Member Statements. I recognize the member for Toronto, St. Paul's. Good morning, Speaker. I stand honored today in solidarity with the tenants of 440 Winona Drive and our fabulous riding of St. Paul's. They're seniors, young people, people with disabilities, physical and mental health challenges, they're racialized, working class on fixed income, they speak many languages, they're immigrants, LGBT and they're hardworking, they're pet lovers, they're humans trying to get through COVID-19 without an ounce of direct tenant support from this government, a government that stripped away rent control and hasn't offered any direct rent relief or rent subsidies, emergency bakes of income or a rent freeze to any tenants in Ontario, let alone 440 Winona Drive, a government that will end eviction and in a matter of days will send the tenants of 440 Winona Drive into homelessness. 440 is managed by Marriott Group.  Today I ask the Premier and this government what he will do to ensure our renters at 440 Winona Drive are taken care of, especially the most vulnerable and immunocompromised and that they have access to air conditioning. Thank you, Speaker. Thank you. Member Statements, the member for Sarnia Lampton. Thank you, Speaker. Thank you. I'm pleased to rise today and speak about a number of terrific investments that this Ontario government has recently made in my riding Sarnia Lampton. On July 14th, there's a privilege for me to announce that the Ontario government is investing one and a half million dollars in Sarnia Lampton's much-called for oversize load corridor project. This investment was made by the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, and will help bring this vital project one step closer to completion. As a community, we have been working on getting the funding for this project for nearly a decade. Once complete, the oversized load corridor will help to support our world-class fabrication shops and local industry partners by making it easier to move large industrial components to and from the Sarnia Harbor. Additionally, last week the Ministry of Transportation confirmed funding for two projects to repair and improve safety on the Highway 402. Construction will begin next month on the installation of Bluetooth readers, static border weight, time science and other safety measures near the U.S. border. The second project consists of the rehabilitation of the airport road structure, including interchange improvements, ramp paving and electrical upgrades. Finally, Mr. Speaker, our government recently invested 1.89 million in critical infrastructure funding for Blue Water Health plus four and a half million dollars in increased budget funding for the Blue Water Health Hospital this year. Mr. Speaker, these are all terrific investments by the province and good news for everyone across our community. Thank you. Member Statements, the Member for Timmons. Mr. Speaker, I stand in the house today because of something that's going on not just in my constituency but across this province. As you know, there is in place a drug plan that is supposed to pay for medication for people who are younger, younger people under the age of 25. That is there to ensure that those people get what they need, when they need it, so that they can stay healthy and survive. This government, back in April of 2019, decided no. If you need a medication and you have a private plan, you must go to your private plan in order to have that paid. But here's the kicker. If the private plan doesn't pay it, the government doesn't want to pay it either. So people are having to pay for medication that otherwise should be covered by the plan that is currently in place in the province of Ontario. I have a constituent. They had a little baby six months old now who was on a feeding supplement that cost $80 for two days. They go to their private insurer. The private insurer says no, we're not going to pay. So when they come to the province, the province says no, we're not going to pay because you have a private insurance. The government's got to stop this. This is about people's health and this is about them being able to get what they need when they need it. I call on this government to reverse their decision that they made in April of 2019 and to allow medication for people under the age of 25 such as nutritional supplements to be paid for as they were before because otherwise it's a grave injustice and you're putting people in a position they should never be in. Thank you, Member Statements. The Member for Bradford Grant. Thank you, Speaker. I stand today to recognize the dedication and service of two Brandt County OPP constables. Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of a horrific collision involving two constables of the Brandt County OPP. Early in the morning on July 19th 1970, Constable Ron Hartman and Constable Stefan Schultz stopped the vehicle with five occupants. When a vehicle struck the two officers as well as the vehicle they had stopped, Constable Schultz was tragically killed. As were four occupants of the stopped vehicle. Constable Hartman was thrown nearly 100 feet and was left with severe injuries with one leg amputated and the other one reconstructed. He was able to return home after nearly seven months. Despite the collision and his injuries, Constable Hartman returned to work with the OPP on May 4th 1971. Hartman clearly demonstrated his commitment to serving the community by continuing to work another 25 years following this terrible incident. Hartman and his wife still reside in the city of Brantford. As we recognize 50 years since this collision I would like to honor Constable Schultz and Constable Hartman for their commitment to our community. I wish to offer my condolences to the family of Constable Schultz who lost his life in the line of duty. I would also like to thank retired Constable Hartman for his years of public service even after his life changed so much. Thank you Speaker. Member Statements, the member for Niagara Falls. Thank you Mr. Speaker. I rise today to call out corporate greed in my writing. Niagara Falls is the world's greatest destination to visit. Every year our tourist industry brings millions into Niagara and none of these visitors leave disappointed. We have a reputation going above and beyond and delivering the vacation of a lifetime. The reason we have that reputation is because of the frontline staff. They're the first and last one visitors meet and because of their hard work visitors return. Right now in the midst of this pandemic it is those frontline workers who risk their health every single day so they can keep these attractions open and ensure our guests remain safe. Yet and yet at Ripley's believe it or not on Clifton Hill frontline staff were told that their wages were being slashed when they returned. You know who owns this site? His name is Jim Patterson. He's Canada's third richest man and he's worth seven billion dollars. That's with a B. Yet this billionaire has ripped him wages away from our frontline workers. I'm asking the Premier to stand with me and the people of Niagara Falls to tell Jim Patterson that this greed is unacceptable to apologize to these workers and give them the wages that they have before the pandemic. Jim Patterson, you have braided workers working right now and have made you a fortune. Treat them with respect and also let's get the four dollars pandemic pay into the hands of our