Good morning everyone and welcome to the class on 1st Timothy before we begin class can one of you please lead us in prayer please anyone? Shall I pray? Yes thank you Divya. Thank you Father thank you Lord for your presence thank you for your grace your kindness in our lives Father we come to you with expectancy Father that you will teach us Father from your word that you will give us the grace to obey Father Lord although it was written so many years ago Father we know these scriptures are still relevant Father Lord we need your word Father to guide us to be a lamp unto a feet a light unto our paths Father Lord we pray Lord you empower us with the Holy Spirit that we can Father be a example Father be a salt and a light to this world Father especially praying Father for Pastor Selena equip her and power her strengthen her Father Lord that she be able to teach Lord what your Holy Spirit is inspiring her to speak Father and the very word she speaks Father we pray Father be a blessing be a nourishment Father to each one as well as to her Father we bless her in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ we bless every student here Father Lord we pray wherever we are Lord how you meet us at our points of needs Father Lord and speak to us very personally very intimately Father give us a receptive heart we thank you and praise you in Jesus precious name we pray Amen. Amen thank you Divya okay so last Monday we were studying First Timothy chapter two we looked at chapter Timothy chapter first Timothy chapter two versus one to ten where Paul is you know writing to the church he's saying how men ought to pray and then he says he goes on to say how women have to pray and then we looked we stopped at verse nine and ten where Paul writes and says that women in like manner also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with propriety and moderation not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing but which is proper for women professing godliness with good works so we looked at this verse we studied this and also said that you know many of them have used this verse to say that women should not wear gold or pearls or costly clothing when they come to church but we looked at the context why Paul is writing this the context he's writing this is that you know he he's basically mentioning you know you know when he says that you should not you know have braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing Paul mentions these adornments that went against the principles of propriety and moderation in that culture so basically he's saying that you know dress appropriately is that you know when you come to church you are not overdressed or underdressed but you know and it does not call for inappropriate attention to yourself and also it's not a provocative okay and the con the other context is because you know women were very dominant in the society in Ephesus because of the the the goddess that was worshiped their diner so they had a woman who had an upper hand saying things a sway over men would do things we would look at that in a little more detail in some time so that is why Paul is mentioning that which means that it is only in the context of that church Paul is not mentioning this in general to other churches he does not write to the church at Corinth or he does not write to the church at Philippi but is specific for the church at Ephesus so we need to understand it in their cultural setting and why he's writing it specifically to the churches at Ephesus and we also looked at the rest of scripture that nowhere in scripture says that you know women should was prohibited from wearing gold or pearls or braiding their hair or costly clothing okay we'll move on to verses 11 to 15 so can one of you please read verses 11 to 15 please anyone can read verses 11 to 15 can I read faster yes Asha go ahead learn quietly with all the submissiveness I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority around them rather she used to remain quiet for Adam was formed first than ever and then Eve and Adam was not deceived but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor yet she'll be saved to a child very if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control amen thank you Asha so you know again people have used this passage saying that you know Paul says that women should not teach in church they should you know remain silent they should not speak up they should be submissive but you know we need to look at this again in the context of you know why Paul is writing this you know so when we interpret scripture we need to interpret scripture in the light of Paul's own ministry practice in the context of in which Paul is writing this episode to that specific region geographical region the church is there in that place this is specifically writing here to the churches at Ephesus and also we need to interpret this scripture in the light of the rest of scripture because we need to whenever we interpret scripture we always need to interpret it in the context of the entirety of the whole scripture to see what other passages are saying which throws light on this passage or the worst that we are studying or looking at or wanting to find get a meaning for so let's look at Paul's own practice now here he says let women remain silent with all submission that do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man but to be silent so you know if you look at Paul's ministry his own ministry practice we see that you know we read in his other episodes that he writes he mentions names of various women who are part of this ministry team he thanks them he mentions about them which means that he is you know he's he's he's telling the churches that he's writing to he's writing this letter to that you know it's not just a one man show but there are other people and they're not just men but they're also women and he's recognizing various people in his team people in various ministry positions those who are involved with him in the ministry at all levels taking on responsibility so in roman chapter 16 was his three and four he mentions about Aquila and Priscilla you know this husband and wife team were part of his ministry and he recognizes them and we know that this couple you know do a wonderful ministry both of them Aquila and Priscilla they're also involved in the teaching in the church they have a church meeting in their home so here is a woman who's teaching who's involved in in building up a church in ministry activities imparting to others as well roman chapter 16 versus one and two we also see Paul recognizing a woman leader or a deacon of the church and her name is Phoebe in the same chapter in the book of Romans chapter 16 verse 7 Paul also recognizes a woman called Junia who is a woman leader and Paul says she's a fellow prisoner and also someone who's respected by the other apostles and possibly you know she may have been an apostle herself so here we see that you know Paul is not intending to mean that women in general all over should not be involved in the teaching or in the ministry of the church but he's speaking it specifically to the church to the women at the church at Ephesus because if you look at his other epistles and letters he does mention women who are part of his team who are leaders who are responsible people also when Paul talks about you know the membership gifts in roman chapter 12 you know the membership gifts of prophesying serving teaching encouraging you know giving generously leading showing mercy which is all the membership gifts listed in roman chapter 12 you know we see that this is distributed across all believers there's no gender specific mention over there there's no gender specificity that is mentioned in this son but it is distributed across all believers even when the talking about the gifts of the spirit which Paul writes the church at Corinth in 1st Corinth in chapter 12 we also see that there as well it's given without in any gender specificity there is no specific gender that is mentioned that is these you know gifts of the spirit is only for men it's not for women but it's just mentioned in general it's given for all believers a gift that the holy spirit imparts to all believers who desire to have that who desire to flow in the gifts of the spirit if we look at 1st Corinthians chapter 14 verse 26 you know Paul there encourages all of them all women and men in the church to prophesy and teach if you look turn to 1st Corinthians chapter 14 verse 26 he says what then shall we say brothers and sisters when you come together each of you has a hymn or a word of instruction revelation a tongue or an interpretation but he says you know it's it's good that you have all of these things you know have a word of wisdom knowledge you know you have a gift of you you have a prophecy that you want to release you want to interpret the tongues that are spoken well that is fine but he says you know you need to do it in a way that is in an orderly way that will build up each other so he's not saying you know hey only brothers can do that and not sisters but he says what then shall we say brothers and sisters that means even you know women were eager to prophesy to share what they have received when they come to the church so he's not stopping them in the church of Corinth but you know he's saying this specifically which means he's saying this specifically to the church at Ephesus even if you look at the ministry gifts which is mentioned in which Paul writes to the church at Ephesus in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11 you know the the ministry gifts that is the gifts of being an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher is also given both to male and female and there's no gender specific mentioned there's no specific gender that is mentioned there but this ministry gifts is also given to both male and female so if we look at Paul's letters his writings to other churches he's we don't see him anywhere saying that you know they should not preach or teach but you know of course he mentions in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 he gives specific instructions on when women prophets and those giving a message in tongues you know they must remain silent when they must speak up so that because there was utter chaos everyone you know we knew the church at Corinth were so eager for the gifts to spread they were flowing mightily in the gifts to spread they just every time they met they had a word of wisdom knowledge prophecy you know something to share and everyone just wants to share it there was no order so Paul was writing all of you can share in verse 26 of 1 Corinthians chapter 14 but in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 the same chapter in verses 28 30 and 34 he gives specific instructions on how women prophets and those giving a message must remain silent when they should speak when they should share which does not mean that he's saying that women should not speak or teach but so if you look at other episodes there's no hint or there's no where Paul mentions this so this is not a general teaching that he is bringing about in the in the churches as an apostle this is very specific only to the church at Ephesus so let's look at why Paul is writing this to the church at Ephesus why he's he's saying this you know so just before we look at that we need to know that you know sometimes Paul addresses certain issues in specific churches for example you know he talks about head covering of the women have to cover their head to the church at Corinth when he's writing to them so in first the first letter of to the church at Corinth 1 Corinthians chapter 11 he mentions this but in that same chapter 1 Corinthians 11 verse 16 he very specifically tells them that this sort of custom is not among other churches that means this is what he's addressing is specific only to this church and this is not something that this should be followed in other churches as well but at the same time you know he goes on to in the same letter right in chapter 14 you know he varies encouraging everyone which is male and female to exercise the gifts of the spirit which is prophesying teaching speaking in tongues and interpretation of tongues but then of course he goes on to specifically mention when they need to be silent when they have to speak up that is in chapter 14 of the same letter to to the church at Corinth in verses 28 30 and 34 so you know similarly when we look at what Paul is writing here we need to keep in mind what is the context why is he saying this why is he writing this to