So I would like to ask our panel to come here and our Chair, Peter Ekassal, so please take a seat. We're going to get some microphones, not only so you all hear better, but we're also live streaming it and recording it, and it might be the first live streamed showing of that piece. So again, thank you all for coming and I hand over to our Chair of the panel, Peter. Thank you, thank you, and thank you everyone for, I think it was quite remarkable to see those films, and thank you also for your wonderful performance, thank you so much. My name's Peter Ekassal and I'm a professor in the Graduate Center here in the PhD Programming Theatre, and my work on Japan is in theatre, so I come to Tidio Masudji through the theatre, but of course I've seen many of the films, but I'm very fortunate to have seen these films tonight. And we do have, I think, a really interesting panel to have, I hope, quite interesting, but unfortunately quite brief discussion tonight because we have to finish at a certain time. But just very briefly, if I can introduce the panel on studying from the far left, we have Tom Lucer from New York University, Tom's professor at works in the programming nation studies, specialised in Japanese contemporary performance, media and culture. So we welcome Tom. Second, Chizuru Usui from the National Film Center, and you brought those wonderful prints to us today. Thank you very much, and I do agree that the restorations are quite remarkable, the colours are quite extraordinary. On my left is Henriku Teriyama, round of applause for our performer, please. Henriku is an artist, performer, graphic designer and writer. At the age of 17 he left his family home and joined Teriyama Tsudji's theatre company, Tenjou Sajiki. I think he's very well known to us who have some familiarity with the company, whether it's in theatre or films or some of the spectacular images that we can see in books and so on. A central figure in the 1960s, sorry, he joined the troupe as an actor, a stage manager, sound designer and eventually became an assistant director for Tenjou Sajiki's film productions. He's also an editor and an art director for the photo books by Nobuyoshi Araki. So quite a remarkable career. Thank you for coming tonight. Just on my right, Julia, I'll have to pronounce Alex Zuvia. How did I do? As she's a film scholar from Cooney, Brooklyn, so a fellow colleague from City University of New York, and she works on Teriyama's films. And then further to my right is Alex Zaltem, who's a film scholar from Harvard University and works on films in 1960s Japan with a particular interest in Teriyama's films. And Alex, of course, has been at the Harvard event for this performance as well. So we thank him for coming down to New York and really great to have you on the panel tonight. And, you know, Frank, on the end of the chairs there. Perhaps if I could just begin. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the work of Teriyama Shuji, the director of these films. But Teriyama was a major figure in the 1960s avant-garde of Japan. A key figure in the Japanese theatre, so-called Angora Theatre Scene of the 1960s and 1970s. His company produced many great theatre works and he was a playwright, director, filmmaker, experimental television producer. He made plays for radio. He wrote songs for Enka and he was an award-winning poet as well. So he truly is one of the great, most important figures in 1960s or perhaps in 20th century Japanese film, theatre and literature. And a truly interdisciplinary artist, I think, who was equally interesting in all the forms. As a maker, as you can see, gather from some of the work we've seen tonight, he has some fascinations for certain things. I think he obviously has this very strong fascination for a kind of mixing of the everyday world with fictional realities, moving between the everyday and the fictional and blurring the distinctions between them. He famously made theatre works where audiences would enter the theatre from different entrances and experience, a different theatrical experience as a result. In 1975 he made his perhaps one of his most famous works, Nock, which was a two-day performance event that took place in many venues across Tokyo. And one's ticket was a map for all the performances that took place in parks, gardens, houses, factories, theatres, and perhaps most notoriously, a bathhouse. And one entered the bathhouse not knowing who was the audience and who were the performers and who were simply just people there expecting to have a regular bath, which is quite a well-known piece. I think from my interest, I wrote about Teriyama in my first book on the 60s avant-garde and I saw him as one of the most primary thinkers of a tradition in Japan on the avant-garde, particularly with his ideas about the radical imagination, the way that he could think through... His cultural vision was, I think, quite extraordinary, turning to the grotesque, to the bill, to classical Japanese ghost figures really bringing together an extraordinary array of influences into his very powerful work. And his company was well known for making extraordinary performances that often involved the audience, if not literally in an audience participation like we just saw, certainly in some kind of repetitious sonic disturbance, some kind of provocation for the audience to endure. Hamas are a frequent feature of his work and he would often use them in the theatre percussively according to people who were there really to annoy them with the sound that just would continue for a very long time. And there were many other tropes that we can see in his work, the grotesque, the carnival, the focus on fascination for fetish objects and so on and so forth. I won't continue tonight but I'm going to ask each of the panellists to speak briefly about their... Well, first of all, I think I'll ask Henry Gu to talk about his experience of both participating in this film and then reviving it now for...reperforming it and reimagining it in the current era. And then I'll ask each of the panellists to briefly respond to the films that they saw tonight and then we'll take questions from the audience. So first of all, Henry Gu, if I could ask you to speak just a little bit about your experience of, I guess, working with Teddy Armour, working in this film and both what you were doing back then and how you think about reviving this film now for a kind of retrospective performance in a very different time and place. It's a very difficult question but first of all, I was working with Mr. Tarayama from the end of the 1960s to 1983. For 17 years I was working together with him the whole time. And at first I wanted to be an actor but I was told that I stood out too much so I was helping him with sound design. I was helping out with the art design and in addition Armour was living with him the whole time as well. It's already been 30 years since his works were made and I think society has changed quite a lot since then. Every morning I would get a call and we would go to a kisaten or a cafe and that's where he would write his works. In terms of the play scripts, we didn't have a copy. No printers, no photo printers. So I would just endlessly be copying his scripts by hand. And I repeated that for as many actors as there were so three or five times as many actors as there were. So by the end I had almost the same handwriting as Mr. Tarayama. Nowadays we have Xerox machines and phones and I think the speed of communication has increased so much since then. So I don't necessarily think that faster communication is better but I do want people to think about the frequency. And I don't think many people on a daily basis get a chance to see a 16mm film. So we have a much more convenient time of taking videos but I don't think it's necessarily better to be convenient. We need to make sure we have the imagination to value that. So today I'm very glad and thankful that Frank suggested that we have the 16mm for the sound of it as well. I'm very thankful. So perhaps if I could ask Tom just to make a few comments and we'll just go along the line a little bit. Sure. Sometimes we don't feel rushed so much. I think I'll just talk about the first and the third because the second one I think is more straightforward although I really like it. I wanted to say a couple of comments about what seems to be the anarchism of the sign that he's playing with but the kind of radicality that Tarayama was playing with. And the first one, I mean the third one, I'll start with the third one, the ones about the nails. The nails themselves seem to be reduced, you can make a story out of it, but they seem to be reduced to a kind of brute materiality of qualities maybe and of actions so that you can see a nail could also be a phallus, it could be just a weight, somebody has to load that you have to bear in other words, it could be a set of acts that involve penetration etc. They seem to work through the film and that they exceed the screen itself so it's a kind of materiality that is immaterial but it's also physical, that you can participate in, you almost have to participate in and then question what kind of materiality is it that you are when you nail into the wall there, what are you participating in? It's unclear, right? So there's a kind of radical uncertainty that attaches to the sign of the nail or the nail as a sign that you only can figure out by deciding for yourself. That quality of having to decide for yourself is part of the anarchism, typically a nail would be used for instance to build a structure, the question then becomes what kind of structure of meaning are you using those nails or are you participating in when you're hammering those nails into that screen slash wall. It's really unclear, that could be a problem, maybe not. I think it's an interesting sort of radicality at that point that seems to be more visible and perhaps more pessimistic in the first one, the documentary and in that documentary in the very first scene with the father and the son you can see the kind of imposition of political meaning that the father is attaching to the son. The son is almost incomprehending of the questions, he has no idea how to answer them or even necessarily what the questions are, but the father is essentially telling the kid how to respond and apparently politically appropriate responses like Cassius Clay, great guy, or something like that. But again you can see even at the level of clear politics that's not real politics at all, that's simply the imposition of meaning. And after that basically the film seems to devolve into a set of randomized questions that reduce the questions difference themselves to something like digital information, where you just say what you had for breakfast is the same thing as answering whether you like your friends or your country better. And so then the only way you can say that series of documentary questions would add