essential workers. Thank you very much. Member statements to member for Guelph. Thank you Speaker. I recently met with Amy Greer, a constituent who is a Canada research chair in population disease modeling at the University of Guelph. Amy wrote an op-ed with two other renowned epidemiologists in the globe and mail and her message is clear. Students who are healthy and able should be given the opportunity for in-class learning five days a week in September. This can be done through the innovative use of community spaces, outdoor education and new types of classrooms. But this planning should not be on the backs of school boards alone. The Premier has said he wants students back in schools five days a week but he's prioritizing opening bars over schools. Speaker, school is five weeks away. We have heard no clear plan for how the province can open up for five days of in-class learning for our students. School boards have not received the funding they need to open safely. Speaker, we must prioritize our students because the return on investment in our children is priceless. Thank you. Members statements, the member for Willowdale. Thank you very much Mr. Speaker. Last week I had the chance to visit the North York Central Library, one of my favorite spots in Willowdale and chat with the incredibly knowledgeable and friendly staff about the measures they've taken to keep our community safe as well as how they're preparing to enter stage three of our province's reopening. North York Central, Mr. Speaker, is no ordinary library. It's one of two reference libraries in Toronto and it's home to amazing things like a 3D printing lab, a green screen movie studio, and a state-of-the-art sewing center, and wonderful programming like afternoon tea and movies for seniors. Not to mention the massive collection of books and dozens of languages to serve my very diverse community. But like all of us, our library has to adapt to the new normal, Mr. Speaker, and it's the so. The seating areas are closed. Books are quarantined for 72 hours before being returned to the shelves and the 3D printers have been loaned to the University Health Network where they run around the clock making face masks for our favorite heroes. And while Willowdale still can't use many of the amenities the library usually offers, they can still borrow books and movies by appointment, use the library computers to access the internet, and count on masked staff to help them for advice. Libraries are an essential part of our communities and they're much more about books, Mr. Speaker. They're often the first stop for new Canadians settling in our neighborhood, cooling centers on hot summer days, free workspace for entrepreneurs starting up a new business, or simply a safe place to sit. This morning I want to thank the Toronto Public Library and all the incredible staff at North York Central for all that they do and for their tireless efforts during this challenging time. I can't wait to go back, Mr. Speaker, and visit the North York Central and you should all join me in Willowdale. Number for Hamilton West and Caster Dundas. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Regan Russell was a friend to so many and I'm honored to say she was a friend of mine. Regan was run over and killed by a transport truck outside of Fierman Slaughterhouse on June 19th. She was there with others to bear witness. I last saw her in my office with another friend, Julie. They were posed to Bill 156. Very concerned that it would suppress free speech and make common acts of protest a crime. A free speech, Regan said, how do you think women got the right to vote? How do you think slavery was abolished? People stood up.  Her husband, Mark Powell, said she was a constant voice for the voiceless. Mark, along with his son, Joshua, and her parents, Bill and Pat, still have one another. Her mother said she doesn't belong to us anymore. She belongs to all these people here. And that is so true.  The parliament of Portugal held a moment of silence. Joaquin Phoenix said, and I quote, we will honor her memory by vigorously confronting the cruelties she fought so hard to prevent.  I'll end with the beautiful words of Ann Bocma. Regan took the world into her arms. She embraced her partner, her parents, and her many friends, human and animal alike. She held us all close and now we are faced with a sad task of letting her go. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you. Remember for Oakville. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And today I have the honor to acknowledge local companies that have been working hard to keep our community of Oakville safe during this pandemic. My riding of Oakville is a hub for the nuclear energy sector. Oakville is home to companies such as Promation Canada, Laker Energy, Terrestrial Energy, among others. Last Thursday, the Honorable Member for Huron Bruce and I joined an event hosted by Promation and Bruce Power with Promation President Daryl Specter, Bruce Power CEO Mike Rencek, Bruce Power Executive Vice President James Skanyak. These two companies have partnered together to undertake Bruce Power's MSR project. This project will support 22,000 jobs, inject $4 billion into our economy, and most importantly provide Ontario with reliable, low-cost, clean energy. Not only are these companies involved in providing us with power, but they also answered the call to produce and donate PPE during the COVID-19. Promation has retooled their operations to produce ventilators, and Bruce Power has been leading with PPE donations. Moreover, several of Promation's employees have gone above and beyond on their own time to produce face shield frames using 3D printers, and this has translated into Promation producing 650 frames a day. Finally, I want to highlight one more company, ACON. Their ongoing effort throughout the pandemic, providing donations for the community, has been admirable. I want to express my sincerest thank you to each of these companies. This is a testament to those helping those in need. Each company is a made an Ontario story and demonstrates genuine Ontario spirit. Thank you very much. Members' statements? The member for Mississauga Lakeshore. Thank you, Speaker. I rise here today to pay tribute to a great Ontario, a visionary, businessman, larger-than-life community leader, and one of the greatest philanthropists in the history of Peel Regional. Ignat Kenneth came to Canada as a young immigrant from Bulgaria in 1951. He had no friends, no family, and spoke no English. He had very little education and no money. He spent his only $5 to take a taxi from Union Station to Mississauga, where he lived in a garage, learned the trade, and went to work in construction, building the neighbourhood of Applewood Acres in Mississauga Lakeshore. Over the next seven decades, Iggy came to exemplify the very best in Canadian values, hard work, dedication, and community service. He built a real estate empire, became a successful GM dealer along the way, and gave back tens of millions of dollars to schools, hospitals, and charities. Starting with $2,000 gift to build the Mississauga Hospital in 1955, the largest gift by an individual at the time, only four years after arriving in Canada. Iggy gave generously to the University of Toronto in Mississauga, and to many groups that helped, children with intellectual disabilities, including community living in Mississauga. For this, Iggy was appointed to the Order of Ontario and the Order of Canada, recognized as the Mississauga citizen of the year, and with the Bulgarian highest civil honours. His legacy will live on, and has a positive impact on many lives for many years to come. So thank you, Iggy, for everything you have achieved, and most of all, for showing us that there is no limit to what you want to achieve in Ontario. Farewell, my friend. May you rest in peace. Thank you very much. That concludes our member's statements for this morning.


