Welcome to this episode of the Structural Engineering Channel podcast. A podcast focused on helping structural engineering professionals stay up-to-date on technical trends in the field and also help them to succeed in their careers and lives. I'm your co-host Alexis Clark. I work in Hilti's North American headquarters as the product manager of our chemical anchoring portfolio in the U.S. and Canada. I'm a licensed professional engineer in Texas and I graduated with a degree in civil engineering from UT Austin. I'm your co-host Matt Bacartal. I'm a licensed engineer at DCI Engineers, practicing on structural projects in California with an undergraduate degree from Cal Poly Pomona and a master's degree in structural engineering from UC San Diego. In this episode, we talk to Mostafa Alamoghi, an active researcher, passionate instructor, and highly talented structural engineer about high-rise structural design. Mostafa will also talk about the structural engineering profession and provide some great tips for aspiring structural engineers. Our sponsor for today's program is Giza Steel, a design software specifically created for structural steel connection design. Giza supports over 400 connection configurations in the sheer, moment, vertical, and horizontal bracing groups. Selected as an AISC Modern Steel Construction Hot Product for the past two years, Giza continues to expand its connection library and add new tools that help users spend less time on connection design and produce concise and thorough design reports. You can try Giza today for free by going to www.gizasteel.com and downloading the 15-day trial. Giza, created by steel design professionals for steel designers. Again, that's www.gizasteel.com. Now, let's jump into our conversation with Mostafa. Mostafa, welcome to the Structural Engineering Channel podcast. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Before we dig into the meet of today's interview, can you share with us a little more detail of what you do currently in your role at Structural Engineering Basics? Yes, absolutely. Structural Engineering Basics is an online platform. I co-founded it with Noa Moskovich. It's basically a platform to help people understand the basics of structural engineering without getting into too much equations or long formulas or anything. We basically created it because we found a need for people that work with structures in the industry that wanted to understand the basics and be able to lead their teams or hire a structure engineering team and communicate efficiently with them. Even students found it interesting to learn more about the profession and what structure engineering is like. This is a program we're really excited about. If your listeners are interested, I created a discount coupon. If you want to check out our website, we can talk about this later. Awesome. I know you do have a really cool career path. Could you go into that? How did you get into structural engineering and what got you interested in structural engineering? Absolutely. I'm originally from Egypt. I grew up in Cairo and this is where I did my undergrad. I was genuinely interested in buildings and structures and wanted to know how they're made. I think also a big part of it was my father. He's a structure engineer. I thought that's an interesting thing to study. I didn't know much about what structure engineers do, but then I realized for tall buildings it was structure engineers that did all the number crunching and design. I did my undergrad in Egypt and shortly after graduating, I got an opportunity to work in Dubai. I was very fortunate to get this experience because in a way it shaped my career. It was there I was exposed to the design of tall buildings. Dubai, they have now the tallest building in the world. That was an excellent opportunity for me to learn what goes into the consulting side and design of tall buildings. Then I moved back to Egypt to do my masters and eventually decided to move to Canada to do a PhD in structural engineering. Eventually, I got my professional engineering PN designation and practiced engineering consulting and also taught engineering at university. Looking back, I got an opportunity to do lots of things in the structural engineering profession. That's really impressive. I love that you have such a really nice well-rounded background where you did a little bit. You've been to different countries so you understand the differences and some of the nuances that happen not only with structural engineering practice but culture. If any of our listeners are tuning in, that is a great follow-up and a great opportunity for us to learn a little bit more about some of what Anne was telling us in our last episode using the Global Practice Guide. It's great to have you on. That's a great follow-up. I think it's so fantastic you went back to school. I know a lot of people, especially young engineers, are always juggling with this opportunity of, you know, do I want to go back for a master's? Do I want to go back for a PhD? What is the value there? Why do I want to pursue that? How is it going to help get me to the next spot? Is that another investment that is going to pay off like my undergraduate degree was? Why don't you choose to go back to school? That's a great question because I remember by the end of my undergraduate program, you know how engineering and structural engineering courses, they're very heavy and by the end of it, I was exhausted. I thought, okay, that's it for school. I don't want to go back to school. I started working so I got this opportunity to go work in Dubai and then I realized what structural engineers actually do and especially on the consulting side, like the design and the huge responsibility like the designer has and I thought, wow, you know what? Going back to school and getting more and more courses and more theory and focusing on the things that I realized I'm genuinely interested in practicing in the profession, so that was my way to master's degree. I would say if you're interested in being a consultant, doing design work, a master's degree would be an excellent way to get more technical experience and strengthen your background in engineering design. The PhD decision for me, it was a whole bunch of things at the same time because I was working in Egypt and then this opportunity came to move to a new country, a new culture, I had to learn the language, eventually practice engineering in a different country so I had to learn the design codes and a whole bunch of things and the PhD fit nicely in the work I already did in my master's. So for me it was like an excellent step to start the profession in the new country and I was fortunate, it helped me in many ways. I got a chance to publish the research work I worked on with the research team at university in peer reviewed journals and international conferences so that helped me with like my technical writing skills, obviously helping with like teaching engineering later on and even with the professional engineering. Just like in terms of getting the license, the designation, the time I spent working on my research counted as experience because my advisor is a PN, just a professional engineer so we counted as working under the supervision of the professional engineer. So I guess it depends, for each case you'll have to weigh the benefits and what you're going to get out of it because at the same time you don't want to waste time and go do a degree that you're not necessarily going to use but at the same time if you can tap into the benefits of like going back to school and getting more education you will set yourself definitely ahead of the competition. Absolutely. Just so that we can all understand a little bit more you keep mentioning PN which I understand is the professional engineering license of Canada. Can you explain to us and our listeners kind of what the process is to get a PN so that we can understand how it compares in relation to the professional engineering licensure path? Yes, absolutely. So I guess this is the equivalent of the PE in the United States. Right, so the PN in Canada so each province, each part of Canada it has its own association that regulates the practice of professional engineering and they list a set of requirements so it starts with like a degree in engineering so a bachelor degree or something like that and there is usually a committee that will assess the academic qualification and if you're qualified then there is the next step would be like an exam like it doesn't focus on the technical stuff it's more like the ethics and the practice of engineering ethics it's sort of like a pass or fail exam and before that there is a four year time of like practicing engineering as a member in training during this time you should work under supervision of a professional engineer and submit like a regular report that outlines your experience what are the tasks you worked on and your advisor or supervisor typically will sign or like will help in writing the reports and have some sort of role there and by the end of it you do the pass or fail exam and the last step is like three reference letters by the time you get the three letters you send it to the association and you hear back and say well congratulations you're ready to get your full engineering license designation That's awesome I'm glad to know and I appreciate you spending the time to kind of share the process with us I know that's not the main topic of today's presentation or episode but I do think it's good for our audience to have a little bit of understanding of what are some of the licensure and some of the qualifications even other