the church at Ephesus why is he telling Timothy that women should keep silent in the church it's because you know the context the cultural context is that the the city of Ephesus the people worship this god is diner and you know everything in that's in the city centered around this goddess so she was the center of everything you know their expression of their culture their emotions the way of doing things their laws everything you know was centered around this cult diner the goddess that they worshiped so from this book I suffer not as a woman we get a few details you know about what was the cultural practice of you know the people at Ephesus even as they worship this this you know goddess diner so you know because it was a female goddess so they had female priests and you know these female priests you know they promoted blasphemous ideas about sex and spirituality and they also performed rituals in which they you know they basically pronounce curses on men and by which they declared female female superiority so the the women wanted to be superior because of this goddess and so they want to show their superiority over men and hence they pronounce curses and you know they kind of brought in this culture where women are superior and they had you know authority over men so you know most likely when paul was writing this the church at Ephesus he's saying that you know I don't want these women who've come now from these pagan cultures you know they've accepted Christ they're part of the church now he says I don't I won't allow women to teach these cultic heresies you know in the church through which they can still you know bring about female superiority over the men and they try to take over authority over men by performing these you know these rituals these and pronouncing curses but he's saying the order in the church is that you know there are men leadership the men will teach and in the light of the cultural setting but in the light of cultural setting and the order that is in the church he says the order in the church we follow is that men are leaders men will teach and women you know have to be submissive they have to yield to men they have to yield to their authority and listen to them and in that context you know paul is saying reminding them that you know they have to remain silent in the church and they cannot you know assume authority over men by performing these pagan rituals and also bringing these cultic heresies or these false teachings into the church and then paul goes on to remind them you know man's headship in the government order of the home the family and also in the church now if you remember you studied the house of god in the first year first semester and we saw that you know god has organized or designed you know a governmental structure in the family in the church in the workplace and it's important that we you know submit to the or even in the civil government and it's important that we submit to the authority that god has instituted the governmental order the structure that is instituted so in the home you know the man is the head and the women has to respect the man and submit out of their love for christ so the issue here with the women was hey you know we are superior you know we come from this in the culture in Ephesus is women are superior we are superior over men we have a say we have authority over them so the issue for them was when they come to church is you know submitting to a male authority listening to them to the leaders who are male and also to their teaching and so in the light of that cultural teaching on the superiority of women paul is basically reminding them of man's headship in god's government and he's he mentioning here in this verses that you know adam was formed first and then eve was formed and then he says that adam was not deceived but woman being deceived fell into a transcription which which does not mean that you know that that that male or men the male gender or men were not deceived or they're not easily deceived it's only women who are deceived he's not saying that what he's basically saying is that you know that you know it was the serpent we read in Genesis chapter three where the serpent directly spoke to eve and lied to her twisted the truth and she was easily deceived okay and you know she took the first bite and then you know the serpent did not have to deceive adam because when eve passed on the food to adam you know he ate it without questioning and hence both sin both fell so here it's not that you know man will not be deceived man cannot be deceived that is only women who are deceived so women are the the fallen race and the male gender not the fallen race no this is not what paul is directly saying and it does not imply that women are more easily deceived than men but what he's simply stating here is the truth of the events that happen in the sequence that happened you know eve was easily deceived you know by satan and she just took the first bite she gave it to adam you know he didn't resist he didn't stand by what god told him to do he easily gave in and hence you know eve satan did not have to tempt him so and he just ate the fruit so both the sobae god both sinned and both fell into transgression which means both sinned against god both fell into sin and then he paul goes on to write and say that nevertheless you know she will be saved or preserved in childbearing if they continue in faith love and holiness with self-control so basically the word saved here you know is that women will be kept safe or preserved during childbirth we look at this in the light of what is written to us in genesis chapter 3 was 16 when god you know punished adam and eve and the serpent he said to the woman that you know you know your great will be a pain during childbirth but you know paul is saying that even though you know this punishment is there on women but yet they will be saved they will be preserved during childbirth and the word saved here in the greek is the word sozo which is an all inclusive word for the word salvation so the greek word for salvation in the new testament is sozo and it's found more than 110 times and this word sozo is a very comprehensive word which includes you know not just it includes spiritual salvation which is forgiveness of sins healing of sicknesses deliverance from every work of evil work of the enemy rescue and preservation from all harm and danger and total wellness total wholeness and well-being of that person so the word salvation the greek word sozo is a very comprehensive word it's a fully pregnant word so to say you know which means forgiveness of sins healing from sicknesses deliverance from every work of the enemy rescue from preservation from all harm and danger and total well-being total wholeness of that person so sozo basically means to be saved healed delivered rescued preserved it means all of these things at the same time and it's a verb it's an action word something that is done to us something that happens because of the work of christ because a full sufficient perfect work that christ has done on the cross we receive this sozo sozo also means that we will be saved out of the devil's power and we restore into total wholeness you know under the power of god spirit under his power his authority we receive all of these things so that is what paul is a apostle paul is mentioning here that even though women you know you would have this is that punishment that occurs upon you that you would have great pain in childbirth but he says you will be preserved you will be saved he's talking about the word sozo which means you'll be rescued you will be saved now why is you know paul mentioning about childbirth in this context when he's talking about prayer and he's writing to the church why is he talking about about women and childbirth at this time again you know this was 15 we need to understand it both in the biblical context as well as in the local context the biblical context as i already mentioned genesis chapter 3 verse 16 the fall of man where you know god pronounced the scars the punishment on women that they will have great pain during childbirth so that is the biblical context what is the local context or the cultural context the cultural context is also important for us to understand again coming back to the cultural context that of the goddess dina in latin she's the her name is dina but in greek the name is artemius and she's the god of the opposites the goddess of the opposite sorry and you know she was considered as someone by the people who was somebody who would protect or support you know women during childbirth so she was a protector of woman during labor pain during childbirth but it's also said that you know artemius you know that's why i said goddess of the opposites dina and artemius you know when you get angry you know it was said that the arrows of artemius brought sudden death while a woman was giving birth so so this goddess was a divinity of healing but also someone who was you know who brought sudden death while giving birth and also if if she would get angry you know she would spread disease like leprosy rabies so you know in the context of the local setting the the cultural setting the cultural influence that of the worship of this of dina that that people had on themselves they were afraid you know during childbirth but you know what paul is writing here and saying that because they believe in jesus because they have received salvation because they're part of the family of god they're part of the church you know they belong to christ uh that you know uh these women who believe will be preserved in childbirth so this this whole cultural influence this whole understanding of this goddess dina uh that who will help them and also will be angry with them with cause uh death during childbirth will put disease you know that can be removed for their mindsets because once they believe in jesus you know all women who believe in christ will be preserved in childbirth or during childbirth and then you know just like paul writes for women sorry for men he says women you also must continue in faith love holiness and self-control so focus on um these things like he says in the in the previous verses in in verses eight to ten he says you know don't your focus should not be on just you know dressing up clothes a paddle that you wear uh you know the the the things that you adorn yourself with but you know your focus should be basically on godliness and good works and here he says don't focus on you know being superior to men uh you know uh taking on leadership authority women uh sorry don't focus on um you know uh live in fear about uh you know uh what this goddess uh can do to you but he's saying you know focus on these important things like this faith love holiness uh with self-control these are some of the things that women uh should focus on and not focus on other things like being uh superior to men being authoritative wanting to teach wanting to to see the limelight but just be submissive and you know focus on faith love holiness with self-control okay so that is the end of chapter two anyone has any questions yes say sorry pastor mine is more of an observation thank you very much first time i'm actually understanding these last three verses um my observation is that you know when paul wrote this letter he i don't think he even had an idea that one day it will all be compiled as a bible a part of the books of the bible and then we you know we as christians will be studying it because many christian circles have actually taken this out of context and have implemented the fact that women are not supposed to um be in ministry they're not supposed to teach there's some circle of christians but now you know train lights on the biblical perspective and then more importantly the cultural perspective i think it's it's uh it to be a great honor to anyone who is going to teach the word of god to go an extra mile to understand the cultural context of whatever texts that we're going to be preaching on i think it's good it's a very good idea because i didn't know all these things you were talking about although i always knew that paul was always very specific specific when he talked about his letter but when it came to this place this pastor passage i still kind of struggled a bit uh but thank you so much for opening up our understanding this is very enlightening thank you very much thank you say uh but having said this you know we need to still hold on to the fact that you know uh you know for example i can be a pastor in church a woman can be a pastor in