The title of our sermon this morning is all we need to be complete, all we need to be complete. Our primary text for this sermon is 2 Timothy chapter 3 verses 14 through 17. Our sermon today is part of a series we're doing in our church called The Essentials. You're joining us, we're compiling a series of sermons from key texts in the Bible on Essentials of Baptist Theology, on the Essentials of Church Practice. We're doing that to put together a resource for new members of our church or those who need sort of a systematic overview of the theology that we hold to. And we're currently in a segment of theology dealing with the doctrine of revelation, where we've looked at general revelation, we've looked at special revelation together, the doctrine of inspiration, the authority of scripture, and today we come to the subject of the Bible's sufficiency, the sufficiency of the scriptures for all things that pertain to life and godliness, the Bible's sufficiency for all things pertaining to faith and practice. Now our consideration this morning of the Bible's sufficiency really must once again begin with inspiration, the fact that it is God's word that God has spoken. 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God. It is God breathed. It is the word of the living God. 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 21, prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. In other words, God sovereignly, supernaturally works in and through these human authors such that their words are in fact His words. Hebrews chapter 1 verse 1, God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time, passed to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us in His Son. Now considering the grammar, has spoken for you Greek guys, right? Is an heiress active indicative verb. The heiress tense combined with the indicative mood is used to denote past time. Past time meaning that what has been spoken verse 1 to us in His Son has been complete and sufficiently spoken and until the Lord returns in glory the revelation that God has intended to provide us in His Son has been provided. In other words, the story has been told. The story has been told. We have the story. And what we have then in the 39 canonical books of the Old Testament, the 27 canonical books of the New Testament regarding redemptive history, regarding the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, is the complete and final and full and sufficient revelation of God given to man. Now that story began in the book of Genesis where in chapter 1 verse 1 we read in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning. Genesis chapter 1 verse 1. That story begins where it should begin in the beginning. And that redemptive story ends, if you think about it with me, Revelation chapter 22 verse 3, listen to this. And there shall be no more curse. That curse that came upon man for his sin has been reversed. That's the end of the story. There shall be no more curse. But the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it. His servants shall serve him. They shall see his face. His name shall be on their foreheads. There shall be no night there. They need no lamp nor light of the sun. For the Lord God gives them light and they shall reign forever and ever. Amen. So from in the beginning to forever and ever, the story of the Bible has been told. The story of God's redemptive plans and purposes has been told. What more can be said? Amen. The whole of God's redemptive story is given between in the beginning and forever and ever. It's a record that points to and then finds its fulfillment and ultimate consummation in the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. It ends with all things restored, all things renewed that are God glorifying and Christ exalting purpose.  There's a picture of this sufficiency of God's word given to us in the Old Testament. There's a picture of this in Deuteronomy chapter one. Deuteronomy chapter one, Israel, stands on this side of the river Jordan, opposite the promised land, opposite Jericho. It's a land over there that flows with milk and honey. It's an inheritance that God has promised his people. The generation before them had failed to trust in the Lord. They had failed to go in and take possession of the land. And under the judgment of God, that people had turned back into the wilderness where that generation perished in unbelief. Now the next generation then stands at the border of the land that God has promised to give them. God has given them all that they need to go in and take possession of it. He has given them all that they need to live and prosper in it.  They need only now to trust his word and to obey the Lord their God. So the Lord says to them then, in Deuteronomy chapter four, beginning in verse two, listen to this.  You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor are you to take from it so that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. In other words, the word is sufficient. You're not to add to it. You're not to take away from it. The word of God is sufficient. The word of God to them is complete. To add to his word or to take away from his word would be to deny sufficiency and to deny the authority of God himself. And so the Lord reminds them then, in Deuteronomy chapter eight, beginning in verse two, listen to this. You shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these 40 years in the wilderness. He led you to humble you, to test you, to know what was in your heart whether you would keep his commandments or not. So the Lord humbled you. He allowed you to hunger. He fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know so that he might make you know that a man what shall not live by bread alone but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. The people were starkly reminded as they stood on the border of the promised land, the land that God had promised to give them. The Lord starkly reminded those people how entirely dependent they were upon God for everything that they needed, even their daily food. Apart from him, they wouldn't have eaten, right? Apart from God's provision, they would have had nothing, not even enough food to live on.  