Today, we're in Acts 13. We're going to look at verses 1 through 13. What I'm going to do, I'm going to take you into verses 1 through 5. Then I'm going to move you into verse 6 and conclude at verse 13. And so, we'll begin here in Acts 13 at verse 1, reading to verse 5, and get into our study. Now, in the church that was at Antioch, there were certain prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Sirene, who had been brought up with Herod, the tetrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, Now separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then having fasted and prayed and laid hands on them, they sent them away. So being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia. And from there, they sailed to Cyprus. And when they arrived in Solomonus, they preached the Word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. They also had John as their assistant. And so, there was an outbreak of persecution as we've studied through the book of Acts, we saw that an outbreak of persecution. And because of the outbreak of persecution, the Gospel had spread out, had come to the city of Antioch. We saw in Acts 1119, those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the Word to no one but Jews only. We know that Antioch was approximately 300 miles northwest of the city of Jerusalem, and that's where this ministry has been taken place as a church in the city of Antioch. And Antioch, as we have seen, was a strong church. And as a strong church, Antioch sent relief to Jerusalem to those who were in need during a famine. Again, we saw that in chapter 11, verses 27 through 30. And so, we're looking at what's taking place in the church of Antioch. So, it says in verse 1, in the church that was at Antioch, there were certain prophets and teachers. And then the names of these prophets and teachers are mentioned. Now, I'm going to give to you a bit of a study on that topic, prophets and teachers. And it's not going to be thorough, but it is going to be enough to give you some information. When you see prophets and teachers in the church, we need to know that prophets and teachers were the ones who gave instruction as well as direction to the church. It would seem that prophets were in a separate category from teachers, because when you look in the book of Ephesians chapter 4, Paul speaks about that. And he says in verse 11, and he gave some to be apostles, prophets, and teachers. And so, they're different, they're like different offices, but you have the prophets and you have the teachers. Now, a teacher is gifted by God to explain and illustrate Scripture. A teacher gives what are called the fundamentals of the faith. But prophets, prophets often give revelation as well as direction. In chapter 11 of Acts, verse 28, we had a prophet by the name of Agbas. And Agbas had prophesied of a famine that would occur. So, I spoke of future events in order to get the church ready and to prepare them for what was about to take place. You'll see him again in chapter 21, verses 10 and 11, where it says, after we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agbas came down from Judea. Coming over to us, he took Paul's belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, the Holy Spirit says, in this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles. And so, you have teachers who explain the fundamentals of the faith and you have prophets who speak concerning direction for the church very often for the future. And so, that's what we have here when it says in verse 1 that there were in Antioch certain prophets and teachers. And so, you have a list of names. I'm not going to again give you a lot of detail about them, but we know Barnabas. Barnabas had been commissioned to minister to believers in Antioch. We have Simeon. It's interesting, but Simeon, it says, who is called Niger. The word Niger is a Latin word for black, so it refers to his color as well as descent. He was more than likely from North Africa. We have Lucius of Cyrene. Cyrene was a city in Libya, again in North Africa. We have Minahin. He's an interesting person in that he was a foster brother of Herod Antipas, who was the tetrarch of Galilee and Pariah, and he was the one who murdered John. And then you have Saul. Now, Barnabas had invited him to come to minister in Antioch, and we saw that again in chapter 11. And so, these are the ones who are mentioned here, but I want to develop something with you in verse 2. I'm going to spend some time looking at this with you today, because for some in here, this may be an important thing for you to hear, and I want to take some time to develop this with you. Again, it says, As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, Now separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Having fasted and prayed, laid hands on them, they sent them away. I want to show you a few things here about planting churches and doing works for the Lord. When it says in verse 2, they ministered to the Lord. The word ministered, as used in this context, is really harkening back to an Old Testament concept. In the Old Testament, when somebody was ministering to the Lord, that spoke of temple service, and so it spoke of pure worship to God. When you're ministering to the Lord, you are worshiping Him and serving Him. So when I was a young believer, actually I was a young pastor, and the then senior pastor and I had a conversation because he had been reading this, and I should put this in context. The senior pastor was 22, and I was 29. Just gives you some insight. So it was like already five years ago. It's amazing. But we were young men. We were learning what the Word of God had to say and how the Word of God instructed us, both of us. And he and I had a conversation on one occasion, and he said, what do you think it means when it says they ministered to the Lord? How do you do that? Since when does God need to be ministered to? Well, the term is an Old Testament priestly concept of full worship and service to God. That gives you some insight into what true Christian service is. It's worship first and foremost to God. It's the worship that you first and foremost have towards God that puts you in a place to be of service to God. You don't really serve God if you're not worshiping God. And you need to understand that because today there are many who think that they're serving God, but they're not worshiping God. So they're busy, and they're busy doing things, and they burn out because their service is not being generated by true worship. That's a very important point because there are a lot of Christians today who are very works-oriented. The more they do, the more they think that they're really serving God. But in fact, they're getting tired and they lose their joy and they become what I call grumpy saints. They've lost the joy. It's not enjoyable any longer. It becomes a burden, and they're always down, and they're always tired, and they're always complaining. It's because they've got it reversed. It's like Martha and Mary, where Martha's are banging those pots and pans in the kitchen, and she's angry because Mary's seated at the feet of Jesus.  And then you know the story. She begins to give orders to Jesus. Tell that woman to get up and help me. You know, that's what you'll do. That's what you will do every time you labor in the flesh. That's what you'll do. You'll begin to be angry at the Lord himself for not giving you relief. And that's why it's so beautiful how the Lord says Martha, Martha. He says it twice. Martha, Martha, you are careful about many things. You're filled with anxiety about a variety of things, but your sister Mary here has chosen the better part. In other words, if you're going to serve me, you first are seated at my feet. When you are seated at my feet, then you're ready to serve me. But trying to serve me without having relationship with me, that's not real worship. That's your efforts. You will get burned out. I've been asked more than once recently. I don't know what some kind of hint or not, but I've been asked, how have you remained faithful to serving the Lord for as long as you have? I'm not. I'm wondering if they're saying, isn't it time to retire? I don't know. But how is it that you have? I've been teaching the word since 1973. That's 44 years. How have you remained serving the Lord without burning out for 44 years? The answer, worship him first. You worship him first and then out of the abundance of relationship, you give to others. And so it's a very important point here because as we're looking at this, they ministered to the Lord. They were worshiping him. And so let me give you a couple of things. One, this reveals that ministry includes all Christians. All Christians are to worship and minister. It's not just a special group of people. Sometimes there are people who go to church and they say, well, the pastor and the paid staff are to do everything. After all, that's why they get paid. It's not a job. It's ministry. And the bottom line is, is we're all called by God to serve him. It's not just one special group. It's the whole body of Christ. Everyone is a minister. We're all equipped for works of service. In 1 Peter chapter two, verses four and five, the apostle said, as you come to him, the living stone rejected by men, but chosen by God and precious to him, you also like living stones are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. So ministry includes all people, not just some people. Second, it reveals that ministry is centered on pleasing and serving God. This is an important point, but can be missed sometimes. Ministry is not simply meeting people's real or felt needs. Ministry will always be an overflow of relationship that one has with the Lord. And then third, ministry is at its core true worship of God, because when real ministry occurs, God receives all credit and God receives all glory. I am the Lord. That is my name and my glory. I will give to no one else, neither my praise to graven images. We have a tendency today of giving praise to the vessels. We have to be careful. It's not that those who serve the Lord in positions of influence ought not to be respected. Of course, there's a respect that you have you honor all men. You give honor to where honors do. Of course, that that's a given, but we have to be careful that we don't elevate people to a position of receiving the credit for the work that God himself did. We have to be careful with that. In the Psalms, in Psalm 115, it says, not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to your name give glory because of your mercy, because of your truth. So not unto us, but unto your name give glory. So all glory in ministry goes to the Lord. And that's a very important thing. So ministry is at its core pure worship to God. And so as we're reading about this, notice again that they were also fasting. When it speaks concerning them fasting, that reveals the serious seeking of the Lord because fasting is normally the abstaining from food for a spiritual purpose. It is really also, when you look at it in the Old Testament, an indication of it's a symbol of mourning. So it's a mourning over sin and a drawing close to God through the repentance. Psalm 35, 13, I put on sackcloth and humbled myself with