church but when i come back home i follow the governmental structure uh that is ordained by god at home i don't boss around my husband or boss over my husband at home but uh you know i submit to his um uh is his authority the same way i can be a pastor at church and i can we can have you know a senior pastor who's a main uh figure uh it does not mean that because god has called me to a pastoral role and i flow mightily in the gift so i teach or preach does not mean that i don't submit to his authority but i do submit uh to his authority to what he says out of reverence for christ so uh the governmental structure and order still remains irrespective of uh you know even though we're not part of the cultural context of what is uh what people at effaces faced uh but we still have this governmental structure and order which we adhere to which we follow and also when it comes to dressing be as women dress in a in a proper way when we come to church uh not too overdressed not too underdressed you know um and our dressing should be in a way that honors god uh and is not provocative and is not causing unnecessary um uh attention um but just in a way that is honoring and pleasing god so this also we need to keep in mind so there's people there's there's some women who can go to an extreme and say okay this is just uh the cultural context so i can dress anyway uh you know uh i can speak i can teach i can have authority over man uh because uh in god's eyes you know male uh there's no male no female all are one uh so i don't have to listen to my husband i don't have to submit to him uh you know well that is wrong uh unless he goes away from god standard in the same things that are not right then we you know we make a stand but you know but even then uh we act out of love we submit out of reverence for christ uh uh you know and do things to honor god in a god honoring away yes so we don't go to the two extremes right yeah thank you thank you ma thank you ma thank you see anyone else has any questions any thoughts anything that you'd like to share okay uh if not we would move on to first Timothy chapter three so can um can one of you uh quickly read clearly and loudly uh first Timothy chapter three others can bibles follow through and uh you know uh after that we will just share if you have anything that you know god spoke to you anything that uh you know just slept out of scripture anything administered to your heart you could share that after somebody reads for us so can somebody please read first Timothy chapter three please shall i read this Timothy chapter three this is the faithful saying if a man desires the position of a bishop he desires a good work a bishop then must be blameless the husband of one of one's wife temperate sober minded of good behavior hospitable able to teach not given to wine not violent not greedy for money but gentle not quarrelsome not covetous one who rules his own house well having his children in submission with all reverence for if a man does not know how to rule his own house how will he take care of the church of god not a novice less being puffed up with pride he falls into the same condemnation as a devil more ever he must have a good testimony among those who are outside less he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil you want me to continue pastor yes go ahead sorry sorry likewise deacons must be reverent not double-tongued not given to much wine not greedy for money holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience but let these also first be tested then let them serve as deacons being found blameless likewise their wives must be reverent not slanderous temperate faithful in all things let deacons be the husbands of one's wife ruling their children and their own house well for those who are served well as deacons obtain for themselves a good standing and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus the great mystery these things are right to you though I hope to come to you shortly but if I'm delayed I write you so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God which is the church of the living God the pillar and the ground of the truth and without controversy great is the mystery of godliness God was manifested in the flesh justified in the spirit seen by angels preached among the Gentiles believed on in in the world received up in glory thank you Christopher thank you for reading for us first Timothy chapter three yes I'll leave this time open for those of you like to share you know anything that caught your attention anything that you know that you just were reminded of what you learned before or what God spoke to you it's just come back afresh in your mind some you know some words or some phrase that just leapt out at you from scripture you just like to share this open this time for those who like to share okay Kennedy says our lifestyle should be a testimony of what faith we confess and each as leaders okay thank you Kennedy yes Christopher sorry Charles you had something to say about verse two verse two of chapter three first Timothy a bishop must then must be blameless that's a band of one wife temperate sub-minded of good behavior hospitable able to teach I when the when Christopher was reading I was looking at that and I was like trying to see how I am like gauging myself on that on that scale of being blameless being husband of one wife temperate sub-minded having good behavior being hospitable but also able to teach so um it it has caught my mind afresh that I need to again consider myself and try to look at it though I might not be a bishop in a church but at this level as an elder as someone who is heading a group of people like I need all these qualities I need all these qualities so that I will be able not to even verse three continuous but for sure all these qualities are very very important to me and I was like I think I need to again get a piece of paper and write and start checking each quality like I do I have this what is my relationship with alcohol and wine what about my violence am I greedy for my wine sign things that are not proper like you add a zero on a cake or no maybe you are writing you are writing a refund you are asking for a refund and you add a zero things like that so God was speaking to me and they think I'm going to put it in practice by doing a check out so that they were able to understand my my standing currently thank you thank you Charles I think it's very humbling to hear that from you thank you so much you know sometimes we when we read scripture we always think of others you know other leaders but you know it's it's it's extremely difficult to just look at it and put yourself there and say hey do I have these things even though I might not be a bishop or a leader but I am in full-time ministry and just to act on it thank you so much this is so wonderful to hear that for me which is so humbling thank you yes anyone else ma'am I have a question while we're reading the whole passage we see that it is about the position of a bishop and it is basically talking about you know a man so this position or this office particularly belongs because they're talking of one wife managing the household managing children having a wife so there's particularly talking about only a man being given this position this is my question so you're saying should only men be bishops and deacons that is what is your question yes ma'am okay again we need to look at it in the light of the cultural setting and also in the light of the entire scripture it does not say anywhere that women should not be spiritual leaders because you know they are given the membership gifts it gives the spirit they they are also called into various offices of a fossil prophet we have prophetesses in the bible we have leaders like Deborah who was a judge we had you know also phillips daughters who were you know who were prophesying so you know in that context we see in rest of scripture that there were spiritual leaders who were women but in this context specifically yes there were men who were leaders in the church so paul is again you know writing about writing to men who were leaders and writing to timothy guy telling him what kind of leaders he needs to choose as bishops who were the spiritual overseers and as deacons who were you know administrators just part of the local organization of the church yes but in today's context do we see women who are bishops yes thus god worked through them yes in the bible do we see women were spiritual leaders yes the holy spirit imparts to them the holy spirit speaks to them uses them mightily so you know it does not mean that in scripture says that anywhere it says in scripture that women should not be leaders or spiritual leaders they're best spiritual leaders the holy spirit worked on them especially the old and new testament we see you know how the holy spirit anointed women Miriam Deborah Esther Ruth Anna who was the prophetess's prophetess philips daughters you know and even in the prophecy that Joel mentions and what was quoted by Peter in his sermon in Acts chapter 2 he says the promise of the outpouring of the spirit is for your sons and daughters and both will prophesy so yes you know women can also be leaders but in this specific context cultural setting there were only men who were leaders the church so he was talking specifically to them telling Timothy how to choose these leaders what are the qualifications that are required Kennedy says I must keep hold the deep truths and clear conscience more so on social boundaries not taking advantage of my flock yes yes that's that's what Paul mentions faith and a clear conscience faith and a good conscience which is very very important because if you don't have a good conscience you know which is which which enables you to have a good conduct you know that will shipwreck your faith like he talks about hymenius and alexander whose whose faith was shipwrecked and that's why he talks so much about maintaining a good conscience yes thank you Kennedy Christopher yes pastor I was just sort of reflecting on you know when I was when I was reading and I realized that you know I had you know I was as I was going through it you know I didn't actually read the headings or the first you know the first two paragraphs and then the great mysteries the one I actually read I actually you know read out aloud so I as I was just reflecting on that I realized that you know Paul is now you know talking about you know this this you know Jesus as or God as the you know as the as a role model you know for us you know and he talks about this this this mystery and again as I was reflecting there was two things one is this role model the other thing was I was just talking I would just keep through the mystery part and I was you know even as I mean as believers or even non-believers you know it's really about you know it's a mystery because it's it's also in the supernatural you know we beast he's going through this you know this the sexual you know we got has manifested in the flesh and then you know he is you know again he talks about justified the spirit seen by angels and then he is also talking about received up in glory and you know it's it's that is really you know that is only you know possible by God and that's why I think Paul is talking about this being a mystery because it is something that is out of the ordinary and something that is not you know of the world really it is something that you know is supernatural yeah so I was just I just wanted to mention that thank you Christopher thank you for sharing that anyone else any other thoughts any that one else like to share verse 16 is gospel in one verse yes yes true yes okay it's time for our break now we'll stop here and then we'll come back after break and we will do a detailed study of first Timothy chapter three okay thank you everyone see you after the break