nations as our world continues to become more global and the opportunities to work abroad become more expansive I know there's plenty of listeners who are thinking hmm I could totally go do some time in Canada I know I could so Yeah it's always good to know what's going on and what the licensure is up in Canada or in other countries too Mostafa what are some of the most unique projects that you've worked on since I know you've worked on a lot so yeah what are the things that pop out to you? Yes, yes interesting so one of those definitely has to be a tall building I was fortunate to be part of the design team in Saudi Arabia it's one of the top 10 tallest buildings in the world it's famous for this massive clock on top of the tallest tower it's huge it's like 120 floors that's like about 600 meters that's like I'm thinking in feet that would be I think in metric so that's like almost 2,000 feet so that was a very interesting project and what goes into the design, the analysis obviously for something that tall we needed wind tunnel testing and just like the sheer magnitude of the project the project was built where a massive hill used to be and there was like a huge amount of demolition to remove that hill to build a project so the final cost it was like billions of dollars that was a very interesting project another project that's most recently a tall project in Winnipeg Manitoba this is the Hori structure it was built on existing foundations the original kind of phase one was already built and then the new tower was supposed to come and sit on those existing foundations and that gave me an opportunity to work with consultants from different parts in Canada the wind tunnel analysis and design we did it with a consultant in Toronto and just to coordinate and work with the architects the electrical, mechanical engineers and answer the tough questions like how many floors can we get out of the existing foundations and get a design that can work structurally and with the architect as well coordinating this is challenging because when you want to go taller you want more walls and thicker walls and the architect wants their doors and openings and windows so it was very interesting to work in all these things wow could you go into more you mentioned the wind tunnel testing I imagine that's one of the governing things that govern the design on these high-rises could you go into a little more about that and what the procedure is for that since I'm not too familiar with the wind tunnel testing so that would be something really interesting that you can go into absolutely so when buildings get taller the standard code kind of and design standards wind load and equations to calculate the wind pressure on the building become sensitive to the dynamic properties of the structure the natural frequency so think of the tower the building as like basically a cantilever which is like an inverted kind of pendulum kind of thing and the time it takes for the tower when it vibrates to do a full cycle this is this depends on like the dynamic natural dynamic properties of the building so the taller it gets the wind dynamic effect becomes part of the effect on the load on the wind pressure so some design standards limit the trigger to go to experimental testing that's what wind tunnel is like it's an experiment consultants that work with wind tunnel testing they would actually build a 3D model of the tower with surrounding buildings to create a similar environment to what the actual building is going to be built in and test it in a big wind tunnel like to see the effect on wind speeds and they would put all sorts of sensors to gauge because of the shape of the building if there's going to be some like turbulence or some sort of like forces and they can record all that the consultant we work with on this project they did an excellent job in creating what they call a desktop study so that helped us to get things going this is like using software model the tower we're trying to build and use from previous experience from projects they've worked on what usually the forces look like and I created a 3D model for the tower and gave them the the stiffness and the natural frequency and the dynamic properties of the structure and they were able to give me some sort of like something to get because you will realize soon after you get the forces that there are certain criteria or certain things are not working like for example the lateral deformation is too high or some sort of like vibration effect is not where it's supposed to be so I start increasing the thickness of walls adding new walls adding out rigors increase the stiffness of the material like for example use higher strength concrete or something like that to get things to work but just by the nature of changing these things I change the properties of the building now so the fundamental frequency is different so I take that second iteration and go back to the wind tunnel consultant and then do few iterations like that till we figure things out so the way they provided the loads for me was point loads at each level in terms of force in the x direction kind of horizontal force in the 90 degree direction kind of y direction and torsion and the specific combinations to work that with so it ended up being like I don't know 24 load cases with like the combination of all wind loads to make sure that they cover all cases that the wind will impact the tower and also provided some very useful graphs if I did some minor changes and change the frequency or the stiffness of the building I can go back and change the forces accordingly so it was a very good cooperation to figure out how to design that tower building that's awesome I first want to thank you for kind of walking us through the process of the iterative design process I do a lot of work with helping high schoolers become introduced to engineering and I work with this one teacher who's really good about really immersing his students in the iterative engineering design process because you don't just design something once you go through it over and over and over and you change something and you test it again and I don't think they believe us sometimes they're like no you just like us to do this over and over again you just want to torture us so it's good for a professional to be able to share that so I'm going to make a shout out ODY at high school and Mr. Kassal's engineering class this is a real thing I promise it is, absolutely it is, it absolutely is I know Matt could speak about all the time but it's good to have a guest kind of walk us through that process as well of course, of course I think that is so fascinating thank you for sharing with us about the wind tunnel testing and it seems like such a complex system I'm curious, obviously you go back and forth and you have to change different attributes for the building but what are some of the outcomes in this in the actual building design what are some of the lateral systems that you would use maybe what are some of the software that you would use to analyze this and what are some of the construction materials you consider in different situations beautiful, so that's like following up on what you just said this is the nature of design especially for tall buildings is that when you change the assumptions the kind of the results change and then you go and change the assumptions again and then you'll get different results so you want to start with so the idea is like okay we want the structure to be safe and we also want to not over designing we don't want to kind of over build it so where do we start so I usually start with some reinforced concrete shear walls and cores usually around the stairwells and the elevator shafts so most of the time architecturally these are just like dead walls just to encase the stairwell or to enclose the elevators and those are perfect opportunities for the structure engineer to just like use their put their solid reinforced concrete shear walls there so if you start there and then you run the analysis maybe you do the wind tunnel thing you assign the loads and then you look at the results so there are certain things that you want to check first is the design going to be safe are the stresses in these walls within the allowable range or like the walls are just like they're stressed and there is no physical way they can withstand all that load and pressure so even if it's safe and you can the walls are good with the stress you need to look at the deformation of the building because you don't want someone living at the top floor when it's really windy outside to kind of feel that massive movement of the tower that becomes really uncomfortable so you want to check the deformation and the lateral movement as well and this becomes like a function of the stiffness of the building and the really the way you can control this is by either adding more walls or another thing I would do is connect groups of shear walls or cores together so I would connect the elevator to stairwell with like coupling beams to create like a bigger stiffer tube sort of thing to increase the inertia and the stiffness of it and then run the analysis again if that was sufficient to satisfy all the terms you might as well like go ahead with like more detailed design and coordination and let everyone know hey these are the layouts that work so everyone can start working on their part of the design if not then you will start to try to engage the perimeter of the building so now we are talking about very super tall buildings so this is where ideas like exoskeleton would come into play you are engaging the full footprint like the perimeter of