Welcome everyone. I just see a message in the chat that the volume is low. Is everyone able to hear me okay? It's okay ma'am. Okay, sure. Thank you. Okay, Igwe, if you can just check the volume on your whatever you're using. It's a laptop or a phone. Let's see if there's something you can adjust there. Okay, let's open with a word of prayer. Is there anyone who would like to pray for us before we begin? Anyone in person? Let's pray. Thank you. Loving Father, in the name of Jesus we bless you, we glorify your name, we give you thanks and worship this morning. We appreciate you for the gift of life and the wisdom and knowledge that you have given unto us, King of Glory. Lord, we want to surrender this time unto you, the teachings and all we are going to learn. We surrender unto your hands who welcome the leadership of the Holy Spirit to help us and open our eyes and mind to know and to hear more from you.  In Jesus' name we are prayed. Amen. Thank you. Okay, so on Monday was when we had our first class and we just looked a little bit at what we're going to be covering during this course and we also looked at some of the background to the beginning of the New Testament. So we looked at the political background and we looked at the religious background, especially between Malachi and Matthew. So there's a 400 year period and in that 400 year period there were different groups of people that conquered the region in which the Israelites lived. So they came and took over that region and as they were taking over that region they also influenced the religious practices of the people. So maybe we can just quickly cover that and then we will go into today's content. So just for those of us who might have missed it. So we have the Persian reign from 400 to 334 BC, the Alexandrian period and this one is important because the Greek influence came in here and we have Greek becoming the language of the people and Hebrew kind of being forgotten by the Jews. And then we have the Egyptian period which was where Ptolemy who was also of Greek origin was reigning over the Palestine region where the Israelites were followed by the Seleucid Empire which was still someone from a Greek background who was reigning and then for a brief period of time about 100 years the Israelites gained control over their land. This is the Maccabean period so the Maccabees were reigning over the Israelites but they lose power to the Romans in 63 BC and so the Romans rule over Israel from 63 BC until when Jesus is born the Romans are still in power. So when we see this AD 5 it doesn't mean that the Roman reign ended here but we're just saying till Jesus came the Romans were still in power and then they continued to reign even while Jesus was ministering while Jesus was in Israel. So today we will look at the people groups that the New Testament consists of so some of the major people groups that were present and we will look at some places of worship and then sacred writings. All of these things will just contribute to our understanding of the New Testament as we look at the gospels especially all of these things will contribute to that. So we have the Hebrews first. This group of people is introduced to us in Genesis 14 and 13 beginning with Abraham. So we will also read a few scriptures. Okay, so just as we have these passages included here we can open them and quickly read through them as well. So someone can read Genesis 14 and 13 for us. Genesis 14 and 13? Yes, Genesis 14 and 13. Okay, sorry. Then one who had escaped came to Abraham the Hebrew for he dwelt by the terrible threes of Mambra, the Amorite brother of Escal and brother of Anir and they were allies with Abraham. Thank you. So here we see the term Hebrew Abraham the Hebrew. So this is where the people were not known by they were not known as Israelites. They were not known as Jews yet. So we're just called a group of people, the Hebrew people starting with Abraham and we see that also when Joseph is taken into Egypt that he is identified as the Hebrew. So when Potiphar's wife accuses him of acting inappropriately with her, she refers to him as the Hebrew slave. So that is the identity of the people, the descendants of Abraham. So they all call the Hebrews. And then when they continue to multiply under the Egyptian rule, right? So we see in Exodus when there is the command that the Hebrew children, the Hebrew sons especially be put to death. Maybe we can just open Exodus 115 and read that. Exodus 115. The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives whose names were Shipra and Pua. When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool. If it's a boy, kill him. But if it's a girl, let her live. The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do. They let the boys live. Thank you. So and then if we go on into verse 19. The midwives answered Pharaoh, Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women. They are rigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive. Okay, so until here, we do see even in this passage that they are referred to as the Israelites. But to outside groups of people, they just viewed them as the Hebrew people. It's only after they enter the promised land that they gain this identity as the Israelites. And where do they get that name from? It's from Jacob being given the name Israel, right? So when God changes his name to Israel, he then all of them identify as descendants of Jacob. And so they are called the Israelites. So that becomes a popular term for their identification after they enter the promised land. Until then they're mostly known as the Hebrew people. And then where do we get this term Jews? So we see under David that we had, there was a kingdom that was united under David's rule. This is in first Kings. Sorry, I haven't given you all the references here. But in first Kings, we are introduced to the king, the role of a king within Israel. And we have Saul, who is the first king and then David takes over. And when David takes over, he's ruling over the whole region that the Israelites had come and taken over from Canaan. And he reigns over that whole region during his reign. After his reign, his son Solomon takes over and Solomon continues to reign over the whole region. But what does Solomon do? He starts to marry women of other, the foreign women that were around. And he starts to also worship their gods. He starts to build shrines for their gods. And so introduces pagan worship into the land. And because of that God's judgment is that he will take away 10 of the tribes from the rule of David's line. 10 tribes will be taken away and only two tribes will remain under David's line or David's lineage. That they will rule over only two tribes. And those two tribes are Judah and Benjamin. So this is where Israel and Judah start to have that distinction. There's a different group of people, which are the 10 tribes who come under Israel. And the two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, come under the region of Judah. So while Solomon is reigning, he's still reigning over the whole kingdom. But that judgment that God passes is during this reign. And he says, until Solomon reigns, I'll still keep the kingdom united because of my faithfulness to David. But after Solomon's reign, when his son takes over, who is Rehoboam, I will take the kingdom away from Rehoboam. So let me see if I've given you all the reference here. I haven't. Okay, we'll just try and read that because it's always better to read from the scriptures. Then here. Okay, so we'll open first Kings. And if someone can read from verses 