And we are now on the Binder lesson here. So, yeah. So the question is, when is sharing code alone not sufficient? And so let's reflect on what just happened in the first two lessons of today. So we had scripts which worked roughly okay for many people, but there were many different problems there. And once we start having these dependencies, everyone's computer is different. So we have people running the Anaconda Navigator, Anaconda Cloud making own environments, maybe some people on clusters and multiply this all by three different operating systems. So basically, even if someone has the code, it really doesn't work that well. So look at this picture here. So what looks really simple. So there's, we say, okay, there's this code. It says Python import pandas. There's all these things underneath. And it can all go wrong some different ways. But what happens if we want to make our code a little bit more reusable? So we want to find a way to have code and have someone else to easily be able to try it out, even if we aren't giving them all the resources directly. And that leads to this question, which is being shown here. So Lea is a PhD student in computation biology and after two years of work, she's ready to publish her first paper. The code used for analyzing data is available on GitHub, but the supervisor is an advocate of open science and says this just sharing this code is not sufficient. So if this code is just on GitHub, what kind of problems could happen? And by the way, GitHub is a version control platform. It's a way to share code and control changes to it. So this course is definitely not about Git and GitHub. Our other big course code refinery is about this. So don't worry about that name, but what kind of things could go wrong? Please write in notes and I will flip back there. So what can go wrong? The easiest is probably we miss requirements. We miss dependencies. Okay, so basically the numpy or pandas that worked five years ago doesn't work anymore because something has changed. That or we don't even know that it is there or that we need it initially. Yeah, so if there's code that shared but doesn't have this environment file or requirements file, then there's really hardly any chance there. Without documentation, it can be really hard to use. So what about the whole version of Python changes? So for example, a lot of my old codes were written with Python two and I never updated them because I'm not doing that anymore. That code is probably effectively dead by now. Very likely, except if someone, well, it's, okay, I would make a distinction. It's dead for current development. It might still work if someone has a Python two and their respective dependencies to run it. So the code might still work if you get the right dependencies, if you know which versions are needed for it, but it's probably dead for further development. And then what about the practical difficulties of someone installing these? Let's say you're sharing it with someone that's not an expert in Python and doesn't use environment files and all these things. Is there any way that they can explore this code and do anything with it at all? Well, yeah, there are tools like binders which essentially provide a virtual environment that is independent of your machine. And if they don't want to care about it, this kind of, yeah, more or less virtual machine for a virtual interpreter can help you there. I wouldn't know of anything else that you could really do if they don't want to install anything. Yeah, so well, anyway, that leads to what our lesson is now which is sharing computational environments with binder. So back to Thomas' screen. So this is something where you can try to follow along and do it with us if you want, but for most people I would say, don't just watch us and ask questions. And why is that? It requires knowledge of Git and the GitHub account and for a later part is the Noto account. And these things are definitely not prerequisites of this course. So we don't expect everyone to be able to do this. So try if you want, but try to get the point of what we're doing and ask questions and get inspired to do this later. So let's see, let's get started then. How I'm arranging my screen so I can see what Thomas is doing. So we start off with this example we used from our previous lesson, which lesson was it, the data visualization. So it's a little plot. So we see the code here. It's in a notebook. Can you run it? I hope it works and I didn't do anything wrong, but yeah. Yes, okay. So there's a plot. So we need to, we want to make this reusable by other people. So to do that, the first step is to make a Git repository. So we would probably do this from a command line, but instead we're doing it from GitHub.  And this allows to make a new repository. We can call it binder demo, okay. And there's no description needed public. But it's relatively important that it is public, otherwise binder will might get into problems. Yes. And click create repository. So so far what we've done is a pretty standard way of using GitHub. And next up we will find on this page upload existing file. So we can do everything here. It's right around there. Yes. Okay. Did you save it in Jupyter lab? And give it a title? Yes. Her rename the file. It is, I just try navigating there or actually choose your files. So this is a bit binder teaching. There called it, called it plotting. So it's been added and we give a git command message. So this is, this provides a history and explains what we're doing. So we commit changes and there we go. There's a notebook. Can we click on it and see what it looks like when we open it? Yep. GitHub has a preview. Okay. Yeah. That looks like what we just did. So now in fact, maybe someone can copy the link and put it in the notes. But this is, this is something that anyone can see. Okay. Thomas is doing it. Yeah. Let's need to find the notes again. Okay. There we go. Okay. Okay. So now here we are. So what's the first minimum step in order for anyone to be able to run this code? Telling what requirements there are. So what other, what dependencies it has. Yeah. So exactly what we just covered in the lesson. So we'll create a new file. We will call it, we'll copy this and we paste it and call it requirements.txt. So now we've just made another file in this repository from the GitHub web interface. And we pasted in the requirements.txt version of dependencies. So we can click commit changes. It gives us some standard message, create the files. We can do it and we click commit changes. And now if we look at our code, we have plotting.ipinb and requirements. So there we go. So now, okay. So what is binder? If we go to mybinder.org, which is listed, it's a way where we can, so it's a cloud service that starts Jupyter in the environment specified in the repository. So binder will read the requirements and make an environment and then start Jupyter in there for anyone online. So if we copy this URL, yeah, let's copy. Actually, no. Oh, yeah, we can copy that from there. And then paste. So what it tells us to do is not to click launch, but to click the little arrow down below, lower there. And this gives us a launch binder button just like we see up there. So copy that and let's go back to the GitHub repository and let's make a new readme file. I know there's this nice button there to do it. So it's called binder demo. We can paste this. Maybe we can put it below the title. Okay, yeah.  Yes, okay. So now our repository is described and this readme file would be, like it would say this is my example code for such and such a project. Here's my citation, stuff like that. And if you're following along online, you will see this there also. And now you can click launch binder, this button. Maybe open it in a new tab, but it's okay. Yeah. So we see a preview of it and we see it's running some stuff here. So this is building the environment. And can you zoom in a little bit? So we see it's running a bunch of code looking stuff, but it looks like it's trying to install from the requirements.txt file. And it might take a little while. I'm not sure why it took me a long time yesterday. Maybe we can take a short break and ask, did you? No, I just went over. You went to a new, okay. Yeah, it's not. So we're going back here. Just open the git repository again. So if there's any questions, please write in the notes because I'm sure there's all kinds of things here. So it's still... Building, let's hope that gets done soonish. Yeah, it took a few minutes for me. So while we're waiting, in what cases is this especially useful? I would say for relatively, well, for research code that you want people to be able to explore and that does not depend too much on particular datasets that you have. So as soon as your code depends on really large datasets, it might not be the easiest or best approach because they need to be stored somewhere and you only have limited resources on Binder. So in code refinery, we gave an example or we showed a demo, I think. There's a scientific project that was analyzing some data and making some interesting pictures and they created a binder repository out of this. So basically anyone else with a little bit of knowledge with Python could start this up and regenerate the figures and see how little changes would affect what the results are. And this was really good for science because the more people that can use your work, the more likely you already get citations about it. And that is presumably one of your goals here. I mean, of course it's also good for science if other people can explore and reuse things and stuff like that. There's a good question coming up. So would binder be suitable for projects where the same project folder has the raw data files used by the study? So yes, I mean, if the data is small, then this makes sense. So you could have the data within the repository. I would say it makes sense up to like a few megabytes of data size or something like that. Otherwise GitHub and binder hub might not be very happy because it's basically using their resources to host data. But one thing that can be done is the data is put somewhere else and your notebook itself is made so that it downloads the data whenever it runs. So the code would say, okay, does the data already exist if not downloaded? And then uses a downloaded file in that directory. Does binder run on your local machine or does binder instance run remotely? This is running remotely. So binder is run by some nonprofit group, which gives donations of the computing resources from Google and other kinds of places. Is it running? It's running, it's installing things. Yeah, so they get donations of these resources and basically binder hub is a modified Jupyter hub and it, yeah, so it's running in the cloud. So it provides resources for a short time, like after 15 or 30 minutes, it would time out and remove everything. So it's not suitable for storing things online for a long period of time. Like it's not suitable for long-term work or doing your main work. You know, if we do this again, maybe we could have a break while the binder is launching. That sounds very reasonable. While we're waiting, we can preview what would happen next. Or actually maybe we could do it at the same time. So the next section is about how can I get a DOI from Zenodo? So DOI is digital object identifier and basically it is what is used to cite papers and other things. So the idea here is that, let's say you have a project and you make some code and you want your code to be cited. So Zenodo is a publicly funded data repository. It's funded by the EU for open science purposes. It's run by CERN. But people can upload data there and it gets permanently archived. And then you can refer to this, you can cite it. You don't have to worry about storing it yourself. Things like that. And what we will do is we will connect GitHub to this. So basically Zenodo has GitHub integration. So whenever you go to Zenodo, you can tell it, okay, you can log in with, well, log in with GitHub and it requests permission to connect there so we can authorize. Firefox is managing the passwords. AM, multi-factor authentication. Yes. Okay. And here we are. So we, this is making the account on Zenodo, complete registration, or whatever. Yeah. This is for the sandbox. So, yeah. Yes. So we wouldn't want to do a demo for a course using primary Zenodo because it's permanently archived but this sandbox.zenodo.org is just for testing purposes and teaching. So okay. As you can see in the recent uploads, big stuff for more downloading. So yeah. Yeah. Okay. So if we go to the three line menu at the top right, there's GitHub down below. That's it. So we choose our repository, which would be binder demo. We would flip this to on and it goes and tells GitHub to set up this repository. Okay. And now that's all we need to do on the binder side. Can we go check binder? Okay. That's still built. Still running. And I really wonder why this is taking, actually I bet it's because we gave it these exact requirements. So maybe it's actually taking a long time to figure out what packages are even compatible with pandas 1.2.3 and map potlub 3.4.2. Possible. Actually, but actually, well, it's building the wheel. So it does know what it wants. So it's not at that stage anymore. So is it compiling