the tower to create like a very stiff element and connected with the inner reinforced concrete core so it can all work together to increase that stiffness and inertia and go higher pretty much so a few of the material I've used in something like that would be so reinforced concrete for stairwell works great because it creates that big solid walls with big inertia and stiffness those work very well also steel steel columns, steel beams they work very well in the typical floors for like a steel column it can go up to 40 I've used them for 40 floors by the time you get to the basement if you can find a thick enough steel column to support the load you might want to go to concrete reinforced concrete or even a composite section so it's basically a steel column caged with concrete to resist the loads and the stresses for the typical floor I've used holocore slabs they are precast pre-stressed also post tension reinforced concrete work very well especially with tall buildings and the typical repetitive floors because you can use thicker, thinner rather slabs so you can save on the weight and you can save on the foundation columns and things like that so yeah those were some of the materials that I've used I think that's what's really cool about tall buildings or even super tall buildings I know when I'm looking at some of the design concepts of some of these super tall buildings they're really cool how they combine you know there's the strong core but then like you mentioned they might have outriggers or an exoskeleton kind of like those unique buildings where it really allows you to get creative on I imagine with all the wind tunnel testing they must be going through different types of shapes and so I think a lot of creativity can go into it and I think that's what's really cool about those types for our listeners Mostafa I want to give them some professional advice do you have any advice for them let's say they do want to get into high-rises is there a specific career path that they should go should they look for a specific type of company or should they get a specific type of experience do you have any advice for those types of people absolutely so you first step I would say you need to kind of look inside those buildings and knowing how things work interest you because if you're going to pick this as a profession you're going to be working a lot you're going to be spending long hours in this like process of like designing and changing things so it really helps if you genuinely interest and it excites you to start a new project and see how you're going to figure out and design it so you want you're interested and you want to go into this career path a civil engineering degree would help so that's that's cool you might want to pick the civil engineering path and within your program you start looking at what courses interest you and you might as well pick the ones that will enable you to take your career into the structure of engineering so structure engineering design you might want to take like some of the analysis courses materials structures dynamics things like that and I would also say try to get experience as early as possible so like you know first year second year in try to network and communicate with your colleagues your professors and look for like what's out there and see how you feel about it if there are a certain path or a certain career that interests you and try to learn more and see ask the question like approach it with like you know open curious like hey I'm interested I'm curious about what you guys do how do I get there how do I do this can you learn me can you teach me something things like that so those would be few of the things that would strongly recommend doing as as early as possible there is no like the best time to start preparing for your career is right now fantastic and universal words of wisdom I love those thank you what are some of the best steps now that you've done a really good job setting up what an undergraduate can do what are some of the best steps that a recent structural engineering graduate can take to further their career especially when it comes to high rises yes right so so it depends on where you start so like you just finished and you're looking for your perfect job start your perfect career or even if you started your work and you realize that it's a possibility that you're going to be working on tall buildings so I think networking goes a long way so you most probably the fundamentals and the basics you got that covered in your program like a bachelor's degree so now it's going to be communicating with professionals that are ahead of you and you might want to like look for mentors someone that has the experience of working on tall buildings and ask questions and you know and you might think well you know absolutely it is the case that you know professionals and engineers are super busy and you might think oh I don't want to bother anyone but for me I love it when like a fellow engineer or student approached me to ask about something because it's very rewarding to share back and give back you know things that I've learned and see others kind of using it and reaping the benefits of it so I would recommend looking for a mentor I would recommend paying attention and keeping an eye open for opportunities so next time there is like a work or project in the office and they're looking for someone to work on I don't know maybe raise your hands and hey I'm interested in tall buildings let me give it a try and in terms of like the technical part I use softwares a lot there are like a lot of finite element analysis softwares out there and I have so much respect for like engineers back in the day before computers how did they do the analysis of these tall buildings it's crazy like think of this iterative process can you imagine calculating the dynamic properties of a tall building over and over again by hand by hand exactly so it's definitely something that you will benefit from adding it to like toolkit look for I can name a few of the softwares that I found very helpful I use eTabs a lot I find it oriented to multi-story buildings and in terms of learning as I said you can ask someone you can look for a mentor or you can Google it YouTube has a lot of information like we take you step by step and then in a week you're good to go and use the tools so that's what I would say like just like raise your hand and summon up the courage and take the responsibility and then you'll figure it out along the way I love that taking some self initiative gets you a long way absolutely I know that actually Matt and I hosted an episode regarding mentorship at the beginning of January maybe and we had quite a bit of information I'm glad we actually spent time talking about exactly what you just shared with us Mustafa which is there are actually lots of people who are busy out there who are more than happy to pass along wisdom and give advice and be a mentor so if you have someone in mind that you want to mentor you reach out to them and just ask because they can't help if they don't know that you want help and Matt I kind of just want to make a little plug for you here since Mustafa gave us a great like up to say that you know there's a lot of reviews available on the internet like YouTube yeah thanks yeah I got you know the whole channel thing too it's and it's a great way to share experience with the internet you know like yeah there's mentorship one on one but there's also a lot of opportunities on social media to share your knowledge especially if you're in whatever technical stuff you do a lot of people do you just they just want to learn about it especially the students especially when they're growing up they kind of see like these cool projects that you're working on it's a great way to mentor but also to help the structural engineering profession to you know attracting talent yeah yeah Matt's killing it oh so sorry go ahead I think we're living in very interesting time with like you know YouTube and podcast like I love what you guys are doing I think like paving the way for like engineers to kind of communicate together and maybe go out of the office a little bit and do something other than crunching numbers and sharing experience and sharing knowledge absolutely glad we have all these channels of communication we can use them for good yes so I want to really quickly circle back before we close today's episode I want to circle back to something you mentioned at the very beginning of the podcast which was this structural engineering basics that you've developed why did you decide to start this as an online course I so as I mentioned I co-founded it with Noa Moskovich we used to work together at the same consulting firm and we actually had like cubicles right next to each other and during work we would get a lot of questions from our clients about something that would be like covered under like the very basics of structural engineering so we thought hey like there is a need out there for the professionals and the people that work with structural engineering because structures affect our lives on a daily basis right so it's there is a lot of need to understand the basics without getting into like the number crunching the very kind of complex formulas and things like that and we were lucky to have very successful stories for people that took our course there was a project manager in Japan actually he's responsible for like developing multiple buildings and he was leading a big structural engineering team and contractors and realized hey I'm leading everyone I should get like an idea about the basics what goes into structural