Your life isn't simply sustained by physical food as you might think. It's sustained by every word that proceeds out of God's mouth, every decree of God. Job said of God's word in chapter 23 verse 12, Job said, I have not departed from the commandment of his lips. I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. Right, Job? That's right, amen. The Lord himself quoted these words from Deuteronomy chapter 8. He quoted these words in his own wilderness testing. Like Israel, in the wilderness, 40 days, being tented by the devil, the Lord was hungry. But unlike Israel, he believed that God's word to him was sufficient. He believed in the promises of God. He trusted God for his word. Satan tempted him. He said to the Lord, if you are the son of God, command that these stones become bread. It's Matthew chapter 4 verse 4. But he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. In other words, God's word was found sufficient in the Lord's time of testing. If the Israelites had trusted in his word, they would have gone in and taken the land. God's word found sufficient in the Lord's time of testing. God's promises were enough. The Lord told his disciples in Samaria, I have food to eat of which you do not know. Well, brothers and sisters, listen. You and I, now we are living through our own wilderness testing. We are in the wilderness. We are sojourners and pilgrims. We are aliens in this land. This earth is not our home, right? Our citizenship is in heaven. We find ourselves today on the border of our own inheritance. Is his word sufficient to sustain you? Or isn't it? Is his word sufficient in your heart and mind? Will you put your faith in your job? Or are you going to put your faith in your bank account? Or are his promises enough? Is his word sufficient? Is your attitude toward the word of God like Job's attitude?  Is that true of you? What would it look like if that were true of you? What would your time in his word look like? What would your life look like? What would your decisions look like? What would your bank account look like? What would be the way that you spent your time? What would that look like?  The word of God is entirely sufficient for God's pilgrim people in this wilderness. His word is sufficient. We have the fullness of his revelation. The canon is complete. Start to finish. We have everything that God has intended to reveal to us. We have God's full and final and authoritative word. And at the very end of the canon, at the very end of the canon, looking back over his gracious and sufficient revelation, the Lord says to us in Revelation 22, just like he did to Israel when they stood on the border of their own inheritance, the Lord says to us in Revelation 22, he says, I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in the book. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the book of life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. In other words, God's word is sufficient. We're not to add to it. We're not to take away from it. His word is sufficient. As we think about sufficiency, then we have to ask a question. We have to ask an obvious question. Sufficient for what? Sufficient to what end? Sufficient to what purpose? To what aim? Well, our statement of faith, the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689, says it this way in chapter 1, paragraph 6. Statement of faith says, the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life is either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the holy scriptures, unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelation of the spirit or by traditions of men. In other words, everything that God has intended to say to us, the whole counsel of God, and everything that was necessary for God to tell us in order that we might glorify him, in order that we might be saved, and in order that we might live by faith in him, is explicitly stated. It's expressly set down in the Bible, or it can be clearly deduced it is necessarily contained in the Bible and all that we are to believe, everything that God requires, is in his word. We are to add nothing to it. We are to remove nothing from it. Now, that doesn't mean, obviously, that Scripture is sufficient for all things. And our statement of faith in the Bible makes that very clear. It doesn't mean that the Scripture is sufficient for all things. It's not a sufficient source for engineering, right, you engineers? You won't find in the Bible rules and regulations for professional water polo. There's not in there. But it has much to say, about the way in which we glorify God in our practice of engineering or in our playing of water polo, right? The Bible does not explicitly address every detail associated with your job. But if you're going to glorify God on your job, then the Bible is the only place where you can go to find the sufficient word of God to lead you in that purpose. The Bible won't tell you everything that you're going to face as a married couple. But it will be impossible to glorify God as a married couple apart from his word. You will not be able to do it.  It doesn't give you every detail of all those circumstances. But it will be impossible to raise children to the glory of God apart from the all sufficient instruction given in the word of God. The Bible will not be able to do it. You could say that apart from the word of God you can't go to the gas station in a way that glorifies him. The word of God gives us the instruction that we need by which we in all the activities and circumstances that we face by which we glorify him. The Bible is sufficient to that purpose. It has all we need pertaining to life and godliness. If you want to live for the Lord Jesus Christ that is the only book and a completely sufficient rule to that end. Contra all of those over many, many years who continue to want to add to it. The Bible alone is our sufficient rule sufficient for all things that pertain to life and faith. Now first I want you to see that the word of God is sufficient for bringing about spiritual life. Turn with me to 1 Peter chapter 1. 1 Peter chapter 1 and drop down with me to verse 22. Listen to what Peter says here. 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 22. The word of God is sufficient for bringing about spiritual life. That's one of its aims, one of God's intentions through the sufficient word of God. Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the spirit in sincere love of the brethren love one another fervently with a pure heart. In other words, the word of God is sufficient for your sanctification. Obedience to the word through the spirit of God leads to our purification. Do you see in verse 22? Since you have purified your souls in obeying what? The truth, the sufficient word of God fervently with a pure heart. Verse 23. Having been born again we are in Christ. Aren't we a new creation? That one who has not been born again cannot see the kingdom of God. So the one who has saved the disciple of Jesus Christ, the genuine Christian has been born again. Verse 23. Having been born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible word of God which lives and abides forever. In other words, the word of God is sufficient a sufficient means a sufficient instrumentality to bring about the new birth sufficient for regeneration it's through the means of the word through the instrumentality of the word his word is the seed which springs forth in new life for the believer right? New life for the believer through the word of God which lives and abides forever. Because he says in verse 24 all flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass the grass withers its flower falls away but the word of the Lord endures forever it is sufficient and complete. Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you. Paul says that faith comes by hearing by what? the sufficient word of God sufficient to that purpose to be an instrumentality or a means through which the Lord gives faith. In other words no one is saved apart from the instrumentality or means of God's word no one. God's word is the sufficient means by which someone is saved. Now many of you and I go back over our conversion when the Lord brought us to repentance and faith. Brought us to the point where we saw our sinfulness we saw the preciousness of Jesus Christ what a treasure he is what he has done for sinners and we turned to him in repentance and faith and we were saved. Some of you did that reading your Bible you're reading the Bible and the text of scripture for me I was reading Revelation chapter 3 like I can remember Jesus Christ as the savior of sinners. Some of you heard it under the preaching of God's word somebody was preaching the gospel to you and the Lord used the preaching of his word to bring you to saving faith. For some of you you heard his word preached, taught spoken in various ways and the Lord used ultimately though the Lord uses the instrumentality of his word in the hands of his spirit to bring you to salvation. That's how people are saved right? The Lord uses his word. Faith comes by hearing hearing by the word of God, okay? It is sufficient for bringing about spiritual life. It is the instrumentality the agency used in the hands of the spirit of God to bring about eternal life. Then secondly I want you to see we see the word of God is sufficient for the Christian life not only is it sufficient to bring about eternal life it's now sufficient to bring about or to live the Christian life after you've been saved 1 Peter chapter 2 now look at verse 1 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 1 the very next text therefore Peter says laying aside all malice all deceit, hypocrisy envy and all evil speaking as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious if indeed you've tasted that the Lord is gracious and the word has been used by the spirit of God to bring about spiritual life in you 1 Peter chapter 1 verses 22 and following then like newborn babes desire the pure milk of that sufficient word that you may grow thereby if indeed you've tasted that the Lord is gracious in other words the same word that gives you birth is the very same word now that is the mother's milk by which you nourish your soul and grow to maturity you will not nourish your soul and you will not move on to maturity apart from the pure milk of God's sufficient word will not happen well brother sister then what's the implication of knowing that verse chapter 2 verse 1 this is a command of Peter isn't it therefore listen laying aside malice lay aside deceit lay aside your hypocrisy lay aside envy evil speaking and like babies desire the pure milk of the word we should want that sufficient word by which we grow we should desire we should cultivate within our own heart and mind a desire for the sufficient word of God by which we are to grow up and we've seen haven't we enough babies around this place absolutely and entirely inconsolable until they eat right it's not a strange sight around here they're inconsolable until they get fed it's exactly what Peter is referring to here that baby desiring mother's milk to nourish that they're hungry hungry Peter is saying listen brother sister you be hungry you be hungry desire the pure milk of the word exactly what Peter is referring to here this is the picture that Peter wants to have in our minds knowing that our growth comes through the instrumentality of God's word knowing that Christians desire to grow into his likeness desire to be more like Christ desire to move on to maturity Peter says listen desire it like a hungry baby be inconsolable until you can get it like a baby who isn't satisfied without it doesn't mean continue to be baby like doesn't mean that that baby intends to grow up by the pure milk of the word right you brother you sister grow up by the pure milk of the word if you're not making progress in your Christian life you are failing at this point you're not desiring hungering for and availing yourself of the pure milk of the word by which we grow do you see we are to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God it's to be treasured by us more than our necessary food look at 2nd Peter now 2nd Peter chapter 1 2nd Peter chapter 1 look further at what Peter says regarding the sufficient word of God for the Christian life look at 2nd Peter chapter 1 beginning in verse 2 Peter says here listen grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord now that knowledge of God comes to Christians through the work of His Holy Spirit through the work of the Spirit of God through the illuminating work of the Spirit of God through the means of the sufficient word of God in other words the Spirit of God doesn't grow us doesn't move us on to maturity apart from the means that God has appointed which is His holy and sufficient word do you see it's not by this right I'm a Christian and so I'm just going to sit in a corner I'm going to meditate on the Holy Spirit and I'm going to become a super Christian it's not going to happen the Spirit of God grows His people through the means which God has appointed and that means is His word if you're not taking in His word if you're not submersing yourself in His word you are not going to grow the Holy Spirit of God uses means grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of our Lord and Jesus Jesus our Lord as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue otherwise by righteousness or by His goodness notice God verse 3 has given us everything that we need pertaining to life and godliness we don't need additional revelation you don't need any more revelation than what you have He has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness you don't need charismatic words from the Lord you don't need further revelations through dreams and visions we don't need that we've been given everything that pertains to life and godliness we don't need second blessings we don't need some mystical deeper life experience we don't need tongues we already have all that we need for our sanctification why because God has graciously given it to us God's provision isn't meager do you see it's not scant God is not an ogre who withholds these good things from you and I He has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness He's not holding anything back of all that we need He's given it all to us in other words it's sufficient notice all this verse 3 was given to us by His divine power only God can give spiritual life and only God can make formerly dead lost people alive in Christ and godly He is the one who calls us do you see He's the one who calls us by glory and virtue now what is it verse 3 that we've been given well we've been given all things that pertain to life and godliness life spiritual life life that began in justification spiritual life that began when we were saved we were given eternal life and the Christian life that continues now that we have been saved we're given that spiritual life that spiritual vitality that principle of life at work in us and all things that pertain to godliness obedience in other words life and godliness refers to if you think about it that way the entirety of the Christian experience the entirety of the Christian experience everything between justification and glorification everything we need has been given to us all those things which pertain to life and godliness are given to us through the knowledge of Him do you see that all the divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him all of it all of that that is necessary all of that that is given that pertains to life and godliness