26, first Kings 11 to 40, 26 to 40. So we have a few verses to read. I saw Jeroboam, son of Nebat, rebelled against the king. He was one of Solomon's official, an Ephraimite from Zeridah, and his mother was a widow named Zeroboam. Here in the account of how he rebelled against the king, Solomon had built the supporting terraces and had filled in the gap of the wall of the city of David, his father. Now, Jeroboam was a man of standing. And when Solomon saw how well the young man did his work, he put him in charge of the whole labor force of the house of Joseph. About that time, Jeroboam was going out of Jerusalem. And Ahija, the prophet of Shiloh, met him on the way wearing a new cloak. The two of them were alone out in the country. And Ahija, the cold of the new cloak, he was wearing and tore it into 12 pieces. Then he said to Jeroboam, take 10 pieces for yourself, for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. See, I'm going to tear the kingdom out of Solomon's hand and give you 10 tribes. But for the sake of my servant David and the city of Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, he will have one tribe. I will do this because they have forsaken me and worship Astoret, the goddess of the Sidonians, Kimosh, the God of the Moabites, and Mollek, the God of Ammonites, and have not walked in my ways, nor done what is right in my eyes, nor kept my statues and lost as David Solomon's father did. But I will not take the whole kingdom out of Solomon's hand. I have made him ruler all the days of his life for the sake of David my servant, for the sake of my chosen who observed my commands and statues. I will take the kingdom from his son's hands and give you 10 tribes. I'll give one tribe to his son so that David my servant may always have a lamb before me in Jerusalem, the city where I chose to put my name. However, as for you, I will take you and you will rule over all that your heart desires. You will be king over Israel. If you do whatever I command you and walk in my ways and do what is right in my eyes by keeping my statues and commands as David my servant did, I will be with you. I will build you a dynasty as enduring as the one I built for David and will give Israel to you. I will humble David's descendants because of this, but not forever. Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, but Jeroboam led to Egypt to Shishak the king and stayed there until Solomon stayed. Okay, so here we just read what I had mentioned before where God's judgment comes upon Solomon and he says that he's going to take away these 10 tribes from under Solomon or David's lineage and give it away to Jeroboam. So once Solomon dies, his son, Rehoboam, comes into power and Jeroboam then comes to him along with a few other people of Israel and they come to him and ask him whether he will reduce the burden that was upon his people, right, upon their people. So let's just read that part as well. First Kings 12 verse 2. Verse 2 to 5. When Jeroboam's son of Neba thought this, he was still in Egypt where he had fled from in Solomon. He returned from Egypt, so they sent for Jeroboam and he and the whole assembly of Israel went to Rehoboam and said to him, your father put a heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us and we will serve you. Rehoboam answered, go away for three days and then come back to me so the people went away. Thank you. And then can you continue from verse 12 to verse 17. Three days later Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam as the king had said, come back to me in three days. The king answered the people harshly, rejecting the advice given him by the elders. He followed the advice of the king of the enemy man and said, my father made your yoke heavy, I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with the whites, I will scourge you with scorpions, so the king did not listen to the people. But this turn of the west was from the Lord. Rufin in the word of the Lord had spoken to Jeroboam son of Naba through Ahiza, the Shillonite. When all Israel saw the king refused to listen to them, they answered the king, what share do we have in David? What part in Jesse's son to your friends Israel, look after your own house. David so the Israelites went home. But as for the Israelites who were living in the towns of Judah, Rehoboam still ruled over them. Thank you. So we see that David's descendants continue to rule over Judah. And over time the people who live in Judah become called the Jews. Okay, so that's how we see that term changed. So from Hebrew to Israelites to Jews. Okay, so when this division happens, Israel becomes a different nation and Judah becomes a different nation. And in Israel we have the capital, which is Samaria, and that nation exists until the Assyrians come in and capture the land. So the Assyrians came in in 722 BC and they capture the land and take the Israelites into exile. We'll read a little bit more about this as we're looking at who the Samaritans are. For now we'll just end with that. So the nation of Israel kind of ends there with the Assyrians coming in in 722 BC and capturing the people and taking them into exile. So Judah continues for a little longer with the capital in Jerusalem until the Babylonians come in. So they come in a little later in 605 BC taking the people captive and taking them into exile. These people who remain in Judah start to be called the Jews. It's only after the return. So we talked about the Persian conquest, right? So the Persians capture this whole region, the Palestine region after the Babylonians. And then King Cyrus sends people back to Jerusalem to re-establish, to rebuild the temple and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. It is at this time that the terms Jew, Israelites, Hebrews all start to become the same thing. So it's only the Judeans who start to be called Israelites after that because the people of Israel have already been gone into exile. And when they come back, they start to be called the Samaritans. So they are a different group of people. But the Judeans who are the descendants of the tribe of Judah continue to be called Israelites or Jews or Hebrews. Okay. Is that clear? Yes. Okay. Any questions so far? Good. Okay. Let's just look at this passage in 2 Kings 176 and then 24 to 35. In the ninth year of Austria, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halach in Gozan on the Haber River and in the towns of the Medes. And Pastor? Yeah. Verses 24 to 35. The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Hutuha, Avahama and Sephara and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took over Samaria and lived in its towns. When they first lived there, they did not worship the Lord. So he sent lions around them and they killed some of the people. It was reported to the king of Assyria, the people you departed and settled in the towns of Samaria don't know what the God of that country requires. He has sent lions among them which are killing them off because the people do not know what he requires. Then the king of Assyria gave this order, have one of the priests you took captive from Samaria, go back to live there and teach the people what the God of the land requires. So one of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came to live in Bethel and taught them how to worship the Lord. Nevertheless, each national group made its own gods in the several towns where they settled and set them up in the shrines the people of Samaria had made at the high places. The people from Babylon made Sukkot, Benot, Dostrom, Hutuha, Lurgal and Dostrom