up to something would again, sort of like the nails in the structure, be a structure that you would have to impose, but in this case it almost seems to resist that. There's no way for me that I could come away from that documentary saying this is what Teriyama wants you to see about America. This is what all those questions add up to, in which case it's actually really kind of nihilistic, it's kind of empty of any meaning at all. And so that seems to be one potential carry through of precisely the radical anarchistic qualities of the Teriyama sign that ultimately there is no sociality, there is no commonality, there is no meaning that becomes a kind of negativity. So some of the radicality seems to be this tension between a really productive openness and an absolutely emptiness of the sign itself. Thank you very much. We're going to come back to many of these questions in our discussion, so we'll move along our circle for now. Sui-san, could you speak a little bit about your interest in Teriyama and also I guess because you're also representing the National Film Archive and obviously Teriyama's status as a filmmaker is extremely important in Japan. Perhaps you could say something about that as well. When I was in high school, I think it was the first time that I read Teriyama's poem. I think it was something very symbolic. After that, I think it was the next time I saw some of his films. As a person in the film center, I'm not technically involved in the film itself, but through this project, I studied how Teriyama's works were reproduced in the film industry. Of course, the director of the film is a great materialist, but I feel that Teriyama is really controlling a lot of things. My first exposure with Teriyama was his poetry book when I read it in high school, which includes the very prominent girl character. In my 20s later, I saw his full-length films, and now today I'm here as part of the National Archives as he mentioned, but I didn't necessarily work on the restoration myself, but in the process, I was able to learn how these films work. In terms of my interest with the Teriyama films, I agree with the materiality, but I also think that he has a very high degree of control that he exerts in the films. This time, I think that the film center has done a great job in the restoration work. It's a very important point for the film center to be able to get closer to the original when it comes to the restoration of the film. I'm going to speak a little bit about the technical aspects. One of the things that the archives is very careful about, usually one tries to make the restoration as close to the original in terms of color as possible. The printing machines that Mr. Tayama would have had are completely different to the ones that we have today. We used a film which was not screened today that he had printed at the time as a reference to base our color off of. We also contacted the technicians that he worked with at the time if possible to ask and confirm if they were the right colors. In addition to being as loyal to the original as possible, we were able to find out that Mr. Tayama used a very wide, he really broadened the spectrum of color possible in the printing process at the time. So I was initially very moved in the lab to discover this, but as I came here to America, this time, and I was speaking to Mr. Heniku, I realized, or Mr. Heniku pointed out to me that that might not have been the case. So I was very moved in the lab to discover this, but as I came here to America this time, and I was speaking to Mr. Heniku, I realized, or Mr. Heniku pointed out to me that that might not have been the case, and it might have just been a choice of the cameraman. So we've made a lot of accomplishments with restorations at the archives, so I would love if you could come see them at some point. I worked on making sure the black and white high contrasts and the colors are very loyal to the original, so I hope you can see that. Thank you so much, and I appreciate this very technical discussion alongside the kind of cultural reading of the film. I think they go very nicely together and we'll talk about the copy perhaps a little bit later on, but perhaps we could have your response. So since I'm sure these are quite controversial and interesting films, I'll keep my response rather brief, but I just wanted to touch on a couple of rather important points, I think, in Terayama's work. The first of which is the concept of everything as theater, as everything turned into theater, a radical theatricalization really of everyday life. So at first you might not think that this as being particularly tied to something like the 1920s in places like the Soviet Union, but actually I think there is quite an important tie to filmmakers of the former Soviet Union who wanted to rid a film of fictionality, but what actually Terayama is doing by imposing fictionality on everyday life becomes a rather similar project where in this process of turning the everyday, turning the post office, and he has a quote about everything, the post office, the street, the grocery store, everything being turned into theater, it becomes actually a rather similar radicalization of everyday life experience and has rather parallel goals I think to this early period in film history. Another thing I wanted to touch upon is his desire to create a dialogue between the viewer and the filmmaker and the viewer and the film. So this endlessly porous space where as everyone witnessed in especially the second and third films, this creation of a porous space between the viewer and the filmmaker and the ability of this very rare interpenetration which was according to Terayama one of his main purposes for making art and specifically making films. Another point I wanted to talk about was that for Terayama the idea of play is quite serious. So his films are very playful and this is something that I think many people noticed. The first film is rather funny, there is a lot of laughter, there is a lot of playful joking responses, but this is actually quite serious. So something that is very very playful is simultaneously a very serious act and we can probably talk in the Q&A about what exactly, how it's serious and what he means by play and what is playful in Terayama, but it's an important thing to think about. Something that he used to call his, what is called in English the sort of ceiling gallery, which he called his, how he called his performances, performers, can sometimes sort of subtitle the laboratory of play, which I think is rather interesting. Both play as theatre and also play as a space of free aesthetic play or something that you can undergo as if you were a child, engaging in a space like the cinema or the theatre. And just a couple of other notes, in the first film that we watched, I don't think it was an accident that the first few interviewees were black because actually Terayama sort of famously noted that he considered himself a black version of a Japanese man, which is rather strange and controversial in its own right, but he really thought of himself as participating in this sort of more, you know, sort of discriminated person, because he came from Aomori which is a, you know, from the north of Japan and he was considered to have been rather large and so he sort of thought of himself weirdly as a black Japanese man. And so I don't think it's an accident that, of course it could all, it's just my thought that the first few interviewees that we see happen to be black Americans. And the last thing I just wanted to mention is the idea that Terayama had of theatre being a crime, and he wanted this, right, for him a theatre, a theatrical experience has to somehow be criminal, and he really praised this about both cinema and the theatre. And so, you know, it was very common for him to get into a lot of trouble in his theatrical performances, but this is something he wanted, you know, it was his iconoclasm, his tendency for these sort of radical nihilistic acts that tended to, you know, get him into trouble, but also revealed, I think, something very profound about what he viewed filmmaking to be. Thank you. Thank you. Alex? Yeah, I mean, watching these films again, it just reminded me of how far what Terayama is doing goes beyond film or goes beyond maybe even a single, any of the single media that he was working in. Someone who is now a very well-known media professor of media studies in Japan was a graduate student in New York in the 1980s and was tasked with driving around Nagisa Oshima, one of the best known Japanese directors of the 60s and 70s when he was visiting New York for a retrospective. And he asked him, he told me this once, he asked him, well, who do you consider your greatest rival in the world of Japanese film? And he told me he's now very embarrassed about asking a question like that. But Oshima responded in saying, well, clearly that's Terayama Shuji, and I just couldn't compete in the end. There was no way I could compete with Terayama. And at the time this struck my acquaintance as very strange. Terayama is known as someone who worked in many, many different fields, but because of that in some way he's also not really known primarily as a film director or so. So he just didn't understand why would someone like Oshima, who's seen as one of the great masters of Japanese cinema, feel that he couldn't compete with Terayama. I think watching something like this, and if you have a chance to see some of the films that are showing at the anthology film archives in the next few days, I think you'll understand this, it'll make sense to you too. It's partially because Terayama is going well beyond what Oshima can do. He's not trying to tell stories. He's not creating single works that convey a kind of narrative or even a kind of message of sorts. What he's doing is really going beyond something like, he's doing world building, and that's a very new kind of strategy at that point in time. He's creating a gigantic kaleidoscope, going across different media, connected through different motifs, through themes, through kind of narrative fragments that pop up again and again in different kind of variations. Through that, he sets the media against each other, creating these weird overlaps and tensions. In that interplay, they create a whole variety of new media. It's really a kaleidoscopic kind of strategy. As Julia said, that extends beyond just kind of the world of the mediated. This goes, reaches into the everyday and tries to utilize the everyday as kind of fragments of information and parts of what might become a work in a sense as well. One of the very famous examples of this is when Terayama helps to organize an actual funeral for a fictional character from a famous boxing manga called Tomorrow's Joe, after that character dies in the manga. Several hundred people come to attend, and this is big news in the newspapers. The newspaper headlines