pandas or something? Yeah. Anyway, we don't know. Okay. So let's go back to GitHub. So here we are. And now in order to make this code appear on GitHub, we have to do what's called a release. So if you look on the right side under releases, there's create a new release and we would, our first release, we need to choose, yeah. Yeah. There's a good question. How big of data sets can be shared on the Zodosanodo? And the default limit is 50, but I have a feeling that if you ask, they can allow more. It is the default has to be small because otherwise it gets filled up with random stuff. Okay. So we can choose a tag towards the top. We would do create a new tag. We have to push the plus button. Yeah. Okay. There we go. First release, we can do publish release. Okay. So it has this archive here. It has a zip file and tar.gz of the stuff. And if we go to Zodosanodo again, and let's see, if you click on profile, maybe. Nope. You go to, yep. Maybe click there. We have a DOI for this. So after your first release, the DOI batch that you conclude and get up right, we will appear next to your repository below. So this is our badge. Yeah. Do you want to add this to there? We can copy this. Which is a bit funny that we do a release. And then at the Zodosanodo batch, which is kind of, yeah, okay. So we are changing the release. But yeah. I mean, the release has the Zodosanodo thing in there. So anyway. Okay. So let's click there. Maybe open in new tab. This works. So we see here on Zodosanodo, the sandbox, we see the thing. We see the files that were there. We can download it. We see the citation for it. We can see it can track different versions when we make more releases. This actually looks a bit more organized than it looked when I was checking before. Anyway. That's the citation. Do you know if this citation updates if you have multiple contributors? Oh, that's a good question. I don't know. Maybe someone can answer in the notes or someone else can join for our wrap up. Or someone wants to make a pull request for. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Has binder finished building yet? One second. Binder. Building wheels for map one. Okay. So I guess it really is just. It's low today. I also remember that this used to be faster. So I'd propose we go back to our notes and we can have a final discussion of today. I will switch to my notes screened again. And if you see this is built, we can switch back to it. Okay. Here we are. So yeah. We've got plenty of time for a wrap up today. So what would you all like to discuss? Is there any news for day four before people start leaving? So I think we go back to... So there is one thing which uses the command line and this other environment a little bit more. But there are two things which can purely be done in JupyterLab. Oh, hello, Simo. So it's worth coming. I heard about signal basically with the requirements thing. So what I think is happening is that because you see that it's building wheels, it means that it didn't find the correct versions of mudplot leap straight up from PIP. So it starts to build it itself from source code. And because the version numbers, I think they are locked down to a previous version. So because you're running like, it's probably running most recent Python, Python 3.12 or something. And because you have all the version, it probably has to rebuild it from scratch. So that might be the reason why you're encountering this. So essentially what it means is we need to update the... The requirements. The versions that we want there or we just remove the version requirements. But now it seems to be finishing so maybe you don't want to do it at this point. But yeah, this is the kind of stuff. Like if you see something like building wheel, it might be a situation where it's like, it actually is doing something from a source code instead of installing from PIP. But yeah, like... So we're showing Thomas' screen again and it's pushing and oh, look, it... Starts the chipture. It just started. Yeah, there we go. And we see along the side, there is the plotting notebook. So I guess Thomas can click that to open it and then probably run it. And there we go, yeah. So and... Do you want to try the thing without... If you... Okay, like stack requirements, what happens? Yeah, well, we can try that later on. Yeah, we can try it later. I think we should do wrap up. Yeah, but yeah, I agree that is very like...


All schools within Education District 8 gathered on Tuesday, February 21st to celebrate the accomplishments of each school and reflect on the efforts of students and staff who had made great strides in the last year in academia, sports, or otherwise. District Education Officer for District 8, Joel Shalmine, says everyone was brought together in church to give thanks of the highest order and give praise for the immaculate performance of District 8. Today we have come together as a district to celebrate the anniversary of St. Lucia's independence and you will see students bringing, exhibiting their patriotism through song, drama, dance, poetry, and every other art form. And we have been anticipating this day for a very long time. A lot of preparation went into this event, this activity, and we're just hoping that it will be very successful. Member of Parliament for Souffre-François-Jacques Emma Hippolit explains that it is important to celebrate the achievements of the youth as Souffre and District 8 have been excelling in all pursuits. As you realize, it is extremely important for us to focus on our young children because it's our independence, it's our nationhood, and we felt as a government that we had to focus on our young people because they are here today and they are our tomorrow. And consequently, we wanted to get them to understand what it means to be a Saint Luciaan, what it means to have pride in our country and who we are as a people. And we believe this year we've really nailed it. Hippolit went on to explain that the theme for independence 2023 was demonstrated throughout Souffre in every activity which took place. And you saw both Saturday where we had the relay and Sunday where all the people from all communities came together to support their fleet. And what a joy it was to see the camaraderie and the unity. And that is what we always say, that is why the theme is so important, and that is to build unity because it is only when we are together as a nation, as a people, as a family, that we are stronger. And as a government, that is what we wanted to show and I feel we are achieving this. During the annual independence rally, awards were given in five categories inclusive of academic awards, science awards, sports awards, corporate sponsors awards, and recognition of service awards for retirees. From Souffre FM, I am Genieve Gonzague.


Michigan, under Governor Snyder's leadership, has just changed the way that they provide revenue sharing to local governments. Used to be kind of a formula-based system with minor adjustments each year. They've changed that now to use revenue sharing as incentive funds in an attempt to foster local government reform. They are attempting to foster local reform in a number of ways. The first focus is on accountability and transparency, hoping to boost accountability at the local level. And they're doing this by having local governments create what are called performance dashboards. These present indicators of key aspects of local government performance, and they place these things on their website and make it very easy for citizens to find information. These performance dashboards cover a pretty wide variety of aspects of local government. They get at issues like fiscal stability, so tracking indicators such as the general fund expenditures per capita, or debt load per capita. They get at aspects of public safety, so violent crimes per capita, or property crimes per capita. And they get at aspects of quality of life, so they track things like the number of acres of parkland. Our most recent survey, and we survey local leaders across the state from all county cities, townships, and villages, our most recent survey looked at their views on this innovative policy reform. And what we find is that the reforms are working, at least at their most immediate goal, which is having local governments adopt dashboards. So only some local governments are eligible for the state funding, and 90% of those local governments have adopted dashboards. Among the other group of local governments, those who are not eligible, only 26% have. Despite the fact that 90% of these jurisdictions are adopting dashboards, most local leaders don't have much faith that they're really going to make much of a difference. Not in terms of accountability and transparency, or in their ability to benchmark against other jurisdictions, or even to improve their overall performance.


We wanted to wrap up this NFL free agency podcast by kind of doing a little bit of research ourselves and asking the fun question who is the most underrated free agent signing in 2020. So it could be the most underrated. If you can't think of that right now, maybe someone that isn't underrated, maybe not the most underrated, but someone that people are sleeping on, who do you feel like that player is? I think it's Melvin Gordon. Interesting. I think it's Melvin Gordon. Really? I think it's Melvin Gordon because they're going with Drew Lock, a young guy, they got Melvin Gordon. I think Drew Lock's going to benefit from that. I think Drew Lock's kind of in a similar situation that kind of Tom Brady was in New England in the beginning of his career where he had Corey Dohan to run the football. I feel like I feel like Melvin Gordon is going to ball out. I feel like he's got something to prove and he's playing. I feel like he moved to the division for a reason. I feel like he needs to stick it to the chargers for not paying. He moved to the division, took a pay cut. There's a reason for it. So I think Melvin Gordon is going to ball out. Honestly, I don't know. It feels like him and him and Gurley both kind of have something to really prove. So I think Melvin Gordon is interesting on Denver. Does that Denver defense, dude? It's going to be nice. Yeah, no. I'm excited about Todd Gurley as a Falcons fan personally. We'll see if that arthritis, whatever he has in his knee, is going to slow him down. Man, it's interesting that you're talking about running backs because I actually have a running back in mind. It may not be the most underrated. I feel like the most underrated probably at this point, maybe like some offensive linemen because they're a very underrated position. But I feel like the most underrated signing that nobody really is talking about, Jordan Howard for the Miami Dolphins.   He's a three down back. He can win you games. He can rush for over a hundred yards. He proved it in Philadelphia. He proved it in Chicago as well. Even with that year that he was, I feel like Terry Cohen was coming onto the scene in 2018. People were saying, well, Jordan Howard is now, not Jordan Howard. He's not a coward. Jordan Howard is now just falling off and that's why the Bears got rid of him. That's not the case. He's still talented. He was talented in high school, talented when he was at UAB and he's still talented to this day with the Miami Dolphin signing a two year, $10 million contract. You know who else signed a two year, $10 million contract and free agency last year? Who? Another running back, Tevin Coleman. He took a pay cut going to San Francisco and bawled out, had that four touchdown game against Carolina. Obviously, where he most or was the starting running back at that point later on in the season, but it helped the San Francisco 49ers get to the Super Bowl. So he's never had a season, Jordan Howard at least, never had a season with less than seven touchdowns that's receiving and rushing combined. The Dolphins are adding defensive pieces with Byron Jones and other defensive pieces as well. So this defense is going to get better. It's going to stop the ball. It's going to force teams to pun it more. So the Dolphins aren't going to be out of the game with the leading rusher being Ryan Fitzpatrick. It's not going to be Caleb Belage. It's not going to be Patrick Laird. It's going to be Jordan Howard running the ball with the defense stopping the ball. They're not going to be behind in games. They're not going to pass it all the time. They're going to run the ball, hopefully run out the clock when they're rushing or they're winning the game. With Ryan Fitzpatrick. You know, with Ryan Fitzpatrick, who knows? Maybe Tua as well.