is mediated through our knowledge of Him that has a two part meaning if you think about it it's a saving knowledge of Him by His Spirit if we are converted the Lord gives us a saving knowledge of Him through His Spirit and it's also a growing knowledge of Him by His Spirit through His Word both meanings are meant here by the Apostle Peter both a saving knowledge and a growing knowledge all that we are given that pertains to life and godliness comes through the knowledge of Him verse 4 by which we then exceedingly great and precious promises where do we find those promises that's right we find those promises in His Word in His sufficient Word some of them all of them that pertain to us God has revealed His promises to us we have exceedingly great and precious promises given to us in His Word in the text He's given us two precious gifts of His grace one all things that pertain to life and godliness two exceedingly great and precious promises the first comes through a knowledge of Him by His Spirit through His sufficient Word the second comes through faith in Him by His Spirit through His sufficient Word do you see one through a knowledge of Him promises the exceedingly great and precious promises we are trusting in Him for those precious promises that pertain to life the second comes through a knowledge of Him by His Spirit one comes through faith in Him by His Spirit both of those through the means of His sufficient Word in both cases His Word is sufficient in the hands of the Holy Spirit to make us partakers of the divine nature look at the end of verse 4 there so that through these you may be partakers that is in the world through lust now you look at verse 4 that may become not referring to some future possibility in other words it's not like it's possible for some Christians and not possible for other Christians it's not referring to a future possibility what Peter is saying is that through the knowledge of Him God gives us everything that pertains to spiritual life and a life of godliness and gives us great and precious promises and it's through these gifts of His grace that believers partake of Him we're no longer partakers of the corruption that comes through lust but sharers now partakers of His divine nature in communion with Him it's an amazing truth isn't it you see how intricately and intimately the Word is connected to that work of God by His Spirit they're inseparable the Word is necessary and the Word is sufficient to accomplish the ends for which God has ordained it it is the sufficient Word of God now when we think about this together then what Peter is saying there are many texts in the Bible that address this what should be our response to these things what should be our response, the response of God's people how should we think about this look at verse 5 so then also for this very reason you understand these things if you apprehend them if you believe them from God's Word for this very reason then giving all diligence not partial diligence not weak effort but give all diligence add to your faith virtue add to virtue knowledge to knowledge self control to self control perseverance to perseverance godliness to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness love for if these things are yours and if they abound not just yours but they grow, what means do they grow by the pure milk of the Word in the hands of the Spirit of God if these things are yours and abound you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ most professing Christians simply do not know or do not appreciate the God designed connection between our knowledge of him by his Spirit through a sufficient Word and faith they don't realize the connection between our knowledge of him and holiness they don't appreciate or comprehend or apprehend the connection between our knowledge of him and love joy, peace, patience kindness, goodness faithfulness, gentleness self control they don't understand the connection, the God designed connection between our knowledge of him and progress in the Christian life to maturity when we might say that we think that I can understand that there is one but we don't act like it most professing Christians don't see that it appears that way as though we actually need what we need comes through self-help books we'd be more inclined to read a self-help book than we would be to seek a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ through his Word why? because we simply don't believe that there is a connection between what we study in God's Word and the practical affairs of my Christian life and so we divorce theology from practice we divorce theology from life I'd rather have a book telling me how to spank my kids than to read what God says about election in Ephesians 1 and to learn of him from it so that I might be conformed to his image and be a more Christ-like disciplinar of my children we just don't see the connection I don't need to study the Word of God as long as I can have it like playing in the background read in a Max McLean kind of British accent I'm good as long as it's playing I'm fine listen we must be dependent on God's sufficient Word that's Peter's exhortation desire it like a baby the pure milk of the Word there is a connection a God intended a God decreed a God designed connection between our knowledge of him our knowledge of theology what we understand of the Bible and a life of holiness a life of godliness a life of love, joy, peace, patience right? there's a connection to those things the Lord intends through the means of his sufficient Word by his spirit to grow you in maturity the Word lastly I want you to see this turn with me to 2 Timothy 2 Timothy let's look at our text together chapter 3 you and I brothers and sisters must submersed ourselves in God's Word isn't it the joy and delight of the Christian to grow in faith to grow in joy, to grow in love to grow in holiness that's our desire we desire to be more like him a life for us I want to give my life for him we're going to do that we're going to become more like him through the means which God has appointed that is his sufficient Word 2 Timothy 3 look at verse 14 Paul now tells Timothy young pastor Timothy he exhorts him verse 14 you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of Timothy knowing from whom and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness so that the man of God may be complete thoroughly equipped with good work there are three points that I want you to see from this text with respect to the sufficiency of the Scriptures one the Scriptures are sufficient for salvation they're sufficient for salvation look at verse 15 from childhood Timothy you have known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation the Holy Scriptures are able to make you through faith which is in Christ Jesus in other words the Holy Scriptures the Bible the 66 books of the canon contain all the wisdom that is necessary for salvation you don't need the pearl of great price you don't need writings of Joseph Smith you don't need doctrine and covenants you don't need the catechism of the Catholic Church you don't need the magisterium you don't need papal encyclicals you don't need the writings of men what you need is the word of the living God it is sufficient for salvation the Bible is sufficient to make you wise for salvation through faith no other source of wisdom is necessary it is the Bible and the Bible alone the Bible is the