fasting. And so they were fasting, seeking the Lord. And as they were doing so, preparing as they served him, notice the Holy Spirit said. So now he said, separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work I've called them to. So God's direction comes. It comes through one of the prophets apparently. So that gives us insight into the work of the Holy Spirit in the church. He's giving them direction. And notice what he says, separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. When it says separate, that means to set apart for some purpose. So that gives me insight into how the Holy Spirit works and how he does his ministry. I want you to see a few things here. Again, one, Luke writes that this occurs as they ministered to the Lord. So the call came during a season of worship, prayer and fasting. That's important. Perhaps I have somebody in this room right now who is considering doing a Bible study or planting a church. Surprise. You may be surprised to know that that happens quite often. There are people who will come to Bible studies just like this, perhaps even this one right now who have in their heart a desire to one day plant a church. So let me share with you something in particular that might be of help to you. I would have you note that the direction came as they were ministering to the Lord and fasting. I would show you that the call came during a season of worship and a season of prayer. It did not come through a long strategy session. It did not come through building up a team to go out and do work. It did not come through somebody doing what they today are calling vision casting. It did not come through getting a team together. It did not come through doing a demographic study. You may find this interesting and perhaps you won't let me say it quickly because somebody someday may think it's interesting. I'll put it on the radio. Maybe one person will today. Oh, I might as well talk to you. I'm going to visit with you for a minute. Here we go because I'm kind of hesitating this because in this because I'm thinking I don't want to bore some who are not interested in this, but it's a very real fact and it's something I'm concerned about. So I'm going to share with you a little bit about it because I know that when I do that there is somebody that needs to hear this. So I'm going to say it when we planted this church. It came through the direction of the Holy Spirit. It didn't come through a demographic study of some sort. Where is there a need for a church? Because when we began this church, we actually began the work in Ontario and there were already a number of churches in the city of Ontario. I had to within my own heart rationalize a reason for having a church when you already have several. Why do you need another one? And so the Lord very obviously through his spiritual direction made it possible for us to plant the church. I didn't bring a group of people together and cast vision. That's taking place right now. What do I mean by cast vision?  I'm talking about creating a group of people who are of support for you and then when you gather them together then you do what is called a vision cast where you say this is what I see the Lord wants to do. This is how we're going to accomplish it. These are the four things that I'd like to see. This is my three-year plan. This is my five-year plan. That's called vision casting. You're pouring out to them the things you think in terms of strategies. You don't do a demographic study. You don't look at your city that you're going to and say well it has this demographic population. There is this percentage of white, this percentage of black, this percentage of Hispanic, this percentage of Asian and so you don't do that. What you do is you pray, you seek the Lord, you ask God for direction and when the Spirit says move you move. That's how it works. That's how it works. I did not look at this church when we began this church and say I want to have a church that is made up of this intellectual in terms of education, this financial in terms of finances. I didn't do any of that. I just started a church. Just started a Bible study. Now, I'll go one step further. When the church first began, we'd been going for about a year. We had a couple hundred people or more at that time and had a friend of mine who was more than a friend. He was more of a mentor. He was 20 years plus older than me. His name was Dr. Moore. Dr. Moore was one of my professors at Biola that I had grown very close to. Dr. Moore was over the church planting kind of ministry in terms of the educational system at Biola teaching people how to plant churches. I called Dr. Moore after we'd been going for about a year. His name was George, but I always called him Dr. Moore. I said, I'd like to share with you. I planted a church and he said, how's it going? I said, it's great. He said, let's have lunch. I said, okay. I went to see him. No, I had read seven books on church planting. I knew at that time, we're talking 36 years ago, 35 years ago, I knew the essentials of the model of church planting. I knew it. I had memorized those things. So I went and I met him and we were in the cafeteria and we began to speak and I got my train. He got his and I put the tray down on the table and unloaded the cafeteria food, which is a step below hospital food. And so I put it there and Dr. Moore says to me, David, he said, your church is going, I think it was about 300 at that time. He said, your church is going to 300. I said, yeah, about there. And he goes, tell me how that happened because he did church growth. He taught church growth. So I said, well, and I began to give him the seven principles of church growth. So I said, well, it requires, this is just a moment. I have to get something. This is the truth before the Lord. When he got up and walked away to go get his, his dessert or whatever it is that he had forgotten to get the spirit of the Lord spoke to my heart. By the way, you're reading how the spirit said the spirit said the spirit spoke to my heart and said, if you take credit for this, I will take my hand off of you. I'll never forget that. He talks to me like that all the time. He really does.  He says, now tell me how has this happened? I said, it's all God. It's all God. I said, I have got no clue. No clue. I'm serious. I am totally dead serious. It is, I said, Dr. Moore, it's Jesus. It's Jesus. Lift him up. He draws him into himself. That's the secret. That's it. Just lift him up. You see, because that's what the, I'm careful with that because the Lord is, I believe, I really believe that he would have, he would have taken his hand off us. I really believe that. And, and so I said, nope. I said, it's the Holy Spirit's work. Well, that's how it works. We need to understand that it's the work who does that. It's the spirit who does that. So it doesn't come through the strategy sessions, the team building or anything like that. It doesn't come through doing the demographic studies. It comes from seeking the Lord and worshiping him. And, and, and it wasn't something that they just thought, well, let's give it a try and see what happens. It wasn't something like that at all.  One of the prophets spoke is what had happened. And these were men who were acquainted with the ways of the Lord. These were men who were walking in the Spirit. They knew the voice of the Lord when he spoke. They had that discernment. And so there was something that was presented to them by the leaders of the church and, and the leaders were saying, the Lord is saying, you're to be separated for work that God has called you to. So they were well acquainted with the ways of the Lord. They were not zealous novices. They were not simply hungry to do something for God. They were not presumptuous. They were people who are waiting on the Lord. That's very important. A third thing, the Holy Spirit said separate to me, the body of Christ trusted these men. They trusted that they would be sent out by these men. It was an official act of sending out these missionaries. That's an important thing because if, if you feel you have a call to go and do a work and you want to plant a church and all, it's a good thing to have people who know you and love you that you're accountable to, who can be encouragement to you when you go out and do the work of ministry. That's very important. You know, my, my dear son in the faith, Joe McCharsney is doing a work in Montclair. You know, and you know, Joe is, Joe, Joe is accountable to me as his pastor and as his mentor and as someone who loves him. And, and I, and I, and I will be there for him to help and advise not to be the one who makes the decisions, but to encourage him to know God's voice and these things because I've been there. And that's what you need. You need somebody with that kind of, of capacity and that kind of responsibility. They were sent out by the church. They were recognized by the elders, but their separation to do the work of ministry didn't come from the group of men. It came from God. So their accountability went beyond their accountability to the prophets, the teachers, and even the congregation. Their accountability is firmly planted in the relationship with the Lord who sent them. My own pastor Chuck presented to us something that I think is true and I own myself and that is if a man is not accountable to God, he will never be accountable to any other man. It starts with your accountability to God. When you have an accountability to God, when you fear the Lord, when you want to please him, then you will place yourself in a responsible position of hearing advice from others, but it begins with your relationship with God. And then he says, set him apart for the work. Now that's interesting because the word work there, the work ministry or the work which I have called them is the word Ergon in Greek. It speaks of the labor to which I've called them. And so ministry is work. That is something we know, don't we? Ministry is work. It's not a hobby. It's not a recreation. It's work. And two, he says the work to which I have called them. So God is the one who determines where you go. He says, I have called them. Ministry is not a one man show. Notice he said the work I have called them. It is a team effort. One of the most, I don't know. I don't know what the proper word would be. Something that we need to be aware of and that I'm aware of is this. And again, this is something that those who have a desire to minister, these are things that you can learn. I'm just kind of sharing some things that are out of this passage that are practical to ministers, to be honest with you. But I'll tell you this, the church cannot be built on one man. It can't be. I know the day is going to come and it's really not that far down the road. It's not tomorrow. It's not next year, but it's not that far down the road. When I'm going to hand this ministry over to somebody else, I know that. I'm praying that Jesus comes before that seriously. But one day, one day the Lord's going to say, get out of my way. I'm going to bring somebody else in. And I will not have a sentimental attachment. I will say, God, it's your church. Time for me to move. And I'll tell you one great reason why. Why? Because it's very dangerous when a church