are like, this is scary, this is weird, people are going to a funeral for a fictional character. There are several other examples in the following years, so this becomes much less worthy of being reported upon in newspapers. At the time, this was quite shocking, but it's two weeks after this funeral that the Japanese Red Army hijacks the Yodogo airplane, a passenger airplane from Narita Airport and flies it to Pyongyang in North Korea, and they issue a manifesto as they do this. And the final sentence of the manifesto reads, we are Tomorrow's Joe. So even the radical left is not quoting Marx or Lenin, they're referring to a manga. So something is changing significantly, and Terayama is someone who really has his finger on the pulse in this, and he's trying to utilize that, these changing sensibilities the way we're constantly entangled with media the way we're not really, we can't be separated from them anymore. And he sees that as working, you know, for that he works across the entire spectrum. The way that he kind of calls the audience to action to pick up the hammer without really telling you what it might mean to pick up the hammer, but first of all, pick it up and do something, right? Try to generate some kind of action that leads to something, that's part of that larger project I think. Thanks very much, Alex, and I very much appreciate the focus on action, and it's a strong interest of mine in relating the theatre to the milieu of the times and that time and time again you look at the records, whether it's the artistic practices or indeed the manifesto of student protest groups or radical protest groups, and there's this really repetitious focus on action above anything else almost. It's the Uber keyword of the period. Thank you very much. I think that those comments are all very helpful in helping us understand something more about the nature of this remarkable performance and films that we've seen and I think it's now a time that we'll go to the audience and please, if you've got a question, please perhaps indicate who you would like to answer it because we've got rather a large panel here, so just one. And please keep your questions brief because we will have a reception. Just a brief comment. I've been exploring experiential storytelling and this is what really touched me, and I think I thought of two quotes, one by Saul Bellows, which says, we're so shock-resistant, maybe the only thing that can touch us is poetry. And I see that as well as a quote by Peter Brooke, which says that this is our playground and I get that feeling he's playing with us and that my question is what is the sexual element in his time, in his culture because here we were founded by Puritans? I have no concept of the Japanese sense of sexual innuendo. Can you get anybody to comment on that? Perhaps if we could just put it out there as a provocation and a question to think about. I'm sure we all have perspectives on that, but would you like to say anything about that in particular or perhaps some other members of the panel? The reason I'm hesitating is it's probably a very large question to answer and it would take quite a while. I think if I can just say that whatever sexual mors are, if the question is about sexual mors in Japanese society then Tarayama is clearly trying to go against the status quo. I'm not sure if the films necessarily reveal what is the average sexual experience of nature of sexuality in Japan, but rather he's always trying to go towards a very, very uncomfortable location. For instance, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, one of his most famous films that has a long and short version.  We are in a context where a lot of artists are experimenting with physicality in the body and it's also a very common experience for many artists of that particular generation but there's also this very lively sense of play but also fascination for particular repetitious actions I think is something that comes up again and again in many, not just Tarayama but many of the other, perhaps you could compare that to some of the Buto performances at the time, for example. I was wondering if anybody could address how Mr. Tarayama was seeing his work in relation to the work of other director in Europe and in America at the time. Maybe if Mr. Morisaki could tell us if there was any particular director outside of Japan that he admired or he spoke about. I liked Tarayama the most at the time. He was the director of Ima Mara Shohei in Japan and the other director was Federico Ferini. At the time he was interested in the Japanese director Shohei Ima Mara and Federico Ferini in terms of performing arts cantor in Araba he had relations with them. We were so also when he saw the films he rediscovered the potential of what is possible. That's Robert Wilson. I forgot. I forgot. There was also director Ronconi and Tarayama realized, I'm sorry, noticed how violent his performances were and always wanted, aspired to be as violent. The other really interesting aspect of this is that of the 60s generation, Tarayama was popular in Europe. He's worked to it. Many of the other generation of artists at that time did not do their work to Europe. Karajuro only toured in Asia. Buto companies were later than Tarayama to go to the world. So I think there was this. Tarayama was a very interesting case of a Japanese avant-garde that had some relationship to European audiences. Formed at Lamama. So as you mentioned also Lamama, but I think his works were popular overseas because there was something beyond words that was being communicated, that was being reached to these audiences in his works. We probably have time for one more question. Okay, okay, sorry. I hope we have to finish. There was one at Lamama. It was before the stage. There was an episode. Do you know what Shosa-Zai is? It's a song called Shosa-Zai in Kabuki. But on the opening day, on the day before the opening, Tarayama-san said, please open the shack. Opening the shack means there is no such thing as a shack. It's 12 cm. So what would the actor do?  Would you like to say that? This is Mr. Mayada. He performed for Lamama. So he was mentioning that there is usually a set for no or Kabuki performances. But for the performance for Mr. Tarayama, he told us to get rid of it. So there was no shack. There was no shack. So there was a set for Kabuki. He wrote and brought it from Japan. It was a set. When it fell, it remained on the stage. Kabuki would listen to it. You can listen to it on the right. But for Mr. Tarayama, he had to bring it down. So there was no shack. It was not in Japan. There was no one to open the shack. The episode that he is sharing with us reveals that Mr. Tarayama completely changed the conventions for the performance of the no Kabuki at the time, which wasn't done in Japan. There is something, there is a dropping performance that's usually swept away to the side. Keeping that space open, he said just drop it straight through. So he changed the conventions of that performance entirely. This is a fascinating discussion. Thank you very much, all of you, for your comments. I really enjoyed it. I just happen to have the good fortune of meeting Mr. Tarayama years ago. In fact, I saw the third film in 75 or 6 years in California, shown there once, at the University of the Pacific. I got to know him a little bit, and I know that one thing he was trying to do, which is kind of alluded to by several of you, was almost, we could call it like meta theater or meta filmmaking. These things are about the making process itself, the creative process itself. And if there's any ultimate goal in there, he wanted people to question things. There are questions in the first one. Who am I? Who are you? What are you? These are really profound questions when you start thinking about them. I think he wanted people to think about those sorts of things. And in one of his plays, he's got the characters controlled by puppets, strings. And as the play is dissolved, the actors come out on stage and he just wants people to talk about it. Who's controlling these people? Who's controlling you? How do you believe anybody there? How can you even believe the play right? That's a really... I'm envious that you actually met Teri Hamashuchi, but it's a fantastic experience. It's a really interesting comment. I think the first thing I ever saw was an essay that was published in TDR, which was the Tenjo Sajiki Manifesto of the time. And I'm sure some of you have seen this. The way that it was printed was that it was intentionally illegible. So you had to read across light and dark sections of the page in order to put the sentences together. So there's constantly this deferral of meaning, but also this invitation to come into this kind of meta-spectatorship, I guess, or meta-theatrical event. So it's a really fascinating comment that you've made, I think. So thank you. Okay, go ahead. He was writing a turtle neck. He had a pet turtle. I'm sorry. One turtle was named Question, and the other was named Answer. And in terms of which turtle is larger, it was the Question Turtle. When I asked him why, he said there are many answers inside of Question. These are Tarama's words.  It's a large, large question mark. Thank you very much. Sometimes you have the perfect end to a symposium, and I think we just had it there. So always think to the big turtle. But just before we go tonight, and we are going to have a reception, I'd just like to thank one or two people. Frank also mentioned so many of the people who put this event together. There are very many organizations that have sponsored this event. Again, so thank you to the Harvard Film Archive, the Anthology Film Archives, the George Eastern Museum, the Japan Foundation, the National Film Center, the National Museum of Baudenard, and the generous support of the Kinoshita Group. We also thank Goul Hirasawa and Julian Ross, both of whom couldn't be here. But it was actually Goul-San who came to us first and said Frank immediately said yes. So the next group of people I need to thank, Frank and the Segal Center because Frank and his staff really do the impossible sometimes. Small public programs organization a part of the Graduate Center of the City of University of New York, very much attached to the PhD program in theater, but basically they are Frank and the staff you see here tonight and all of the people who've really put this together. So thank you, Frank. And thank you to everybody for coming out tonight. Please join us for a short celebration, short compo. And to remark on your call to action, maybe if you want nine of the hammers are up for grabs so you can take them home and continue hammering. We're going to keep here at the Segal reception here not for too long 10-15 minutes and then walk over to the archive bar which is on 36 between 5th semesters in your program and hope you can join us. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.