Everybody Matt here for late in sports car drip and one box of 2023 Panini three and two baseball. This is for Luke S luck Luke Cassis to 150 Carl Yastrimsky To 150 and George Brett to 99. It is quad patches to 10 Yeah, Drew Gilbert It's all black. I can't see it Yeah, I get why they did that and on the back lone star patch auto 15 of 15 Drew Jones There you go. Congrats Luke Lone Star patch auto good stuff. That'll do it for your box. Grats on the drew appreciate it Luke We'll get those right out to you


Welcome on behalf of Welsh Government and the Climate Group to the business of becoming a sustainable nation, our Green Growth Forum. I think what we're seeing here today is the ability for states and regions to come together as a collective to see what we can do to deliver on the agreement. And we're seeing already the learning of best practice from across the globe and our sharing of best practice from here in Wales. What we see at the Climate Group is the sub-national level of government. There's a greater opportunity for flexible policy making that really responds to business needs. State and regional governments are key players in driving delivery of the Paris Agreement. They are often responsible for the development and implementations of laws, policies, strategies, standards, programs and fiscal mechanisms in areas that directly influence greenhouse gases emissions levels and deal with the impacts of climate change. What we really should be doing is thinking over the medium term and indeed over the next two years to build a coalition of countries that are prepared to push this into the international trading system because that is the only place where you can actually legally enforce a commitment to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and therefore make a real contribution to climate change. State and regional governments working with businesses is key to dealing with climate change. If they don't work together we have a much lower chance of confronting climate change and making progress. Over the past 20 years we've seen various sub-national governments innovate, position themselves at the forefront of the fight against climate change and it's our duty today to continue our efforts to transition to a green economy that strikes a balance between environmental protection, economic development and whose long term benefits will be substantial. Governments need to be working very closely with business community. Business communities are just as important as state and regional governments but state and regional governments need to hold it all together and ensure that the overall approach is consistent and properly shared. So from a business perspective, business in general and very specifically the food and drink manufacturing sector are particularly exposed to climate change so it's imperative that we understand and mitigate our impacts on the natural environment. BT is 100% powered by renewable energy. We've taken a full value chain approach to actually stepping up to the plate so it's not just about our own operations, we want to bring our suppliers with us. Governments and private sector working in partnership is absolutely fundamental to this. There is no option, it's quite simple. Cymru, mae'n hanfodol yn bod ni'n gwythio tegat, ddyfodol mwy gwerth a galluogi i'n gwasanaethau gallu i'r hannu drwy ffordd sydd ym yn gwneud ni wedi'n amgylchydd. Without partnership, there can be no green gross. It's only through working together that we can achieve our vision. Business being able to actually stand next to government and say the business case is clear, the science is proven, we're ready to actually deliver behind you. So I think that partnership between government, industry, the academic institutions within Wales are key to providing that sustainability in the future. I wish that more collaboration, more platforms are created for that between business and government. Wales is a great place for sustainable business. Cymru'n lle gwych i gwmniad o datgygiliaeth a gwmniawyddio hefo'i gilydd i greu busnes sydd yn barod ar gyfer y dyfodol. I'm certain that Quebec and Wales will work together to move things forward. This unique event has allowed us to start the conversation on delivery between businesses, states and regions and develop the relationships that will be key for the future of green growth and the ambitions to become a reality in the future. Diolch yn fawr i chi. Thank you very much indeed.


I'm here with Charles Allen, CEO of Blockchain Technology and Consumer Solutions. How are you tonight, Charles? I'm good. Thanks, Jim. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So for our viewers, could you please explain in layman's terms what BTCS does? Sure. So BTCS, we're involved in really three things at the moment. The first is our blockchain infrastructure solutions business. And basically what we do there is we secure proof of stake blockchains. And just to take a step back, blockchains are decentralized ledgers. Think about it like a database or Excel spreadsheet. It's maintained over a network of distributed computers that all have to agree on a consensus of the transaction. And I know that's a lot to kind of grasp, which is think about you can send a digital asset from one person to another without a trusted third party because it's verified by a network of computers or nodes. The biggest one is Bitcoin's blockchain and Bitcoin's obviously a digital asset that can move across that blockchain. We secure Ethereum's 2.0 blockchain network, which is a proof of stake consensus that's slightly different. It doesn't involve mining machines, but we've basically taken at this point 15 million of our own Ethereum or 7,680 tokens locked it up onto Ethereum's beacon chain and our processing and validating transactions on that blockchain. And earning revenue in the form of newly issued or transaction fees for processing those transactions. So that's our kind of one of the businesses. We're also building a platform to expand that so others could do it through us. The other project that we're working on is a data analytics platform, which allows people to basically connect multiple exchanges through a read only API and see all their their trades their performance metrics equivalent of a sharpie ratio and then follow other other traders. And then the last component, the third piece that we're working on is just a, you know, having a digital treasury asset of multiple cryptocurrencies. Right now we have Bitcoin and Ethereum, but we plan to expand beyond that. Okay. Thank you. What percentage of your clients are institutional investors versus retail investors right now. So we actually have I think it's a lot of retail investors I'd say north of about 35,000 I think it's maybe 38,000 retail investors as far as institutions, it's hard to tell knowns reported owning over 5% yet, but in our last. We did a $9.5 million financing a dollar share back in an early March and that was for, you know, institutional investors to, you know, for, you know, funds that came in so apart from those I can't. Yeah, I can't really speak it's all it's primarily retail investors. So are they staking with you right now or how are they investing. So, for most for those the investors I just mentioned that the retail holders institutions. They're just buying our stock in the, you know, either the open market or with the financing did they purchased it through a, you know, an offering by the company. With respect to our staking as a service platform that's something we're building so we haven't actually opened that up to the public yet we literally just engaged we engage the firm called launch nodes to help us build out that platform. So that's a product we're building our thought process is one, hey, you know, let's let's stick for an account. Make sure we get good at it and as we do that, you know, expand to staking other other proof of stake block chains, and then expand into, you know, offering a service in a non custodial fashion where, you know, I would think that more that would be more like users or consumers could stake their, you know, their crypto through us as opposed to, you know, going to other alternative solutions like a coin base or a crack in. So you are us publicly traded company. And what advantages does that would that give you when you do start to stake over, possibly going to an exchange or some other type of staking platform. Well I think they're going to be two advantages I mean, right now if you stick. If you stick through an exchange like a coin base or a crack and it's a custodial solution, they control your private keys. You know they are effectively holding your money. They're pretty high fees to me coin base is 25% of the reward crack and 15% you kind of have to really have to read the terms of service to find that out. You know I anticipate will be a lower cost, but we're also going to be non custodial so we're not going to take your funds which would basically limit us to certain block chains, where you can basically run a pool and others can delegate to that pool, where they actually take their money. It's via a smart contract so you know I think is a US is a US public company with clear disclosure I think people would hopefully be more comfortable, you know staking or delegating to our effectively a pool, especially if we can offer a very easy platform right to take the technical difficulties out of it they can come to our platform in one place and figure out how to do it, and then monitor those, those holdings through that that one portal. I think that would be attractive to users right the credibility of being a public company, especially if we can you know get up to the NASDAQ. You know we think that'd be attractive compared to really the private competitors I think you know the custodial solutions the coin bases and the crack and it'll be hard to compete with them in terms of you know brand and recognition. What are some of the costs associated with staking what are the risks, and what are some of the risks or costs reduced or eliminated by BTCS you kind of talked about that as being a publicly traded company, and can you get into the aspect of regulation decentralization. That's that's a pretty common theme for our videos, and some of the advantages, possibly of being US publicly traded company but also the fact that you also might be regulated so it might be more secure, versus not being as decentralized. Yeah, so you touched on a couple things I think that on the first you mentioned cost. Right, so, you know the cost is staking is very different than mining. So most of us public companies right now are mining Bitcoin. That's like the main theme. Hey you want to go public just go mind Bitcoin right, like what's that public company do they mind Bitcoin right there's I think 10, you know NASDAQ listed companies most of reminding Bitcoin except for one or two. Same for, you know the bulletin board a lot of them are doing the same thing. And then in Canada there's a lot of mining companies as well, with, you know, a little bit more variety up there in terms of what what companies are doing within this space so from a cost perspective. And what we're doing in terms of securing a theorems 2.0 network which is proof of state compared to proof of work one, you know, we think proof of stake algorithms are consensus algorithms are much more environmentally friendly. If you can get the same security on a blockchain, without having to expend all that, you know, electricity and carbon emissions to do that, as well as you know manufacturing the equipment to do that is just a better solution if you get the same security you don't need to pay for the additional layer of security because it's really not there so from from that perspective the cost is much lower. Right our cost to mine a theorem is really the cost to run our, you know, virtual machines on Amazon Web Services. It's a lot more technical in terms of you know getting the code up and running making sure that the servers keep running. But it's, it's definitely less. You know, intense in terms of you know buying physical hardware running data centers and eating up electricity so we think it's a much greener solution. And so, you know, also going to the cost. The nice thing about, you know, right now we stake a theorem. If everyone else wants to come and stake a theorem they're going to drive, hopefully the price of the theorem. And our revenue will be down because it'll be a smaller participant in the network, but the value of our underlying assets should go up. If you're mining Bitcoin, you know unless you're you time it right you need to make enough money to pay for the machines but a computer, anyway you cut it is a depreciating asset which at some points going to break. Right so Bitcoin mining machines last, you know, 18 months maybe two years if you're lucky they're going to start having issues after a year. So I think from a cost perspective our model as much. It's a much more attractive model, we're getting an appreciating asset versus depreciating asset, and hopefully that'll increase in value in addition to the revenue we generate by running nodes to secure the network so I think that that you see any of that savings going on to possibly the investor with a proof of stake model where it might be a cheaper gas fees. Oh look, and that's a great question so gas fees have kind of gone through the roof. Right. You know, whether that's driven by, you know, defy or NFTs or a combination of the both, or interest in an Ethereum, you know I think the, you know the solution is really moving to the theorems 2.0.  