Let's have a chat today about one of the very interesting groups types of groups at least and that is the symmetric group Symmetric group And all of us to look at the symmetric group first a few things the first thing we need to look at is just permutations That's a very interesting thing permutations So imagine I have a set My set is called s and it contains three elements one two three alpha beta gamma Apples oranges pears doesn't matter it contains three elements. What are the permutations? The permutations are a Bijection it's a function first of all It's called a function Which means actually it's a mapping and I'm going to map the set onto itself Well, let's say I'm going to map this set to itself and that mapping is a bijection remember those lectures Put them up in the link in the little card at the top click on that eye and you'll you can watch this these lectures on bijections So it's injective and surjective in other words if I have One two three I have my three elements so my set and Again to my set and that means the mappings that I do Each one of these has to be mapped to and they have to be mapped to them only once I can't have one map to one and two map to one and three map to one and They all have to be used and they all have to be unique. So that's a bijection. So how many of these? Bijections can I make and those will be my permutations? We see here that I have three elements and if I use the counting numbers This and in this instance n equals three turns out I will have three factorial In other words if they were in I would add in factorial of these mappings So I would have in factorial of these mappings now Let's do a few of them and the first notation that we're going to have I can I hope you see why you will have six Let maybe I'll get this to array notation She's we called a ray notation and that is where I just write one two three And I see what what what does one map to well one can map to one two can map to two three can map to three and That would be one permutation and usually we call this permutation I That's usually what it's called this permutation I so that's not a matrix a system mapping in a ray notation one maps to one Two maps to two three maps to three the second one is usually called a Transcription and therefore they the book shows towel and that's one two So that's where we have one two three and one maps one maps to two two maps to one and three maps to three and Because you know, there's just these two that swap around when there's usually when there's just two that swap around It's this transposition We have another one called towel one three usually that's one two three and that's where one maps to three and three maps to one and we leave two alone and then there's Two three and that's where we have one two and three and that's usually where we leave one alone and two turns to three and three turns to two and then we have one called sigma one and two two three and three and That's where One maps to two two maps to three and three maps back to one And then if I repeat this one twice I have the last one already have one two three four five So I need one more six and that is just where we have Two three one is that right? Let me just check If we have sigma squared if we do this one twice and I have one two three That's the last one that is left. So let's do this one. Let's just do this one twice So let's imagine that I have one two three I have one two three and I have one two three So what I'm doing here is I'm saying sigma Sigma of X and I am combining these two functions I'm combining these two functions. So let's just do sigma sigma says one goes to two two goes to three and Three goes all the way back to one and I'm do that again one goes to two Two goes to three and three goes all the way back to one. So what do we have left? Let's see where one two and three goes One two and three so one goes to two and two goes to three so one goes to three Two goes to three and three goes to one so three goes to One that can't be one two three one two three one two three one goes to two Two goes to three so one goes to three two goes to three So sorry two goes to three and three goes to one in other words two goes to one There we go. 3 goes to 1 and 1 goes to 3. In other words, 3 goes to 1 and 1 goes to 2. In other words, 3 goes to 2. 3 goes to 2. So there we have it. 1, 2, 3. So 1 goes to 3. And 1 goes to 3. 2 goes to 1. 2 goes to 1. 1 goes to 3. 3 goes to 2. And 2 goes to 1. There we go. That took me a while, didn't it? Anyway, so there we have sigma and sigma squared. So if you look at it, those are the six permutations that we have. So that's a ray notation. And we've got sigma squared through the composition of functions. And that's going to become important. And I just want to show you another notation to write this. And that is just the cycle notation. And the cycles that I'm going to for, so that was a ray notation. This is a cycle notation. And what I want to do here with cycle notation is just to write these cycles. 1 goes to 1 and then it just cycles to 1. So that stays on its own. 2 goes to 2 and it just cycles to 2 and 3 goes to 3 and it just cycles to 3. So it's not very impressive there. This one is those. 1 goes to 2. 2 goes back to 1. 1 goes to 2. 2 goes back to 1. So that cycle just carries on there. 1 goes to 2. 2 goes to 1. 1 goes to 2. And just carry on. And then 3 just goes to itself. So there's nothing there. So tau 1, 2 is usually written like that. Tau 1, 3, remember we have 1 goes to 3. But 3 goes back to 1. 1 goes to 3. 3 goes back to 1. It just cycles around there. And then we have 2 all the way out there. Here we have 1 just cycles to 1 all the way around. But 2 goes to 3. And 3 goes to 2. So that way around. This one is 1 goes to 2. 2 goes to 3. 3 cycles back to 1. 1 goes to 2. So it's just that I don't have this redundancy here. And then lastly I have 1 goes to 3. 3 goes to 2. 2 goes to 1. So I'm back at 1. 1 goes to 3. 3 goes to 2. 2 goes to 1. So that is the cycle notation that we do have. So we have this array notation. And we have cycle notation. So I'm going to leave those there. So that's all our permutations. So let's suggest that there's a group in here somewhere. There's a group in here somewhere. And it's called the symmetric group. So I'm going to suggest that I have this group. And it's going to have a set. And my set is going to be this set. Let's call this set S on three elements. And I have my group operation. Where S3 equals this I, tau12, tau13, tau23, sigma and sigma squared. And my binary operation is this composition of any of these two. So we usually write that. In other words, I might say what is I and tau13? Composition of those two mappings. And remember the way that we do that is we do this one first and then that one. So it will sort of be I of the tau13 of X. And X is any one of these, one, two, three. So I would say get the tau13 first of each of these. And then get the tau of that. So let's just do one of those. So we're going to have the I of tau13 of one. And that's going to equal something. We're going to have the I of tau13 of two. And we're going to have the I of tau13 of three. So we do that side first and then this side. So let's have a look at what that is. So tau13, so this is going to be I of something now. I of something now. And I of something now. Let's do that. And that something is the tau of one three. Well, the tau of one three, one goes to three. And that's where that cycle notation works very well. So that's the I of three. tau13 of, what is the tau13 of two? If we look at one three of two, two just stays on its own. So that's of two. And the tau13 of three, three goes to one. So that's just one. And the I of three, well, that's just three. And that's just two. And that's just one. So we have that this composition is of this is, I'm just left with tau13. I'm just left with, if I have this composition of functions that is just going to be, it seems like this I does serve in this instance as, this I serves as an identity function. Okay. And it is one three because remember one went to three, two stayed with two, and three went to one. Which is exactly tau13. So remember the composition of these methods. So that's what I have. So my binary operation is the composition of functions. I have tau12, I have tau13, I have tau23, I have sigma, and I have sigma squared. I have I, I have tau12, tau13, tau23, sigma, and sigma squared. And it is for you to fill this in. Now these ones are going to be the easy I and I is that. That's going to be tau12, tau13, tau23, sigma, sigma squared. And this is going to be tau12, tau13, tau23, sigma, and sigma squared. And we have to fill in all the rest of these 36 in total. So maybe we should just do, do a few of them. And then at your leisure, you can do the rest. But I'll do at the end is I'll just fill it in and I'll skip in the video to that so that you can see that you get the same, same solution as what I, as what I get. So let's do, let's do tau12 and tau12. So that's tau. Let's get another piece of chalk here, tau12 with tau12. So I'm going to do that one first and then that one, but they are the same so it doesn't really matter. So 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. So let's do tau12. First one goes to 2, 2 goes to 1, and 3 goes to 3. And then I do the 1. 1 goes to 2, 2 goes to 1, and 3 goes to 3. So in the end what am I left with? 1, 2, and 3, and 1, 2, and 3. So 1 goes to 2, goes to 1. So 1 goes to 1. I have 2 goes to 1, and 1 goes to 2. So 2 goes to 2. And I have 3 goes to 3, goes to 3. So I'm actually left with the identity here. The tau12 composed of tau12 is the identity. It's our first i. And I want to call it the identity because we have to look on our table in the end if we want it to be a group. Remember we have to have our famous four properties. Closure, associativity, an identity element, and an inverse for everyone. And an inverse for everyone really means that if I look down any row, each one of these have to be unique. Any column, if I have to look down any row, each element has to be unique as well. And then we'll get those inverses. So let's do one more. So from these two, we've got i. In other words, tau12 is its own inverse. Let's just do another one. Let's do tau13 composed with tau13. Let's compose that with tau12. So we do this one first. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. You can also do it just by doing it with the cycle notation. So tau12 takes 1 to 2, 1 to 2, 2 to 1, and 3 to 3. tau13 takes 1 to 3, it takes 3 to 1, and at least 2 to 2. So let's see what we have left. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. So 1 is going to 2, 2 goes to 2, so 1 goes to 2. 2 goes to 1, and 1 goes to 3. In other words, 2 goes to 3. 2 goes to 3. And we have 3 goes to 3, 3 goes to 1, so 3 goes to 1. So I have this 1 goes to 2, 2 goes to 3, 3 goes back to 1, and that's just sigma. And that is just sigma in there. So I'm going to fill in the rest, pause the video, and see if you get exactly the same. And what we have here is this group of permutations on this set. The set with 3 elements gives us this set of permutations, all of the permutations on the set with 3 elements to combine with the binary operation of this composition of functions. It's going to give me a group, and you can check if all 4 properties hold for this, and indeed it does. So the symmetric group on n elements is going to be, well, it is a group. Let me fill this in, and in the end I'll show you. So there you go, I've completed this table, and we can clearly see that we do have our identity element, e, which is just going to be our i permutation. And it seems that everyone does have an inverse because the composition of any one of these is eventually going to give me the identity element. So if I have any 2 of the permutations, permutation 1 and permutation 2, I'm going to get e, every one of them, well, every one of them will have its inverse. So if I look at tau 23 times tau 23, that's its own inverse. But when I get to sigma, sigma's inverse is sigma squared, and sigma squared's inverse is sigma. And that gives me, so they are the inverses of each other. So check the associativity, there's inverses, there's the unique identity element, and this closure, all of these do belong to my original set of permutations. So we have a symmetric group.