Now, I'll make sure you're all going to tell us that everything you said you had the day doesn't count, right? Yeah, we're ready to go. Mr. President, we're all ready to start. Yesterday what we tried to do was diagnose the problems we faced in terms of the budget. We tried to trace how it has evolved and developed both from the economic impacts and the legislative impacts. And what we would like to do today is now to look forward. There isn't a lot that can be done, but we will be trying to get on with half. So, if you return to the first half, I lay out here what I think would be called our preferred budget strategy. I'm not even sure I'll say anything more. All right. I want a good behavior. They're treating us very badly in New York. They're really angry. It's a very interesting thing. Actually, we don't have...


Hi everyone. Welcome. Good morning. Let's begin this class with a word of prayer. Welcome to our online students as well. Let's begin this time with a word of prayer and then we'll get into our teaching. Father we thank you for this time. Thank you Lord for this beautiful new day that you have blessed us with the God and even as we come together to study and learn your word we pray Holy Spirit that Lord you will teach us. You will minister to us God. We open our hearts. Lord to receive from you this morning. We thank you. We thank you for this opportunity that you've given us Lord. We give you all the praise and glory in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Alright, so last class we looked at chapter 6. Jesus as our teacher. We looked at a lot of examples. We saw that Jesus taught the word of God wherever he went. He taught parables. He taught life lessons. And we look at the nature of the way that the Lord Jesus taught. One was he taught in authority. He taught in love. So even though there was authority there was a balance of authority and love. And he characterized his teachings with wisdom. His supernatural ministry meaning he taught. And he showed that whatever he's teaching is true. And he was able to manifest the supernatural. And the Lord Jesus very importantly spoke figurative language. We look at three things. One is metaphors that is figures of speech. Then we looked at hyper bowls which is exaggerations. And most importantly he spoke in parables. Our earthly stories with heavenly meanings. And we also looked at the different kinds of parables that the Lord Jesus spoke in. He spoke about forgiveness, generosity, humility, kingdom of God, the judgment of God, prayer. And a lot of these parables were simple earthly parables. But they had great heavenly meaning. So when we look at teaching we can use all of these methods and we can inculcate them in our teaching. So let's go to the next chapter, chapter 7. And this talks about the teaching that happened in the early church. Especially when we look at early church it's the book of Acts. We know the Lord Jesus went and he gave his disciples the commission and he said, go make disciples. So let's look at the ministry of the teacher in the early church. There are a couple of verses here. Let's read a few of them. Acts 5.42. Maybe one of us can open to Acts 13.1. Acts 5.42. And daily in the temple and in every house they did not seize teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ. Daily in the temple and in houses they did not seize. They did not stop to teach and preach the word of God. Next one. Acts 13.1. Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers Barnabas, Simeon, called Niger, Lucius of Siren, Manin who had been brought up with Herod, the Tittredge. Right. So here we see that from Jerusalem to the time of Antioch from the Pentecost to the time of Acts 13. It's almost more than 10 years. And we see that there were teachers already raised up teaching the word of God in the church. And this could be a small setting. This could be a bigger setting. But the ministry of the teacher continued on. Let's go to the next verse. 1535 and maybe 1811. And then we'll look at the other verses later. Acts 1535. What the Paul and Barnabas meant in Antioch. Where they and many others taught and preached the word of the Lord. Yes. So Paul and Barnabas went and they... This is in the Council of Jerusalem where they went in and they taught the word of God. Yes, go ahead. 1811. 1811. After these things, Paul departed from Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a certain Jew named Aquila born in Pontius. 18... Acts 18 verse 11. Acts 1811. And he continued there a year and six months teaching the word of God among them. So Paul is in Corinth now. Acts 18. Before this Acts 17, he goes to Athens. He's in Greece. And we know the whole story that happened there. He goes into Aeropagus. He says, I see this place is full of temples and there's an idol to an unknown God. He preaches to them. And many people become believers there. And from there he goes into Corinth. And Corinth, what does he do? He stays there for one and a half years teaching the word of God. Now just picture it. These guys at Corinth were... I would say 90% of them were Gentiles. 90% of them. So here's a man who knew the law. It was easier for the Apostle Paul to minister to the Jews. Why? Because he was a Jew. He was a Pharisee. He was a person who could interpret the law and just relate it to Jesus. But here he's doing the teaching and preaching to Gentiles. Now just think about this. He has to... He can't go back to Moses and say, Moses did this, Abraham did this. They don't care about Moses and Abraham. But he had to preach and teach the Gospel. Teach them. And we see the fruit of his ministry in Corinth. Where people became believers. People... A church plant was established in Corinth itself. Right? So we see all through the disciples. Now what has been accounted here is people like Paul and Peter. But out of this, there would have been many, many, many people who became teachers. Which is not recorded here. What we do know is, for example, Apollos. Right? He was a very learned person. And people say that Apollos and Paul had the same level of understanding or the same level of teaching skills. Right? That they included him in the Corinth... Remember the division in the church? Some say I follow Paul. Some say I follow Apollos. That means he was at that level. This is where Paul goes and talks to Apollos and says, hey, what you're teaching is the baptism of John, the repentance. But then now there's a baptism of the Holy Spirit, teaches him, and Apollos becomes a great teacher. So if you look on all through the book of Acts, there would have been many, many people who would have become great leaders, but may not have mentioned, and the ministry of the teachers would have grown in the book of Acts. So let's read 1 Corinthians 417. 1 Corinthians 4 and verse 17. 1 Corinthians 417. For this reason, I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways in Christ as I teach everywhere in every church. Right. Now look at this. In Acts 17, Paul is going to Corinth. He's done all the hard work. The church has been planted. And one and a half years he is there. He moves on. Now, many, couple of years later, we know the problem in Corinth, right? There's division. There are the gifts of the Spirit. People are not able to identify how to work in those gifts of the Spirit. And so what does Paul say? Because of all this division, I am sending Timothy, my son, who will do what? He doesn't say, who will make you straight or he will make things right in the church. Right. Of course, that was the reason why Timothy was sent. But the main thing was so that he will teach you what you must do. Right. So you see the emphasis of teaching. Teaching enables a person to choose the right way. What is Paul? Sorry. Solomon. David and if you look at the ministry of David and his son, Solomon, David says to Solomon, David talking about a son, he says, Solomon, don't do the mistakes that I made. Right. You follow God, obey his commands. You will have a long life. Solomon made all the mistakes. Right. But he says to his children, to the people of Israel, don't do the mistakes that I made. God is faithful. God loves you. God has a plan for you. And there's a time for every season. And he goes on talking about wisdom. If you read the whole of Proverbs, it's entirely about teaching. It's words of wisdom. Right. And Solomon is telling his people, don't do the mistakes that I did. In my youth, I've made a lot of mistakes. You don't do it. And teaching helps us. Right. Imagine we, for example, in ministry, if we had somebody who's always telling us, okay, don't do this. When I did this, this was the mistake that I made. And these were the challenges that I faced. Right. The circumstances for my mistakes. And so when we have people who are able to input into our lives, there's so much that we can avoid. Yes. Right. And I thank God that at a young age, people began to tell me, especially after joining ministry, okay, you do this, don't do this. This will work. And again, God's word that will, the Holy Spirit, who's our great teacher will teach us. Right. So Paul here is sending Timothy to a place which has confusion, which has strife, which has jealousy among believers, but he's going there to teach them. I can just picture what Timothy would be saying. Timothy would have said, okay, I know what's going on here. Sit down. See, this is what God's word says. This is what Jesus did. This is how we must live our life. This is how it is. And he probably stayed on and taught them day after day after day. Right.  Now, if you look back from the time you have joined, have you grown in the world? Definitely. Is there a scale measurement scale? No.  Now, in one year down the line, will you be the same?  