engineering and building structures also a contractor actually used our course to train his staff so they're ready to do like structural engineering related work so we're very happy to see like the success stories and how there is a need for this information out there so I mentioned at the beginning that if your listeners are interested I created a coupon for them if they want to check out our website so our website is structuralengineeringbasics.com and we have lots of free content we have like blogs we have a YouTube channel we talk about different topics and there is also a free introduction course that gives you a sample of what's in the full structural engineering basic course so you can sign up and you can also download a free guide we call the ultimate guide for structural engineering basics it kind of nicely summarize the important things that you need to know about structural engineering so if you're interested in the course I created a coupon code you can use that code to get a 10% discount and the code is S-E-C 10 off so that's the structural engineering channel S-E-C 10-O-F-F all capital we're happy to hear from you if you have any questions be more than happy to get in touch and answer your questions awesome thanks for that Mustafa we'll definitely link that in the description or you've already said the channels how can our listeners connect with you do you have a LinkedIn or some way they can connect with you one-on-one yes absolutely so the easiest way would be our website all the links and everything we're also on Facebook Instagram on LinkedIn so as I mentioned the website is structuralengineeringbasics.com and an email to reach out info at structuralengineeringbasics.com and just check out our website see if any of this interest to you we also recently created a course for students or recently graduated engineers that talks about a lot of the things we discussed today how to get prepared for the job you really want we're very excited about this whole thing so yeah absolutely I'm excited and looking forward to hearing from everyone that's fantastic Mustafa thank you so much for coming on and sharing some of your really great insights with us I know you've given us some really good information and our listeners some great resources to check out that's really going to help them advance in their understanding of structural engineering and in their careers thank you my pleasure that was a really awesome experience thanks for having me we hope you enjoyed the episode today we would love to hear your feedback comments and or questions to leave them please visit structuralengineeringchannel.com there you'll find a summary of the key points discussed in today's episode as well as links to any of the resources websites or books mentioned don't forget to subscribe on apple podcast or wherever you listen to your podcast until next time we wish you the best in all of your structural engineering and ethics


Well, this is another action-manga-slash-anime that licensed its name and characters out to a one-on-one fighting game. We've seen this before with Dragon Ball, we've seen it with Yu-Yu Hakusho, and now it's Bastard, and Koku no Hakai-Shin. And right away, as you can see, this game looks freaking crazy. You've got two fighters floating in midair, throwing fireballs and ninja stars at each other while the ground scrolls beneath them with these majestic looking backgrounds zipping by. There's sprite scaling, there's a Mode 7 effect on the ground. This game looks incredibly impressive, and it makes an immediate impression. And hey, with a title like Bastard, it's gonna invoke some curiosity. However, if you actually want to play this one, well, uh, unfortunately Bastard is in fact a Bastard when it comes to gameplay. You fight from a third person over-the-shoulder perspective, and while that's definitely something different for the time, it causes all sorts of problems, because most of the fighting here is just, uh, throwing projectiles at each other. The Y button fires a shot that curves to the left, the A button throws one that curves right, X throws one on an upward curve, and B on a downward curve. It really just boils down to, if your opponent is to your left, hit the Y button. If he's hanging out to your right, hit the A button. If he's below it, B and above, hit X. It gets extremely monotonous, and it doesn't help that the controls here are incredibly finicky, and it's really tough to actually hit your opponent. It always seems like it's just a matter of luck. Like they just happen to move in the wrong direction as you hit the right button. So as a result, there's not really any real strategy here. It honestly feels like I'm playing some kind of baseball mini-game or something, and I'm Clayton Kershaw dressed as some kind of wizard guy, and he's throwing some curveballs and sliders trying to hit various targets. Thankfully, there is a bit more to the controls. Like if you hit the L button, your character will switch sides, and if you happen to run into your opponent, you can do a grappling move. If you double-tap the R button, you can do a special attack. For instance, Dark Schneider here summons a crappy fireball that you can control with the D-pad, as it kind of floats around and pesters your opponent doing a tiny bit of damage.  What you really want to use the R button for is to activate bigger attacks. What you're supposed to do is hold that button down while entering a button sequence, then letting go of the R button to activate. Like again, for Dark Schneider, while holding R, you can double-tap Y, and engulf yourself in flames, and then you just, uh, hope you get lucky enough that your opponent wanders by you and takes damage. Each of the six playable fighters has at least five button combos you can use, but jeez, these never seem to work, and again, if they do happen to work, you just have to hope you get lucky and your opponent unwittingly stumbles into you like an idiot. You also can't take any damage while trying to do a special move, so if you wander into a projectile while you're still holding R, your attack won't work, so eventually, you get frustrated and forget all about the special moves and stick to just trying to hit a moving target with a moving projectile while both the ground beneath you and the background behind you are all moving. I mean, I give this game all the credit in the world for being so ambitious and trying something truly different, but jeez, Louise, simple combat shouldn't be so disorienting and so frustrating. There's three different game modes here, Story Mode vs. Mode, versus a second player or the computer, and a Team Battle Mode, which is pretty much just a six-on-six gauntlet fight.  And now Dark Schneider finds himself as the good guy trying to save the world he wants to rule so badly. There is an English patch available to use if you want to play this game that way, and obviously the manga and even the short-lived anime go much further in depth, and I can't speak to how well this game represents the source material since I haven't seen it or read any of it, but the character portraits here are cool, the music is awesome, and like I said, this game certainly looks cool, at least at first glance, and there's also plenty of metal references here that I really appreciate, like how One Stage is named Metallicana, well, let's just hope it's mid-80s Ride the Lightning Master of Puppet Era Metallicana. So yeah, ultimately I would categorize Bastard as a novelty fighter, and you don't play novelty fighters for skill necessarily, the same way you would Street Fighter II or any of the SNK fighting games, instead you play them as a novelty, like Primal Rage or Clay Fighter. And yeah, Bastard is a hell of a novelty, this game looks amazing, it's just that the combat is incredibly clunky and frustrating, there's only six players to play as, and only six stages to play through, and there's not any variety in the game modes, so this game is ultimately pretty limited. But hey, if you love fighting games, there is a Game Facts move list I have listed in the description, so you can check this one out yourself. But as cool as this game looks, be prepared for a lot of headaches and frustration. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.