only source of saving truth there is no other source that sufficient word mixed with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ in those who hear it empowered by the Spirit of God leads to, produces spiritual life notice with me that the Scriptures themselves do not have the power to save trusting in the Word itself will not give you eternal life it leads to that salvation that comes through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that's the means that God has appointed the Scriptures are sufficient for salvation notice secondly the Scriptures are sufficient for sanctification look at verse 16 the Scriptures are sufficient for sanctification all Scripture is given by inspiration of God breathed out we looked at the doctrine of inspiration here recently all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God the word profitable here is Ophelia it has the sense of being beneficial being productive being sufficient the word carries the sense of being sufficient to the ends for which it is intended it's profitable in that sense sufficient we see the sufficiency of the Word of God the difference in the text we looked at not long ago Psalm 19 beginning in verse 7 listen to this the law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul the testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple the statutes of the Lord are right rejoicing the heart the commandment of the Lord is pure enlightening the eyes the fear of the Lord is clean enduring forever the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous all together it's sufficient notice it's profitable or sufficient in four areas the first it's profitable or sufficient for teaching here not referring to the method of teaching or the process of teaching it's referring to the content of our teaching doctrine the doctrine that is given to believers through the Word of God is what it's referring to it's referring to the content of our faith the faith that we have been once for all delivered to the wisdom necessary for everything that we believe think, say, and do all of that wisdom is found in his sufficient word is sufficient for all of that wisdom not the Book of Mormon not church councils not other sources the Word of God it is profitable or sufficient next for reproof again this has to do with content for reproof as Paul said to Titus holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught that he may be able by sound doctrine it's the first part both to exhort and convict that's the second part those who contradict this has to do again with reproving or rebuking those who contradict with sound doctrine exposing false theology exposing false doctrine false thinking, false practice false conduct rebuking that which is not in conformity to his sufficient word in other words God's word is a standard it's a benchmark by which we test all that we believe, think, say, or do by which all that we believe say and do is to be measured in other words it is for, profitable for reproof you and I both we are constrained by Scripture to both receive reproof when it comes to us we need to be reprovable approachable, reprovable by the Word of God we as Christians must be willing to reproof we are responsible to reproof from the Bible to rebuke when necessary so so far it's sufficient for teaching and it's sufficient for reproof we are all responsible to sit under its teaching we are all responsible to both give and receive well reproof it is profitable it's sufficient for correction the word for correction here in verse 16 refers to putting something back in order putting something back up that has fallen down putting something back in its proper place it might be that the word reproof corrects or exposes that which is false not in conformity to God's word and then the word of God is used for putting back in place that which has fallen out of order fallen into disorder it's the means through which that which is reproofed is put back in order Galatians chapter 6 verse 1 carries the sense of this Brethren, Paul says even if a man is caught in any trespass you who are spiritual restores such a one in a spirit of gentleness each one looking to yourself lest you too be tempted it's profitable for teaching it's for reproof for correction lastly it is profitable or sufficient for instruction in righteousness the word for instruction here refers to training instruction in righteousness refers to training and training that word paideia in the Greek refers to both correction instruction and discipline that who was the person who was the paedagog in this time period would have had the power of the rod could have disciplined children who didn't learn as they were supposed to have it involves correction instruction and discipline and the sufficient word of God is the means through which we receive that training in righteousness lastly I want you to see the scriptures are sufficient for salvation the scriptures are sufficient for sanctification through teaching reproof and instruction in righteousness and lastly the scriptures are sufficient for service verse 17 verse 17 for the purpose that the man of God may be complete thoroughly equipped for every good work the word of God is sufficient to that end that we may become complete well if we can be complete through this sufficient word of God in the hands of the spirit of God God applying His word to us then what more do we need if I am to be complete through this word then this word is sufficient to make me complete the purpose in verse 17 for the word is that we may be complete we need no other revelation it is sufficient to make us thoroughly equipped for every good work all the demands of righteousness enable to obey God in every way in which He is commanded through the word of God we are given all that we need all that pertains to life and godliness now again as we thought about this with respect to the text in 2 Peter what should our response be then brothers sisters how should we respond to this understanding the next text beginning in verse 1 I charge you therefore that is Paul's way of connecting these two thoughts together when you see a therefore you got to look back and see what it is there for the therefore connects to the text we just talked about knowing these things understanding how profitable and sufficient the word of God is to these ends I charge you therefore God in the Lord Jesus Christ who will judge the living and the dead it has oath like language being used why because it is such a serious admonition we are to take this seriously folks I charge you therefore before God in the Lord Jesus Christ who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom preach the word be ready in season out of season convince, rebuke exhort with all long suffering why? because the word is sufficient and why verse 3 because the time is going to come when they will not endure sound doctrine but according to their own desires because they have itching ears they will heap up for themselves teachers listen I tell you what to my shame I've listened to sermons this way I'm listening to a sermon being preached and I'm in a mode of being critical like judging don't like the tone of voice there and I didn't like the way he said that when the word of God is being preached and I could be benefited by one statement that would take my life to apply faithfully and I'm sitting back as a critic or an arbiter over God's word being preached