We learn. We outgrow certain things and that's really important. So let's look at some of the instructions of the teaching in the early church, right? And some of the instructions that God is giving us as teachers, right? We saw the method of teaching last class, right? Love, authority, characterise and wisdom, right? Speaking in parables, figures of speech, hyperbole, speaking in love, making sure that what we teach is true. But now let's look at some of the instructions that God is giving us as teachers, right? First one, the teaching believer. Let's look at Romans chapter 12 and verse 7. Somebody can also open to Colossians 3, 16. Romans 12, and verse 7. Our ministry let us use it in our ministering. He who teach in teaching, right? If it is serving, let him serve. If it is teaching, let him teach, right? So every believer, so Paul is writing here to again, believers and he is saying every believer is not excluding people. He is saying every believer, if your ministry is serving, serve. Your ministry is teaching, teach. If your ministry is preaching, preach. Whatever your ministry is, do it, right? Let's go to Colossians 3, 16. This is a familiar verse. Colossians 3, 16. Colossians chapter 3, verse 16. Christ's message is in all its richness, must live in your hearts. Teach and instruct each other with all wisdom. Sing psalms, hymns and sacred songs. Sing to God with Thanksgiving in your hearts. Yeah, this is a wonderful verse. We often quote it every time. Let me read from the NIV version. It's put out very beautifully. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another. Right? Now, again, these are just believers. Paul is saying that the word of Christ dwell richly in you that you may teach and admonish one another. Right? So, yes, always remember there is the gift, there is the function. All of us can do this. None of us can say, hey, I think I'm only, you know, I only want to evangelize. I only want to lead worship. No. If the opportunity comes teaching, all of us as believers can teach. Right? So every one of us, the teaching believer, the believer, God is calling you to teach, teach. It could be a small setting. Five people, 10 people, 100 people, 200 people doesn't matter. Teach the word of God. Two is the ministry gift of teaching. That's what we are talking about. Right? Let's read we know Ephesians 411, but let's read 1st Corinthians 12 and 28. Ephesians 411 talks about the 5-fold ministry. But let's read 1st Corinthians 12 and verse 8, 28. Yes, go ahead. 1st Corinthians 12, 28 and God has placed in the church, first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of feeling, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. Yeah. Now it's very important to understand this verse. Right? Many of them have asked why is it that Paul is writing, you know, he's writing your first of all apostles, second prophet, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then people who are able to help himself. Now, remember it is not, okay, those who are apostles is number one and then that's the highest rank. In God's kingdom there is no ranking. Right? Now, if we study about the gifts of the Spirit, in no way does it specify that prophecy is better than word of knowledge or you know, gift of miracles is better than speaking in tongues. No. All gifts are the same given by one Spirit. Right? So, same thing here. The apostle Paul is not drawing his attention to, okay, apostles are better than these, than prophets or teachers and then people who are serving in church. But what he's trying to put across is that all of these functions work together. These are different functions working together in the body of Christ. Right? So, it doesn't mean that this is, there's a hierarchy or there's a ranking. No. We can be serving in the church and also prophesy. We can be doing sound and setup in the church and also teach people. You get what I'm saying. Right? So, there's no hierarchy. Right? But somehow, in the church, when we look at the church overall, especially in our nation, we see that there's, oh, we take people and put them on a pedestal.  He's a apostle. What are you doing? I am volunteer. Are you going to stand in the corner? That's whose fault. It's our fault. We did that. We have, you know, sometimes when we go to certain places in North India, we get these opportunities. They have a genuine heart. They love the pastors. They love that's good. Honoring the pastors, honoring. But when we overdo it, what will happen? The person will become a balloon. Right? I'll carry your water bottle. I'll carry your bag. Tom, I'll open the door for you. Right? Sorry? Like a butler. No, but it's true. And, you know, when there are times when we see it, we don't say anything because it's not their fault. It's not the pastor's fault or the prophet's fault. It's our fault. The believers. Right? Yes, we need to respect. We need to love each other. We need to care for each other. But we know how to look after ourselves. We are not, you know, we have hands. We have legs. We carry it ourselves. There's nothing wrong. But this whole stardom. Right? It is our fault. And if you look at in the West, it's not there. Especially if you look at churches, maybe in ministries, if you look at these great evangelists, it may be there. Right? But there are many places in the West, they don't, everyone are the same. Right? The pastor, the teachers, everyone are the same. And that's the right attitude to have. But there is respect. Right? And when we have the ministry gift of teaching, remember that all of us can build on that. Right? I believe that 10 years from now when I'm teaching, I should be better than what I am now. If I'm not, then there's something wrong. I have to improve. I have to learn. Right? So sometimes I keep, you know, I ask for subjects that I haven't taught. So that I can learn, I can study and teach it. Right? And it's a learning for us as well. So the ministry gift of teaching is there for all of us. And then there's a function as well. Right? We talked about that as well. So, third point, do and then, this one, I can talk so much. Matthew chapter 5 was 19. That's great. Matthew 519. And somebody can open to Romans 2 21 as well. Matthew 519. Matthew 6. One of the release of these commands will be called the kingdom of heaven. Whoever teaches these commands will be called the kingdom of heaven. Whoever teaches and practices what they teach will be great in the kingdom of God. Let's read Romans. Romans 2 21. You therefore who teach another do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal. Do you steal? Right. So again, the apostle Paul is bringing context. He's talking to the believers. He's saying if you are teaching others, will you not teach yourself? How can you teach others and not do it yourself? Now picture this. Imagine I tell you each one of you.  God has given you authority. Go reach out to people. Just share the gospel with people. People will accept the Lord. Don't worry about how you look, how you speak. Go do it. God will speak to their lives and touch their lives. Imagine I tell you that. But I don't do anything. Now you may not know whether I'm doing or no. But what will happen is the scriptures say am I teaching myself? If I'm teaching others, I must be able to teach myself. Later on Paul says, I don't want to be preaching and teaching, lest I myself be disqualified from the gospel. So when we are teaching, make sure that we do it. If we are teaching about prayer and intercession, about prayer. Hey, we have to pray. God answers prayers. Pray big prayers. Are we doing it in our lives? If we are talking about faith, faith can move mountains. Don't worry about the problems that come. Are we walking in faith first? Because it's easy for me to say but to practically do it may be very challenging. Yes or no? That's true. So do and then teach. Teach and then do as well. Right? Very important. Next one. Do not teach the commandments of men. Matthew chapter 15 and verse 9. Matthew 15, verse 9. Matthew 15 9. And in vain, they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. Now, if you look at the context of this, Jesus some Pharisees came to Jesus and said, hey, you are breaking the tradition. You are breaking the law. What is tradition? Tradition is something that has gone on from years, from generations to generation to generation. One of the tradition that we had with growing up was my parents said night before sleeping we have to all sit together sing two songs read one verse from the Bible pray and sleep. Why? I don't know. You have to do it. It's tradition. My dad's parents did it, their parents did it. It just came down. Of course we know it's blessing. But for me as a young boy, I didn't know.  And so we knew. You can't say I have fever, I have cold. No. And they knew that my parents were like, you do whatever sin. I know what all wrong things you are doing but you are going to sit for the prayer. That was a set deal. Our parents wouldn't stop us from going out meeting friends, staying over at friends house. You never stop us. We have three boys. They gave us all the freedom. 8 p.m. you have to sit for prayer. You don't tell me any don't give me any excuse. And we had that thing in our heart. It's a tradition. Now, did those prayers help me at that time? No. Because I was falling asleep half the time. It was tradition. Right? It didn't okay, song was good. Okay, we'll sing a few songs. Okay, that was good. But they will read the verse. Okay, read something. All of us will take turns. Three of us, take turns, read. And then the prayer starts. Oh, God. When will this prayer get over? Sunny, amen? Okay, amen. Right? Now, it was tradition. Jesus is telling the disciples your people are going to the temple when they are standing there. Oh, Father, God, you are great. You took out Moses from Egypt. You did. You called Elisha. You called. They're going on saying the same thing. Tradition. Now, Jesus is saying you're going there. You're worshiping, but it's all out of tradition. There is no heart involved. Right? It's all just because your fathers did it, you're doing it now. So he's saying here, they worship me in vain. Their teachings are but rules taught by men. Right? So the Pharisees and the Sadducees says when you stand, you should stand in this posture. When you give the offering, both your hands should be outside. Forget about heart. The way you stand is important. Right? You should wear this kind of dress. Right? The lamp should be like this. The heart, that's okay. Let it be somewhere else. Well, this should be right. Traditions. It's like what we have now Christmas. What is Christmas now? Christmas tree. Christmas here. Parties. Carols, chocolates. Yeah. Gifts. Yeah, what else? See, all of us know nobody's saying Jesus. Right? It's true. Right? Many times, there are people who are neighbors, they put up a star and I know they are not Christians. I said, why you put up this? Why you put up the star? I've asked them, why you put up Christmas? So what is Christmas? It's a star. They make donuts shaped out of star. I said, that's what you think Christmas is? Tradition. And they have a Christmas tree also with some empty boxes. Down. Why? Tradition. What is a Christmas tree? I don't know what it is. It's tradition. Right? But, you know, when Christmas, when I became a believer, Christmas was so much more than new clothes, Christmas tree, donuts and all these gifts so much more. I realized who came into this world. Right? Everything changes. Christmas, yeah, it's a time of enjoying. We rejoice, we thank God. But when we look at tradition, Christmas is, you know, just lost its value. So Jesus is saying here, maybe all your sacrifices, all the offerings that you're doing has lost its value. Do not teach the commandments of men, but teach the commandments of God. Now, if you turn it around, the teachings that we have now is just so much of false teachings. It's there on the last point here also. So much of teachings that are going on which is commandments of men. Right? There's a clipping I saw. I forget who's this preacher, but it's a clipping. And in the clipping, the preacher says I hope I get this right, right? The preacher says if your child meets with an accident, right, and you have to take the child to the hospital, what will he do? You'll make him sit in the car and you'll drive. And when you're driving, you see those speed limits. For example, it's 30 kilometers per hour. So will those speed limits matter when your child needs to be rushed to the hospital? Will it matter or no?  