Hamath made Assyria. Is it okay for us to? Till 35. The abetis made Abbas and Tattav and the Sepharavetis birthed their children in the fire as sacrifices to Adramayadi and Anamalek, the gods of Sepharavia. They worship the Lord but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to appreciate for them as priests in the shrines at the high places. They worship the Lord but they also serve their own God in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they have been brought. To this day, the priests, they persist in their former practices. They neither worship the Lord nor adhere to the decrees and regulations, the laws and commands that the Lord gave the descendants of Jacob whom he named Israel. When the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites, he commanded them to not worship any other gods or bow down to them, serve them or sacrifice to them. Okay, so we see how that group of people changes completely, right? What we read in this passage, the Israelites, those 10 tribes are exiled and what the Assyrians do is they send all different people from different nations to go and start living in that region. And those people then don't know how to worship Yahweh, so there's a priest who is sent in to teach them how to worship Yahweh and along with that worship, they also start to worship their gods from their nations. And so this group of Samaritans is considered as people from a mixed religion and people from a mixed blood because some of them also married Israelites and had children with them. And so they don't consider them as true descendants of Israel. The Jews don't consider the Samaritans as true descendants of Israel or worshipers of the true God. That is their view of the Samaritans. So when the Jews return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, the Samaritans come in offering to help them rebuild the temple. And the Jews refuse to let them be part of that because they view them as foreigners. They don't view them as true Israelites. And this relationship between the Samaritans and Jews just starts to continue to become one that fosters hatred because each of them views the other as people who are not following the true God, who are not worshipping the true God. And we see that continue into the New Testament as well. Now to also, okay, I think we will cover this a little later, so I won't go into that for now, but the temple and the place of worship we'll look at a little later. So the next group of people we're going to look at is the scribes. They are also called the teachers of the law or lawyers or rabbis in the New Testament. Can someone open Ezra 7, 6 and 10, if you can read that for us. Ezra 7 verse 6. This Ezra came up from Babylon and he was a skilled scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord God of Israel had given. The king granted him all his request according to the hand of the Lord, his God upon him. And 10, for Ezra had prepared his heart, seek the law of the Lord to do it and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel. Okay, thank you. So this is where we see the scribes developing as a group of people. Ezra is one of the first scribes that we see talked about in the Bible. So when the Jews were taken into captivity by the Babylonians, they didn't have their temple to worship in. And so teaching the law grew in importance. That was the way for them to maintain their identity as Jews. The only way was to pass on what had been taught in the law of Moses by their prophets. So all of that is what began to be emphasized because there was no temple worship that they were practicing in exile. And this is when the scribes start to become more important because they are the ones who preserve that law and who pass it on to the people. So one of the ways they did that was they made copies of the Jewish scriptures and this was something that was highly revered. Their work was highly revered because it required a lot of skill. It required a lot of attention to detail because they had to make sure they were not making any errors as they were making copies of the scripture. There was no printing press. There was no easy way to make copies of the scripture. They were actually writing it down. Someone would recite and the scribes would sit down and write what was being recited. So it required a lot of skill, knowledge of the law and they were people who were trained in the law to continue to make these copies so that people would learn the scriptures. The other thing they did was to teach the people especially to teach children the scriptures and then once synagogues were established. So synagogues were established when they went back to Jerusalem and they rebuilt the temple and people settled in other parts of the Palestine region. Synagogues were established as local places of teaching the law and so scribes would be in these synagogues teaching the people the Torah. And then what happens over time is that the scribes also added to the law. So if someone can read Matthew 15, 1 to 9 and 23, 2 to 4. We see in the New Testament Jesus addressing the scribes and the teachers of the law. Usually not in positive ways and we'll see why. Can I read sister? Sure, go ahead. Thank you. Matthew 15, 1 to 9. Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus saying, Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread. He answered and said to them, Do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?  And he who curses father or mother, let him be put to death. But you say whoever says to his father or mother, whatever prophet you might have received from me is a gift to God. Then he need not honor his father or mother. Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. Hippocrates.  But their hearts are far from me. And in vain they worship me teaching as doctrine the commandments of men. Thank you. 1, 2, 3, 2, 4. Yes, please. Saying the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. Therefore, whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works. For they say and do not do, for they bind heavy burdens hard to bear and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. Thank you. So we see that they had started to interpret the law because the scribes were interpreting the law and teaching the law to people. So while they were interpreting the law, they were also adding additional rules, making additional or they were making it, applying it to people in a way that was contrary to God's intent for the people or God's heart for the people. And so there were additional laws being added, additional rules being added for the people. By the time Jesus had come and Jesus had started to minister, so what had begun as something that was a really good thing that they had started to ensure that people were educated in the teachings of the scriptures, over time became a place of power and abuse over the people of Israel. Okay, so next we look at the Sanhedrin. Okay, so where do we see the Sanhedrin in the New Testament? In the judgment of Jesus. Yes, so the Sanhedrin plays, that's where I think we see the Sanhedrin's role really come in, is when Jesus is brought trial before the leaders, the Jewish leaders.  