Welcome everyone back to another episode of We Are Being Transformed. This is a podcast where we discuss the myriad of ways in which people transform and in turn are transformed by the culture primarily through the mechanisms of myth, lore, and ritual. Today our guest is the incredible and brilliant Dr. Ivan Moroshnikov. He did not pay me to say that. So welcome Ivan, how are you? I'm great, thank you. Glad to be here. Good, welcome. The pleasure is all mine. So Ivan is a man who knows a thing or two about a little text from Nag Hammadi that we are very familiar with and is super, super important in the lore and also the mythology of our modern world because there's so many misconceptions about it. The Gospel of Thomas. He has a monograph called The Gospel of Thomas and Plato. Highly recommended. It's available on Brill through Open Access. Anything you wanted to know about the use of icon, the word icon in middle platonic terminology that will be exhausted there. Very much came in handy and I nerded out to stuff like that. So Ivan, with the Gospel of Thomas, could you give us a brief rundown about Thomas because there's so many misconceptions like I said about the text and what it represents. So if you could just give us kind of like a no frills brief rundown of the provenance and what the Gospel of Thomas is. Right, so the Gospel of Thomas is as you said a very short text which is not really a Gospel because it doesn't have any narrative, any story about Jesus but rather it's a collection of sayings and modern scholars divided this collection into 114 units. It's important to understand that this is our present day understanding of the text but these numbers are not in the text and if you look at the history of scholarship you'll see that other scholars and quite smart people would actually divide the text differently. So there is this consensus which does not necessarily mean that it is true. So it begins with an intrepid, the short kind of introductory statement which in the Coptic text goes like this. These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke in which Didmus Judas Thomas wrote down and then comes what is usually designated saying one which goes and he said whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death and then the question is who said that? Is it Thomas who said that or is it the living Jesus who said that? So this text is known to us in one Coptic manuscript which comes from the Nakhamati Discovery so it's Nakhamati Codex II and it's the text of this Nakhamati Codex II that can be divided into 114 sayings but before this Coptic text was discovered we actually had as it turns out three other manuscripts of this text which come from site in Egypt called Aksarenkas and where already in the end of the 19th century beginning of the 20th century a British archaeological team discovered three small papyrus fragments which come from three different manuscripts of the Gospel of Thomas. So we know that this text existed in Greek and we know that it was more or less the same as what we have in Coptic although there are interesting differences but it was only after the discovery of the Coptic text that you know we the academic community actually realized that this is all these pieces of writing material actually belong to the same text bear witness to the same text. We don't really know when this text was written there are different theories some people would put it very early in the history of Christianity. They would connect it to the so-called saying Gospel Q and would say that it's like a first century you know record of what ultimately is you know mostly accurate sayings by Jesus. Other people would say that no it's a very late hodgepodge of synoptic of sayings from the Gospels that are in the Bible and that it was composed somewhere towards the end of the second century. Ultimately it's very difficult to say anything and you know for people who work with texts ancient text manuscripts it's it's evident that you know unless there is a reference to some historical event it's it's basically impossible to to be certain about dates. The thing that we know for certain is that this text was written in Greek. It has been suggested by some that there was a Syriac Fort Lagia that the original was written in Syriac but this I think has been very convincingly disproven by many scholars most recently by Simon Gathical. So this text was written in Greek like the vast majority of the Christian texts and we might discuss its textual history its compositional history. Ultimately there are two options it's I think obvious for anybody who would read this text carefully that it is actually a collection of rather diverse material and material that must come from different sources. So basically we have two options either we can imagine a compiler who sits in a library like this one picks different books from different shelves and you know produces this you know collection of various things that derive from different sources or we can imagine a graduate process of development textual development and this is indeed something that we know took place with various texts of the same genre that collections of sayings texts that do not have any particular structure right these collections tend to evolve over time tend to grow and to me the second option seems to be more plausible I would think that the Gospel of Thomas we have today is actually something that you know grew over time but as I said I would ultimately say that what we have in Greek and what we have in Coptic bear sweetness to more or less the same recension of this text and this recension was definitely around already in the somewhere in the second century that's I think all we can say about the dates and the compositional history it's extremely hard and what I think is much much more important is just to read the text and to try to make sense of it and to you know approach it not from the perspective of its hypothetical sources but to see it as a work of literature which is in its own way unique and you know fascinating Thomas you would place Thomas firmly in the genre of the wisdom sayings a word that sometimes is used is uh gnomology it's um so it's gnomology being like a collection of gnomes wise sayings um this is not the best term because the word itself was not used in antiquity uh but uh the genre definitely existed uh the word wisdom we shouldn't use we shouldn't probably use it uh you know in a technical sense history of research on the gospel of Thomas there was this trend and very important trend to see the gospel of Thomas as a manifestation of this wisdom literature tradition and there is this great book by Stephen Davis the gospel of Thomas and Christian wisdom which is an amazing a very bold attempt to basically say that the message of the gospel of Thomas is the same message that we find in you know the wisdom of Solomon and you know other texts like that um and then he would say that Jesus of the gospel of Thomas is actually a manifestation of divine wisdom that was that's a great book which I strongly recommend to everyone but I think we just cannot overlook the huge difference between the worldview we find in the gospel of Thomas and that of the Jewish wisdom literature um the most important point being of course that according to the gospel of Thomas our world is not good which is something that which is something that the authors of wisdom literature would probably not accept so uh probably not use the term wisdom in this sense uh it's not necessarily you know uh something I would use to describe the genre of our text but uh certainly when it comes to the structure to the typology uh it has a lot in common with those things collections that belong to this wisdom tradition that's how I would put it that's a great point um I think just from my own perspective when I look at something like Thomas um and these kind of floor allegium that we're drawing from multiple sources of wisdom um I think the best example for me like when I look at something like Thomas is another book in Nal Kamadi called Sentences of Sextus so we know that Sentences of Sextus I guess um is drawing from a source that porphyry seems to also have access to he he seems to draw um from these sayings in his epistle to Marcella so they're kind of using this source in common but it's for vastly different purposes and I like how it shows just how um flexible these traditions could be um it also it shows that um these things aren't as cut and dry as we uh would like to think when we try to put them into little boxes of uh quote unquote genres um we don't like to talk about talking about common sources uh that's actually another big problem for us when um we find stuff um in church fathers or in Manichaean texts so you know texts that belong to this great dualistic religion which was Manichaeism when we find stuff that is very similar to what we have in the Gospel of Thomas almost verbatim the same and uh something that is even introduced as Jesus saying and something that we don't find anywhere else but can we really think can we really claim that this is a saying that comes from the Gospel of Thomas uh that's impossible uh to say because on the one hand we know that the Manichaeans read the Gospel of Thomas uh and uh Manichaean fathers explicitly say that they are familiar with the title but because they don't say that they are quoting from this text uh it is always possible that they're quoting from something else that the Gospel of Thomas and these guys share a common ancestor and that's that's quite disappointing although um in my work I found it extremely important to look for uh you know the context in which sayings that may or may not be Thomasine uh you know exist in this other text specifically in Didmus the Blind which I think an extremely important author uh can't really say I guess um when it all comes down to where these ideas come from but they're just kind of in the air uh it also reminds me of another um text that we have a dog Hamadi that uh the Wisdom of Jesus Christ text called Eubnastus is uh the source of the Wisdom of Jesus Christ although uh I think you know this is not a universal accepted claim like some people would probably think about a different scenario and uh you know that's that's quite normal for um ancient writers to you know recycle texts recycle ideas uh in my more recent research I've been uh working on the so-called apocryphal acts of the apostles in the Coptic tradition and you can see how often a story associated with let's say Philip becomes all of a sudden a story about apostle Andrew just because for some reason the author or the the compiler of a certain text felt that this would work in in his composition uh so yeah that's that's absolutely another problem for an ancient writer to use recycle revise adapt and so forth so ultimately what's your assessment of Thomasine this model like if it is fit into this model as a as for lack of a better term a smorgasbord of different ideas um is middle Platonism just one uh one aspect of it or is middle Platonism the driving factor in Thomas there to say that I know what the driving factor in Thomas is um uh what I really like is this quote I have in the beginning of my uh book from uh Stavias uh where it says that Plato uh had uh many voices that Plato was uh polyphonic you know that when you read Plato you never hear the voice of Plato himself right you always hear voices of different characters and they together constitute uh Plato's voice so Plato is polyphonic but also but he's not you know he's of many voices but he's not of many ideas like he is still a consistent thinker and the same is true for Thomas I think ultimately uh we cannot just say that this is a uh hodgepodge of various uh sources various notions you know there is like apocalyptic Judaism's there wisdom tradition here Platonism synoptic stuff and this is all just uh you know mixed together to amuse the reader or to just confuse everybody I think that the gospel of Thomas is polyphonic but also it is in a sense symphonic so it always um points in a certain direction uh it's um actually a comparison with Plato is kind of informative here in 20th century scholarship there was this very um strong tradition of uh German in German academia uh many