has a love for the pastor to the point where they can't receive the word from other people. That's dangerous. You know, it's God's word. If it is God's word, it's rightly divided, then the church can benefit from any anointed teacher, right? That's a bottom line thing. What happens though, and especially in our era, I've seen it to be true, is we have a tendency of elevating the vessel. So if that vessel is not there on a Sunday or a Wednesday or two Sundays in a row, some people won't even go to church because the vessel's not there. That's dangerous. That's dangerous. There was a time here in this church where we were going through that where if I wasn't here, some people didn't show up. I stopped saying I'm not going to be there. I stopped because I didn't want people to come to hear me. I wanted them to come and hear the word. I wanted them to meet with God. But I understand that there's a relationship that a person has with their pastor or that that person speaks to their heart. I understand that, but it's also very dangerous when that person actually becomes the person they need to hear. That's dangerous too. It's God's word. When it's rightly divided and the Holy Spirit is present, we can grow. And I'll tell you, I'm looking forward. I'm looking forward to having Tony Clark here. I'm telling you that because I love the guy, and I know this church will too. And there are a lot of men out there that I think would do a wonderful job of leading this church because it's about Jesus and it's about his word. And that's how it works. And I hope this church always remembers that. I do appreciate, and I'll go on and say this unnecessary as it may be, I do appreciate those of you who love me. I appreciate that a lot more than those of you who hate me. I'm serious. I'd rather be loved than hated any day of the week. But I also know that, and I hope you do too, that the hero of this church is Jesus Christ. I know that too. He is. We have to keep that in mind. I didn't have to say it, but I am. Because as I go through this, this is what I'm seeing here. And this is what I'm sharing because it's really important for us to know that it was a team effort. Jesus sent the disciples out in teams and there are no superstars in the kingdom. It says in verse three, having fasted and prayed and laid hands on them, they sent them away. So that's how they were sent out, prayer and fasting. And then they continued to pray for them as they left. They laid hands on them demonstrating their blessings and blessing their efforts. It also symbolized their unity in the work of the Lord as well as their accountability. And so in verse four, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia. So this was all occurring in a place called Antioch. And Seleucia is the port of Antioch. They sailed for Cyprus. Cyprus is an island in the Mediterranean, just west of Syria and south of Turkey. And it says in verse five, they arrived in Salamis. And so they got salami there. That's where it's from. No. You're seeing if you're listening. Oh, what's that? Oh, the Holy Spirit just exploding. Amazing. They arrived in Salamis. They preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews and they had John as their assistant. A couple of things here. So they had John as their assistant. We have Paul. We have Barnabas. And we have Barnabas's cousin. And his name is John Mark. They're ministering together. Colossians four, 10 tells us that Mark is the cousin of Barnabas. We've been introduced to him in chapter 12. We know that the church met in his mother Mary's house. And in chapter 12, verse 25, it says Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem. When they had fulfilled their ministry, they took with them John, whose surname was Mark. So John was what they referred to as an assistant. Now just touch this very quickly. The word assistant speaks of an under rower, a subordinate rower. It's another word for a servant. It's anyone who serves with their hands, a servant. John had come with them as one who would relieve the load of ministry in a practical way. He may also have come along as one who recorded the events as a scribe. You're going to see him later. I just want to point that out because I want you to notice this. They had John as their assistant. We'll look at him later on. So as this is taking place, we change gears. Verse six, when they had gone through the island to Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew whose name was Bar Jesus, who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man. This man called for Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. But Alamos, the sorcerer, for so his name is translated, withstood them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.  And now indeed the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you shall be blind not seeing the sun for a time. Immediately a dark mist fell on him. He went around seeking someone to lead him by the hand. Then the proconsul believed when he saw what had been done, being astonished at the teaching of the Lord. When Paul and his party set sail from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia. John departing from them returned to Jerusalem. Let's look at this man here, Alamos. I don't know how to really say his name, but I'll call him Alamos. We can call him Al if you'd like. Paphos was a Greek settlement. It was known for a variety of things, including the cult of Aphrodite. Aphrodite was, quote, unquote, the goddess of procreation. She is associated with sex, with love, and so they were very promiscuous. So it was known for the cult of Aphrodite.  The word Bar speaks of son of. So he's called Bar Jesus, but he's also known as Alamos. Alamos is an Arabic word for a wise man. It's also where you can translate the word into magician, magus. And so Alamos is known as a wise man, but in reality what he is is a sorcerer. I want you to notice that Luke doesn't refer to him as a wise man. He speaks of him. Luke says that he is a Jewish sorcerer and a false prophet. That's how he approaches this. He doesn't give him any credibility at all. He identifies him as a sorcerer and a false prophet. He is an apostate Jew. He's in the employ of Sergius Paulus. He's sort of a court magician. He would be one who interprets dreams. He was an occult practitioner, and that is strictly forbidden by God. All you need to do, take the note, Deuteronomy 18, 9 through 15, and you see that in the law that this sorcery is forbidden. So as a Jew, Alamos was acquainted with the Word of God as it pertains to that, and he did not care for it, nor did he heed what God said. He knew that the Bible forbids sorcery, but he could care less about it. Well, somebody says, well, what's wrong with practicing sorcery? I'm a Christian, and if somebody asks me, what's your sign? I'll say Capricorn or whatever. Leo, Virgo, Sagittarius, idiotic. I will call it what we... That reminds me, I always think of this. When I met Marie, she asked me what my sign was. That's the fact. What's your sign? The fish.  I said the ichthus, the sign of the fish, which is a symbol of Christianity. See, I know the Bible teaches us that astrology, sorcery, is forbidden. It's forbidden, and Alamos knew that, too, but it didn't matter to him at all. There are those today, though, who are Christians, who will still put on their Facebook page that they're a Sagittarius and all of that. I've seen it, and so without getting legalistic, it is wrong to do that, and I'll tell you why, because the Bible forbids the practice of astrology and a variety of things that go under the label of occult, card reading, palm reading, what is called psychic entertainment, and when somebody is involved in the occult, the word occult refers to finding the hidden things, and so in this practice of Ouija boards and tarot cards and all, there is an attempt to ascertain information about future events or things that pertain to my life. In Deuteronomy 29-29, the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us, and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. God has information that is His own, and should He choose to reveal it, He does so and would do so through prophets. He would also reveal and does reveal His mind to us through His Word. You see in Daniel 2 verse 22, it says God reveals deep and secret things. He knows what is in the darkness and light dwells with Him. So we are forbidden to try and ascertain the things of the future, etc., through these means, because those are works of the flesh. In Galatians 5 19-21, it says the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contention, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambition, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like. In Revelation 22, 14, and 15, blessed are those who do His commandments that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city, but outside are dogs and sorcerers, and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie. The word sorcerer is from the Greek word pharmakea. The word pharmakea is a root word that we get the word pharmaceutical from. Sorcerers would use drugs in their incantations and their spells. So I have people who have said, well, wait a minute, you know, you can do recreational drugs. I had somebody say to me, and I've heard this recently again, but when I first was saved, I had someone say, no, man, we can smoke pot. It's herb, man, because that's what we used to call marijuana. We called it herb. He says it's herb, man. Didn't you see that God gave the herb? So we can use it, man. That's how we used to talk. We can use it, man. Well, no. And the Lord forbids me using anything recreational use to alter my consciousness, my perceptions, and variety of things like that. Marijuana, marijuana does that. So there's a whole variety of recreational drugs. It's actually a work of the flesh, and it's strictly forbidden. And there's a big argument going on today concerning recreational use of drugs. And I have, I know that there are those today who are stronger evangelists for drug use and alcohol use than they are for the gospel of Jesus Christ, because they're so caught up with it. They're so addicted to it, and they use it so much. Well, the bottom line is, sorcery is forbidden. This man here was a sorcerer. He's also a false prophet. His name was Bar-Jesus, but they called him Alimus, or wise one. Now, it says in verse 7, who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man. And this man called for Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. So Sergius Paulus' notice is regarded as an intelligent man. He was a proconsul. The word proconsul would be like a governor. He was a man with an inquiring mind, is what he's saying here when it says he's an intelligent man. He was learned. He was wise. He was philosophic. And he desired answers to religious questions. This was an intellectually honest man. He was open to listening to what the gospel had to say. He isn't described as a genuine believer here. He is described as being fair-minded and open. But as it says, he wants to hear the word of God. Notice verse 8. Alimus, the sorcerer, so his name is translated, withstood them seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. So he withstood them. He attempted to