So who were the Sanhedrin? They were people who actually were given power by the Romans and they were basically the elders, the Jewish elders, scribes, priests and other people were respected among the Jewish people. Okay, so they were people with a lot of power. It consisted of 70 members apart from the High Priest. So with the High Priest it was 71 and the High Priest was the one who was the main leader of the Sanhedrin. So these elders were first established during the time of Ezra and the synagogues each had a committee. So over time that committee became something that was also being practiced in Jerusalem. The Sanhedrin was a group of people that ruled in Jerusalem. And the Sanhedrin had power to arrest people, to make judgments in case of religious matters especially. They could punish people and they could even pronounce that the person should be put to death. But they couldn't carry out that punishment. Okay, so it was only the Romans who could put people to death. But the Sanhedrin could decide if someone should be given a death sentence. The main reason they could give for someone being put to death was if someone had defiled the temple. So that was the only reason where they themselves could carry out this capital punishment for someone. So we see in John 1831 when they go to the Roman authorities. We'll just open that John 1831. Okay, so they've taken Jesus before Pilate and Pilate says take them, take Jesus away and judge him by your own law. And so they reply to Pilate, only the Romans are permitted to execute someone. So while they could give that sentence, they couldn't actually put Jesus to death, which is why they take him to the Roman authorities to carry out their sentence. What is interesting and sad at the same time is that in Jesus' trial, the Sanhedrin, the main goal of that group was to make sure that the Jews were upholding the laws, the Jewish laws. Okay, so they were in charge of, they were kind of a committee or a justice system for the Jews. Okay, so they were the judges for the Jews in terms of religious and some civil matters. But in Jesus' trial, they themselves break a lot of their own laws. One is they conduct the trial at night, which is not allowed. Second is that it's a secret meeting. They haven't actually, because they do it, they arrest Jesus in secret. They haven't actually invited the whole Sanhedrin to be there for Jesus' trial. So they break their own laws in that. They also, there is contradictory testimony from the witnesses for Jesus' trial, which right away they should have dismissed the case and punished false witnesses. But they don't do any of that. So in Jesus' case, we see the corruption within the Sanhedrin, where the rule, they're supposed to uphold the Jewish law, but they use it in whatever way it pleases them to accomplish their own purposes. So we see that a lot of corruption had come into the leaders, the Jewish leaders who were in the Sanhedrin. Okay, so next we look at the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The Sadducees are not mentioned a lot in the New Testament. Can you all remember where the Sadducees are mentioned or anything in the New Testament that we know about the Sadducees? The Sadducees are sad to see. Yeah. So yeah, that's from a song I think we learned when we were younger. So what is it that the New Testament talks about the Sadducees? Okay, so they're one of the groups of people who oppose Jesus in his ministry. Yes, that's definitely true. And we'll also look at why they are in opposition to Jesus' ministry. So we also know that one of the big things was that they didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead. And Jesus says, you don't believe it because you don't know the scriptures, right? He says to the Sadducees. So these were two groups of people, Sadducees and Pharisees, who developed the Pharisees especially came into existence when the Jews returned to Jerusalem under the Persian rule. Okay, so the Pharisees comprised of many scribes. So as the synagogues were being built and the scribes were coming to a place of importance as religious leaders, this group of Pharisees also started to grow and they were mostly comprised of the scribes. We don't know exactly when the Sadducees were formed, this group of people was formed. But sometime in opposition to this Pharisee group of people, the Sadducees came in. So the main differences between these groups of the Sadducees were pro-political. So during the Maccabean rule, the Maccabees restored temple worship, which was an amazing thing for the Jews, but they also took over politically. And this was not something that was supported by the scribes. The scribes were very interested in maintaining the religious purity of the Jews, but they were not interested in political power and they were not interested in politicians having power over the religious practices of the Jews. They wanted that to be separate from politics. The Sadducees, however, were very interested in political power. So they were Jews who enjoyed political power. So like the Maccabees who had come into a place of power and wanted to reign over the Jews, the Sadducees sided with them. So they had a lot of favor from those in power, the politicians in power, whereas the Pharisees were seen as people in opposition to politicians. The Sadducees also comprised mainly of priests, especially the high priests and other leaders in society. They were usually wealthy. They usually had a lot of power and influence, mainly among the higher classes. The Pharisees, on the other hand, mainly comprised of scribes, but also they were priests. So there were also Pharisees in the Sanhedrin and Sadducees in the Sanhedrin. Both of them were in the Sanhedrin, but the Pharisees were usually poorer people. They were from lower classes of society and they didn't have a lot of power because they were not very interested in the politics side of it. But both groups of people had power because the Sadducees had the support of the politicians, but the Pharisees had the support of the people. So the Sadducees were actually afraid of the Pharisees because the Pharisees could influence the common people and they could get the people to support whatever they wanted. In terms of beliefs, the Sadducees believed only in the written scriptures. They didn't believe in any oral traditions that were passed down, whereas the Pharisees believed in oral tradition as well. So when Jesus is saying, you've added so much to the law, it's because the Pharisees believed in that oral tradition. So if someone was teaching the scriptures, they would also add their interpretation of the scriptures and that would be given a lot of importance by the Pharisees. On the other hand, the Sadducees would only take what was written in the law as binding for people. So they felt that you can interpret it the way you want to interpret it. Only if it's written in the law, you need to follow it. How you interpret it is up to you. The Pharisees on the other hand felt that how the scribes interpret it is what the people must follow. They have to follow the way the scribes are interpreting it. And then a few other beliefs is the Sadducees believed in human freedom. They didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead or in the eternal life that the soul has. And they didn't believe in angels. Pharisees on the other hand believed in all these things. So we see a lot of just between these two groups of people, they had power, but they also had a lot of disputes between them. Okay. I think this is the last two groups of people that we look at are the publicans and the zealots. I think they're also out of time. Aren't we? It's in the end of class. Okay. So we will come back on Monday and we look at these last two groups of people and then go into the rest of the introduction before we actually look at the book of Matthew. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, sister. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you.