Going on, everyone. Sam here with Layton's Board of Cards for 23, top-scrow and black baseball hobby, 12 box, case number 35, pick your team style. Names and teams, Alexandros with the Yanks, Bob J, Lujay's Pirates Athletics, Chester F with the Astros, C-Hung has the White Sox and Rockies, Christopher J Orioles, Christopher J A with the Orioles, Christopher J E with the Brewers and Phillies, Dan M Guardians, Derek P Giants, Eric M Royals, Frank F Padres, Greg E Metz, Jotie with the Mariners, Ken Kay, Angels, Kai M, Cardinals, Larry P Tigers, Larry S Reyes, Red Sox, Mark W Nats, Masanori M, Cubs Dodgers, Paul B with the Rangers, Pinguri T, Diamond Max, Seth F Twins, Stefan A, Reds, Thane J, Marlins, and Victor F with the Braves. So good luck, everybody. Let's do it. You guys charge money for cards. Where do you guys get your boxes from? Carl? The cards, I suppose. So, buddy. Carl, 16 to go. On 10 box baseball. Here we go. See this is the guy right here. Yeah, poor guy, right? Should we get the cards or do you keep them? Oh my god, man. I forget somebody. Do we get the NFT card? Somebody asked to like, I suppose got the script. Because Sean's a mod on TikTok. We're all mods on TikTok, too. And someone goes, can you ban me? I've never been banned before. And Sean goes, yeah, absolutely. He just bans the kid. Well, some way to do it. James Altman Rookie, Gold Mini Diamonds to the 50 of Matt Mervis. Nice one there for the Cubs and Byron Buxton. The Gold Marcus Semen for the Rangers to 50. That's on that. Ranges. What are you gonna say? So the TikTok script got leaked. It did. I'm convinced there's like NPCs that would join the stream. Possible. It's unreal, dude. Unreal. Not a nonsense. Just chiseled the 150 in Arnada. The Cardinals and Dominic Fletcher Rookie. We've got a Gold J-Rod Superfuture 750. Congrats on that, Mariners. Very nice. Seattle. Going to Joe T. Congrats, Joe. Joe. J-Rod Superfuture 750. Very nice. Take that all day. Absolutely. That was awesome, man. Maggot. Yeah, we got you, Spencer. Good news, Spencer. You're in luck. Brandon Fox to 199. Freddie Freeman and Braden Shoemake Rookie. Thumbs up for Jazz Chisholm. That's weird. I know. Joey Meneses. Rookie Otto. Congrats, Nationals. I guess we don't like Jazz Chisholm anymore. I know. Mods. Mods. Gunnar Henderson Rookie. Green to 99 is Jeremy Pena. And Oscar Colas Rookie. And Vinny Pascantino to 150. Refractor at Rookie Otto. Nice one there. Congrats on that. Yeah, I saw that, Nicholas. I saw that Drive's Illustrated for... He didn't want to play for the Flyers. Fair. Sorry about that, Joe. That's awful, man. But yeah, that's a nice one. That'll hopefully make you feel a little bit better. Very nice, Joe. That's awesome, Joe. J-Rod. Blue to 75. Riley Green. And Ken Waldechuck. Rookie Otto for the A's. Congrats on that. Oakland. Oakland. Ken Waldechuck. That Riley was actually pretty nice. Go Huskies. Yes, sir. Jeff Driscoll got the start on Sunday. He did. He's Husky? Yeah. Nice. Ronald Cunha. Q99. Jordan Walker. Green wave. He is indeed Logan West. One of the line of many. Ooh, red. Red. Roger Clemens. Five of five for the Blue Jays. The Rocket. Blue Jays are Rocket. That's sick, man. I'm in on that. I'm very in on this Blue Jays. Roger Clemens. Going to Bob J. Congrats, Bob. This one there, buddy. Five of five. The Rocket. Let's put that on display because that's pretty nifty. It's a nifty card right there. Cheater. Oh, boy. Joey Vol- Oh. To 75. Blue Lava. Shea Langlias. Four at the A's. And Fiedelonzo. Ace Rookie Otto. Matthew Libertor. Going it to the Cardinals. That's Cardinals. Saves us his innocence. 16 to go on 10 box baseball, everybody. What's that with the hot takes? 10 box baseball one. David York. I know that today. Come on, one man. Come on with the miss types. Baseball one. Thank you, Spencer. This is a Sub-Dare Wreck. Jordan Alvarez. Masatake Yoshida. Congrats on that one. Rookie for the Red Sox. And 150. Garrett Cole. Purple Minidiamonds. That is a Green Von Grissom. Going to the Braves. 10 of 99. New Red Sox. Part of the Chris Sale trade. Von Grissom. Yeah, Driscoll was the QB when I was a freshman at Hagerty. And he went to the state championship almost the state tournament in the first round we played. Geez, man. Forget who it was. We lost 60 to 6. In the first play of the game, he ran a 75-yard touchdown. And we got scored 60 straight points on us after that. 99 mixed Miller. Oh, man, dude. Luba. And Von Grissom again. This time to 150. I think we missed the extra pointer or whatever, 60 to 6. Yeah, I should be, Nicholas. I don't see why you wouldn't be. Jonathan. I don't see why I wasn't saying I wouldn't be. Skeens wouldn't be in Double Vons. What's that? Skeens will be in Sapphire, I'm assuming. I don't see why you wouldn't be. So the game was close, Lane. Yeah, I evidently so. The first couple of minutes it was, yeah. Jeff gave it a go. Yeah, hey. It was our first time in the state championship too, because they're the state playoffs, because we were the way out of school. We stunk. Aaron Johnchin knows how to do that. Vinny Pascantino, rookie Otto for the Royals. That 75-yard run, though. That was height. That must have gotten people going. He was good at that. He was fast. Yeah. Where did he go originally? Florida, right? Florida, yeah. LaTek. LaTek and then he's still in the NFL.  What can I think of them? This is really this last week, Sam. It's let me down his boyfriend.  Right up to 150, Jordan Walker. The LDB. And how's the LDB? It's fair, fair, fair. Let's go Vaughn. That's me. That's my bad. That's my bad. Got him in a blender. Another Vaughn Grissom. Third, Vaughn Grissom. Got him in a blender today, Vaughn. Let's go. I guess, Sam. I guess. Third Vaughn Grissom. Evidently, it is the Vaughn Grissom case. Osvaldo Cabrera, Sadio Concert 199, and Randy Rosarino. And then Zekeel Tovar. Grats on that. Very nice. Good stuff. Rockies. Good luck, Mitchell. All right. Let's do the autos. That's fine. Thanks, sir. We've got Zekeel Tovar. These are bass autos. Vaughn Grissom, Vinny Pascantino, Matthew Libetor, Ken Waldechuk, Joey Manassas. It's 199. Vaughn Grissom. 250. Jay Rod, Super Futures Auto. Nice one there. And Marcus Simeon, Golda 50 as well. And then a red. Roger Clemens, 505. Sweet. Not doing for the break, everybody. Thanks again for the fill. Up next is the Finest Mixer.


For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. On September 13th, members of the National Christian Party in Pakistan staged a one-day hunger strike in support of Asif Parvez, a Christian government factory worker. Parvez was recently sentenced to death in a blasphemy case.  Their controversial use against individuals on political grounds is also driving members of minority communities to leave the country. So what are these blasphemy laws? These laws were imposed during General Zia Ul Haq's military dictatorship. In the 1980s, General Zia Ul Haq expanded the colonial era section 295 of the Pakistan-Pedal Code, which dealt with the offence of injury to religious sentiment. These amendments are today known as the blasphemy laws. The most notorious of these amendments is section 295c, under which anyone found guilty of using derogatory remarks against Islam, the Quran or the Prophet Muhammad is punishable by death. Anyone accused of blasphemy in Pakistan instantly comes under increased risk of facing violence. While no one has so far been executed under the nation's blasphemy laws, dozens of those accused of it have lost their lives to war-plynchings, assassinations and violence by Islamists. According to the National Commission for Justice and Peace, a total of 776 Muslims, 505 Ahmadis, Ahmadiyya is a sect that is considered non-Muslim in many Islamic countries, 229 Christians and 30 Hindus have been accused under various clauses of the blasphemy law from 1987 until 2018. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom estimates that currently there are at least 80 people in Pakistan's prisons for the crime of blasphemy, with almost 40 of them facing life sentences or the death penalty. It is estimated that since 1990 more than 70 people have been killed in Pakistan in cases related to blasphemy. In most cases, there is no need for any kind of evidence before vigilante justice is delivered. For instance, University student Mohammad Mashal Khan was killed in 2017 after rumours started circulating that he has made a blasphemous post on social media. A mob of his fellow students murdered him as police stood and watched outnumbered. In the case of Asif Parvez as well, he was sentenced to death on September 8th after his former work supervisor accused him of sending provocative blasphemous messages. His lawyer Saif al-Maluk denounced the judgment and claimed that there was no forensic investigation to even establish if Asif's phone was used to send these blasphemous messages. These blasphemy laws are often used for targeting religious minorities, especially Christians and Ahmadis. Human rights advocates and legal experts have also long argued that these laws have been used indiscriminately to settle personal feuds. It is also a powerful tool for muscling progressive voices. A statement by UN experts in January this year said, we are seriously concerned that blasphemy charges are still being brought against people legitimately exercising their rights to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and expression. The accusation of blasphemy alone ensures some kind of punishment, judicial or extrajudicial. Often those accused languish in prisons for many years before they are acquitted or many times the accused are murdered in prisons itself. The case that brought global attention to Pakistan's blasphemy laws was the one of Asya Noreen, more commonly known as Asya Bibi. Asya is a Christian woman who was accused of blasphemy by one of her neighbors in 2009 over an argument about her having used a Muslim neighbor's mug to drink water. The mother of four was sentenced to death in 2010. While in prison, she had to be put under solitary confinement during her trial by the prison authorities because of the likelihood of her getting murdered in jail by other inmates. The prison authorities also went to the extent of giving her raw rations and had her prepare her own food so as to avoid the possibility of poisoning. After nine years, the Supreme Court acquitted her in 2018. This was after the case claimed the lives of a sitting governor and a federal cabinet minister and whipped up a massive Islamist reaction. Salman Tahsi, then governor of Punjab was assassinated in January of 2011, just a few days after he spoke out against the blasphemy laws and in support of Asya. The case of the governor is a powerful illustration of how dangerous it is to even speak against Pakistan's blasphemy laws. While left and progressive parties, rights groups, and civil society activists have been calling for amendments and revocation of the blasphemy laws, mainstream political parties are mostly remain silent to avoid the risk of offending Pakistan's orthodoxy.