people would think that the dialogues of Plato uh did not really have any um doctrines right that they were just uh exercise exercises produced to show how you know philosophical research can be conducted but what Plato actually uh thought was expressed only in this so-called unwritten doctrines so the secret teaching of the academia uh that was transmitted orally um and so so the dialogues are just to advertise for you know Platonism but they don't really make any dogmatic positive claims and that's of course not far removed from what happened to Plato's academy soon after he died the academy of Plato became a skeptic school and that's how the skeptics would take it right they would think that well the the only point Plato is making is that you can basically prove anything like you know um but that's demonstrably false right like when you read Plato's dialogues you certainly would encounter problems you certainly would see that there are certain uh you know not contradictions but you know thoughts that do not necessarily immediately um are not necessarily in harmony with each other so you know even though I think if you do a bit of slow reading you would eventually find out that you know again Plato is quite consistent but in any event Plato never tells you that the world is made up of let's say atoms and void you know that's something that you would never find in Plato's dialogues there is always a certain uh trajectory a certain um you know direction to Plato's thinking and uh I'm pretty sure that the same holds true for Thomas even though sometimes we may find a certain um you know exegetical problem when we read the Gospel of Thomas the Gospel of Thomas is quite consistent in thinking that the world is bad and that there is this uh you know inner self that somehow transcends this world and stuff like that so uh definitely uh not just a hodgepodge of ideas definitely a text that was uh that reflects a certain um a certain person like something that was produced by a uh reductor let's say that had a very clear idea of what is right and what is wrong and how you know the world works so to say I was going to ask just in terms of uh getting a little bit more into Thomas's uh worldview um there are certain sayings in these texts that um are the best uh if you use middle Platonism the as the heuristic device to understand them uh for example 56 80 I think you have 19 sayings and all um middle Platonism explains these best versus uh say stoicism and cynicism so I didn't know if you could just get into that a little bit and kind of explain why um this middle Platonic thought is the wellspring of many of these Thomasian sayings and not say the thought of stoicism or cynicism at the time I think generally speaking um Platonism was just a logical ally for Christians uh Platonism teaches that the cause of this world is outside of this world right uh whereas Stoics would be naturalists right that um you know God and the world are ultimately the same and uh this does not really marry well with the Judeo-Christian notion whereas the Platonist notion uh the Platonist metaphysics um is not something that clearly contradicts uh the Christian myth I mean of course it does of course when you read uh you know this uh critics of Christianity like Salsas you would see that they from their Platonist perspective thought that you know Christianity is nonsense like the idea of like say incarnation is ridiculous because um you know gods cannot change because gods or God is perfect and therefore God cannot really transform because transformation means change from one state to another and in the case of God this would be changed from a better state to worse state why would God do that that's against the nature of God right so the whole idea of incarnation is nonsensical but even the orthodox tradition you know the one that actually accepts the notion of incarnation finally came to terms with Platonism as we see in you know the Cappadocian fathers and uh you know later developments uh ultimately in the gospel of Thomas and in many I think many other early Christian texts we just see the first steps towards this happy marriage and in the case of the gospel of thomas it of course makes even better sense because the gospel of thomas is not really uh big on flesh and uh the notion of incarnation is not something that you can easily find in the gospel of thomas I mean you can argue that it's there that it's hinted at um and we can discuss that but uh with the gospel of thomas which for instance never uses the term Christ when when talking about uh Jesus right it's always Jesus or living Jesus uh so the gospel of thomas is in a sense uh more open uh the the religious feeling the this uh metaphysical sentiment so to say we find in the gospel of thomas is more open to Platonism simply because the gospel of thomas does not seem to be that into those elements of Christian religion that actually made uh Platonist very angry so uh when I was defending my dissertation I was supposed to offer this so collection so I was supposed to give like a 20 minutes talk about something related to my research and I I thought that it would be fun to play this uh you know uh game to do this mental experiment what if salsas uh you know what would happen if he read the gospel of thomas would salsas find the gospel of thomas not acceptable and I think ultimately salsas would say yeah that's okay like the gospel of thomas does not talk about the things that make salsas angry and that's very interesting um so yes I would say that the gospel of thomas uh for for people behind the gospel of thomas platonism was a natural ally uh I wouldn't say that who these people wore platonists in any meaningful way not in the sense of um you know the people behind this so-called platonizing certain texts that you discussed with Dylan recently uh but uh I would say that uh the platonist tradition somehow probably indirectly made its way into the uh you know uh the world view of these people and uh even though it's not like present in the totality of thomas and sayings it's present in a important part of them and that's I think significant uh but as I said before I wouldn't say that there is a driving force in the gospel of thomas and you can easily say that you know the uh biblical myth is as important uh biblical narrative you know improved by supplemented with various apocryphal traditions about biblical characters is as important for understanding the gospel of thomas as a text it's just it so happens that usually people who work on the gospel of thomas are more familiar with the bible and with the apocrypha and with the stuff like that than they are with the platonist tradition so that was my kind of goal to show that there is this element in thomas that needs to be understood so you heard it here folks calces would definitely approve of the gospel of thomas it's the stamp of approval from calces um so thank you for that dr morosh dakov that's a that's a first I will credit you endlessly for that uh yeah but just getting into what you're saying I mean they're not uh I don't like just like nobody would say I'm a sephian christian or a sephian gnostic probably at the time nobody's going to say I'm a platonic christian or uh um I have a a friend of mine and a great scholar dr m david luah uh he has this model called dynamic cultural exchange and uh in this a good way of looking at it is you know early christians and jews and you know also pagans wouldn't consciously admit to using the building blocks of their culture like for instance if early christian jewish christians are using the building blocks of deification and imperial cult right um they're not going to consciously admit that um that they're using those and their conceptualization of god but it's also very interesting you know these things were ubiquitous in the ancient world you know you have the gods everywhere you have these thought processes if you if you even go through the smallest um bit of paide at the time you're going to be exposed to these middle platonic concepts um you're going to be exposed to these allegorizing ideas um and these wisdom saying so it's very interesting just the dynamics that are going on so what i'm thinking my next question would be to um ask you specifically about two sayings that are kind of parallel in tomas that i really like that you pointed out in your book sayings 56 and 80 so i didn't know if you could kind of go through those a little bit and kind of explain what's going on there um these concepts because it's very fascinating you go through the the philosophical terminology of the greek and what what it would mean to certain readers versus others so the two sayings that he mentioned are so-called doublet so there was this icelandic scholar aus girson who i think his dissertation was um dedicated to the rhetoric of tomas and it's it's a difficult read um but it's ultimately i guess the only study that talks about the poetic side of the gospel of tomas um and the thing is that the gospel of tomas certainly uses certain set of rhetorical formal devices so even though the text is not structured as a narrative it has certain elements which i also discuss in my book like you know chiasm or parallelism in general and so there is also this thing called the doublets when you have sayings that are very similar and of course one could say that this is because they come from two different sources so somebody compiled them used these two sources and just didn't notice that it had the same material which is i think somewhat disrespectful of these ancient people and i think if this text has this twice then there is a point to this so sayings uh 56 and 80 uh saying 80 and i'm gonna read from london's translation jesus said he who has recognized the world so the world is cosmos right it's a greek word has found the body and he who has found the body is superior to the world so here uh the world is identified with the body and the first part of the saying would not be a problem to anyone uh familiar with greek philosophy because that's something you find not only in play though but in fact in in the stoic tradition as well uh the notion that the world is a body but the thing is that the world according to these people is never just the body it's a body with a soul it's a living being so even in play though who you know he's talking about the demi-orge and the world uh that is uh transcendent to our world even for play though the world has a soul right and the same is for stoics the world is a living being so that's why it's so interesting to write to read saying 80 uh together with uh saying 56 together with zdovet because saying 56 says uh jesus said whoever has come to understand the world has found the corpse and whoever has found the corpse is superior to the world so this is interesting because here we learn that the world is just a corpse that there is no uh you know there is no divine element to this world and again when we read the saying together we can easily conclude the world is a corpse the world is a body and therefore a corpse the notion that our bodies are corpses is again something that we find in uh philosophical literature specifically in in platonic tradition uh starting as early as Aristotle who may have actually came up with the metaphor um this notion is repeated again and again in in multiple middle plateness texts um in Aristotle it is connected with this very vivid image of pirates who capture you know people capture as ships and then they would tie their victims to corpses and you know somehow torture them in this way so you know this is like an experience a horrific experience uh that you know people captured by pirates have right so what Aristotle says is that we are the same we are people tied to corpses so you know the the the human element would be our inner self and the corpse element would be our body uh but this metaphor is never applied to the world because as we know the world is not just a body it's actually a living body so so what is interesting is that the gospel of thomas is playing uh is is aware is recycling this notions that uh we find in in uh you know Hellenistic text in in platonic specifically platonic texts you know goes a step further it says uh the world is actually just a body uh