you know it doesn't really matter how i lay out my ink plots i can do many i can do few i can blow them i can spin them it doesn't really make it more difficult or anything like that in fact if i did the same ink plot many times it would be even more difficult but then again variation is fun so here you go


With Memorial Day signaling the unofficial start of summer as if on cue parts of California saw triple-digit temperatures this week Heat causes more deaths each year than hurricanes lightning tornadoes earthquakes and floods combined That's why it's so important for you to know the signs of heat illness Signs of heat exhaustion can include feeling lightheaded or dizzy excessive sweating cool pale or clammy skin Feeling nauseous or even vomiting and a weak rapid pulse also muscle cramps Heat exhaustion is dangerous if not taken care of and it can lead to possible and more severe heat stroke So what do you do if you are someone around you starts to show signs of heat exhaustion? The first thing to do is try to limit exposure So if you can get out of the Sun or indoor to an air-conditioned facility, that would be best If you can hydrate yourself with cool fluids, that would be very useful as well And if you have access try to cool the hands and cool other areas of high blood flow like the neck or the armpits or the groin And if you start noticing that things are getting worse Especially with confusion or people who have other medical illnesses that would be time to call for assistance Now is also a good time to remember how quickly our cars can become dangerous in the heat on a 78 degree day The temperature inside a parked car can soar to 120 degrees in just minutes on a 90 degree day your car can reach a hundred and sixty degrees in less than ten minutes And remember a child's body overheats three to five times faster than an adult Children have died from heat stroke in car temperatures as low as 60 degrees And when it comes to your pet, it's not just inside the car that can be dangerous Asphalt can easily reach 135 degrees on summer days hot enough to burn your pet after just one minute of contact Always test the pavement with the back of your hand. If it's too hot for you to touch It's too hot for your dog to walk on If you'd like to see more videos like this or any videos from our team go to OES news comm You can also like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter and Instagram for all of us at Cal OES. I'm Brian May


Hello Lone Fox family welcome back to my channel It is Drew here and today I am doing another episode in my little thrift flip series that I do here on my channel I've just been so inspired honestly by McKenna's videos that she's been doing over on XO McKenna Which I love her so much and her videos are just really amazing And I've been wanting to do a lot more stuff with thrifted items lately So today is the day that I'm going to be going to the thrift store I literally woke up like an hour ago So I'm gonna change really quickly head to the thrift store See if I could find some really cool items to just transform for this video And if you're not already make sure to subscribe to my channel I post brand new videos every single week on DIY home decor interior design Thrift flips like upcycling whatever it might be. I post them all the time So definitely subscribe click the bell icon next to it and you can also follow me on instagram at Lone Fox home I'll put it right up here for you guys. I post more behind the scenes type of stuff over there What was that? I'm literally scared. So I'm just gonna go to the thrift store and get out of here It's desk, I mean 1999 Something about this It's kind of cute. I think this desk I made this desk because it's honestly a great time It's so cute and it's very sturdy. It's like $20 And I think there's a lot of opportunities To redo this desk for some reason.   I know that but I feel like this could be turned into something I don't know why but I literally find pieces from target like full on 34.89 wooden piece 799 I'm gonna do something with this for sure.  Oh wow that could be turning this into something good Opi table trunk storage device option really feel like I'm hitting the jackpot today like I Found this floor lamp. It's $12, but it's like a full on floor lamp. It's wrapped in leather But it's really beat up so I would definitely pull the leather off of it Something about this just like is great And I also put this little lampshade on top of it, but this one's super super dirty But the lampshade looks amazing at this size on top of here They were literally testing this light right now We had put one bulb in and it didn't turn on but then I tested the bulb in multiple other lights Oh, yeah, let's test it first Let's see if this light bulb works. Oh, it works the light bulb. Yeah, this light bulb screws in I got it worked Period we're getting this I am very very happy with these refines today because I literally can never find anything at this particular goodwill And I just feel like these are going to be such great pieces So at the trunk the tray little candle holder and this tall floor lamp which I'm very excited to redo And I'm going to see this back at my apartment where we're going to kind of like deconstruct these items Clean them up a bit and then just redo them and refresh them and turn them into something brand new Which I'm very excited for so catch you soon Honestly, I am so excited for this video We are starting off with a floor lamp and it looked like this I got this for $12.99 at goodwill And what I'm starting off by doing is taking an exacto knife and just going down the back seam That this leather was sewn on with and just cutting off the leather And the thing that was amazing is that it actually wasn't even glued down to the base It was just like wrapped around and that was really all and I made sure to also cut it off at the bottom With the exacto knife as well We just wanted to scar this leather piece because it was a little dusted and a little bit crusted So next what I did was I grabbed some marble contact paper and I picked this up on amazon I'm going to link the exact one below because this is such a stunning color of marble It's like the whitish color, but it has hints of warm tones in it as well Which is something that I love and I'm just going to be wrapping the base of this entire lamp in this marble contact paper And I love how the base was kind of just a plasticky resin material because it was super smooth and easy to apply the contact paper to So how I did this was I actually just started at the top and worked my way to the bottom And I also want to be completely transparent with you guys and let you know that the backside of this lamp was not the most incredible looking Masterpiece I've done the back was a little bit challenging just because this does taper from like smaller at the top to larger at the bottom So it was a bit hard to get the contact paper to like warp correctly around the entire lamp But if you do have some air bubbles just poke them with your exacto knife Make the tiniest little pinhole As you can see here and then just kind of like push the air out of the hole And that's how you pop those random air bubbles you get so on the back I was actually left with this triangle shape So I applied another piece of contact paper just on top of it and just cut it out very freehand And this is what I meant by the back not looking the best as you can see here But if you place this against the wall or in a corner or put the back against something that people won't see It's not a humongous issue