discourage him. Now, this is a man who knew. Alimus knew that if Paulus actually got saved, that Alimus would lose his influence. And also, it may be that as a Jew, he would be opposed to the gospel message. You know, even to this day, unsaved people very often will get angry when you're preaching to their friends or their parents. It happens often. If you're on the street and you're sharing and street witnessing and you start speaking to somebody, it happens all the time. Where somebody, a friend or whatever, will begin to interrupt or swear or get rude in some way and try and interrupt the conversation. It happens all the time. It happens all the time. Those on our street teams, they know that. They know that. It happened. Whenever I've done that, there's been times when I've been speaking and I'll share with somebody. I'll be talking to somebody and somebody interrupts. And they just want to argue and they get real boisterous and pugnacious. That's what's taking place here. There are people to this day who do that. They can discourage people from answering the invitation. They can hinder them from going to church. They can hinder them from listening to someone who's sharing the gospel. They do get angry. They do interrupt. They can storm out. That's what's taking place. And Alimus is that way. He's seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. So notice what happens, verse 9. Saul, who is also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him. I don't know how that would feel, but I think I'd probably feel like I was going to melt if Paul was looking at me with that intense. He said, O full of all the seed and all fraud, ye son of the devil, ye enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord? What a hater Paul is, right?   Someone would say, well, look how judgmental this man is. Look how critically he is. Look how harsh he is. After all, Alimus was religious. And isn't that all that matters? And yet, why was he labeled deceitful and wicked? And the reason he's labeled as deceitful and wicked is because he sought to turn the proconsul from here in the gospel. He sought to prevent the influence of the truth from entering his mind. And in his opposition to truth, he revealed himself as a son of the devil. And notice how he speaks in verse 10 and speaks of the straight ways of the Lord. You see, he's referred to as a false prophet because false prophets change how to come to God. I'll say this. It's so simple and some will say simplistic. We speak so many times and you can do this. I've been in comparative religions classes in secular college, comparative religion, and you will hear it. There are all these religions. You've all heard it. I've heard it. There's so many religions. How can one be true? Well, that's where people are wrong. There aren't so many religions. There's one and that's God's and everything else by different names is false. That's a Christian answer to that. There's one truth. There's one God. There's one gospel. There's one Messiah. There's one Holy Spirit. That gospel presents Jesus to the world. So the false gospels, the false messages can be called anything from Buddhism to Islam, Scientology. You can name them. They all deny Jesus Christ. Every one of them present themselves as a way to God and every one of them are wrong. There is a straight way and that's what Paul is speaking about right now. In Matthew 7 verses 13 through 15, it says, enter by the narrow gate. Wide is a gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction. There are many who go in by it because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads the life and there are few who find it. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. That came from Jesus himself and that's why Paul would say what he said and then in verse 11 he goes further, now indeed the hand of the Lord is upon you and you shall be blind not seeing the sun for a time.  The darkness, somebody said the darkness of his soul now is experienced by his physical eyes. Now the blindness is temporary out of grace towards him. When he regained sight it would be a blessing if he would have come to faith in Jesus Christ but by going through what he did he demonstrated the power of the Lord and when this happened verse 12 the proconsul believed when he saw what had been done being astonished at the teaching of the Lord and so this sign confirmed the word and he was astonished at the confirmation that was given to the gospel. Again remember miracles are not for believers but to grab the attention of unbelievers and so as this took place he grabbed his attention and he was astonished and he saw the power that was demonstrated at that moment and he gave himself it would appear to the Lord the proconsul believed and then finally verse 13 when Paul and his party set sail for Paphos they came to Perga in Pamphylia you know wouldn't that be a lot easier if it said they came to Montclair in California and John departing from them returned to Jerusalem. We'll be looking at this because what you see right here John departing from them and returning to Jerusalem creates a tremendous division between Paul and Barnabas. We're going to see this you know Paul such a godly man Barnabas such a godly man are going to have a strong dissension over this one thing that we just read the fact that John left them because Paul believes that when John Mark left him that he was abandoning the ministry revealing his immaturity Barnabas whose whose name means son of comfort was an encourager who thought you know we'll give the young boy another opportunity and the breach between them was so severe that they split and when Paul takes off and Barnabas takes off you never see Paul and Barnabas again and it all begins right here when it simply says John departed and went back. We'll look at that in some detail when we get there in chapter 15.


Hi, I'm Heather Staines, the Director of Partnerships for Hypothesis. Thanks for joining our first webinar in a series for publishers. I'm here today with our founder and CEO, Dan Whaley, along with our colleagues, Nate Angel and Peg Fowler, who will be helping out on webinar logistics. If you have any suggestions for future webinar ideas, please feel free to put them in the chat. We'll be collecting them throughout the course of the webinar today. And at the end, we'll do a quick poll to see what you might like to hear about from us next. This webinar is being recorded and will be accessible later from Hypothesis website publishing page. Before we get started, we just have a couple of housekeeping items because we have so many attendees today, we've placed participants on mute. We'd like you to use the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen if you have any questions. We'll be monitoring that throughout the course of the webinar and we'll take time at the end to respond. You can also use the chat feature. You can chat to everyone if you'd like to introduce yourself, for example. Or you can chat to just the panelists in the event that you have any technical difficulties or anything like that. Here's a look at what we'll go over today. First, we're going to talk about 10 questions that you should ask if you're considering annotation. Then Dan will give a quick overview of Hypothesis. I'll talk a little bit about the value proposition for publishers and then do a live demo. I'll tell you a little bit about how to work with Hypothesis and then we'll take some Q&A at the end. Before we get started, I thought it would be informative to do a quick poll to gauge how familiar you are with annotation technology. Next, I'm going to hand it over to Dan. Thanks, Heather. Hey, everybody. It's great to have you all with us today. The topic of the webinar obviously is 10 questions that you should be asking about providers and platforms of annotation. My colleagues will drop a link to this poll in the chat. I won't go through all these questions. We're specifically, but we'll be addressing each of these points throughout the presentation as we go along and happy to field questions about them later. I'll give you a little bit of background on Hypothesis. First, we're a nonprofit, as most of you probably know. We've chosen that model for a very specific reason, which is that we think that in order for this technology, this new paradigm to be successful, that it needs to be stewarded by an organization who is able to align with the interests of users or the interests of publishers and so forth over the long term. The web has been successful specifically because of that alignment by the individuals and organizations that were involved at the beginning and as successful as a result of that. We are funded through grants from a variety of foundations, the Melon Foundation, Sloan Foundation, Omidyar Network, Helmley Trust, and the Shuttleworth and Knight Foundations. We are mission-driven. Our goal is to focus on bringing the standards and the software necessary to bring this capability forward to the world and also to provide an instance of it as a service, but not the exclusive one. This is all we do here at Hypothesis and we consider ourselves to be a mission-driven organization. We have a team of 16 full-time staff that are dedicated to annotation. That's all we do here and the roughly split between technical staff that help build the software and program staff that bring it forward. Our vision is a unified, interoperable architecture for annotation across all scholarly literature built in to the very fabric of the web. This architecture we believe should be built as layers so that over any given document, in any given article, you're able to see a variety of different kinds of notes for a variety of different use cases, notes that might be post-publication conversations for the general public, layers that might be private layers where a classroom is teaching an article in private so that the annotations are a discussion just for those students, expert communities that might be annotating for a particular purpose for their audience, and also layers that are perhaps produced by the publisher or authors or reviewers or community members around the article that are available at publication. Each of these layers potentially could be hosted on a different server with the annotations coming from a different provider. This really gets to the heart of this as a web standard architecture. Just like in your web browser, different tabs might represent pages coming from different servers. In our view, the annotation client is simply a uniform structure to bring different kinds of annotations for different purposes into the context of the page wherever you are. This technology, this architecture is grounded in a new web standard that passed with full approval of the W3C, the standards body for the web in February of this year, with more support than for any other standard before it in W3C history, so there's a very strong groundswell of support behind web annotations and it's really helped to create a tremendous amount of momentum. We are fundamentally focused in bringing collaboration around knowledge and around scholarly literature to the place where it resides. The publishers platform as well as on other elements of the wider web, as most of you know, one