Hello and welcome to the lecture for chapter nine, leadership. Over the next few slides, we're gonna walk you through some of the theoretical approaches and understandings of leadership, specifically how leadership functions inside the small group. All right, let's go ahead and start off with a couple of definitional things. So when we talk about leadership, what we're talking about is the way that we use communication to influence and modify attitudes and behaviors of the members of the group to help the group better meet its goals. So a couple of things to understand here at the offset. All group members provide leadership in one way or another. As we'll talk about later, good leaders try to inspire other people to be leaders. This process of influencing people and trying to reach those group goals is something that's accomplished through communication and through persuasion. Ultimately, when this is conducted correctly, the group reaches and achieves the shared goals that they have together and ultimate leadership is something that needs to be adaptable to changing conditions. So let's go ahead and talk a little bit about influence. When you see group members trying to use persuasion to modify the behaviors, they're actually using influence, right? This is the use of interpersonal power to modify the actions and attitudes of other members inside the group. Next, we're going to talk a little bit about these types of power that leaders can use to influence other group members. All right, so first on the list is that of referent power. Referent power is a type of power that comes from the ability of an individual to be liked. When people have likeability and some charisma, ultimately they tend to garner the group's support and can more easily persuade individuals inside of that. The next type of power that we sometimes see is when people can exercise information power, right? This is based on the ability of a person to control the flow of information to group members. And so as they have information and they can release the control, group members are dependent inside of that and that gives them the ability to have influence. Ecological power on the other hand comes from the ability for people to manipulate the logistics and the tasks and even the physical environment of the group. So the ability to control the order of which things happens can give people power. Reward power is a type of power that is derived from the ability to give people what they want or what they need. For example, in a class you often see teachers do this in terms of like providing grades and awarding points inside of that. The flip side of reward power is punishment power and this comes from the ability for someone to take away what members want and value. Subrelated concept of this is that of coercion and this is where someone uses the use of threats or other fear appeals to try to make an individual comply to what they want. Last on our list here is expert power and this kind of stems from an individual's perception of knowledge or skill on a particular subject. So when you see individuals have that, you can see those things take place inside of that. All right, so let's talk a little bit about leaders. In the case of talking about leadership in small groups, what we're really talking about is any person who exercises some of those interpersonal influence techniques to help the group achieve its goals. As I said before, all members can and should practice leadership. You don't have to have a title. You don't have to be a designated leader to be a leader. Ultimately, it's just your use of communication to influence individuals towards shared goals that actually allows people to lead other people inside of that. So there are two types of leaders that we tie into here. First off, we've got our designated leader and this is an individual who is appointed or elected and has a title that identifies him or her as leader. So when you have like the president of a college or the university or you have a chairman of the board or you have somebody who has been elected the head of a department, these are individuals that are designated leaders, right? In the case of many workplaces, your boss is a type of designated leader because they have something such as CEO which makes them a designated leader. The other type of leader that we talk about that we see more commonly in groups like the one that you're a part of in this course is what we'd call an emergent leader. And this is an individual that starts out at the same status as everybody else but gradually emerges as an informal leader in the eye of other groups. Typically by the end of the semester most groups in this class will have an individual or a couple of individuals that kind of have pulled ahead of the rest of the group and have started to exercise some of the skills and tasks that we would expect from leaders. But again, keep in mind that could be anybody and everybody inside the group. Okay, so a couple of things that we would expect from good leaders. One is to set goals and keep the group focused. Remember the focus of a good leader is to help the group achieve the goals of the group. Not necessarily their individual goals but the goals of the group and that they're trying to accomplish. Good group leaders create teams. So instead of just having people that are together they kind of build that interpersonal dynamic inside the group that increases commitment and gets people together. Good leaders are focused on the end game. They'll let things go through a creative process but they're always kind of focused on that solution and getting the group where they need to be. Good leaders typically inspire leadership and other people. They try to get people to rise to the occasion and take charge and help lead the group as well. And ultimately good leaders respect their role and don't abuse their power. In addition to having those traits there are also a series of expectations that group members tend to have of their leaders. One of the most common one is to kind of perform administrative duties perhaps schedule group meetings, keep logs, keep track of the group's written communication inside group discussions. They might ask that person to play the role of a moderator and keep discussions fruitful and going but also they kind of expect them to develop the interpersonal and task behaviors to make the group more solidified and more effective and give them focus and the skills they need to be successful. So there are a lot of different styles of leadership. I'm just going to briefly touch on those. We talk about the autocratic style of leadership. This is your more like heavily task focused traditional style where the decisions of the group are made solely by the leader and those decisions are decisions are a lot. This can be contrasted with the democratic style of leadership. This is where the decisions are still made by the leader but in consultation, consultation with the group. So this is an individual that's kind of still task focused but also more tied in to the socio-emotional focus of the group. This also contrasts with the laissez faire style leadership which is a more passive hands-off attitude allowing others to develop their ideas and maybe inserting themselves here or there but not as much. The transactional style of leadership involves an exchange of resources between leaders and followers and ideas but kind of less of that dominating power that we would see in autocratic styles. Transformational leadership is where a leader inspires their followers to act beyond their own self interests and to try to put themselves beyond their own individual goals and kind of seek the better goals for themselves and others. And then finally there's the charismatic style of leadership and this is where the leader has perceived extraordinary qualities and tends to kind of develop that little bit of cult of personality around them as they drive individuals towards goals and ideas. Okay, as we wrap up this conversation here are a few ethical guidelines for group leaders and so you should pay heed to these should you find yourself in a leadership role. The first one is pretty basic but important. Do not lie or be deceptive. It's important to be open and honest with your group members. Second, put the group first. The goal of being a good leader is not to put your own individual goals at the forefront but to put the group's goals first and to help the group members achieve those goals. Good group leaders and ethical group leaders are respectful of their others and they're also respectful of their position and don't take it for granted. Good group members will back up at their group members and so they will help if there's issues that arise. They will support, give information whether it is social support or emotional support or actual physical support inside them. Ethical group leaders do not see themselves as better than the other members of the group but see the others as equals and try to create that equity in between them. Ethical group leaders establish clear group policies, make sure things are well documented and clear to other individuals. And last but not least, the good and ethical group leaders follow these rules themselves and don't expect others to do what they wouldn't do on their own. All right, well that wraps up our discussion of leadership. Once again, thank you for watching and as always, if you have any questions please contact me at any of the means available to you. Thank you.


