why I was excited I thought and he's taught the Bible 10, 15 times the whole book he's taught it several times and he doesn't know that made me feel good if he doesn't know it's okay for me to be a lung kid you know it's okay you know and I learned that I began to learn that fairly early you know if somebody asked you a question guys don't make up an answer something that you think may be true don't do that just say look at give me some time I'll look it up I'll get the answer for you they'll respect you for it and it will help you to learn to study on your own and that's how the Lord did it with me people will come and ask me questions people knocking on doors a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness very often would knock on a door or I'd speak to somebody who was was part of you know various cults that are out there and they would approach me and they'd say things to me and I'd listen to them and I'd go and research answers and be prepared to share next time I encounter somebody of that persuasion and that's how I did it that's how I still do it to this day to this day I still have people ask me questions that I can't answer and I'll do the same I still do I'll just say let me get back to you and I'll go and I'll look it up and I'll try and find the proper answer for them it helps them but it helps me too and so be prepared to give an answer concerning the hope that lies within you but do it with gentleness we do it with a kindness with a gentle spirit, a meekness about us we're not shoving truth down people's throats we're sharing with them what the truth is and the truth once again will set them free and we need to know that we need to set our heart apart it's like what it says in Proverbs 4.23 keep your heart with all diligence for out of it are all issues of life and so we're to be prepared to give an answer we need to know not only knowing in whom but also in what we believe we need to be ready to give a verbal defense we need to give a reason statement so it takes some time so know what you believe be prepared to share that comes through reading that comes through studying the word that comes through solid Bible teaching and so he finally says in verse 6 in this manner you will be prepared to answer each one so read the word attend studies pray for opportunities and be prepared so that when someone asks you can answer