there is no uh element that is salvageable uh to this world uh no redeeming element in this world uh and by doing so uh it seems the gospel of thomas is even inventing a pun that i i don't think exists anywhere else so in in play though we find this famous play on word soma and sama uh which is usually understood as the body is a tomb but um in in reality uh i mean it's difficult because sama can have other meanings but ultimately sama is this sign that you put above above the someone's grave so i mean and ultimately this is how this saying was understood by later interpreters of play in play though we find the sema soma uh you know pan or moto whatever you call it uh interestingly in later platonic tradition we find a similar uh play on the words demas and desmos uh so demas would be one of the words that you can use when talking about a body and uh desmos means uh chain or bond so again there's this attempt to encapsulate uh the platonist notion that the body is a prison and the body is a tomb encapsulated in a uh short and memorable formula right so soma sema demas desmos and then the gospel of tomas uh probably invents or maybe follows a tradition that just didn't survive but the gospel of tomas uh has this other pun soma ptoma which i think is a really remarkable and which shows that the gospel of tomas is actually a rather creative texture like the people behind the gospel of tomas were actually rather creative um so to sum up uh what i'm trying to argue uh in my book is that the gospel of tomas is drawing upon this platonist tradition uh but at the same time is uh not it remains faithful to its basic um message the message that uh is actually in some respects different from uh you know what a platonist would normally say um although of course this is not the whole truth so according to the gospel of tomas the world is a corpse but and this is another thing that does not have a direct relation uh to platonism but i think it's it's it's just important to say here that according to the gospel of tomas there is still somehow certain salvific element present in the world even though it is not of this world and in my dissertation i i discuss this notion of like a certain secret a certain code uh that an attentive reader of the gospel of tomas uh can decipher so that they can find this salvific element in the world and i think this is uh what quite a few sayings in the gospel of tomas are all about so for instance uh the saying that is at the very end of the text in uh 113 uh where jesus says that the kingdom of the father is spread out upon the earth and men do not see it and i think the same point actually um is uh of those sayings where jesus is talking about uh you know i am um when jesus says that you know lift uh lift a stone and i'm inside uh split a piece of wood and i'm there because this is is again not um uh just random imagery wood and stone is actually um something that a classical author would normally use to talk about something that has no soul something that is lifeless uh something that is opposed to human virtue human spirit uh in blue dark uh spartan kings say that we don't need walls that are made of wood and stone because uh sparta is protected by the spirits of its citizens so we don't need this lifeless stuff so when jesus says that he is within logs and stones he is making the same point i think that he is definitely not logs and stones but somehow mysteriously there is this salvific element hidden within encoded in this in this uh you know uh material stuff so so the gospel of thomas is playing two fields it's working with the various sorts of material including the classical plateness material and at the same time it's always staying true to its own message which is i think also very important i think that leads into uh my next question which is just the figure of jesus and how gospel of thomas portrays him like this isn't the jesus that you find in something like the gospel of judas um or something like uh the apocalypse of uh or the secret revelation of john you know this is a very uh i don't know how to describe him but but thomas has a very um unique way of presenting jesus so i didn't know if you could talk about that briefly this book that i already mentioned um uh the one by steven davis um so steven davis says that um the jesus of the gospel of thomas is basically the um the wisdom the divine personified wisdom of the old testament and uh indeed there are some hints in the gospel of thomas uh that i think should be taken seriously that actually pointed that direction right like when jesus said that you know people were looking for me and uh they couldn't find me which is a direct quote from uh from the wisdom literature of the old testament so jesus is actually saying the same thing that wisdom is saying in the old testament um so there's that but then of course um jesus is definitely more than uh personified wisdom because again and again the gospel of thomas is trying to stress that it is not possible to actually describe or define jesus for instance the most famous saying is in this regard saying 113 uh sorry 13 right the one that's um a dialogue between jesus uh matthew simon peter and thomas and uh you know simon peter thinks that jesus is an angel matthew says that he is a philosopher and somehow we realize that this is not entirely true it's important to know that to point out that the gospel of thomas does not explicitly say that this is not true like if you wish you can see a certain angelic element to jesus or certain philosophical element to jesus um but of course it is clear that the answer that thomas gives is the correct one and then thomas says that his mouth is incapable of saying who jesus is that's important there is this um uh this there is this negative theology in the gospel of thomas where ultimately when we talk about uh the uh things divine the ultimate reality there is nothing positive that we can say about it right um there is this uh other saying that has been uh quite a problem for many interpreters that's about this um gold coin with the face of caesar on it right so the same stuff that we find in the synoptics uh so saying 100 uh so it goes jesus they show jesus a gold coin we don't know who they are gospel of thomas doesn't say who they are uh they show jesus a gold coin and uh say to him caesar's man demand taxes from us and then and then uh jesus replies give caesar what belongs to caesar give god what belongs to god and give me what is mine so there are different ways to understand this people would think that this is a reference to uh uh you know nostic dualism right to the notion of the demurge that jesus uh who is obviously divine is somehow different from uh god right that his realm is somehow completely separate from that of god and therefore this god must be the god of the old testament the god of creation um but that doesn't have to be the case um and obviously you can come up with different interpretations the one that i enjoy even though of course uh here i must confess it's very difficult to say something uh you know with certainty uh the one that i like is that um this saying obviously presupposes the existence of what we have in the uh in the synoptic gospels and it makes basically a correction um the word god is not something that you find in the gospel of thomas very often the point is about words like as long as as soon as you name the ultimate reality as god you apply certain positive notions to it and somehow the gospel of thomas is not fond of it so in the sense he is saying you know there is this god that you talk about that you apply positive um ideas to there is me and then about me you cannot say anything because i'm you know beyond speech and therefore you know give god what belongs to god and give god give me what is mine so jesus somehow is different but not in this ontological sense so to say but in the geoseological sense uh so the jesus of the gospel of thomas is is uh elusive but as i said i guess the most important thing is that he's never is is what the gospel of thomas doesn't say about him so the gospel of thomas doesn't never says that uh he is christ the gospel of thomas doesn't use this jewish epithet and this is part of uh very strong empty jewish sentiment uh expressed in many uh thomas sign sayings uh the gospel of thomas never says that uh jesus rose from the dead except maybe in one instance uh where we have a difference between the greek and the uh koptic version it is very unclear whether or not the gospel of thomas uh claims that jesus was crucified it's not impossible but even if he was crucified this is not important and even if he was resurrected it is not important the important thing is what jesus says and uh what john clappenbord called the sub-idential research so the important thing is the exegesis of the words of jesus and the intellectual effort that allows you to comprehend the truth inside these words and you know receive salvation join the ultimate reality so yeah absolutely you can say that jesus is what he says right i think it's almost like a parallel in a sense to some of the hermetic uh corpus like just in terms of like the interaction between the reader and grasping and wrestling with those words and kind of um trying to understand what's going on there my final question dr maroshnikov is a more general one but i think it needs to be asked it would should we consider the gospel of thomas a gnostic text it's difficult to say um i wouldn't um i personally do not enjoy the term gnasticism uh but if we say if we define gnasticism the way it's usually defined right like this dualistic belief in you know the ultimate reality and uh a the emerge of the old testing right these these two different elements uh i don't think there is this sort of dualism in the gospel of thomas although as i said if you really want to you can find this dualist element in some of the things you can see some of these things in the gospel of thomas as a hint at this um dualist worldview and obviously in the uh when the gospel of thomas was discovered it was immediately i'd recognize it as a gnostic text right uh for instance yertner this uh swedish uh theologian wrote his commentary on the gospel of thomas which is actually not that commentary he would just assume that this is all about you know the demerge and he would just immediately proceed in this direction which shows at least that this text definitely uh would be enjoyed could be enjoyed by people of dualist conviction right like the manikin's for instance you know we know that the manikin's read the gospel of thomas um but nothing in the gospel of thomas clearly points at that and um i i don't think this is the best strategy uh to to label the gospel of thomas as gnostic uh that's i think the most important thing is about the gospel of thomas it's it's really it resists any labeling people tried different uh categories so you know you know there was an attempt to place the gospel of thomas within a school of thomas or thomas sign trend in early christianity that somehow it was produced by a certain community of thomas sign christians and the same community would produce the acts of thomas and the book of thomas and uh you know but this all is extremely unlikely and implausible and the same holds true for all these ideological labels you know nasticism apocalypticism uh wisdom tradition uh and even platonism you know obviously platonism is not the only tool uh to be used when working with the gospel of thomas so i would again say that the gospel of thomas is a very uh polyphonic text and you know it needs to be considered in its uniqueness and i think it's actually and that's something i i i would like to stress i think the gospel of thomas is good literature and it's actually produced by people who were uh familiar with rhetorical devices and who would be very cleverly used these devices and in this sense you know we we should really study the gospel of thomas on its own in its very unique very particular um you know profile i think ultimately like the jesus of the gospel of thomas um what thomas is as a whole is really difficult to keep a grasp on and that's that's part of the beauty of it though i think it's it's an amazing text to read it's like along with wisdom uh the wisdom sayings like from thunder perfect mind it's one of my favorite of those time um dr moroshnikov this has been amazing feel free to use this time to plug anything you're working on where people can find you anything you feel we should know about um my dissertation which was published as a book is available in open access at brill so you can anybody can download it for free legally and uh the same holds true for uh this volume uh women and knowledge in early christianity which is a um a fast drift to my uh dr fater anti marionne and uh which discusses all sorts of things but includes among other things my article about thomas 114 and uh i think it's great that my former employer the university housing key actually invested into making all this stuff open access uh hopefully you know uh this is something that will ultimately be the case with most of scholarship i think you know today it's really disastrous how how many important studies and tools are behind the paywall so thank you for your scholarship thank you for lending your time and expertise to the show it's been an honor and a pleasure thank you so much have a great evening thank you so much and i'll be happy to come again absolutely