and I finished it off with a lampshade that McKenna actually let me borrow And it was only $2.99, which is amazing. So the total cost of this floor lamp ended up being $26 and look how the outcome turned out Moving our way into project number two This one is a little bit more on the smaller scale, but I loved the outcome So I think you guys saw me thrift the little wooden tray and also the candle holder So what i'm starting off by doing is taking this hand saw from the dollar store And i'm cutting off these end pieces now I already have like a very similar wood tray to this in my collection So I didn't want them to be on this when I created it into like a different style of tray, which you're going to see in a second So I decided just to use the hand saw to cut these off And I know some of you guys are going to be like, oh my gosh No, I can't believe you're cutting those off because they do look really nice on there But for what I wanted to create an upcycle this piece into they just didn't look the best So I cut them off of both sides and it was actually super simple These wooden pieces here are actually made of mango wood, which is a very very soft wood So it's pretty easy to actually just break them off So this is what the tray ended up looking like without the handles on it And I just went in with a sandpaper a fine sandpaper and just made sure that those edges were nice and smooth That way it just looked like those handles weren't even on there in the first place And I next placed on my candle holder and I pushed down the little like center Needled prong thing into the actual wood and used a hammer to hammer down the edge of the brass Because I actually wanted the brass kind of base to wrap around the wood and make it look like it was created for this piece I really wanted it to look like a solid piece And if I didn't do this you actually would be able to see Kind of like that it was a candle holder just glued onto the tray So I used my quick hold adhesive, which is my favorite glue ever It's like e6000 but a quicker bond Placed it down hammered it a little bit more just to make sure everything was nice and secure And then once you were completely done letting this set overnight The total cost was only $12 and you end up with this really cute kind of mixed material elevated tray Okay, here's the project we have all been waiting for I love the outcome of this But you guys I went through so much trial and error and I am keeping it in the video So you guys can see kind of my process of creation So what I started off by doing was just giving this a light sanding on all of that kind of turquoise area And then wiping it off once it was done. This was almost like a plasticky material So I just wanted to give it some grip that way when I sprayed it It was nice and adhered and what I thought to do first, which I don't know why I did this was just masking tape off Every single piece of black and I started doing this and after about 10 minutes of masking tape I was like this is going to take me three hours to tape everything off So I immediately flipped the trunk over and I just wanted to test out if I was to spray the entire trunk green And paint over the green sections that are supposed to be gold with the gold paint. So that's exactly what I did I gave it a full on couple coats of this green spray paint and I will link the exact green one I used below. I don't know why I didn't film a little clip of it But I believe it was the hunter green two times cover from rustoleum But I'll make sure to link it for you guys in case you are curious It was such a pretty color in the end. It looks a little bit bright on screen But it's more of like an emerald kind of dark green color So I went through I gave multiple coats of this just so that it didn't drip or anything And then once it was completely dry, this is kind of where everything went downhill I used my gilded brass paint, which you guys have seen me use before This is from michael's craft store and I was going to go through and paint every single part with the gold paint But literally the paint this gold paint is made of some kind of like I don't know what chemicals in this but it was eating off the green spray paint So everything started blending together. It was not good.  It looks like I'm having a seance or something I don't even know and then I gilded it all with the gold spray paint that I always use Which I'll link this one below for you guys. Clearly. I did not film my spray paints for this video I don't know why it's the 18 karat gold rostalium spray paint And then I literally went back once everything was dry and put it all back together This was definitely a trial and error process, but it ended up turning out amazing So you can kind of see here. I spent like an hour reconstructing this entire crate But it was kind of fun. It reminded me of when I used to do Legos So If I didn't really want to share with you guys like the entire process of this because not all of you are Going to be able to find this identical trunk and every trunk is going to be a little bit different So I'm just sharing with you what I did per se and then it was a bit conflicted So I went onto my instagram story and asked you guys if I should leave the screws green or if I should paint them gold And green ended up winning which I actually kind of liked the green anyways I added a bit of contrast So I finished off this trunk by giving it a couple coats of just a clear gloss finish And I gave probably like four coats just so it had a kind of a very glossy sheen in the end And you could add wheels I actually had purchased these for this trunk, but I ended up liking it a bit more without the wheels So I just left them as is but I wanted to share them anyways the total cost ended up being 45 dollars and this trunk turned out amazing So there you have it guys those are my thrift flips today And I hope you enjoyed this video as much as I enjoyed creating it for you If you are not already make sure to subscribe to my channel I post very new videos on home decor DIY all that sort of stuff every single week And don't forget to click the little bell icon next to the subscribe button That way you are notified when I upload brand new videos You can also follow me on instagram at lonefoxhome where I post more behind the scenes type of stuff And I also had like polls over there as you guys saw I asked like Which you thought I should paint the little screws on the trunk and green actually barely even won So thank you guys so much for your input on that I actually did leave them green and I loved the way that the trunk ended up turning out It is such a cool and unique piece it has a very eclectic vibe to it Which is something I have been loving lately and into your design. I'm not going to keep you for much longer So thank you guys so much for watching and spending some time with me today I hope you have an amazing rest of your day, and I'll catch you my next one. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye Oh my god