Right? And he goes on to say the same way God the Father broke the law by sending his son. Now, when I heard that the first time, I didn't know what to do. I said see the example used was but you cannot connect it to this. Did God break the law? Will God break the law? It's simple. But he said God broke the law. Now, it sounds correct. Does it sound nice? It sounds very nice. It sounds, yeah, yeah. As a father, I will not look at that. I will go 100 to reach the hospital as soon as I can. So here, God broke the law by sending his son. So it became the moment I heard that I knew, okay, God this is not right. Something's wrong here. So there are many another teaching I heard was I'm just sharing these so that we understand what's happening and be aware of these teachings. Now, another teaching was the story of the Good Samaritan. The man came on the donkey. So the teaching was the donkey is the church. And the donkey's legs are the four pillars of the church. And those who are broken and bruised and beaten can sit on the donkey and the church will take them to a place where they can be healed. Okay, now why did Jesus tell the story? He was trying to bring a point but you see how the teaching goes. So do not teach commandments of men when you're unsure. The problem is the problem is when we don't know what to say or what to teach. We run out of ideas. We come up with our own ideas. Now we can never run out of ideas from the Bible. This ideas will keep going. Revelations will keep coming till Jesus comes. It'll be there. None of us can say I don't know what to preach. Preach the same thing again. It's okay. Right. There will be some kind of revelation. Yes. When we are taking this about this preachers who teach and preach. So in James it will be mentioned like there is a judgment for the people who preach twice or the judgment. How it actually Oh, like how why is there a Yeah, so see the thing is one is there is a regular judgment that we have. We will all stand in front of the judgments here of Christ. But then there is also what we have done as ministers of God. Our works will be tested. Right. So for example, I have preached a sermon but at the end of the sermon I everyone came and said, oh you preach so well and if in some way there was pride, that'll be a zero because it'll burn. God will burn it. Right. So there is this additional Oh It's not like, okay, you finished your one judgment come you have one more judgment now go back to the line and stand. It's not like that. So when you're standing in front of the judgment seat, God will open the books. So he'll say, okay, in your personal life, this is what you've done. So for example, somebody has been in the workplace all his life. So okay in the workplace, this is what you've done now for example, a pastor for 50 years he was a pastor.  This is your ministry. Let's test your ministry. This is what you've done. So it's not like two separate judgments. God is going to see everything every area. He's going to test it. All right. Next one. Jesus says go and teach all nations all things. Matthew 28 we know the great commission. Let's read that. Matthew 28 19 and 20. Matthew 28 verse 19 to 20. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and I am with you always even to the end of the age. Amen. Now the interesting part is many of us quote Matthew 28 19 and stop there. What is 19? Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. It doesn't end there. What does Jesus say? And teaching them to obey everything I have commanded obedience. I was listening to a sermon yesterday by a very wonderful teacher and he was saying something. Why is it that some believers they keep praying right? They keep praying for years and years and years but they don't receive what they've been praying for. Now God says ask it shall be given. That's because God has this timing. God knows he's got things he knows when to give how to give but maybe a simple thing they've been praying for years. Why is it that they don't receive it? They have they've been praying for it. The problem is there are certain things in life that they have not been obedient to God's word. Obedience is a key to receiving from God. We can pray the whole day and if we are disobedient what's going to happen? There's a hindrance. Right? Or we can be very obedient and not pray. Right? So we must be able to balance this out. Jesus is saying go make disciples teaching them to start churches and ministries. Is he saying that? Teaching them to have start Bible colleges. Now, teaching them to be obedient to what I have commanded you to do. Obedience is a very important key. It is very, very important key. It unlocks things in our lives. It unlocks opportunities. It unlocks great things that God can do for us. Right? I have so many examples in my life. I thank God it was very hard to be obedient at that time. I remember as a Bible college student I think the rule was 5 o'clock that time, 5 a.m. Is it the rule now also? 5 a.m. Wake up in the morning. 5.30. It was 5 a.m. before. So we used to wake up at 5 a.m. and I had a very good classmate, one guy I only talked to one guy in my entire class. He was very passionate. He wanted to learn English. No, this is another person. So he wanted to learn English. He was very passionate about prayer. I learned a lot about prayer from him. Because he would wake up, he would pray. He was so passionate about prayer. Very focused in his prayer. So we used to get up at 5 a.m. and pray. Then I remember one day God just ministered and said like are you satisfied with this? I said no, not satisfied. More of you. You wake up at 4 a.m. I just knew God is just teaching me. So I told my friend wake up at 4 a.m. He said let's do it. So we used to get up at 4 a.m. in the hostel and we used to we didn't care whether we were making sound and all. We did whatever we felt like. We started singing loudly, praying loudly and then we saw what used to happen was there was this next to our house next to the hostel that we were staying in there were these people who were 4 o'clock they would get up and they would pray they were not believers but they would pray to their God early loud ringing the bell. Oh man, we should get up before them because if we get up before them first prayer should go to Jesus in this area then others. So said the alarm at 3 a.m. So 3 a.m. we used to get up 3 to 5 we used to pray then 5 o'clock everyone used to get up and then again we used to all pray together. But I thank God for those days I thank God for was it easy the warden who was there he was only fast asleep but nobody was there to tell us okay get up you do this do that nobody was there we could have got up at 7 o'clock get ready and come to nobody will ask us anything because we were I was a little elderly in my batch all of them were 20 they were going to ask us anything we can do anything we want I could go out do anything but there was a choice of being obedient did I like the rules I didn't like some of the rules at all because I came from a corporate office right I've been working in the corporate sector I know how the corporate is suddenly there are rules now for me it was very difficult but obedient is important obedience unlocks things in our life unlocks opportunities and God begins to speak blessings into our life that is why in first Samuel what is sauce Samuel say obedience is better than your sacrifice it unlocks so it may be things that I'm not only talking about hostile rules but I'm talking about anything God may say go here do this do that he may put in your heart to read something or read a portion of scriptures or spend more time in prayer be obedient to that the fruit may not be immediate but the fruit will come it will come right obedience will lead to blessings always right next one the Holy Spirit is our teacher John 14 26 John 14 26 John 14 26 but the helper the Holy Spirit whom the father will send in my name he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you the best teacher that you and I can have is who the Holy Spirit he's the greatest teacher we can always go to him if we don't understand something we can go to the go in prayer ask the Holy Spirit Holy Spirit I didn't understand this eschatology or people to understand and he reveals in pieces he will teach us he will guide us right he's the best teacher that you and I can have teach with the wisdom of the Spirit 1 Corinthians 2 13 1 Corinthians 2 13 1 Corinthians 2 13 these things we also speak not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches comparing spiritual things with spiritual so Paul is saying the things that we have been teaching and our teaching now it is not been taught in man's wisdom did apostle Paul have wisdom definitely did his team members Timothy Silas all of these people have wisdom they all would have had the wisdom of God wisdom on their own but he's saying it is not the wisdom of man that we are teaching it is the wisdom of God teach with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit we saw the example of how