of the fundamental values of hypothesis and the architecture we've chosen is that it works everywhere. While it benefits from being implemented on publishers content and being native and default to that content, if users want to annotate in other places, they can bring that capability into the web now through plug-in or extension and later through the native functionality capability in browsers itself, which is one of the reasons why it was so important that the W3C adopt this. In support of this view in 2015, we announced a coalition, which is now numbers over 80 of the world's leading academic publishers, platforms and libraries that have made a commitment to bring web annotation to their scholarship, to their content, to their platform over the next several years. We also run a conference every year called I Annotate, which just happened in May of this year in San Francisco, where developers, publishers, advocates, standards, individuals come and present over a series of a couple of days. The community aspect of annotation is one of the things that we focus on the most and one of the things that we think is most important to its long-term potential success. As far as how we work with organizations that want to implement annotation, we characterize it as a member-based model. For us, you all represent potential partners that can help together with us bring this capability to your platforms, to your users in order to benefit them, in order to add powerful tools to their capability in order to bring an enhanced kind of content and richness to your publications. As I mentioned, Hypothesis runs an annotation service ourselves with now over a million and a half annotations that have been made by over 100,000 users. It's interesting to note that only about 20%, 4% of annotations are public, whereas 50% of those annotations take place in private groups, for journal clubs, classrooms, co-authors working on a paper, and about the last 25% of those annotations are personal notes or private notes that people are taking for their own individual benefit. So for that, I'll turn it back over to Heather. Thanks so much, Dan. I want to tell you a little bit about the value propositions for publishers. While we've been speaking to publishers, we've heard lots of interesting use cases for annotation. We want to talk to you about a few of them here today. The first is enabling post-publication collaboration layer using annotation. Remember that Hypothesis can be used anywhere on the web. Here's an example of graduate students and their professor discussing a piece of content at the University of Texas at Austin. In this particular case, it's a monograph from the University of Michigan Press. Some publishers that we've spoken to want something a little bit more custom. They want their own annotation layer. We call this publisher groups. The first publisher group is coming later this summer from eLife. Publisher groups are publisher branded and moderated groups that are publicly visible by default when a user lands on your content. The publisher can decide who has the authority to make annotations and who has the ability to read them. It's very, very flexible. Here's an example of how your publisher layer can be made visible on your page. Through a button, the button can show that annotation capability is possible and even how many annotations exist on an article. The end user clicks on the button and the publisher branded and moderated layer appears by default at the top. In this case, the publisher is elected to have annotation accounts auto-generated for their logged-in users, so there's no need for them to have a Hypothesis account or to navigate a way to create one. They can just start annotating. One of the advantages of standards-based and interoperable annotation technology is that annotation clients can see multiple servers and even interact with other clients. In this case, in addition to the publisher layer visible at the top, I can see that there are annotations in the public layer, in a reading group I'm part of, and even in a science class. It's very, very flexible. I can direct my annotations to any one of those given layers. A key piece of Hypothesis architecture is that a private company, a publisher, and a pharmaceutical company, for example, can host their own annotation server, maybe for proprietary reasons to run behind their firewall. Now, this may not be something that you're interested in doing now, but it's good for you to know that this is possible. You won't be locked in with one company forever, particularly a for-profit entity that could eventually be sold to one of your competitors. The second use case we hear about in annotation most frequently is annotations as new content. Hypothesis can plug into existing publisher workflows so that publisher staff, authors, and other experts can use annotation to create new content. This new content might be author updates. It might be connections to additional resources. It could be expert commentary. All of it will live by default in the publisher controlled layer. Here's an example of expert commentary in this case on an article in the Washington Post. Remember, you can use Hypothesis anywhere. As you'll see in a moment in the demo, it's really easy to connect articles through direct linking. You can also add media, such as images and video, again, connect it right to the article. It's very, very useful. The third case we're hearing about from publishers is the use of annotation in peer review so that reviewers can make inline comments on documents and publishing staff and authors can reply inline on those same documents. You can use it for single blind, double blind, and even open peer review. Some publishers have indicated that they want to make peer reviewer summaries visible as additional content. Here's a screenshot of the eJournal's Press peer review workflow, in this case on an AGU journal of geophysical research. Now I'm going to do a demo. Here I'm going to do a quick live demo of the features and functionalities of Hypothesis. I'm a reviewer looking at an article, vulnerability to earthquake hazard. As I'm going along and doing my research, I come across something that's interesting that I want to take note of. I simply select the text. Hypothesis will ask me if I want to make a highlight or an annotation. I'm going to select annotation. Now I can make my annotation. This is interesting. I can add a tag. Hypothesis will then ask if I want to post that annotation to the public layer or keep it private just for me. I'll select the public layer. Now I have an annotation that lives right on top of the publisher's content. I can even share this annotation through social media or by email just by grabbing the link from the clipboard. The person that I send it to doesn't have to have a hypothesis account or even know that hypothesis exists. If they can get to the article, the article will open for them. The client will pop out and they'll be scrolled precisely to the annotation that I wanted them to see. It's very convenient for collaboration purposes. Now in addition to annotating on the HTML, annotations also transferred other formats. Let's grab the PDF. Now I mentioned HTML and PDF. We've also completed a project recently with NYU University Press to enable annotation of ePubs. We'll be making an announcement about that in just a couple of weeks. When the announcement is final, you'll be able to annotate on Redium.js and also EPUB.js documents. There's a lot of interest in that from our eBook customers. Now that we've got the PDF opening up here, let's watch for our annotation. And there it is. Now I've shown you how you can annotate to the public layer. You can also create private groups. The way that you do that is by simply selecting New Group.  I'm going to call mine Earthquake Studies. It's just that simple. Now I have a dashboard for my group. I can see when the group was created, who the members of the group are, and I can use the link over here to invite additional members to the group. Let's go back to our original article. I'm going to continue reading along. Come to something else that I want to take note of. Now, instead of selecting public, I'm going to go ahead and grab my Earthquake Studies group. Now I can make an annotation just for the group. This is interesting. Add some tags. Now I've posted it to my Earthquake Studies group. Someone else from the group may come along and make or apply. I agree. In addition to responding with text, I can also drop in some math. Now I have an annotation with math. Someone else in the group might come along and decide that they would like to respond by dropping in a video. You can play it from right in the sidebar. An earthquake of magnitude 5.6 is... Now, in addition to creating threaded conversations through annotation on top of a document, you can also connect multiple documents across the web. This is the USGS site on earthquakes that have happened recently. Here's an earthquake that I want to take note of. I can drop this into my Earthquake Studies group as well. It follows me across the web. Add some more tags, post it to my Earthquake Studies group. I can now grab the link for this annotation and go back to my original article. Let's edit the very first annotation that I made. I can just drop my link in. Now I have two documents linked across the web. Again, very useful for collaboration purposes. In addition to PDF and HTML and EPUB, you can also annotate data. Here's a CSV file that I was looking at with some information on earthquakes. Let's say I've got a question. Just select the cell, annotate it. I'm gonna drop this into my Earthquake Studies group as well and say I have a question. Is this right? And post it to my group. Someone else can come along and reply. I showed you how to create a group and how to add annotations from all across the web into that group, but I never took you back to the page. Let's check out our Earthquake Studies dashboard again. All of the annotations that I've made across the web have automatically populated here to this page. I can get back to any of my articles by clicking on the arrow, view annotation and context. Also, the tags that I was making, they've accumulated here. I can select a tag and it will be added to my faceted search at the top of the page. So I can just see, for example, the articles that I tagged earthquake. It's a great way to explore and discover content through annotation. If I take off my group filter, I'll be able to see all of the annotations that have been made across the web, publicly at least. I also have an activity page just for me. That's our demo for today and I'm happy to take questions on the demo. I'm at the end. I wanna tell you just a little bit about how to work with hypothesis. Because hypothesis is open source, you can integrate the code on your platform for free. We're permissively licensed and we've got information on our publishing and developers page to help you do that. If you want something a little bit more custom, like a publisher group, we're happy to help you integrate hypothesis. We have a very simple pricing model that's based on the number of documents that you publish annually. If you're working with a platform host, we're already