In this video, I'm going to give a HCMC update with a penny stock that could see some explosive gains, but it has been moving down recently, but we could see it move back up again. It's got the potential to do so. Let's just go through some recent updates and news on this particular penny stock HCMC, which is of course Healthier Choices Management Corp. They do have the Intellectual Property Holdings, they've got the Healthier Choice Markets and then the Vape Stores, of course, on this particular penny stock. Moving on to the information, first of all it's announced a sale of 5 million of preferred stock, convertible common stock, initially at 150% premium to company's most recent closing price, which is actually quite big, the fact that it's gone at 150% premium due to, apart from the recent closing price. Now moving on, we've also got this recent report, which is the fourth quarter for the financial results here and ultimately we've got some information. So we've got net sales from continued operations for the full year and that amounted to 13.9 for the year ending, amounted to 13.9 million compared to 15.1 million during the same period. Growth Profit continued operations decreased by 0.7 million for the year, resulted in a year and a year amount of 5.8 million compared to 6.5 million for the same period. Last year operating expenses of the percentage has decreased 16% in the fourth quarter versus prior year. So some interesting information, I've got some financial advice here, I'm a business teacher in my day life but I'm no expert on the stock market. And if you could smash the like button, get this HCMC video out there, that'd be fantastic. But some recent news here, so what has been said by the CEO of Healthier Choices Management, he said we are delighted with our performance of the fourth quarter, especially proud of our improvements there. And then also Holman continued despite low net sales by 1.2 million due to the pandemic, our team's ability to reinvent the ways we do business on many levels actually improved what there was doing there. And I found this recent article as well which is the 7th of March about HCMC and just to go through it with some interesting stuff. It's making a par house move up the charts after the company reported 13.9 million in net sales. Okay, so there's some interesting stuff going on. So they had HCMC regularly trades over $10 million in volume per day and it has got a lot of investor sentiment. There's a lot of people that are behind this stock but there's also a lot of short as they're trying to short the stock, which is interesting in terms of what's going on there. The different time just a few short years ago now penny stocks can achieve $6 billion plus market valuation and trade $375 million in dollar volume. The big story on HCMC is its patent infringement lawsuit against billion dollar conglomerate Philip Morris and Philip Morris products in connection with their product known and marketed as that product there. The lawsuit was filed on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia and ultimately it claims that it is currently approaching 14 million users of its product and is reportedly invested over $3 billion in their smirkless tobacco products and they're saying that they're infringing, HCMC is saying that they're infringing upon that. So obviously we're just waiting for developments on how that goes into the future. Some interesting tweets here though, despite the pandemic HCMC was able to increase, surprisingly managed to increase operating expenses or decrease. So very interesting stuff. Another point is that a lot of the stocks in the market have been moving down a lot recently because there's a lot of uncertainty in the market and we had a market correction. So of course when penny stocks are on the market they tend to get hit a lot more than any other stock. So with this being a really really really cheap penny stock then it gets hit more compared to other stocks because it is a bit speculative in the sense of, you know, it's in terms of the lawsuit, it's in terms of that as well. So it's speculative in that sense. So it gets hit more than other stocks. So I think that it's had a massive sell-off up to the point where it could have a bit of potential upside depending on what happens with the lawsuit and, you know, all the recent information that's coming out with the updates. But one thing to know is that the Senate has actually passed a $1.9 trillion relief bill, right? So that's had some certainty into the market. There's a bit of uncertainty going around and of course the stock market likes certainty. So now that that's now passed and confirmed, you know, we could see the overall market going up and then maybe HCMC might see some gains from that as people start to get back into these sort of speculative penny stock players. Now it's currently set to 0.0015 USD. Okay. So it's set at a fairly low level although it has to start to make a bit of an increase from its recent lows. When it started off the day on Friday at 11.10 it was at 0.0012 and then towards the end it was at 1.5. So it's showing signs that it can move up when the overall market is also increasing. So, I mean, you can see down here there was obviously in the past five days the stock market was incredibly, well, it was correcting quite a lot, right? So it has moved down in relation to that as well. But, you know, you have those recent news in terms of the financial results. We're still waiting on update in terms of the actual Philip Morris case. Okay, but I think that with the stock market hopefully, hopefully kind of calming down a little bit, it might present a good entry point to this stock here as a quick swing trade potentially. Now, thank you for watching this video. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button if you're new. Welcome. We cover many penny stocks and growth stocks, so do subscribe and smash the like button to get this HCMC video out there to more and more people. And that'd be much appreciated. Thanks for watching. I'll see everybody later.


Hello and how are you all today? The question says in figure 9.31 A, B, C, D, D, C, F, E and A, B, F, E are parallelograms. Show that area of triangle A, D, E is equal to area of B, C, F. Now this is the figure which we need to refer here. A, B, C, D, D, C, F, E and A, B, F, E are given to us as parallelograms. We are given A, B, C, D, D, C, F, E and A, B, F, E all are parallelograms. Right and one of the properties of parallelogram will help us in proving that area of A, D, E is equal to area of B, C, F. Let us continue with our proof. Now here we are given A, B, C, D is a parallelogram, D, C, F, E is a parallelogram and A, B, F, E is a parallelogram. So we can conclude that since A, B, C, D is a parallelogram, we can say that A, D is equal to B, C. Therefore A, D is equal to B, C because opposite side of a parallelogram are equal and parallel to each other. Similarly here D, C, F, E is a parallelogram. So we can say that D, E is equal to C, F and here we can say that A, E is equal to B, F. And giving the reason for all because opposite sides of a parallelogram are equal and parallel to each other. Right? Now in triangle A, D, E and B, C, F triangle A, D, E and B, C, F these two triangles which are shared we are talking about. We know that A, D is equal to B, C we have proved above. Similarly D, E is equal to C, F and E is equal to B, F. This is all we have proved above. Right? So we can say that therefore triangle A, D, E is congruent to triangle B, C, F by S, S, S congruence criterion. Also we can say that area of A, D, E will be equal to area of B, C, F because two congruent triangles or any two congruent figures have equal areas. Right? So this completes my session. Hope you enjoy it and have a very nice day. Bye for now.


In this video, I will list the phases of the cell cycle, describe the events that occur in each phase of interphase, which are G1, SNG2, and then explain why DNA replicates and when during the cell cycle DNA replication happens. Here we have an illustration showing the phases of the cell cycle, and the cell cycle is a sequence of events through which the cell is preparing to divide, making two daughter cells from one initial mother cell. It's important for us to think a little bit about why does the cell go through this cell cycle, why does the cell bother dividing? Well, cell division is necessary for reproduction. Cell division called meiotic cell division, which involves two rounds of cell division, will produce unique daughter cells that have a unique set of genetic instructions. And these are the sperm cell and ovum that will then unite in the process of fertilization to produce a zygote that will develop into an embryo and then fetus. Cell division is also necessary for growth as the embryo grows into a fetus and as an infant grows into a child and eventually an adult, that growth, the expansion of our body, expansion of tissues in our body will require division of cells so that the tissue can become larger. Cell division is also necessary to maintain some of our tissues.  And new cells are constantly being produced deep in the epidermis in order to repair those cells in order to repair that tissue and to replace those cells that have been lost in order to maintain that tissue. Similarly, regeneration, if you were to have a cut in your skin, cell division would enable those tissues to repair in the process of regeneration. The cell cycle goes through a sequence of phases starting with the G1 phase where cells typically spend the majority of their life growing and carrying out everyday functions. During the G1 phase, the cell can accumulate the nutrients that would be required to enter into the DNA synthesis process that occurs in S phase. S phase is the second phase of the cell cycle and S stands for synthesis. During S phase, DNA is replicated and so the new copy of DNA is synthesized. This is important because we need to have an extra copy of the genetic instructions to pass on to a second cell in cell division. The third phase of the cell cycle is known as the second growth phase or the G2 phase. The G2 phase is a phase when the cell is accumulating nutrients and checking to make sure that the DNA replication went without any major errors after the DNA has been replicated and there's no major problems with DNA replication. The cell needs to make sure it has enough nutrients to prepare for dividing and producing two new daughter cells. And so the G2 phase provides a final checkpoint to make sure everything's ready for mitosis. Together G1, S and G2 are known as interphase of the cell cycle. In contrast to interphase, the mitotic phase of the cell cycle or M phase of the cell cycle is when the cell will divide and produce two nuclei. The process of mitosis is the division of the nucleus producing two nuclei inside of one cytoplasm. Then following mitosis, cytokinesis is the division of the cytoplasm which will produce two new daughter cells. One nucleus in each of the new cells will contain a complete copy of the genetic instructions.