So there's a lot of risks and you know when and how that will happen right. I don't have a crystal ball I don't know exactly how it's going to play out. There are a couple ways it could right it could just be in the change merge and boom we're done and we're off to the races and it's sailing. It could theoretically end up in like a hard fork where, you know, maybe it's the, you know, the miners the guys that are running the GPU say we don't really want to do this and you basically have a fork and you have the old Ethereum you have the new Ethereum and then the new Ethereum. And hopefully it's a better, it's a better mechanism to, you know, to proof of stake first proof of work. It has, you know, faster, you know, lower gas fees, you know faster transaction times in more applications can be built on top of it because it's a more robust solution. That's kind of my hope, I mean hopefully we just, you know, merge the thing together right versus a forking but if that happens, I assume that the token will just get quoted, right it may have some accounting implications for us, right in terms of where we value it. Right, be the new token versus the old one if it actually if it goes down that path but yeah there's there's definitely some risks there I think from a regulatory standpoint because you touched on that.  You know, for our business, our goals to be regulatory light on the operation side, meaning I don't want to be a custodial provider I don't want to take other people's money if you're operating like an exchange you have to register within Senate can be very expensive. Or then you have to basically be a bank, right so I don't really want to do that. You know, you're, you're the companies that have done that have raised a substantial amount of money. 100 million 200 million just huge rounds which I don't really see a need I see there's a great opportunity to provide non custodial solutions where people should be holding their own cryptocurrencies, not putting it in a centralized place where we can provide a solution that's actually kind of along the intent of what what crypto is supposed to do which is be kind of, you know, having having free money right where you don't have to put it all in the bank. That's where the goal of crypto is supposed to be going and what's really happened is now it was just piled into exchanges because I mean frankly when you start to get to a lot of money gets pretty scary. Right, like how do you secure it like where do you put it, you know, it's transactions are irreversible you know if you have $10 million in crypto and someone steals it like well, what do you do now right. It's not like if you have 10 million to the bank I mean grand your FDIC is only going to be well it's 250 grand but still it's pretty secure right like I didn't some chase get robbed anytime soon. Another issue but but your point is very well taken. I'm going to turn the page just for our viewers. I can talk about which that aspect all night but let me let me turn the page a little bit do you do Cardano polka dot or other smart contract plan for platforms pose a threat to you moving forward did you see them possibly being something you're going to get into. Definitely not a threat. I think there's something we're going to get into. If you look at our most recent presentation where you know my focus is really on. You know I want my cake and eat it too and what I mean by that is, you know, Bitcoin is a great proof of concept and it's a great digital asset store of value. Especially with like monetary basement but it's really hard to build anything on top of Bitcoin right like you're not seeing smart contract based solutions get built on top of Bitcoin you're not seeing NFTs on top of Bitcoin you're not seeing defy. It's just it does one thing it's a store of value right the digital store of value which is great. But I'm, you know, and we only five million Bitcoin don't remember mom we're not, we're not, you know, abandoning it, but my thought is I think there's a lot more value creation if, if you can have a digital asset which is a store of value, which is effectively owning a piece of like, you know, Web 3.0, right at the protocol layer, where, you know, all these solutions will get built on top of it if you can own that, and have it, you know that that inflationary hedge at the same time that's great. Whether that's a theorem or polka dot or Cardano or Tezos or Algorand or, I mean I can go down the list. We're very interested so my thought is, if you if you look at Web 3.0 what it's going to be built on top of it can be built on top of blockchain based technologies so you know whether maybe that's like it's like a tree with lots of branches, right. And the branches are all the apps that are going to get built on top of that underlying technology well there may be a better one that that that serves maybe NFTs better than defy or something else. So my view would be like well why do I want to bet just one and put you know all my eggs in one basket, I really want to be betting the underlying technology of Web 3.0 and in blockchain and if I can do a couple of these. That's our goal right so I would not even even though right now we're basically you know all in on or you know 15 million of our you know 23 million and assets are in a theorem speaking chain we're definitely looking to expand into, you know polka dot Cardano Tezos, Algorand. I mean I go down the list we basically what we did is evaluate them right so we have three buckets right what's the quality of the token in the blockchain, both in terms of market cap liquidity in terms of we get in and out of something. What's the quality of the technology like what's what's the use cases the usability that's kind of bucket one to is how much money can we make, you know, getting in there and securing it and then the third is how difficult is that to do. You know, and there may be certain blockchains we want to secure where we can't offer it as a solution to customers the theorems kind of that example like, there's no way to really offer a. A theorem to users to come in and stay through us it's very difficult, at least today and the reason I say that is there's no way with others like Cardano you can basically run a pool. Where I think we would have an advantage that hey we're a public company you can trust us come delegate to our pool non custodial.  You know, the theory you can't really do that you have to run a note and it's 32 E. There are ways to do it, but then you start to kind of run into regulatory complexities right we're going to slice it up and issue some other token that represents their ownership. You know, all of a sudden you you start to be like a security issue or act like an exchange so our focus is much more on the regulatory light. And what we would do that we would offer and a stake into the service platform be much more, you know, the ones that are kind of designed to allow us to do that and then ones where we like to token but maybe difficult to run up, you know, a pool and leverage using other people's money without actually taking it. I think just do for an account and Ethereum kind of falls into that bucket. With that, I just know our viewers would like to probably hear your opinion on this and of just a quick answers of the other smart contract platforms that you've looked into. At this point, whether it be polka dot Cardano of Tezos some of the other ones, what algorithm what what ones do you do you see because of the technology that's involved. Moving forward, do you see might have a future. That's a hard question to answer. Right. And the reality is I don't, I don't, I don't have a crystal ball so I don't know. Right. It's a best guess. And what I mean by that you see like, you could have the best technology doesn't always win. Right. And that's kind of why when I said earlier, like, you know, I think Ethereum's one that's going to survive. Maybe it doesn't. I don't know. Right. I, you know, for me to say, hey, Ethereum's going to be here forever. Like, I just don't know. I mean, and a great example of that and this is dating myself a bit is, I remember I used to watch movies on VHS. Right. Well, you know, it was better than VHS was beta max for the people that remember that beta it was smaller it was a smaller tape. It was like the same. It was just better. Right. In every single way but it lost out for marketing. Right.  It's going to be a bit of a marketing effort and it's going to be a bit of who builds on that blockchain like the more applications built on that blockchain the more successful it's going to be. So, you know, and I think we're still in pretty early days right now, like there hasn't been any truly killer apps that have been built on blockchains. It's all just been everything's been hyped today. Right. I mean, I know there's stuff actually happening in Define NFTs are happening but like NFTs are extremely risky. Right. In terms of securing the assets and you've got a record on the blockchain but like what actually happens in terms of custody. So I think from a use case perspective, we're just starting to see that development. I know to really answer your question but and the ones I do like to poke it out. That's new, right. Very fair answer and it is very difficult. I just wondered if there was one that's piqued your interest just because a lot of my interest right. The ones I mentioned are the ones that piqued my interest. There's a lot of others I mean we went through we went through all of them right we have a list of all of the you know all the proof of stake tokens we basically went through, you know, all every single token that's proof of stake looked at it and analyzed it. And, you know, we eliminated the ones that were smaller right I think if it's something's trading like a Cardano that's not pretty big. I'm interested hopefully it gets adopted. But again, I mean, we'll see, you know, my goal would be to not try to pick a winner, right, and, and just basically take pick a couple that we think have the most probability of success and even that is, you know, the next player up is like hey let me get the application let me pick the winning app and invest in that company