Education is a lot of work, whether it's students going through grades 1 to 8 or 1 to 12, Bible Institute kind of studies, it's a lot of work to do it, a lot of work to manage it, and today we're gonna have a conversation exploring why, why is that worth it. Our guest is Paul Emerson, and Paul has been involved in both various day schools, as well as other forms of Christian education, Bible Institute, and things like that, so excited to welcome him to Anabaptist Perspectives. If our conversations can just kind of range over both of these, but let's start with the Bible Institute, you're involved with El Nora Bible Institute, and maybe just frame what's the overarching goal or purpose. I would say the overarching goal is spiritual formation for primarily directed to young people, 18 and older, we do have some older students from time to time, I guess the oldest we've had as a full-time student would have been 68 maybe, but typically it's the young people. When people hear about Bible Institute, some people think the social component is the main one, that is not how we feel, we feel that the biblical component is the main one, and so we're looking for the impact of scripture on the life of the student. So, yeah, scripturally intensive focus, is there a social part of that though, I don't know if you especially include having live instructors and so on. Yeah, there's a social component, relationships are built, faculty to students, student to faculty, student to student, certainly, and then there are what we might call purely social times for the typical Anabaptist game time for part of an evening. I guess you could think of those effects too in terms of the student's life, he said spiritual formation, what you want them to get from Bible school, and is that also a piece that translates back to, this is the church community, we want to enrich the church community by maybe mostly training individual people. Yeah, we would see ourselves as coming alongside churches and helping them in these ways. We would feel that it's an opportunity, young persons away from home, opportunity for them to examine themselves to see whether they'd be in the faith as the scripture says, and so we kind of start out with the gospel. Not doubting that they may have heard it in their churches and may have committed to Christ, but still wanting to be sure that we all understand the gospel in its full sense. And that's because you don't want to take anything for granted. I think the biggest error that we can make probably in this part of our ministry is to assume that someone is saved. I think our better assumption or our default position should be, we will assume that they're not saved until they prove otherwise. Do you want to say anything about some of the other things you do at the Bible Institute that aren't just for young people, maybe some of the seminars you run for pastors or whatever? Yes, we have seminars for ministry, training, pastoral kinds of things, and also there's a seminar each year on expository preaching. We also have a discipleship seminar, otherwise known as biblical counseling. These are week-long type of meetings in the fall. It's, again, a way we come alongside of the church and encourage ministry and others in various ministry opportunities within their church. Yeah, I like that model because it's very hard for somebody in the stage of life that a church leader is usually in. It's very hard for them to take 15 weeks or 6 weeks and do the intensive course, but if it's packaged in a week and you can speak right where they are. Yeah, let's shift a little bit to educating children more broadly, the K-12 education. Yeah, we talk about goals and so on. You want to just tell us a little bit maybe about your, summarize a little bit of the experience you had with that. Let's start with. I suppose it started when I was young in terms of an interest in education. My mother was a public school teacher who left off her teaching when she had children. In the process, left us a bit of a heritage with view to getting involved in education some way. That bore fruit after I became a minister with the idea of starting a church-controlled Christian school. I was first involved in that in 1975 and have been involved variously ever since in some aspect of education. We would see the primary responsibility for education of children resting on the parents, but we do see the importance of the community being involved, the community of faith, that is to say the local church. Either for accountability if the parents choose homeschool or for actually providing education as an extension of the home in a Christian school setting. The reason for primary education and secondary education in our thinking is not so that they can get a good job or even so that they can go to college. Though a number of them will go to college, the reason is to prepare them to be trained in reading, understanding, be able to understand the scriptures and apply the scriptures in daily life. In other words, it is more the idea that they are preparing to serve in the kingdom with the ultimate goal of doing that with heavenly or eternal view, with a view to eternity and what really will matter and what will be here a million years from now, or what they will be experiencing a million years from now rather than just the immediate 40 or 50 years that's ahead of them. Yeah, I got a sort of follow up to that. I'm just curious though. You said 1975, was that like legally difficult to start a school then? I know the earlier days the Christian school movement was that or did you have smooth sailing as far as government was concerned? Well, we were living in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts at the time and there were court cases all over the place regarding Christian schools and the home school movement actually was beginning just in that time period and those parents were not particularly godly parents, they were not particularly Christian. They were actually professors at the University of Massachusetts which was nearby. They were immediately prosecuted for contributing to the delinquency of a minor by violating the truancy laws and so they had much deeper pockets than we did and as a result they actually paved the way for a certain amount of appropriate liberty in Christian education. For us, though I'm sure they did that unintentionally, however we did run afoul of a part of the state code at one point which managed to get my picture on the front of the local newspaper and so forth. We never were involved legally. The state ended up working with us to kind of bypass their own regulations to permit us to go forward with the school. Yeah, and that kind of thing has gotten a lot easier over the years legally although we don't know how long that will last. Right. Certainly could change. Yeah, back to purpose, just thinking a couple things there. Yeah, so learning to read the scriptures and that's been a Christian theme all along. Peach lots of people to read so they can read the Bible. I guess I could hear somebody say, yeah, but we learn to read the scriptures, but we learn to read by the time we're in third grade, second, third grade. Why do we need high school and Bible Institute? Yeah, that's not my perspective, but I can see the point too. While you learn to read then, hey, the rest of it can take care of itself. So why would you have a literature course in college and university? Why would you study genre and all of that and advanced studies? Learning to read may not be learning to read with understanding. And I'm not saying that scripture cannot be understood by a child. It can be. But there is a sense in which it is, as it says, new every morning. And some of that is the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit and interpretation. But some of it also is understanding the depths of the language in which it is written. And so I think that's a lifelong study and formal education contributes to it. Yes, and I have certainly found that true in my life. There's learning to read as in, you know, sounding out the words. I'm looking up the words, and then there's learning to read as in, okay, actually