One of the finest, if not the finest, Pocky Carry Gun subcompact 9mm handgun that's called the CAR PM9. I'm a huge fan of car arms, I think I could do a phenomenal job packing all this stuff into what many would consider a micro size 380, but if you look at the CAR PM9, it has a polymer frame, 3 inch barrel, this one has 3 dot night sights, very small, comes with a 6 round, 2 6 round and 1 7 round, man, you'd be surprised at how many people tell me, hey, that thing goes with me everywhere I go, I slip it in the pocket with a pocket holster and it is with me, I don't leave home without it, 20 ounces loaded, it's a phenomenal handgun for a 3 inch barrel, very small, lightweight, come to no car, come to trust car.


So the title of our sermon this morning is set apart for safekeeping set apart for safekeeping and this is part 3 If you are visiting with us or new here, maybe you're just entering into this sermon series through John We as a church together have been working verse by verse through the gospel of John on Sunday mornings And we're in John 17 as you come to John 17. You're in the last hours of the Lord's earthly ministry Judas the traitor the betrayer has left and the Lord and the 11 have Left of the upper room now and they're making their way through it through the city in an 18 chapter 18 verse 1 They go out of the city they cross the Brook Kidron and they enter the Garden of Gethsemane So you see where this puts us in the narrative Given here by John and the gospel of John the Lord's primary focus here to this point is It's not on the brutality of The cross that lies before him as you might expect the cross lays just ahead He's going to endure the brutality of the cross But as we come to this text of scripture His focus his concern is on these 11 men who are with him And as he prays praying for them his focus on them and also on all those who would Believe in him through the word that they preach He's taught them through this text. He's taught them Love and humility in the upper room as he met with them Right. He's encouraged them with promises of peace Encouraged them with promises of joy the gift of the spirit of God and as they've been walking along together He's charged them to abide in him and bear fruit He's warned them of what their ministry will be like in this wicked world and now John chapter 17 as he prays. He said all that he's needed to say to them. He's given them good instruction Parting words his time with them is coming to an end. So he now in his prayer Commits them to God He commits them his disciples in all true disciples all true disciples who would ever believe in him through their word He commits them to the loving care of God the Father. Why is that? Why does he do this in John 17? Well quite simply it's because we need keeping We need sanctifying we need To be held in the grip of our Heavenly Father these men Walking along right now with him our picture of us all aren't they their picture of all of us in a room this size There's likely a Judas here, isn't there the rest of us often weak often fearful often Faithless often doubting we've abandoned him. Haven't we for Far less than a garrison of troops in the garden. Haven't we? We've denied him in the face of far less than a servant girl in the high priest courtyard. Haven't we? So what you see in the Lord's here in the Lord's prayer here is Certainly not any confidence in them not any confidence in them or in us What you see here in the Lord's prayer is a total and complete Confidence in the power of God to keep and to sanctify his own That's you and I if you're in Christ We can't keep anything ourselves, right? There are many of us from who couldn't keep a plant and I couldn't keep a goldfish much less my soul Much less faith in the Lord. We can't sanctify ourselves. We can't Preserve ourselves. We can't make it to the end of the week Apart from God much less to the end of our lives Apart from him we can do nothing Got choking thorns on the right hand Tribulation persecution on the left the cares of this world the deceitfulness of riches right the wicked one swooping in Snatching away the seed. So in John 17 is Lord praise this the concern of the Lord is for that the difficulty of Our commission in this world The the difficulty of it being a witness for Christ in a world that hates Christ and so the Lord prays in John chapter 17 verse 11 He prays I'm no longer in the world but these mine own my Precious prized possession those whom you have given me father out of the world These are in the world and I come to you. Holy Father Keep through your name those whom you have given me in Eternity past God the father seeking in love to glorify God the son Chose a redeemed people to give it to God the son to worship him and to serve him As Jesus says in John chapter 17 verse 12. He says while I was with them in the world I kept them in your name God the son kept them God the son Preserve them and now he goes to the cross to die for them So he prays holy father keep them keep them Keep them spiritually safe from the the dark influences of this world keep them in the faith Keep them devoted to you preserve them to the end keep them from the evil one That Jesus had told them Whatever you ask the father in my name he will give you and what do you think that means? For prayer requests to the father on the part of God the son himself. He certainly gets what he asks for right? We know that we trust that we believe in God for that and so this prayer is an encouragement to you if you're in Christ He says in verse 13 that he prays this for them in their hearing So that they might have his joy fulfilled in themselves As we come to verse 14, there's a subtle shift in his concern They're going to have to live for Christ in a world that despises them That shows contempt toward them that is hostile toward them.  They're not indifferent toward the grace and mercy of God in Christ Anyone who would he who even appears to be indifferent is hateful Jesus prays for them and he prays for us Then in John chapter 17 verse 17 father sanctify them by your truth your word is truth By means of your word Separate them from this wicked world to yourself And hold them keep them He says I'm not praying that you should take them out of the world But keep them set apart to you father Consecrate them devote them entirely to you and make them holy Preserve those whom you have given me those who make up the church right the bride of Christ That I might one day present her to myself a glorious church not having spot a wrinkle or any such thing But that she should be holy and without blemish He prays father keep them father sanctify them You know sometimes we consider the church we consider Christianity we can consider our own weakness we consider our own faith it appears to be Such a fragile thing doesn't it? Eleven men against the world the church against the sometimes it feels like you and I are against the world doesn't it? But we are By virtue of the prayer of our Lord and the grace of God We are kept by the power of God We are sanctified by the work of God through the word of God and true Saving faith is not a fragile thing True saving faith is a victorious thing. It is a Conquering thing it is preserved by the power of God. It is cultivated by the work of God It is strengthened and fueled by the Spirit of God. It is informed by the inviolable word of God It is authored and finished by the Son of God Faith is the victory that has overcome the world and we are set apart Or sanctified to God and safely kept by his power through faith And we looked at last week how that Sanctification that setting apart can have two distinct senses one definitive sanctification the decisive one-time act of setting someone apart to God often thought of as coinciding with calling or regeneration and secondly Progressive sanctification that work of God and the believer over time by which he makes them more and more holy so with those two distinct understandings in mind we began to see from our text how we are one sanctified by his word Secondly, we are sanctified as his witness and thirdly. We are sanctified through his work Sanctified by his word our witness his work a point one we looked last week and how we are sanctified by his word literally verse 17 Reads sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth and we saw how God's truth is both the word of the gospel by which we are set apart to him that's definitive sanctification and God's truth is the means of God applied by the spirit of God over time to make us holy That's progressive sanctification. We are sanctified set apart by his word the point to We began to look at last week verse 18 to see how we are Sanctified as his witness. We are sanctified to mission right verse 18 says this as You sent me into the world. I also have sent them into the world Now remember the biblical definition of sanctification involves Not merely setting something or setting someone apart to God It is setting them apart for God's use For God's use it is sanctification when the Lord prays sanctify them He's praying that they would set it be set apart for his use. It's a dedication of duty It's a consecration to commission Right and that's primarily understood in the bible as sacrifice And I want us to make the connection right the tables utensils in the tabernacle for example Sacrificed For their common usage Set apart and sacrificed from that for holy use alone Could no longer be used for common purposes Must now only be used for God's purposes for holy use Deuteronomy chapter 15 verse 19 the firstborn of your flock Was to be sanctified entirely to the Lord in other words. It wasn't to be used for anything else Holy and entirely for the Lord. It was sacrificed As an offering to him that sense holds true for Christians For the life of a genuine believer in Christ You are sanctified or set apart holy to the master's use Romans chapter 12 verse 1 I beseech you therefore brethren By the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice Holy acceptable to God, which is your Reasonable service That's reasonably expected that you would give your life your entirety all that you are To the one who gave all that he is for you. You are set apart to him Tie me to the horns of the altar. God, right? And when I have done all that I can do when I've done Everything that I can do all I can say is that I am at best an unprofitable servant A genuine disciple of Christ is set apart They are sanctified to worship sanctified to serve the Lord Jesus Christ in his mission And that involves even a sacrificial death if necessary, right? And we've seen that through the centuries those that have given their lives for the cause of Christ Now think about that Think about that in terms of the Lord's prayer in verse 18 As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world Think with me about this You profess to be a genuine disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ That means That by that word which was preached to you You were set apart to Christ and you were set apart to Christ by the regenerating work of the spirit of god You weren't set apart Just to look pretty You're not set apart just to look holy all polished up, right? You were set apart from the master's use and according to john chapter 17 verse 18 You were sent Into the world as you sent me into the world. I also have sent them into the world That's the effect or the consequence of our sanctification We were set apart and having been set apart to Christ. We were sent into the world on a mission now the question is Sent into the world for what purpose? sent into the world to what end The answer to that question is found in that little word as that begins verse 18 As you sent me into the world. I also in same manner have sent them Into the world. So for what purpose was christ sent into the world? First Timothy chapter one verse 15 This is a faithful saying And worthy of all acceptance that christ jesus came into the world To save sinners of whom I am chief Jesus himself said didn't he have his mission the son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost That means That just as christ was sent into the world on a mission to save those whom the father had given him out of the world We have been sent on a mission into the world to continue his work John chapter 20 verse 21 as the father has sent me I also send you that's our mission That's our mission as christ was sent. You've been sent can't be stated any more clearly We've been set apart We're a consecrated people a living sacrifice. We're to preach the gospel and make disciples The lord continues the work that he began Through his church or if you think about acts chapter one when luke's writing He's writing the theophilus and he says he writes of all that jesus christ began To do and to teach and the story of acts is how the church Continues all that jesus christ began both to do and to teach If you notice that from verse 18, I want you to notice a few particulars With respect to that statement in verse 18 one Is you are sent that's clear So now think about the implications of this right if you are sent in verse 18 then go You're a christian you profess the name of christ having been set apart by christ You've been set apart two mission.  