in conversation with them to help you enable hypothesis on your content. We also offer customization to best fit your UI as well as an outreach program that you can use internally and externally to roll out annotation. If you have questions on any of these options, don't hesitate to email me. I'm just Heather at Hypothesis and I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have. If you have any questions that you haven't yet put into the Q&A, please do so now. And remember, we're looking for webinar suggestions for the future. So please go ahead and put those in the chat and in just a moment, we'll be putting a poll up that you can respond to there. But we're happy now to take questions. Nate, are there any questions? There are a couple of questions actually. Rob has asked if the public layer can be turned off when there's a publisher group. I'll take that, yeah. So the way that publisher groups work is that when you have a publisher group over your content, it is the default group. And if the person has not signed in to another annotation server or service, then they won't see any other annotation layers. But if they have signed in, for instance, it could be hypothesis, it could be another annotation service, could be an internal annotation server. They will see the annotation layers that relate to your page, to your publisher page, along with your annotation servers in the same way that you've seen in the demos. So what we try to do is strike the balance between giving publishers control over the layers that are visible by default and in so doing, excluding other layers until the user elects to bring those layers to the content. I'll just keep going through a few more of these. What kind of support is there for applying annotation to images? It's in the W3C spec. It's not supported by hypothesis yet, but it is a frequent request that we get. And there are a number of libraries that are already compatible with the underlying annotation technology that hypothesis is based on that will be incorporating. Our product roadmap is something that we kind of co-construct with partners that are interested in implementing things. If you have a particular functionality that you're interested in implementing or having us support, we'd love to hear from you. I'll also answer a question that Rob O'Donnell put in the chat. Can you comment on the use of authorized experts as a required credential for posting comments on a competing product, similar functionality and hypothesis, warnings about such a system? We have looked at that and I think what obviously what we're all trying to get to is infrastructure that supports high quality conversation. And I think there's a variety of questions about how the best way is to get there. We don't think that it is possible to automatically screen and determine the potential credibility of participants through a system that's imposed by us on your content. The first, by creating publisher groups and giving publishers the moderation capabilities for those, our goal is to put you in charge of who you want to be able to have, make discussions and create annotations over your content in your default groups. For hypothesis, based on the million and a half annotations that we've seen, we're able to maintain a high degree of decorum through the moderation approaches that we take in our system. If we need to develop more automated systems to help screen or pre-screen annotations, we'll do so, but we did not feel that it was important to try to get in front of that with the kind of system that we've seen elsewhere. Heather Blackburn asks, can hypothesis be implemented on one annual issue of a journal rather than the whole site? The answer is absolutely yes. You can implement annotation over as much or as little of your site as possible. We're all, we're very much in favor of experiments too. If you want to try it out in a narrow place and work with us to run a little promotion to see what the response is, we think that's a great strategy. John Abrams asks, Abraham's asked, do the annotation tools allow creating annotation on images and video? It did already answer the question about images not yet and the same goes for video. We hear those requests. We do plan on implementing support for both images and video. We've got some more work to do on different group types and export and more powerful forms of notifications before we get around to those, but those are absolutely things that we'll be focused on and potentially in the next year. Audio annotation support from Allison. Thanks, that would for us falls in the category of streaming media. So for us, audio is a subset of video that absolutely would be something that we will support in the future and thanks for asking that specifically. Daniel Ruiz asks that we would love to help adding the functionality to choose the Spanish language. Just looking forward to know how and when we can do it. One thing that's important to say, the interface already supports annotation in foreign languages including Chinese and Japanese characters. So I can annotate texts including vertical Japanese texts that either in PDF, EPUB or HTML form, and I can add those foreign languages to the body of the annotation. The interface itself is not yet internationalized. We understand that that's a priority and important for the widest possible adoption in different questions or different, I'm sorry, in different countries and we'll be working on that in the next year or two as probably when that's gonna happen. Jason Barclou asks, during annotation, it seems like the text is always highlighted even though only an annotation was done. Can a highlight be turned off? Absolutely, there's a button right on the interface.  We do believe that it's really important for users to be able to get to a clean page. All of the webinars that we do will be recorded and connected to our publishing page. So if you're not able to attend in person on the day of the event, you'll be able to join later. In addition to the webinars, we've got lots of information, toolkits and resources that are available on our publisher as well as our developer page that you can share internally and with your technology partners and users as well. I wanna thank you again for joining us today and mentioned just once more that this will be recorded and available from our page. You can share it and along with a lot of other information available there, including just a brief demo recording if that's what you're interested in. And we'd love to hear from you in the future to continue the conversation. Thanks so much.


Five reasons why junior UX designers can't move up in your UX career ladder. If you're making these mistakes, I'm calling you part one. Reason one, you don't know your values, aka your why. UX design is such an ever-changing career that if you don't know why you're doing it, you'll compromise often. So protect yourself by setting values early on. Reason two, you're afraid to ask for anything. So you want to advance and become a senior UX designer fast. Ask for more responsibility side projects beyond the statement of work. Ask to receive feedback and to have more frequent one-on-ones with your manager. If you never ask, you've already lost. Reason three, you don't bother to build a network. Networking helps you learn from others. Expand your relationships with future clients and potential employers. Don't think it's people-pleasing or being opportunistic. UX is all about human interaction anyways.


Butter it, butter it, oh, so good, oh, so good, oh. There it is, there it is, oh, delicious. Butter my bread, butter my bread. Now I didn't do any filming at dinner, just enjoyed the deliciousness and it was tasty, along with my run today. Today's run was very, very tasty, exciting for Amsterdam coming up. And yes, this is my first impression of the Hoka Carbon X. Thank you for your patience, everyone. I fully realize I am way late to the game when it comes to getting you my thoughts on this shoe. I believe it was released in June of 2019. So what are we, three months late now? And I had a busy, as I know many of you did as well, a busy trail running season. And that's what summertime is all about. So frankly, I just was not spending a ton of time on the roads. In fact, today I'll tell you what I did for the run here in a second. So I wanted to mention that, and then also, oh, it was a busy day. So usually when I do my first impression of vlogs or full reviews, I like to get a lot of cinematic, beautiful B-roll that did not happen today. Because first of all, I was busy. And second of all, I am training at faster paces now, which means I cannot carry the GoPro with me. I can't stop and like set up a camera. I just gotta keep putting in the miles in order to get ready for this marathon in 40 days. Is that right? 40 days, 40 days. That's all right. I just counted four zero days to go until Amsterdam. So it's time to start running faster, which is why throughout the next eight to 10 minutes, you're not gonna see a bunch of cinematic shots. But for the full review, I will get you the cinematic shots of the Hoka Carbon Xs. Okay, today's run, let me just pull it up here real quick. 22 miles, 22 miles at 630 a mile or 35 kilometers at four minutes per kilometer. So I'm very pleased with that run today. I knew like, and I know some of you have been concerned about me transitioning from the mountains to the marathon. And I'm not done running in the mountains. In fact, I'll be back up there on Friday. But I fully believe in that aerobic base, building that aerobic foundation before adding speed. And sure enough, with 40 days to go until Amsterdam, I feel like, I think it was knows my massage therapist today. She asked me, do I feel confident in where I'm at with my training? And I said a hundred percent. I'm not ready for five, 20 a mile yet for 26 miles. But as far as like, I would much rather be a little behind on speed and way ahead in aerobic fitness, in stamina, in endurance, because like today around mile 20, 21, I was like, okay, I'm starting to feel it in my legs a little bit. And that is where I believe the longer runs the more endurance is gonna pay off at the marathon distance.  