Good morning and welcome to today's session on understanding the prophetic. Let's pray and begin. I'll just say a word of prayer. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank and praise You that You are establishing us in Your Word. Line upon line, precept upon precept. Father God, we thank You that it is Your Word which builds us up, O God. It is Your Word that, Lord, causes us to arise in our faith. And Lord, even as we grow in our faith, we pray that, Lord, we will see Your mighty works in our lives, O God. Father, we speak blessings upon every single student on all the platforms and their families, all the faculty, and we just commit ourselves into Your hands. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Okay, so today we move on to chapter 3 which is about the prophetic ministry in the Old Testament. As we've been seeing, the prophetic ministry is not something new like 21st century discovery. Now only now we started seeing prophets and they are prophesying. It's not like that. In the Old Testament, we have seen there are people whom God chose to prophesy. In the New Testament also, there was a move of the prophetic anointing. The first person who is called as a prophet in the New Testament, any guesses? Prophet, New Testament prophet. Correct. John the Baptist. Okay, so he is known as a prophet because this is what the Bible says about him. In Luke chapter 1 and verse 17, if anyone is there, you can kindly read it. Luke chapter 1 verse 17. The spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedience to the wisdom of the just to make ready a purpose prepared for the Lord. We look at John the Baptist as someone who carried the spirit and the power of Elijah. Who was Elijah? He was a prophet in the Old Testament. Now, do you remember we studied in the previous chapter about transference of anointing? So that's what this is talking about. The transfer of the anointing from a prophet to John the Baptist. And it also tells us the purpose of that anointing. What does it say? The spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. So that is something that God did through John the Baptist. When we study about the life of John the Baptist, we use terms like he was the waymaker, he was the way preparer. He carried anointing because whatever he did before Jesus prepared the hearts of people to receive Jesus. You remember he went around saying repent and then turn to God. So that's what he did preparing people for the work of salvation that the Lord Jesus was about to do. But when we consider John the Baptist, he doesn't seem like a typical prophet. We don't see anywhere where John the Baptist says thus says the Lord, I prophesy to you. He just did his work through the anointing which he carried. So again what comes to our minds is what we learnt earlier. That even if there is a transfer of the anointing or an impartation of the anointing, what happens is the part that gets imparted is in line with the calling. So John the Baptist's ministry looks so very different from Elijah's ministry. Science wonders miracles. That was Elijah's ministry. But prepare the way for the Lord was John the Baptist's ministry. Anointing, same anointing. But very different outcome or very different manifestation. Let's quickly take Neena's question. Neena did you have a question? I see your hand raised. Yes, can you hear me question? Yes, I can hear you. Just a little clarification on John the Baptist. Because I mean Jesus said the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. From the point of view of that I thought so he was really part of the Old Covenant in that sense. Yeah, you're right. So that's what that scripture implies. He's part of the Old Covenant. So the least in the kingdom is greater than he would refer to all the blessings that a new Covenant believer has, which are so much better than even John the Baptist because he comes under the Old Covenant. So that means that but as far as being a prophet is concerned, he's considered a New Testament prophet? Yeah, that's a good question. One second, let me see if I can. He is called as the last of the Old Testament prophets as far as I remember. Last of the Old Testament prophets, that's the name given to him. Just that I don't remember the scripture for that. Let me see if I can find it for you. Yeah, so it is said that he is the last of the Old Covenant prophets. I think it's in Luke. Just a moment, Nina. I'm trying to locate the scripture. Okay, so there is one scripture in Luke 1616, which says the law and the prophets were until John. So law and prophets, as I said, Jesus referred to the Old Testament as law and prophets. So it says law and prophets were until John. So then what comes after John is part of the, it comes under the New Covenant. Is that okay, Nina? Okay, you're on mute. Yes, thank you first. Okay, sure. Thank you so much. All right, so let's move on now. So we've seen about John the Baptist and how he carried the prophetic anointing, but the anointing obviously looked so different from what the anointing of Elijah looked like. Now coming to Jesus, do we think that Jesus was a prophet? Why? Why do you think Jesus was a prophet? He prophesied. Okay, he prophesied. Okay, prophesying is fine. But why is he, how do you say that he's a prophet? Okay. Okay. Oh, okay, okay. Okay, I accept, I'm accepting everything. Give me the most solid answer. All answers are correct only. But why are we calling him a prophet? When we say prophet, what is the difference between someone who prophesies and someone who's a prophet? What deutronomy is, 1815? Yeah, Moses said, correct. But give me a confirmation from the New Testament that Jesus is a prophet. Pifal ministry, okay. Pifal ministry, correct. Everything is correct. But why is he a prophet? When we say he is a prophet, what are we saying? We're saying that he's in the Pifal ministry, right? How can we say that? That's my question. How can we say that he is in the Pifal ministry? It's, it's what? It's not in the material. Okay. He did everything. But how do we confirm that he was in the office of a prophet? Because he said, follow me. Follow me? So you're all students of scripture and, you know, interpreting scripture. Yeah, but would that, would that make somebody a prophet? Okay, very simple answer. Jesus called himself a prophet. So when Jesus is confirming that he is a prophet, then we have to accept it, right? Got it.  He was moving in the prophetic. That's what all of you are saying. I agree with you. But you remember, we talked about the progression. When we just prophesy, it doesn't make us a prophet. Being a prophet is what? I, I, we shared one, one term. What does a prophet carry? Anointing, yes. One more, very, very important phrases there. Governmental authority. Okay. So when we keep saying that somebody's prophesying, that's fine. But it doesn't mean they are carrying governmental authority or governmental responsibility. So when Jesus himself is saying that a prophet is not honored, you know, in his own house, he's saying, I am a prophet. I'm carrying governmental authority. That is in Mark chapter six verses four to six, where Jesus calls himself a prophet. Yeah. Six. Verse four to six. Yeah, wherever he has stated that he is a prophet. Okay. As long as all those passages are confirming that Jesus is saying, I am a prophet. Okay. Now, in addition to that, you're right. There were prophetic words which was spoken by the early, like the Old Testament fathers, like Moses, he said, another prophet will come.  Like, ultimately of what God wants to do. And we see people and they saw the Lord Jesus coming. There was a confirmation that, hey, this is a prophet. This is a prophet of God. When he moved in the prophetic anointing, that also showed that he was carrying the prophetic anointing. So through all these things, we recognize that the Lord Jesus was a prophet. There were many manifestations in and through his life that revealed that he had the prophetic gift as well. Okay. Now let's move on. Let's look at the early church. There are examples. I'm not going into those examples. If you recall the woman at the well, a Samaritan woman, didn't Jesus prophesy? Yeah, he prophesied to her.  That is prophetic anointing. When we consider Nathaniel, Nathaniel was sitting under the tree. Jesus saw him and he said, here is a man without any guile. How can somebody do that unless the prophetic anointing is moving them off? Somebody who looked at Jesus looked at Peter and Peter at that time was so raw. He was not strong in the Lord and all that. But Jesus looked at him and said, hey, you are going to be the rock. So all this is part of what prophetic anointing. If you go to Matthew 24, you find that Jesus is talking about the end times. He's talking about nation will rise against me. Like this is all serious prophecy about what is coming up. Obviously, he's flowing through the prophetic anointing. But he himself mainly confirmed that he is that prophet. And we have other passages as well. So we are quite clear Jesus was a prophet. Now let's come to the early church. So in the early church, we know how the church was born. They were waiting as God told them for the baptism in the Holy Spirit. 