You're not Of the world you're in the world go to the world with the gospel. You are sent You are sent Secondly in verse 18. It's the lord of the church who sends you You've been charged by the lord jesus christ to evangelize to lost people in the world as the father Sends him He now sends you What was jesus christ doing? Jesus christ was constantly preaching Constantly ministering constantly preaching ministering making disciples Thirdly One you're sent to it's the lord of the church sending you thirdly. You are sent into the world. You're into the world As the father has sent me I also send you You've been sent if you profess the name of christ. You've been sent. Let me ask you are you going Are you going You've been sent Are you going? Many today many today say and profess That they are christians, but they don't go They don't go In other words, they they say that they are a follower of christ And yet they do not follow him in his mission There was a parable that immediately came to mind the parable of our lord in matthew 21 listen Jesus christ was speaking to hypocritical jews He was speaking to hypocritical jews who said they believed god, but did not obey him as god He says in verse 28 matthew 21. What do you think? A man had two sons. He came to the first and he said son go work today in my vineyard He answered and said verse 29. I will not But afterward he regretted it and he went Then he came to the second and he said likewise And he answered and said I go sir But he did not go Which of the two did the will of his father?  You've been set apart to this mission You should regret that and go Like the first son Repent and go John chapter 17 verse 17 Is the means of our sanctification right sanctify them by your truth your word is truth John chapter 17 verse 18 explains the mission Of our sanctification We are sent into the world In the christian life right christian life It's important to settle these things in your heart and mind because it takes conviction of these things For you to persevere in them for you to begin them Right for you to begin that work Which is often in this hateful hostile world not an easy work right we have We struggle with sin attacks from within attacks from without we fear man We're weak we're often faithless we often doubt But in order for you to be committed to that work you must be convicted of its necessity Of its importance you have to be convicted in your heart. That's what god has called you to do in this world You need to be convicted in your heart. They're lost people who need the gospel who need to be saved that otherwise will perish If you're not Convicted by that if you're not convinced your own heart and mind about these things Convince that the lord jesus christ continues his work the grace and mercy of god in christ continues on the shoulders of his people Then you'll sit at home You'll ride the bench You'll stay back in the camp rather than getting out in the trench Conviction about this is necessary to our commitment. It's necessary to our action Praise god this church This church represents I think a conviction about these things Because we talk about them we see them in the bible and not only do we see them in the bible we see a vast majority Of those that would say they're evangelical That have no conviction about these things What is it? You know barna study came out years ago. It said that 98 percent of christians didn't share their faith Well, what that barna study tells you there are two percent of people who profess to be christians who are christians Conviction about these things You're not sitting here today because of some organizational flow chart You're not sitting here today because someone dug a well for you or built a house for you Did some good thing for you in that sense You're not here christian today because someone built you a house Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of god How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a preacher and how shall they preach unless they are Sent sent into the world and the lord jesus christ in verse 18 as you have sent me father. I send them this is what we see here today, right And genuine true biblical churches around our country around our world is the fruit of a simple people sent on a simple mission with a simple message And just like those 11 men faced the world and we're We believe In christ through their word look around us in this church today And as jesus christ sent them jesus christ also sends us as jesus christ was sent He sends us and it's that message that has prevailed jesus christ has promised i will Build my church And this is a glorious testimony isn't that he's done it and continues to do it martin hoy jones Recounted an example of god accomplishing his work through gideon Listen to martin hoy jones says take the case of gideon right a mighty enemy army was facing the children of israel And at first gideon collected an army of 32,000 people Then god began to reduce them Until in the end there were only 300 God in effect said to gideon i'm not going to do this through that great army of 32,000 i'm going to do it in my way So he just reduced reduced the 32,000 to 300 and then he sent them out not with great armaments But with pictures with lamps inside them along with trumpets to blow and with that ridiculous equipment They conquered the army of the enemy that is god's way We don't have to sit back and envision All kinds of various methods and programs and organizations and You just got to talk to somebody right just got to talk to somebody Go up to a lost person and share the gospel with them That's the way it has been done. That's the way the lord does it So think about this with me when the lord prays for these men in john chapter 17 And praying for all other disciples after them He's praying right. He's praying precisely because He has given them this mission in a world that despises them for it That's why he's praying his petition that god would sanctify them Is asking god to set them apart as a sacrifice in that work That they would give their lives in that work. That's essentially the prayer the lord is praying here for them in john chapter 17 You and i you and i are to sacrifice To pursue this mission his mission In this world. We are to pursue it even to the sacrifice of ourselves Point one on your notes. We're sanctified by his word Point two. We're sanctified as his witness the thirdly We are sanctified Sanctified through his work Sanctified by his word sanctified as his witness sanctified through his work through the person and work of the lord jesus christ look at verse 19 Jesus prays And for their sakes i sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified by the truth Now john 17 17 the lord prays for the father to sanctify them right In other words the foundation of our sanctification is the lord jesus christ himself He says in verse 19 for their sakes For their sakes. I sanctify myself now as we Consider what this means We can immediately limit the sense of the word sanctification When the lord uses that word of himself. He's already perfectly holy right the lord jesus christ Is perfectly sinless and therefore he has no need of progressive Sanctification Whereby he is made more holy right. He's without sin. He's without spot or blemish So what are you saying here in verse 19 then speaking of sanctifying himself He's talking about he has set himself apart. He has set himself apart Think about the use of that word again And think about it in terms of the lord jesus christ jesus christ setting himself apart entirely Holy right for their self for their sakes. I sanctify myself I sanctify me. I set me apart Entirely for god's purpose So that they may be sanctified and think about the word sanctification and all that implies He sets him all of him apart In sacrifice In sacrifice in sacrifice for the purpose and work that god has given him to do He's giving himself over to be used of god for their sakes and all that by the total complete sacrifice Of himself and verse 19 for their sakes that For their sakes points to the work the mission the purpose for which he has been sent into the world to seek and to save that Which is lost right? He came to redeem those the father had given him in eternity past out of the world That word for there implies Substitution for them for their sakes in other words Lord jesus christ set himself apart for his own for his people to save them He is set apart sanctified to save them and when the lord jesus christ sets himself apart to the father's will to save sinners In doing that he sets himself apart To the sacrifice of the cross All of that is wrapped up together right wrapped up together he being sinless being god He being perfect He submitted himself As a sacrifice For sin that we might become the righteousness of god in him It's a great text that i think exemplifies this turn with me to hebrus chapter 10 hebrus chapter 10 hebrus chapter 10 Look with me beginning at verse five In hebrus chapter 10 verses one through four Our author here is making clear The complete inability of animal sacrifices to purify anyone Can't be done through animal sacrifices you can't purify anyone Through the blood of bulls and goats the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin in fact verse three The sacrifices that are made only serve to remind the people of their sins Those sacrifices to point the people constantly to their sinfulness It won't be through the blood of bulls and goats that anyone Is forgiven of their sins All of that is simply a reminder until christ look at verse five therefore When he christ came into the world through his incarnation right He said this quoting psalm chapter 40 verses six through eight He said sacrifice And offering you did not desire but a body you have prepared for me In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure Then i said behold I have come in the volume of the book it is written of me to do your will Oh god And verses five and six there christ uses those four expressions sacrifice offering verse six burnt offerings sacrifices for sin those four expressions are um A comprehensive umbrella under which the entire levitical sacrificial old testament system is put right He's saying that that system In its entirety All of it Is bankrupt as a means by which you can please god In fact verse three, it's just simply to point you to the fact that you can't please god Through the law that you can't please god fully and finally through this sacrifice All it can do all that levitical system can do all of those offerings all that they can do Is only point you To the true and lasting sacrifice of the lord jesus christ himself right when jesus christ sanctifies himself sets himself apart To sinners through sacrifice. It's that In that it is taken away right That levitical system taken away To make way for the once for all sacrifice of christ himself Look at verse eight Previously saying Sacrifice and offering burnt offerings and the offerings for sin you did not desire Nor had pleasure in them which are offered according to the law Then he said verse nine behold i have come to do your will oh god He takes away the first so that he may establish The second in other words he takes away that entire sacrificial system right that entire system he takes away So that he could fulfill the