This shoe is still in the running for me for my racing shoe at the Amsterdam Marathon. Now, probably the other one leading the pack is the Nike Next% or frankly, the Nike Vaporfly 4% flying it. But I'm not counting this guy out. Now it was just my first run, so I need to spend more time in it. But I'm telling you, it was a fun ride today. Very fun ride. Okay, first impressions. Here we go. First half mile, felt a little stiff and frankly, a little bit of a firm landing in the forefoot. And after running in three or four carbon fiber plate running shoes, and just so everyone knows, there is a carbon fiber plate inside of here. After running in three or four pairs, this one felt probably the stiffest, the most, I don't wanna say rigid, that's a little too harsh of a word, but it just felt a little stiff. But after a half mile, mile into my run today, I totally forgot about it and I just started clipping off the miles. Like if you see my splits on Strava, it was very consistent, just hitting them like it was no tomorrow. So that was my first impression. It's a neutral road racing shoe for sure. How Hoka qualifies it is a competition shoe. But I just, a couple of people were confused as to why I took this shoe. So today's run was 75% dirt, 25% pavement slash concrete. The reason I do that, and you can tell by the bottom, I definitely took it out on dirt today. I'm striving to stay healthy. Gotta hit those soft surfaces for the long runs in my opinion to stay healthy. At least that's what I need to do. So today was 75% dirt, 25% pavement in case anyone was a little confused on Strava. As far as that stack height goes, we're looking at a 32 millimeter in the heel, 27 in the forefoot for a five millimeter drop, basically right where I like it. For the weight, in men's size nine, we're looking at 8.7 ounces or 246 grams for the weight. And in my size, you see it on the screen there, 7.9 ounces or 224 grams. So a quick comment on the weight, they didn't feel heavy, but I'm just gonna say that's a little heavy for a marathon racing shoe. There are definitely lighter options out there on the marketplace. Just wanna make that point clear right now, but they weren't feeling heavy today for me. And for the upper, we're looking at a single layered engineered mesh from Hoka here. I felt locked down. I'm sensing as with other Hokas as well, a little bit of scrunching of that single layer mesh through the toe box. At the end of the day, I didn't notice it or feel any abrasion. But anyway, just keep that in mind. And then my favorite part of the upper, no doubt is this gusseted, hopefully you can see that. Basically it's called a gusseted tongue where the tongue of the shoe is connected to the rest of the upper with this piece of polyester material that just helps lock the tongue on the top of your foot so it doesn't slide around at all. So that was a bonus. Now, okay, quick, quick little drawback. We drew blood today. We drew blood in the 22 miles. Both of my heels, my Achilles tendon, I should say have a little blister on the back. And you can see the blood there on the back of this on the right side. Nothing like, I'll just put band-aids on. I'm not worried about it. It happens every now and then to me in different shoes. So anyway, but I did get a little bit of blood drawn. And I did go, I'll just mention it now. I went true to size. And I think I'm glad I did, it feels great. So why that happened, I'm not exactly sure. It honestly could be because of my racing this past weekend in the Solomon shoes that maybe I just had a little blister back there that I didn't notice because of the race this past weekend. So anyway, just quick point there on the Achilles tendon and for the midsole on the Hoka Carbon X. So as I already mentioned, it has that carbon fiber plate through there tucked inside this bed of midsole. Look how much stachite is in there. I can see why Hoka selected Jim Walmsley to wear this shoe to set the 50 mile world record. I could see the shoe being very comfortable for a 50 mile or 30 miles on the roads. If for some reason you were training that way, I'm not exactly sure why you'd run that far on the roads, but or I guess what is the, oh my gosh, the race down in South Africa, comrades. This would be a great shoe for comrades. I do have a feeling. So okay, so for the midsole, I'll come back to that. And that Carbon X outsole is very smooth. Also it has a window into the carbon fiber plate. I kind of like that. It probably reduces a little bit of weight in the shoe, but also it's just nice mentally to be able to see that carbon fiber plate to know, okay, it's in there. And of course, what else? Oh yeah, it's a wide platform. So a very stable ride. I didn't feel, you know, cause if you're that high off the ground and today like, listen, I'm five, six basically, a little under five, six. I felt like I was five eight today in these shoes. So, but I didn't feel unstable at all in the Carbon Xs. Moving on to comfort, comfortable ride, but okay, the upper is comfortable, but as far as like I said, it felt a little stiff. And maybe after the second or third run, it'll loosen up a little bit through that midsole or maybe the carbon fiber plate will bend, you know, become a little more malleable. I don't know. It just did feel a little stiff. I'm just putting it out there. And, but here's the deal. For a racing shoe, I'm honestly not looking for comfort. I'm looking for performance and speed. That's why I wore the Solomon S-Lab Cent 7SGs out in Utah this past week. And like there are light, fast, nimble mountain shoe. So that's what I'm looking for in a racing shoe as well. I'm really not looking for comfort. Unless I'm like maybe getting ready for a hundred mile race or a hundred K, that's when maybe comfort would play in a little bit. But for my positive and drawback of the Carbon X, my positive is that at 630 a mile, my effort did not feel like 630 a mile. I was just cruising along. So I don't know if that carbon fiber plate was helping me a little bit or maybe the stack height, but it was, it was great. I just was going, just going. So that's my positive. It was, it was a little effortless out there at 630 a mile. So that's a good sign. Now my drawback, I don't think I would use the carbon fiber plate in regular training. Now I'll probably take it out a couple more times before Amsterdam, but I wouldn't run the carbon fiber plate more than twice a month. I don't know, it just, I think it does mess with my gait cycle a little bit. I'm noticing, I did notice it today, like it feels a little different than my normal stride. So I personally, I'm going to save the carbon fiber plate shoes for race day. And for that score of the Carbon X, I'll get that to you after 50 miles, along with telling you, is the shoe worth it at a hundred and eighty dollars? Okay, I'll get you that as well for the full review. And the keyword is going to be carbon. Question of the day is going to be, since I'm so late to the ball game with this shoe, who has this shoe, who has raced in the shoe, who is training in the shoe, let us know how it's treating you. Because guess what, Berlin, Amsterdam, New York City, what am I missing? There's the big one, New York City, Berlin, Chicago. It's just like marathon racing season is right on the doorstep. So it is time to make some seriously quick decisions if you haven't already for your marathon racing shoes. All right, thank you for being here, everyone. I know today's vlog was a little more simple on the filming side. We will kick those engines back into gear tomorrow.  All right, everybody on the right is going to be my full review of the Hoka Carbon Rocket, another carbon fiber plate running shoe from Hoka. And on the left, we're going to go with my first impressions of the Nike Next Percent, another shoe that is in the running for my racer over in Amsterdam. All right, love you guys. See beauty, work hard, and love each other. See you tomorrow.


Fox Business, they talked about the rise of socialism in America, and I'm really interested in hearing what they have to say. Probably because they're gonna say a lot of stupid things, but this is a two-part clip, and in the end, apparently one of the hosts is going to admit that capitalism is eventually going to lose to socialism. So we're gonna start with this video because I want to see how they arrive at that conclusion and specifically what they say about socialism. And I guess going into this, what I'm looking for is for them to preface this entire conversation with a concrete definition of socialism, because the problem with the white is whenever they talk about socialism, they simply use it as a synonym for things that they don't like. So I want to know that before they have this conversation, they're actually... It's grounded in reality with a strong definition of socialism, right? But I feel like that isn't too much to ask from a news show that focuses on politics, but either way, let's hear what they have to say. This is a growing segment of the American population that is embracing socialism. I mean, it's almost hard to believe that they see this as a viable alternative to capitalism, a means to prosperity, the new American dream. Okay, why? Ask yourself, why would so many Americans view socialism as opposed to capitalism as a means to prosperity? Ask yourself, why would so many people be turned off by capitalism? Could possibly have anything to do with the fact that capitalism has been a demonstrable failure? Not only has it not led to prosperity for the overwhelming majority of the world, but capitalism has led to the destruction of our entire planet. But I can't figure out why people are turning away from capitalism. I don't get it, folks. I mean, from her perspective, to be fair, she's rich, I'm assuming.  She works for Fox News, right? She's on air talent.  So she was able to make it. She was able to live the American dream. But for the overwhelming majority of Americans, for the overwhelming majority of people on the planet, they do not see prosperity through capitalism.  So it's just, it's always funny to me when people, you know, feign shock because of the popularity of socialism, particularly among younger generations. But it's really not that surprising if you think about it.  It just makes sense. So this is, to me, is a very out-of-touch conversation, but let's let them continue here. Do a little research on what people are saying about this and pure research pulls on this constantly. Their latest survey revealed that 60% of registered Democrats today and Democratic leaders have a positive view on socialism. That's nearly two-thirds of the party. You should keep that in mind, because that's where they're thinking is. All while enjoying the benefits of capitalism, they're sitting in their cushy chairs in a capital... That's a hell of an assumption right there. They're enjoying the benefits of capitalism. I don't think so. Do you think that if they're opting for a completely different system, it's because they're enjoying the benefits of capitalism? What benefits are those exactly? What benefits are those? I get why these folks here think that there are benefits to capitalism, but for normal Americans, there are zero, zero benefits to capitalism. Zero, okay? So I don't get why they say something like that, but again, their perspective is elitist, it's out-of-touch. So it makes sense that they would say that, but it's just shocking to see how out-of-touch they are. Society, thinking and tweeting out that socialism is great. I do think, going back to your comment about it being a dream, that somehow this is a combination of virtual signaling and fantasy land that they've built up in their minds and in the youngest generation. Okay, no. I mean, let's be extra charitable. Perhaps there are people on Twitter, some within the online left, that try to go out of their way to be the leftiest leftist in all of history. We've all come into contact with people like that. However though, to suggest that most of the popularity for socialism, or the support for socialism I should say instead, is driven by people just trying to get clout online. No, it comes down to the economics. Capitalism has failed. It's been a demonstrable failure, and the system is so rotten that it's irredeemable, so they want a new system. So I feel like