120 people were waiting in the upper room and then it happened. And they were in prayer. The Holy Spirit came upon them as a rushing mighty wind and they began to speak in tongues. So that was the first instance which we term as the birth of the church. So that's where the church was born from that point onwards. We see the church is growing, growing in numbers, growing in the demonstration of God's power. So it's growing in every way persecution happens. But in the midst of all this, how does the prophetic anointing look in the early church? That's the question that we are asking. So we see that the power of God was always there. Because we see people like Stephen, Philip, they were all moving in signs, wonders and miracles. So the church believers themselves are moving in signs, wonders and miracles. When we go back to people like Elijah, Elisha, the prophetic anointing was connected with miracles. So we find that even volunteers like Stephen and Philip, they demonstrated miracles through their lives. And as we keep going on, we find that there are prophetic teams that arise. So this is in the book of Acts, Acts chapter 11 over there. We read that there were a set of prophets who came to the church in Antioch. Antioch was a branch church of, like branch church, I don't know if we can say church of Jerusalem. But there were a lot of branches because people had spread all around and churches had been started. So from the Jerusalem church, a team of prophets came to the church of Antioch. And part of that team is a very well known prophet by the name of Agabus. Have you heard of this person Agabus? So the book of Acts confirms that he was a prophet. So it's not that he was prophesying alone, but he was a prophet. He came and he spent time in the church of Antioch. And that was one of the ways to actually equip the leaders and the believers of Antioch. So you can see that a prophet is going to strengthen the church to strengthen the work of the ministry in one of the churches. So let's keep moving on. We find that when this kind of an equipping was done, see already the church of Antioch had teachers of the word. People like Barnabas, people like Paul, who were spending their time, who were training the people, raising them up. So teaching was already going on. But later, who came? Agabus and a team of prophets from the church of Jerusalem came, spent time in Antioch. And then we read in Acts chapter 13. The scripture says, now in the church that was at Antioch, there were certain prophets and teachers. So what happened after a prophet came or a team of prophets came to the church? Suddenly, after a couple of years, like two to three years, there are prophets in the church. So the prophetic anointing, the way we understand this, it was stirred up. People began to understand more of it and slowly, now people are moving in the prophetic. And even prophets have arisen in three years, two to three years, there are prophets in the church of Antioch. So we see the importance that the early leaders placed on prophetic ministry. Even in the church, there are prophets now. It was kind of normal, nothing so new. So we will see that they have the five-fold ministry happening like a team. You have the apostles, you have the prophets, you have the teachers, you have the pastors, you have the evangelists, they're all working together. So that is the picture of the early church. So today, when we talk about having five-fold ministry in our churches, it's nothing new. It was already happening. How did it happen in the church of Antioch? Earlier, there were only teachers, but a prophet came, a team of prophets came. They ministered and there must have been the stirring up of the anointing, the teaching about the prophetic and then you have it in two to three years. Prophets have risen up in the church. So that's how it took place. Now, as we keep looking at the book of Acts, there will be other names also that are mentioned out with regard to prophecy. People like Silas, Judas, these were all in the prophetic ministry. And they were prophets in the church of Jerusalem and they went to strengthen other churches. And later on in Acts chapter 21, there is this record of Philip and his daughters. Philip, he is an evangelist, but he had four daughters who were virgins, but they were moving in the gift of prophecy. So all four of them they prophesied, the Bible says. What is our understanding? We go back to Acts chapter 1 verse 8 where it says, And you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth.  So it was given, the power of the Spirit was given to both the genders. In the book of Acts, it's in Acts 21. You see that the daughters of Philip were prophetic. They were flowing in the prophetic gift. So these are all about prophets and prophecy in the book of Acts. We also observe that when it came to prophesying the problems that Paul is going to face. Paul was headed towards Jerusalem and what was going to happen to him? He was going to be caught by the Romans and then he would be imprisoned. So this was prophesied by Agabus to Paul. Not just if you notice how the prophecy came to Paul, it came a couple of times. A few people told him again and again, Paul don't go there, you're going to get into trouble. And Agabus was one of the main persons to tell Paul. He took Paul's belt, he bound himself and he said, He whose belt this is, he's going to be bound. So even Agabus prophesied but Paul knew that it was just part of his ministry. He can't avoid getting into trouble so he has to go towards Jerusalem. Even though he knew it's going to happen, he went ahead and we know that he got caught and then he was imprisoned, went into a couple of trials after that. So in the early church, were there prophets? Yes, it was common, it was normal. People were prophesying, it was common, it was quite normal. And yeah, so that is about prophecy in the early church. Now coming to the writings of Apostle Paul, we read about the prophetic gift. In 1st Corinthians chapter 12, there is a listing of 9 gifts of the spirit, one of which is prophecy. So in the churches, was there encouragement to prophesy? Yes, because Paul is writing about it and he is explaining about the gift of prophecy, the gift of tongues. That means it was practiced and it was encouraged. Now the most basic scripture for all of us regarding prophecy is 1st Corinthians chapter 14 and verse 3. 1st Corinthians chapter 14 and verse 3. If there is anyone at that passage, can you please read it? 1st Corinthians 14 verse 3. 1st Corinthians chapter 14 and verse 3. But everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort. Comfort. Which version did you read? NIV, okay. NKJV, can somebody? Okay. Hero prophesies, speaks, edification, exhortation and comfort to men. So when we speak in tongues, who do we speak to? Who do we speak to when we speak in tongues? God. Where do we see that scripture? Yeah. He who speaks in a tongue speaks to God. Where do you see that? 1st Corinthians 14 and 3 is prophecy. Correct. It's just in the previous verse. So I want us to notice that. In verse 2, okay, just see that. No, it's there, right there. It says, for he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God. For no one understands him. However, in the spirit, he speaks mysteries. That's about tongues. 3 is, but he who prophesies speaks edification, exhortation and comfort to men. So when we speak in tongues, we are speaking to God. When we are prophesying, we are speaking to the people, to men. Now, what is edification, exhortation, comfort? We'll again come to it in detail. We'll look at it. But for right now, edification simply means strengthening. Strengthening. So if I want to strengthen myself, which gift? If I want to strengthen myself spiritually, which gift should I operate in? Yeah, tongues. Because when we speak in tongues, we edify ourselves. Okay, but if we want to strengthen the church or strengthen the body of believers, then which gift should we operate? Prophecy. That's what it says. When we prophesy, we speak edification. Meaning strengthening, spiritual strengthening of people happens. When we prophesy edification, that is the meaning. Second, exhortation. Exhortation means encouragement. So when people hear what God is saying, encouragement comes to us. So that is exhortation. Third is comfort. Comfort is like finding peace and you know, we'll come to it later. Actually, the word there, like comfort, when we understand, it means speaking tenderly, softly with compassion. When we hear from God, sometimes we sense that we feel so comforted that God is speaking to us. So when we prophesy, what are we doing? This is how you describe simple gift of prophecy. What should it do? It should edify, exhort and comfort. That's what it's supposed to do. So when we prophesy, we all prophesy, right? Supernatural, our prayer times, otherwise also we prophesy. What should it do? Edify, exhort, comfort. So it's like you can sort of put it through the test. We prophesy. Is it really edifying, strengthening them, encouraging them, bringing comfort to the hearts of the people? If yes, okay, fine. It falls in the category of prophecy. First Corinthians chapter 14 and verse 3. Okay, don't forget. First Corinthians 14 verse 3. That's about prophecy. And what does verse 4 say? Yeah, correct. That's exactly what we were discussing till now. It's quite clear, isn't it? Yes, sir, Prince. Correct, it is. So, see I'm saying simple gift of prophecy. Do you remember the progression we said? Simple gift of prophecy. Grace gift of prophecy based on Romans chapter 12. Then we said office of a prophet. So, when it comes to simple gift of prophecy, we are discussing about all of us as believers flowing in prophecy. So there, we may not find those many warnings, judgments. But we can sometimes. We can sometimes, sometimes, yeah. But mostly people who are flowing in the prophetic office, it tends to be a lot more for them, like warnings, judgments and how to release it with that authority. So they tend to do more of that. Okay, fine. Yeah. Oh, Jack in has answered a question here. Yeah, thank you, Jack in. So what we'll do is we'll probably stop right here. And then we will continue in the next class. We are going to study about the progression a little bit more. So just now we said simple gift, grace gift and the ministry of a prophet. So all of this is in the New Testament. We took it from Paul's writings. So we have to look at the passages where he mentions these things and form a good foundation before we move on to other things. So we'll move on to other things and we will study about how is the prophetic released next. Okay, how is it released? What are the common ways in which the prophetic is released? So we will, at that point, we will talk about the prophetic word, how the word comes forth and it does what God wants to do. So I'm just going to stop here. But if you have any queries, anything that you want to discuss, we can pick it up. Okay, we are quite clear, I think. Yes, Nina, please. Nina, did you want to say something? No, sorry, by mistake. Okay, sure. All right, so then let's wrap up our class. And I request one of us to pray either online on campus, either one of us. Okay, Nikhil, pray for now. So we thank you for this time, Lord. We worship you, we praise you, Lord, as we learned about your word, Lord Jesus. Help us to understand deeply so we can learn your word, Lord Jesus. Thank you for teaching us through Najima. In Jesus' name and pray. Amen. We'll connect next class on Friday. Thank you. Bye.