will of god through the sacrifice of himself He came to do the will of god to do your will. Oh god verse seven. Behold i've come to do your will. Oh god verse nine In doing the will of god, he takes away the first sacrificial system So that he could fulfill that will in redeeming his own people through the sacrifice Of himself look at verse 10 By that will the will of god We have been sanctified ourselves. We've been set apart We've been sanctified through the offering of the body of jesus christ once for all God's will From eternity past was to save a people to himself right to gift a people to the sun Christ Sanctified he set himself apart. He sacrificed himself Sacrificed himself To that will he set himself apart in his incarnation to do the father's will in setting himself apart to the father's will He sets himself apart to the cross and it is through that singular and perfectly acceptable sacrifice That we are set apart that we are sanctified. Do you see? If you look at verse 11 And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same Sacrifices which can never take away sins But this man verse 12 in stark contrast with all the Levitical priests, right? This man after he had offered one Sacrifice for sins forever Sat down at the right hand of god and christ sitting down. There's a sign. It's a symbol That is sacrificial work on behalf of sinners is finished. It's complete and christ sits down From that time he sat down on the right hand of god From that time waiting till his enemies are made his footstool verse 14 and here it is Four by one offering He has perfected forever Those who are being sanctified Now if you meditate on that for a little bit and think about what the lord jesus christ has done that is beautiful That is precious Is amazing Christ sanctifies himself The perfect spotless lamb of god He sets himself apart To the sacrifice of the cross to perfectly do the father's will And in sanctifying himself. He offers a single sacrifice Which Is permanently and forever Effective as a consequence of that completed work christ has made his own people Perfect forever Awesome right awesome Something the priests could not do Something the sacrificial system could not do something that the law could not do something that you Cannot do And yet it is accomplished by christ's one sacrifice for sins for all time And notice in verse 14 there That those for whom he sacrificed himself are described as those who are being Sanctified it's a passive participle In other words those who Through his atoning sacrifice are through the ages Being set apart to him. This is What he's actually speaking of here is definitive sanctification And that christ through his one sacrifice through the sacrifice of himself Verse 14 Perfects forever those who are being Sanctified through the ages so you link this back up with john chapter 17 right He prays for his disciples verse 20 He prays for all those that would believe in him through their word So all of those over the ages down through the ages who are being set apart to christ Being set apart in the gospel to him all those who are being sanctified This one sacrifice for sins by one offering heber's chapter 10 verse 14. He has perfected forever all of those All those who are being sanctified His sanctification right his sacrifice him setting himself apart makes our Sanctification possible in words apart from that sanctification.  I sanctify myself. They also may be sanctified by the truth He was set apart so that we could be set apart It's getting about this in terms of the gospel, right? You were made by god you're made by him Knit together in your mother's womb. He created you He breathed life into you Everything you have your Very being is from him.  He made you. He owns you, right? He created you to be perfect. He created you to be holy Consecrated to him. He made you He made you He has the right to do anything with you that he wants to do he has the right to rule over you He has the right to reign over you. He made you He made you to be consecrated to him alone dedicated to him alone. He made you for himself To be a display of his glory a display of his attributes Holy consecrated to him alone dedicated to him But you sinned I sinned In your sin my sin has separated us from god has destroyed The possibility of fulfillment within ourselves that purpose for which he created us apart from christ Look at the hurt and damage that sin causes, right?  Look at this wicked world in which we live all the fruit of sin your own Guilty conscience bears this out It accuses you that you are a wicked sinner You have done wrong You have sinned against god sinned against your creator and listen god hates sin He hates all that is against himself He will not tolerate it Will not tolerate it How can there be a sin in the presence of god? How can there be sin in heaven? There can't be And you who have sinned you will stand before your creator When you die and that comes So quick When you die it could be today this afternoon next week next week It comes fast.  What are you going to do about your sin? In many of the people in this world, right?  What are you going to do about your sin? Jesus christ was sent into the world He set himself apart He sanctified himself set himself apart to the brutality the tragedy of the cross He perfectly obeyed the father. He went to the cross as a sinless sacrifice So that you Could be set apart and right with god Are you going to Thumb your nose and grit your teeth and turn your cheek to that Sacrifice to that act of love and mercy and grace Really? Are you going to rebel reject that? Set yourself apart to him Right through repentance and faith turn from your sin put your faith in christ Give your life entirely to him and he will raise you up Let me make a An application from our brothers and sisters in christ here This is a Matchless splendor right the work of christ the redemptive plans and purposes of god in christ. It's It's beautiful. It's perfect We have a responsibility brothers and sisters to pursue Our perseverance and to pursue our sanctification knowing that God in christ has sanctified himself For our preservation and for our sanctification right if you think about john chapter 17 Verses six through nineteen The lord jesus christ prays for two petitions two things He prays for our keeping father keep them keep them And he prays for our sanctification set them apart to yourself Consecrate them right If he prays to the father for those things that's god's sovereignty Lord jesus christ is praying to the father the father will keep his own And the father will sanctify his own but that Keeping that preservation and that sanctification In both of those the father uses means to do it And he uses the means of our own perseverance uses the means of our own Pursuit of sanctification in order to preserve us and to sanctify us He does that through his word of god. He does that through prayer. Let me give you one example Turn with me to revelation chapter three revelation chapter three In other words my means of application Knowing knowing that the lord jesus christ has prayed this prayer in john 17 for you and for me Knowing that should fuel Should compel should drive us to persevere and to be sanctified We should avail ourselves of the promises of god here implied in this prayer to pursue our Perseverance and to pursue our sanctification and in doing that We have to stick close to the source. We have to cling to christ look at verse 14 revelation chapter 3 verse 14 And to the angel of the church of the laodiceans, right These things says the amen the faithful and true witness the beginning of the creation of god verse 15 I know your works That you are neither cold nor hot I wish you were cold or hot So then because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot. I will vomit you out of my mouth And if you know the situation here at laodicea Laodicea was between two Wells two springs The springs had to come a distance to get to laodicea one was a hot spring one was a cold spring From the distance those springs were from the city of laodicea The distance that that water had to travel by the time that it got to laodicea It was either it was lukewarm It wasn't hot. It wasn't cold by the time it got to the city. It was lukewarm He uses this as an object lesson to teach them something He says them because verse 16 you are lukewarm And neither cold nor hot I will vomit you out of my mouth In other words at lukewarm water Good for nothing. You can't drink it. If it were hot you can make tea with it Colombian coffee, right if it were cold it'd be refreshing you could drink it But because it's lukewarm it's good for nothing but to be vomited out verse 17 The reason for their condition As lukewarm Is here in verse 17 because you say I am rich Have become wealthy And have need Of nothing and you do not see your need, right? You don't see your need. You don't know that you are wretched miserable Poor blind and naked Lord says verse 18 I counsel you to buy for me gold refined in the fire that you may be rich White garments that you may be clothed that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed and anoint your eyes with Isab that you may see As many as I love I rebuke and chasten Therefore be zealous and repent Behold I stand at the door and knock If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into him and dine with him and he with me To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with me on my throne as I also overcame and sat now with my father on his throne He who has an ear let him hear What the spirit says to the churches In other words, you've been set apart you've been set apart to god in christ set apart to the lord jesus christ Stick close to the source Stay close to the source cling to him Avail yourself of all those means that god has provided for your perseverance for your sanctification Cling to the word of god cling to god in prayer cling to the people of god cling to the church of god Stay close to the source. You know in your experience as well as I know in my experience to my shame There have been times when I am farther away from the source than I need to be and I feel lukewarm That is the feeling of death taking root in you Cling to the source be close Jesus christ prayed that the father would preserve us So persevere cling to him Cling to him and let the father preserve you let the father strength you protect you guard you hold you Right jesus christ prayed in verse 17 that the father would sanctify us So pursue your sanctification Pursue those means of god by which you will be made more and more holy More and more holy on fire for god versus lukewarm tepid good for nothing, but to be vomited out You have to cling you have to stay close to the source If lord jesus christ prayed these things for us it should be Driving motivation for us to cling to him For us to persevere for us to pursue our sanctification This is the will of god for you right your sanctification Stay close to the source one of the ways that you stay close to the source is through that word that sanctifies you Another way that you stay close to the source is in that mission To which you have been sent verse 18 right as the father has sent me into the world I send you into the world Stay close to him. Let's pray father in heaven what we Praise you and thank you for allowing us the blessing of hearing of entering into this prayer of our lord in john 17 how you have In our hearing expressed such What our promises because the lord jesus christ has asked for them We know we trust we are assured that You are able to keep that which i've committed to you until that day We trust and thank you for it. Thank you lord for allowing us the blessing of studying This prayer together and considering these things I pray lord, we pray together to you in accord with our lord that you would keep us Preserve us guard us protect us help us strengthen us hold us And god you would sanctify us that you would keep us consecrated in your work in your will doing your will as jesus christ did your will That you would make us more and more holy conform us into the image of your son Help us to become more like him mature us grow us Build us up in our most holy faith Cause us lord to abound in these graces for your glory in jesus name. Amen