thoughtfully engaged with what the author is saying. Most importantly, scripture. What about schools and Christian character? Because I get this sometimes from the Christian school movement, and I think I mostly agree, but it always brings up questions when it's like, well, our primary role of the school is, you know, we provide examples and we form Christian character and academics are secondary or something like that. And I guess there's two things. One is, I think the academics are important. But secondly, I'm left wondering, well, if we're about forming character, is school actually the place to do that? Or is that something done at home? I don't know, how do you think about schools as character formation? I would think that is probably secondary. Don't get me wrong. I feel that character development is very important and character reinforcement are good character reinforcement. And we would want our Christian schools to contribute to that. But I would see it more in the realm of reinforcement. I think too many times parents will send their children to a Christian school, perhaps because they haven't done a very good job themselves in character development of these children. They expect the school to fix them. And that is a terrible mistake. And the school needs to be pretty careful in accepting that situation. They should dig around in an application process and come to understand what the parents really expect. Because if the parents expect the school to fix their mistakes, it's going to be one error piled on another and will negatively affect the whole school. That's interesting because just last week, I had a conversation with a school leader where our children are going and the same conversation came out the importance of the family interview because it's like, well, is the family doing things in a way that this is actually not a school, but it's a homeschooling support organization that we as a organization can effectively partner with them if there's not enough coming from home. We can't really work with it. We need to know our parents and develop the partnership. I think that the Christian school can be very helpful in building community and helping children understand the dynamics of community, particularly where there's not a broad church community of children the same age. There are things that school can do sociologically, if I can put it that way. But the school is going to be limited in what it can do when the home is not doing what it biblically is required to do. So then my last question, and then I'll give you the opportunity if you have any other places you'd like to think thoughts you'd like to share, but just how important is it to do distinctively Christian education in terms of organizing the schools? Obviously, if you're doing a Bible institute, you're teaching the Bible, but that general learning to read, like why organize our own schools versus using public options or private school options, going to a secular university to study genre and things like that. How do you think about that? Well, personally, I'm committed to Christian education, biblical Christian education. And this is why. I think that the world in a given instance may be more intelligent than we. I think that's sort of suggested in 1 Corinthians. So we're not talking about intelligence. We're talking about worldview. How do we view the world? And the secularists views it an entirely different worldview than we do. To the point where I think we can apply a scripture that says that they don't know anything as they ought to know it. They know lots of things. They may be more intelligent than we, and probably are in many cases, but they don't know anything as they ought to know it. In other words, from a Christian biblical worldview. And those anti-biblical worldviews, which I would kind of lump all together, are infectious. We are influenced by our environment academically, particularly, because it's a matter of the mind. And therefore, I would see it's very important to have a biblical, formal biblical education, Bible-based Christian education at all levels. It may be elusive at the higher education level.  Yes, if we've done our job as churches and communities anyhow, yeah, help equip people with that level. Yeah, it's good to flush it out. This episode actually kind of stems from a lunch table conversation we had a number of years ago. I remember asking you something about, though, why you're involved in education, and there you gave the very direct answer, well, God doesn't put, I don't think God puts a premium on ignorance. Anything else you'd like to say in closing on this episode? Well, we reflect on Colossians chapter 2, where it presents the fact that Christ is the fountainhead of all wisdom and knowledge. In essence, education is Christology in some form or other. I would take that from the text, or apply that from the text. And then church involvement would be a subset of that. And for Timothy 3, I believe it's verse 16, 15 or 16 talks about the church as the buttress. Again, it's foundational for truth. That's stretching it just a bit out of the context. He's talking about church order and so on there. But still, I think that the church needs to be involved coming alongside of parents with children and coming alongside of any effort at education, such as the Bible Institute. The church is the part of God's program that gives some regulation, some accountability, and that sort of thing. So that is how I view education in general. And that applies whether you're interacting with a private school or homeschool or educational levels. It may not be directly done by the church, the organized church, but it's accountable too. Thank you for joining us for this episode. We invite you to join our monthly partner program. Monthly partners are key to the financial sustainability of Anabaptist perspectives. Partners also gain access to bonus content, including our exclusive podcast where we respond to audience questions and comments. Sign up at anabaptistperspectives.org.


So, Søren, when people approach you and ask, I want to become a better service designer. What is the most valuable tip you can give them? A couple of tips, I think. I think that the most important part for me have been to be out there. I come from a world where we, perhaps this is obvious for other designers, but I come from a part of the world where we sat on our flat back chair, and hoped for ideas to pop down in our head. But I really think it's extremely important to get out and to surround yourself with real people to get out and really have a feeling of what is the problem, what are the people doing, trying to look at what they're doing and what they're not doing, what they're saying, what they're not saying, but really, really get out there. The other part is to surround yourself with people who are better than you are. That is, I think that's a general... Dip. So, developing tip, but I really think that's important, that you should surround yourself with great people who can challenge you, who can share ideas with you, who can push you in different directions. I try to do that, I'm not fantastic at it, but I try to. What do you think? Was this a helpful tip? Let me know by clicking that like button down below or leave a comment. And if this is your first time here and you'd like to see more videos that help to level up your service design skills, click that subscribe button and don't forget to click that bell icon so you'll be notified when new videos are out. Thanks so much for watching and I look forward to seeing the next video.