if they're curious, these are news anchors. They have the resources to talk to people. Why don't you talk to these folks? Ask them why they think socialism is good. And odds are, they're going to have some pretty compelling reasons, at least most people will. Sure, you'll see people who are like, yeah, I'm a socialist and then perhaps they don't articulate very clearly why they like socialism. You're going to find that everywhere, right? But I think that the majority of people who are opting for socialism is because they're so frustrated with capitalism and the system that they were born into, that they started to seek out alternatives, and socialism just makes sense. Workers should own the means of production. Why are these super wealthy elites with increasingly monopolized businesses able to control every aspect of our lives, able to censor us? They're cracking down when we push for more rights. Unionization. I mean, it's only natural that people are going to gravitate towards the main alternative, which is socialism. So, you know, you love to see it, but I just, it's funny how confused they are. It's like surprised Pikachu face when you subject people to poverty and devastation due to capitalism. And then, you know, you are completely shocked and taken aback by people being turned off by that very system that is oppressing them. They're saying in a time of economic peril that they want more government in their lives. When the economic perils that we're all living through today, you and I talked about it last night, you've got more Americans working two full-time jobs to pay for 40-year high inflation. I mean, you've got incredible economic policy problems that have been created. You're kind of answering your own question. Are you not? You're kind of answering your own question. And to just claim that socialism is big government, that is not a good definition of socialism. I mean, the simplest definition of socialism is workers own the means of production.  I'm not for big government just like inherently. Like I think that government should be big in some instances when it comes to health care. I think that government should be smaller when it comes to our social liberties and civil rights. However, you know, big corporations, they're also destructive. So, you know, what they do is they, they don't tell you that the alternative to big government is this neoliberal system where you essentially outsource the former functions of governments to large multinational corporations. So, rather than having the government take care of health care, well, we just let corporations do that.  And so, to just say that it's this binary thing of big government or government, government, whatever the name is, versus, you know, a small government, that is not even an oversimplification. It's just flat out incorrect. This administration, and now a Federal Reserve tax would bring those prices down because of huge government involvement and huge government spending. Yeah, that's such a great point by Emo Dragon. Universal programs equal less bureaucrats making decisions. Exactly. That is exactly it. Asked ourselves how they're defining socialism. I think that's a really important point. What are you defining socialism? Because you haven't done that yet. And the only claim of socialism is big government. Any other, you know, characteristics of socialism you want to point out here? Anything else? Or is it just big government bad? I like the big government. Don't tread on me. Is that literally all that it is? Because if you think that that's how people view socialism, then that's why there's this disconnect here. Question and all of this. And when Gallup dug in to those who support socialism or go on the record saying they support socialism and want that for this country, you'd be shocked to see that 25% when we're asked with an open space question how they define it did not have an answer. And that's really important, that they're supporting something that they don't understand. Only 25% though. 25%. That's still pretty large, right? But what you have to understand is that that is coming from a backlash due to capitalism. Again, like I'm not going to dismiss people who, you know, maybe they identify as socialists, but they can't eloquently state what they believe socialism is or what it means to them. Like it's not like we get to pick and choose what it is. It is a thing and there is a definition for it. But that 25% that she's referring to, I think that that's really a backlash to capitalism. They know that capitalism is bad. And even if they can't articulate what socialism is and they don't know what that system is, all they're opting for is an alternative. It's an anti-capitalist statement. And that sentiment is really important, right? So, yeah, I think that the definitions are important. And as she says that 25% don't even know what socialism is, we still haven't seen a definition from this panel yet. So pretty interesting, right? People don't even know what socialism is. Okay, well, what's your definition? As Collins could say, I didn't do it as well. But, you know, I think that you all can appreciate the spirit of that little fart gesture. By the way, while they're asking for equality, equality is obviously a huge word that they virtually signal with this constantly. The message should be equal opportunity for all. Yes. But there's no equal opportunity for capitalism. Do you not understand that? The opportunity is gone. We're not going to have better lives than our parents. We're not going to get lucky and become millionaires. We're not going to find a company where we work our way up the ladder and become the CEO. It's just gone. There's zero opportunity. Zero opportunity in this country. Everyone is working longer hours for lower wages. They're miserable. And this is why you see the rise of the modern day labor movement where they're opting for unions because they're tired of the exploitation.  They're rich, so I love it, but I can't understand why they wouldn't love it either. I get why you love capitalism. I understand that. You're rich. You work for Fox News. It makes sense why somebody who is very wealthy who did well under capitalism is going to like the system that led them to success. But overall, that's not going to be the view or the experience, rather, of the majority. The ruling class is very established and entrenched at this juncture. Absolutely. So this is the second part here. Just to say that Joseph Schumpeter back in the 20s, when he wrote the book Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, he said that we're eventually, capitalism eventually is going to lose to socialism, which people forget this.  He loved capitalism. Well, he did. But he said what's going to happen is that our country is going to be capitalist for a while and it's going to get very wealthy. And as we get wealthier and wealthier, we're all going to send our kids to college because they don't have to stay home and work in the shop. And the colleges are going to be places that indoctrinate folks to be socialists. And then the graduates of Harvard are going to control the New York Times. And then you're going to have socialists controlling the media.  They said that socialists control the media as they're on the largest news network ever. And colleges aren't indoctrinating people. They're just exposing people to alternative ideas. So this whole notion that people are getting indoctrinated in college, no, they're getting educated. And once you are able to see past the propaganda that you've been fed your whole life, you begin to question the things that were instilled in you, the values that were instilled in you at a very young age. Like I'm one of these people who were indoctrinated according to them when I went to college. Like I became an atheist.  I went from being a conservative to being a social democrat. So yeah, like people change, but that's the natural thing that happens when you get exposed to new ideas and you open your mind. Right? You're not in that bubble anymore.


Rogue Lanshaw Foreman here at Township Chevrolet with another edition of Tech Talk. We're sticking with our accessory theme That we're doing for a few weeks here Stay tuned at the end to find out how you can possibly win a prize Maybe put something towards some GM accessories for your for your car or truck I'm gonna cover month or floor mats today, I guess Really important thing to have look great make cleaning the car really easy And great for your floor and your car putting your truck. So Nice thing is especially with our trucks with all the different cab configurations with two door and four door extended cab double cabs GMs come with a line of their all-weather mats or like a weather tech style mat that's made to contour and fit the truck Obviously, you know, there's a lot of space around the sides up in here over the wheel well hump in around the gas pedal and brake pedal it gets a lot of Sand and salt and corrosion and stuff like that from your boots and slush when you're getting in the winter time Which obviously makes your carpets wet You can also have an issue with your windows fogging up because all that moisture that gets saturated in the carpet It makes it hard to clean to that salts real hard to get off there Once it hardens up at the end of the season So these mats are nice because the way they're designed they ride up good and high We got a nice Chev logo in them that gets a pattern on them kind of helps channel the water to the sides This goes up the the transmission tunnel and this goes up the side of the vehicle and this is up where your feet will be so They're real made of a real durable material They're really easy to clean and kind of shine up and make look nice a lot easier in scrubbing carpet and keeping that clean They're There's a lot of the mats we have for the trucks too Nice thing is that they actually connect in the middle and some of them So it's one continuous rubber kind of floor that goes right from one side of the vehicle together, which is great Anyone that's got a center con doesn't have the center console It just has the open carpet in the middle that'll cover all that area as well Especially if you're using that third seat in the front if you're hauling a lot of people there So same thing in the back. They all interlock together. They're kind of a kind of a neat thing They also run right up to that package tray and some of the trucks have underneath the seat So it covers that whole area there as well You get them for pretty much all of all of our GM cars is not exception you can't But if you're interested in getting a set of the all-weather GM floor mats Just come down and talk to Troy and the fellas Same same warranty as the rest of the accessories we talked about your three or 60 So if you get them put on new it's the whole three or 60 warrant you have if your car is a year old now Or there's 30,000 kilometers on it now doesn't matter we can install Your accessories here and it covers for up to the remainder of your three or 60 If it's something you're interested in give Troy and the guys a call in the parts department They'll price it up for you and give you some options on what they have available for your car and we look forward to seeing you