Jesus you know taught and he was able to articulate people's questions and trying to people trying to trap him was able to he knew how to put things across right now here's another thing we may be wonderful teachers wonderful preachers but we must also know how to be in wisdom right now let me give you this example one example is I remember seeing these videos people usually send it where pastors are very wonderful leaders powerful full of wisdom and on a Sunday morning what's happened is I think somebody send me this clip or I saw it somewhere I don't remember but this pastor gets it happened in the west not in here during the sermon why because he sees in the congregation many families didn't come to church right so he started naming the families this family that these are the families that didn't come to church what is the reason that you didn't come to church I want y'all to give me an answer now he was he's a wonderful man of full of wisdom God has given him the ability to teach and preach very wonderful but that day maybe he was having a bad day or he was just upset tired stressed out but what happened he let it out it became a big problem people asked him why did you have to do that we have other things we were busy or we were probably traveling without knowing how can you say how can you name people who didn't come to the church and it became a problem later he apologized because they forgave him and all that but then it was not required for all of this to happen right so when we teach the wisdom of the spirit ask the Holy Spirit to guide us right it could be in the natural also natural things that we say it's very important you know remember that you know as a pastor what happens is church members they come up to us and say sometimes we think that oh they may not be listening but they come up and they say you said like this tell me what does that mean right and sometimes I keep quoting these books that I read and I say this is the book that I read and they message and ask where can I get that book which portion which chapter was it you're talking about so you know they grasp so anything that we say is important because people are grasping it right teach with the wisdom of the spirit right we'll stop here and we'll pick up from next class we'll just make a mark here right teach from the wisdom of the spirit right so we'll pick up from the next class and we'll see because there's a lot of explanation that we can do we can discuss as well in the other point so we'll take some time and you know study that together right any questions from what we have done so far right and when it comes to teaching in the wisdom of the spirit over time we learn right just like any anything that we do over time we learn how to answer questions we will learn how to you know give examples we will learn how to when to give examples how to give examples what example is required right because you know there was this one time I was preaching and after the whole sermon you know I went back home I thought to myself why did I give that example in the message so I went back I opened the sermon notes and I looked and I said that example was not even related to what I was saying right and so over time we learn okay put the right example in the right place and it's an ongoing process right whether it's preaching teaching we learn continually right okay let's close with the word of prayer and then we will meet next week right Father we thank you for giving us this opportunity Lord and everything that we are we have learned and we're going to learn Lord as students of your word we pray God that you will continue Lord to speak and minister to each of our hearts Lord we thank you thank you Lord that you've called each one of us to preach to teach Lord I pray that you will empower us equip us with your wisdom your revelation of God may the gifts of the Holy Spirit be released in and through us and help us Lord to make an impact wherever we go and whatever we do Lord help us Lord to build your kingdom God we thank you for this wonderful opportunity Lord we give you all the praise and glory in Jesus name we pray Amen Amen Thank you everyone online have a blessed day ahead a bless


Hi, I'm George Cao and today I'm with Marina Francis and we're going to talk about having a healthier relationship with food Marina welcome. Thanks for being here. Thanks George. I'm so happy to be here with you right now Yeah, so let me just kind of share with the audience a bit of your your bio and then we'll get into the conversation so Marina Francis you've been working on These kinds of you've been you've been empowering smart heartfelt women To find their own empowered answers to food for the last 23 years You have a bunch of certifications like from the Institute of psychology of eating From the Hendricks Institute Let's see you're your level three EFT practitioner So there's a lot of training you bring and a lot of experience So and one of the things that you say in your bio is you know kind of smart and you know intelligent women That you that you really focused on helping so tell us Why intelligent women? Well, first of all, I'm curious. Why why just women? Why not men have these issues too as I know Yeah, thanks for thanks for asking that. I get that. Um And I do work with men I love working with men typically because the masculine and feminine brains to work a bit differently And there's there's some fascinating science on that For women everything tends to be connected. So Food is is a bit more of an all-encompassing Invitation into growth I just find for more women than for men and I do work with men and I love to work with men I work with men a bit differently And often it can be a bit more linear a bit more focused because you guys I mean, I'm not going to tell you anything. You don't already know about yourself But you're very good. The masculine energy is really good at focused at action at compartmentalizing And women so I think about that like Men are the are this ship that that knows that knows how to go Women are the ocean and so we got to have both, you know, we all have both but for women because that's true The relationship with food Like spokes out of a wheel and affects many different areas of life And I'll talk, you know, a little bit more about that as we go and specific to business women and entrepreneurs So so yeah, let's let's actually get into this Discussion regarding regarding women since that's a lot of your focus. Why isn't it? Why isn't it working? for women So much of it is I you know, I laugh about this, but There's a lot of old school stuff that really smart women are still Doing there's something like, you know kind of The definition of insanity being doing the same things and expecting different results. And so for example Some women are counting calories Some women are imagining that paleo is going to be The end all and be all or vegan and and not to discount the power and the viability of those I definitely work with people around specific diets And and the the science and the practice of nutrition But without actually understanding Oh, who am I as an eater right now at this particular point in my life? All of that stuff, um, it isn't sustainable so What when would when I talk about what's typically not working is um control Willpower um the judgment of ourselves that we might have and and I know you've you've talked about this too um as you have Tweet your diet and tweet some of your eating habits and patterns like oh well what To really feel in to what's working for me right now and why And in order to find that we have to get really clear on what isn't working and why that is And so for women, there's very often an emotional component with this and what's fascinating to me about food is Food if you think about it as humans It's one of the only substances we can get really out of balance with that we actually still need to live Right like we don't need um tobacco or the best red wine on the planet or or heroin or any of that Like we don't need those to live. We do need food. And so it's in a category all its own And to me that makes it Uh, it gives it opportunities all its own to yeah, so if you know A an ideal client right now is watching this and she's like, yeah, I I have tried willpower. I have tried different diets And you know blaming myself or whatever and it hasn't worked And I continue to have a less than Healthy relationship or I would like to improve my relationship with food. So what what can we do? What what what can that person do? Yeah, well in in a in a very simple way One of the things that that is so powerful So instead of control Forcing ourselves to eat this and not eat that instead of judgment when maybe we do eat this and we don't eat that when we when we Want to do better for ourselves Instead of that judgment in that like it's a quality of hardness in the body, you know judgment and control are both They're both locking down and closing and So we really want to do the opposite of that and and like open up the periphery of that and say like, all right Instead of judging myself. What if I wonder? What if I just really wonder? Oh Why why is it that I want to eat? The second brownie at the potluck I was at a great potluck yesterday. So that that one just showed up And just being in the dynamic of watching everybody and having fun.  