that does that thing on top is like now that's like, that's like, it's a big deal right like it's a 1000 shot and having been in this space since with 2014 I've seen so many companies go out of business. So many startups that have the next great thing with the hockey stick, you know, revenue curve and where are they today they're going right their pets dot com. So it sounds like diversification to me, and I think that's probably what most investors do in the crypto space they don't put their eggs in one basket for them makes a lot of difference. What are some of the visions you see for btcs moving forward mergers growth, NASDAQ people that you might be adding anything. Where do you see yourself moving forward. So, I think in the short run, you know, my goal has been, you know, let's get to the NASDAQ. In order to do that there are a couple things that need to happen the first was we needed to get an independent board, a majority of our board members to be independent, we need to step up our corporate governance. So, at the, on April 1 we appointed Charlie Lee who's the creator of like point. He joined the board as an independent director, former point point base engineer. And then we also added Carol Vain Klee she's you know very prominent lawyer within the blockchain space and now we have a fully independent board in addition to David Garrity who was formerly the CFO of interclick and as that company so you know that was kind of fate you know phase one. Now we've basically met the requirements to up list in the NASDAQ. We do need to have a $4 stock price but that's like a no brainer I mean if either it's going to get the organically or we'll just do a reverse split as much as I hate to do a reverse split to get on the NASDAQ is, you know, well worth it right I think if we get if we do it. And we get there the valuation gaps in terms of what companies trade for and investor universe is a huge jump. So that's kind of one, in terms of hires the next hires the CFO and currently the CEO and the CFO. And then after that really just just kind of building the team so that's kind of the very short run. And then we'll be against the NASDAQ to which is coming up, or actually we're in right so, you know, we're, you know, that's really, that is a sure goal. Yeah, so, I mean if you look at what we've done in the first quarter we, we raise $9.5 million in that we were the first public company to file it's 10k. If I'll $100 million shelf to other registration statements, got our proxy out and got the vote done in January 31. So all bang that you one added the board on, you know, hired to software development firms to push our platforms forward.  You know, it's hard to say I mean crypto changes a lot right like like a year and cryptos like two years and most other industries are three years so I think you know, you know, we'll evaluate it there are areas that are of interest to me. I don't know, like for example I think NFTs are really interesting. It's kind of something that's been all over the news I think on those it's something that's kind of overlooked and that NFTs are like the first, it's like the first digits it's like the first application that where there hasn't been an incumbent player. Right, like, you know, you have overstock trying to put through their T zero platform and if anyone's familiar with that but basically they're trying to digitize stocks you can trade them on a blockchain. Well, the main stock trader there is the T zero preferred stock, right, which trades at a discount to the common price on their platform but it has all the same rights and it gets a dividend so it's like well that doesn't make any sense right so the issue is you have incumbent players you have hard systems to change with the NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchange they don't want to give it up. So these are kind of interesting that there is the art market doesn't have a digital, you know marketplace yet it doesn't exist right. It's the same in the internet the internet, like there was nothing there to compete with it you were competing against newspapers and magazines and mailings I mean it just, it didn't exist so it's a free from yeah a lot of companies failed, but a lot of companies got to figure out how to build new business models and new things so I think with with blockchain technology a lot of really good solutions already exist right the internet basically digitized and allowed for the global sharing of information. Blockchains allow for the, you know digitization of assets and the global sharing of assets without a trusted third party, but there's a lot of good centralized systems out there that were and aren't going to like give up without a fight so I think when I look at this like the first place where there is no incumbent player, and I think just a high level when I look at solutions that can get built on blockchains. One's where there aren't entrenched incumbent players that don't want things to change or just adopt adopt the technology themselves are the most interesting and idea like I want to be securing the blockchains on which those solutions are built, because those will drive value to the under underline protocol so that's kind of my, you know, for the future, I'd like to see more things built on, you know the blockchains that we either secure plan to secure. Sounds outstanding.  Most of the people that are watching this video are retail investors that are interested in VTCS. So, what could you say, you've done an outstanding job of explaining your company, and all of the areas it's into, and that you're publicly traded and. But what what would you say would be the biggest reason to invest with your company. Well, I think, you know, if you're interested in, you know, blockchain technologies, digital assets. And you want to invest in let's say, and you want to do that through the stock market you have a couple options right I mean there's maybe 10 companies on the NASDAQ 30 and Canada and like, you know, 30 I think there's 13 on the bulletin board so of those options. I think we're unique. We're the only ones right now, apart from I guess point base because they're offer also offering staking but they're a different, you know, they're different animal. When you look in the smaller cap companies, we, you know, we're the only ones doing proof of stake, where the only ones looking to really with this business model most others are mining Bitcoin. And I think we're unique playing that we're looking at, you know, proof of stake greener block, you know, proof of stake consensus net networks which are much greener, you know, in our mind much more interesting so I think you've got a unique technology angle there of what we're going after. And then on top of that I mean honestly we're just a value play right now. So if you and we just put our pre our corporate presentation today and, you know it's very rare that you can look at a, you know, a public company, like a growth and look at it as a value plan what I mean by that is, you know, we just announced we have, you know, 20 million in crypto and 3 million in cash as of March 31. Now Bitcoin's down a little bit but Ethereum's up and it's more heavily weighted towards Ethereum. I mean that puts us and I'm just I'm kind of curious right now I think we're, you know, compared to our public peers, you know, on the on the OTC, we're like a 2.1 times price to cash, even if you include the preferred which is, you know, owned by management like a 4x, and we're, you know, a 3.3 times, you know, price to book, usually don't look at growth companies on these like price to book and if you look at some of the other peers on the on the bulletin board.  And so we're expecting at least, you know, over a million in revenue for this year and grand that's low but, you know, we're growing. And so I look at it as, you know, right now we're still on the bulletin board, compared to a lot of our peers and if you look at our deck, most of the requirements to get to the price, which we can, as much as I don't like doing it, we can reverse to get it so, you know, we're kind of a growth company trading a value play multiple, which I think is pretty unique in like even compared to the nasdaq peers, you know, we're a discount to them so we're probably right now the cheapest crypto play, if you're interested in the market, at least compared to if you want to use those metrics right obviously, you know, you can look at, you know, we've had some investors say hey well you should just trade it, you know, you're, you're tangible or you're cash and crypto you should just trade at that. And that gives zero value to everything we're building, right, or the revenue from our operations which we now have so you know I kind of look at it as, you know, we're in a pretty pretty unique place where I think got the best probability of most of our companies of uplifting in the, you know, very, you know, very near future. And we've got it just a, you know, a huge balance sheet for compared to the OTC pairs right, even bigger than a lot of the nasdaq companies so, you know, from that perspective I think it's pretty interesting. Blockchain technology consumer solutions CEO Charles Allen outstanding discussion. And I think you gave us a great look into your company and, and I think you gave our investors just an outstanding perspective so I thank you for your time. And I hope to talk to you at another point. Yeah, Jim, thanks so much for having me I really appreciate it. And one thing I just I just want to add is, you know, you know, we haven't paid for this interview where we haven't issued, you know, any shares this is, you know, I think it's very important investors know that that, you know, that we're disclosing everything appropriately so I just I just thought I'd mention that because I don't that hadn't been mentioned in the past. outstanding. Thank you, Charles. All right. Thanks so much. Take care, Jim. Take care.


This is Suval, a vibrant industrial town in our south of Lisbon. With its chemical industries, car manufacturers and docks, it is Portugal's busiest port. It is also the setting of one of the country's most successful labour disputes. The Stavador strike of 2018, which saw precariously employed dockers bring the port to a standstill for nearly 40 days. In December, an agreement between Port Authorities and the Stavador's Union meant that 56 of the striking workers got taken into permanent contracts. And for the many still working under precarious conditions, there is hope of better contracts in the future. The future is coming and in that future we hope the remaining colleagues that were left without a permanent contract will soon sign one. But their hard-won victory is young and Brexit could place surprising extra pressures on the Stavador's and their struggle. That's because the port of Stubal is a site of loading and unloading of cars and car parts from across the European auto industry. Days before the strike ended last December, a reported 21,000 cars from the German maker Volkswagen were stranded in Portugal. The possibility of a no-deal Brexit has seen a series of car makers considering transferring their British factories to remaining EU countries. In Portugal could soon become an ideal destination for manufacturers such as Ford, Honda and Nissan. Stubal Stavador and SEAL union organizer Carla Ribeiro believes that last year's strike and its victory taught her and her colleagues that the struggle is international. After all, this wasn't just a problem in Stavador. After all, this is a worldwide problem. In this world, we are all Stavador's. There isn't such a thing as Portugal and abroad. In this field of work, we all are Stavador's. We make no distinctions between us and others. And while SEAL is ready to fight on, the fates of Stubal Stavador's are now in the hands of Prime Minister Theresa May and her ability to negotiate with Europe.