Maybe she had a hard conversation with someone this morning Um, so all of this stuff comes into the mix So when people especially women talk about emotional eating I I say Great, we're emotional creatures. And of course we Carry that into the act of Eating and nourishing ourselves like what could be more normal than that, right? So one of the one of the early things that I teach all my one-on-one clients is How can you be that emotional creature that you are? How can you really bring that and celebrate that in your life and have a really healthy nourishing relationship with food at the same time? Because I think a lot of people think it's got to be one or the other if I'm if I'm really Emotionally charged right now because of that thing that happened this morning or yesterday or that hard thing I'm going into later I'm going to overeat or I'm going to eat things that numb me out or that I need to I need to sort of Run away from so instead is how do we bring that like how do we how do we bring that to the party? Use it for a really clean powerful fuel Step into our own Power with because now we're in alignment, you know and and alignment Is is power? It's it's a personal sovereignty So when we talk about women in business Um, I'll just give you a little example. So this morning right before you and I got on here to um have our interview together I noticed that I was a little afraid You know and my my my belly was contracted and then my breathing was a little shallow and I was about to have my breakfast and and so preparing preparing everything and realize in that moment We have a we have a choice every time we sit down to eat anything We have these beautiful choices and so in that moment I chose to climb back into my body And and really feel and really presence. Oh, I have some fear I'm not going to do the interview right I'm going to forget to say some really important things And so I just just took a couple of breaths. So it didn't take any more like clock time that I already had planned But I just became a different person in those few minutes Before and while eating my breakfast like Okay, this is how I feel like just allow all of that welcome all of that and The fascinating thing about that there's there's hard science on this now There's a better nutritional uptake. There's a better Scanning for macro and micronutrients there. And so that's an awesome thing because Um, what that means is if we're running through the airport and we're rushing We have to eat some junk food because we're getting on the next flight If we can do that in a relaxed embodied way, we'll actually get more nutrition from that Conversely we can eat the most beautiful organic food on the planet for a meal and if we're eating it from a place of stress and hurriedness and Mental or even physical crowdedness. We will not uptake the nutrition. That's actually available in that food So I consider that great news because it it it just offers us a world of possibilities Wow, that's amazing. That's really cool. I was um, I was I was laughing a little bit when you said earlier Oh at a potluck and eating that second brownie. I'm like, well, I would do it because it's free food I was like, it's free No, um, everybody has their own thing. No, um, well, yeah And that's about and and there's history there sometimes too.   Well, I better grab an extra one or something. Yeah, but um, so, uh, I love this idea I'm this, you know Mindful eating brings more nutrition into our bodies. So how do we eat more mindfully especially? Well, we're going into the holiday as we're recording this going into the holidays So there's a lot of food involved in holidays, but but just anytime in the year I mean we're eating multiple times a day. So how do we how do we eat? The next meal more mindfully the next meal again And it's beautiful that you're saying that because the cool thing about food is we have an opportunity to practice this Anytime we propose to put something in our mouths And so I use the word practice intentionally and often because in the same way that we practice a sport or a musical instrument or yoga We don't call that a perfect. We're always calling that a practice and so to understand and to recognize that every day is different and Back to control for a minute. If I say to myself like, okay, this is the amount of Yogurt you eat every morning and this is how many eggs you can have a week in that that's I'm not taking into account My level of activity what what I'm dealing with emotionally that week Do I have to travel? Did I just do a marathon? You know all those things and so What I what I'm teaching. I think the most important thing that I'm teaching women is How do you know for yourself right now in your life? the Perfect way to eat and how can you take what we learn together in our bit of focused work over Usually several months time How do we take that and how do you take that forward sustainably so that you will always Be able to discover for yourself. What is my perfect way to eat right now? Am I am I wanting a maintenance diet because things are pretty well Do I have some things to heal? Do I need to create a therapeutic diet for myself? Am I an active athlete? That's a different thing. And so There's a beautiful way of untangling The whole nutritional confusion and the good and the bad and the right are wrong through this method So let me give you just a uh, a simple set of practices that I use In fact my my example about you know eating breakfast this morning. This is what I was doing basically It's it's built into my into my body now. I don't do it perfectly I don't do it a hundred percent But it's a thing that is a touchstone and I'll teach it to you so that you know It's just always the thing we can come back to so the very first one is When we're eating whenever is you know as much as possible to really to eat And so that means um not scrolling facebook not reading. Um not Writing our notes or even looking over our notes about what are we doing this afternoon? It's it's literally and energetically squaring ourselves up to the table Putting our feet on the floor Taking a couple of really beautiful intentional breaths so that we can get Physically and energetically present To what we're about to do which is Hopefully nourish our body in the best way that we know how Given the circumstances and what's available to us right now so The other part is and I think I spoke about this already Doing that allows our our bodies and our psyche and our brain to scan For macronutrients too so If you ever had the experience and a hundred percent of people that I've asked this to say, oh, yeah, that's happened I've looked down and thought wow. Where did my dinner go? I was enjoying talking to you so much for example Um, and so if we're not present, it's really easy to overeat You know, even when we are in a positive frame of mind and having a great time with our friends or our family It's not always when there's an emotionally challenging thing going on and I'm Opening your refrigerator to numb myself out from what I don't want to feel so it can be a a really broad Spectrum there. So getting physically and energetically present Taking those few breaths just going inside just checking out like oh, how do I feel right now? so another way I could say that is Finding out in that moment. Who's the eater? Who's the eater? So we talk all the time about what we're eating and we rarely talk about Who who am I being right now? So in the same ways that you George talk about How do we show up for ourselves in our businesses so that we can serve the tribe that we're meant to serve It's it's it's an adjunct of the same thing You know who you know because who are we being? In in our eating also drives the powerful decisions so that we can eat As a full expression of who we want to be and how we want to show up in the world I want to ask you a question. You've mentioned a couple times about scanning for macronutrients When we're doing mindful eating. What do you mean by by that? Yeah, it's a very automatic thing It's not even a thing that the brain needs thought for when we become more present in our bodies And we slow everything down Just enough it doesn't have to even take longer than the amount of time that we are already eating It just takes attention and awareness. So those couple of breaths those squaring ourselves up those looking looking down and appreciating The meal that you're about to eat because you've never had this meal before Even you may have eaten the those foods before but we've never been In this moment with this meal in in this body in this breath right now So it's an opportunity To take in something really new and fresh and to appreciate that So all by doing that our our we by our slowing down That um, we we are automatically physiologically scanning For nutrients more than if we're checked out and we're doing this and we're doing that and I've got my phone and you know So somehow the body is actually more more Absorbing of good things. Yeah, thankfully eating. Yeah, that's amazing as well as the acknowledgement of like Oh, I just ate a really satisfying meal or oh, yes, you actually need a little bit more I am still a little bit hungry right right. That's a better capacity to find out the answers to those things Right. Yeah, or like, oh, I'm done. I thought I prepared this but I'll see this for later or something And how do I know that? Yeah, so those decisions Start taking on what I call a neck down quality and not a neck up because this is the part that doesn't work So well when we're proposing to eat in in better ways for ourselves That's that's the old school. Yeah. Yeah, so um Let's wrap up by sharing with people how people how those who are watching can work with you Um, you love working with clients to tell us about what that's like Yeah, I really do. I mean these days the bulk of my practice is um one-on-one work with you know for for For deep dive nourishing focusing On all of this and what's so interesting is that it's very far-reaching And so I always joke about it looks like it's about the food, but it is never only about the food and There there are beautiful other things that Are calling to be learned through this doorway of food and I love anybody who's Notting their head right now as you're hearing this or reading what George is posting It's such an honor to be part of this tribe along with you and if this intrigues you The way you can learn more the link is here in the comments um Go in fill out my very short little form. It's attached to the consultation and I will gift you with A nice 30 minute session For you as a fellow heartfelt Entrepreneur and that's just marina frances.com forward slash consultation and it's as I say it's here in the links Awesome. Yes, that's absolutely That's easy. It's marina frances fr a and c is marina m a r i n a marina francis.com slash consultation And that's for anybody who mentions my name.  Yeah, and as you mentioned marina as a client of mine and that you know love working with her So, you know, if this has if if you feel like yes, I could I could I would benefit from a from a more healthy and mindful relationship to my food then Get that session with marina. I think you'll be grateful for it marina, thank you so much for For doing this and is there any kind of words of wisdom to to send us off with? uh One word, um, especially as we're coming into the holidays here um Relax Relax and yourself. I like that. I like that. Thank you so much marina. Mm-hmm. Great to see you as always charge. Thanks