listen you're a learner we're to be under submitted to the word of the living God you can hear enough in one statement from the Bible that would give you enough fuel to drive your obedience and faithfulness to him for weeks and months and years of your Christian life right? the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword don't sit back like a critic under the word of God heed the words of the living God to you preach the word convince, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and teaching you can say listen and submit and yield and put faith in with all long suffering and teaching for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine they'll sit back and like a clanging gong or a blasting trumpet right? they don't have any concern for the word of God they won't endure sound doctrine but they're going to sit back with their own desires and say I like that and I don't like that I'm going to believe that but I'm not going to believe that over there we can't treat the word of God like that the word of God is authoritative it's sufficient and we are to believe think, act, do, and say what it says they're going to heap up teachers for themselves that's exactly what's happened in our day right? the world is full of that why do we have? what do you walk into a Christian bookstore a bookstore and 99.99% of the garbage that they're selling on their shelves is just that it's sewage that's what the people want why do you go into mega churches you got 8,000 people on the roll you got 1200 people in attendance and those 1200 people care nothing about the word of God they're there for the music they're there for the pumpkin spice Dunkin Donuts coffee in the lobby we're sitting under the word of God they have itching ears they heap up for themselves teachers that's why the false teachers of this world exist today is because people are scratching and clawing and itching their ears for them that's why they're there they turn away their ears from the truth why? because they're self-willed, they're rebellious they don't want the truth and they're turned aside to fables why? because it's enjoyable to believe a falsehood believe a fable I'm going to be comforted I'm going to be placated, my guilty conscience eased by listening to some fable rather than submitting myself to the truth of God's word which says apart from him I am wretched miserable, poor, blind and naked in need of a savior that message doesn't sell today why? because of this right here this explains it they will turn their ears away from the truth be turned aside to fables but what verse 5 listen you though you be watchful in all things endure afflictions do the work of an evangelist fulfill your ministry the sufficiency of the word of God cries aloud preach it preach it it is sufficient preach the word we don't need to make it relevant the word of God is across generations relevant it doesn't need to be made relevant today I don't have to drum up ways to make the word of God relevant it's relevant to our lives now we don't need worldly wisdom we need God's wisdom we don't need worldly motivation we don't need self-help we need a knowledge of him James says in fact that the wisdom of this world the wisdom of this world does not descend from above the wisdom of this world is earthly sensual demonic James says for where envy and self-seeking exist confusion and every evil thing are there but the wisdom that is from above that which comes down to us from God through his word that which we find is sufficient word is first pure then peaceable gentle willing to yield full of mercy good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy in other words sufficient to make the man of God complete complete complete we simply need to read it study it meditate on it obey it and preach it we need to search the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God it is a glorious blessing to have the words of the living God in our hands you can go online and find a hundred translations of the Bible in a matter of seconds that will be to some their everlasting shame to others it's a joy look at the blessings that God has given us in his word absolutely amazing one of the clearest testimonies in the Bible to the sufficiency of scripture is found in the words of the rich man in hell in Luke chapter 16 there's the story of the rich man and Lazarus Lazarus was a poor beggar that sat outside the rich man's gate begged has the sort of presumption in the story that Lazarus was disregarded by the rich man the dogs licked his sores well both the rich man and Lazarus die Lazarus is found in the tomb of Abraham and the rich man is in torment in hell rich man says this in Luke chapter 16 verse 27 he says I beg you therefore father talking to Abraham that you would send Lazarus to my father's house I have five brothers send him that he may testify to them lest they also come to this place of torment so Abraham said to the rich man they have Moses and the prophets let them hear them and he said no father Abraham but if one goes to them from the dead they will repent but he said to him this is the testimony of the hard hearted nature of fallen man it is an eternal testimony to the stiff-necked rebellion of fallen sinful children of the devil if they do not hear Moses and the prophets neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead in other words Moses and the prophets the Old Testament scriptures are sufficient it is a testimony of the sufficiency of the scriptures and a testimony that if they are not going to heed the scriptures they won't heed anything even if you were to send to them one who was raised from the dead there has been one raised from the dead amen hear him God at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets but in these last days has spoken to us in his son heed him we have his word in our hands it is sufficient it has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness will you heed it will you desire it like pure milk will it be to you of more value of greater treasure than your necessary food or will you perish because you did not receive a love of the truth that we saved all praise honoring glory to him who has given of himself through his inspired and sufficient word let's take a few moments now and I want us to pray consider your relationship to God through his word and consider this morning if the Lord needs to work in your heart through his word preached to save your soul if you have put your faith in Christ and consider your relationship to God's word do you desire it and how will you apply this truth to your life to live more faithfully for him let's pray together


Hi guys, and welcome back to this video! So today I want to talk a little bit about leveraging what I know. You're like, what does that even mean? As most of you know, I'm a sponsored flex pass student at Capella University, and I am dropping up my master's degree in nursing education, which is just... It's crazy! It's so crazy! But I get a lot of people that ask me, like, is getting your masters more difficult than getting your bachelors and vice versa? And this is obviously a personal question. Everyone is going to be a little bit different, but for me, getting my master's has been easier than I expected because I already can apply so much information and knowledge that I have from being a nurse and my bachelor's degree towards my master's. For example, a couple different things. I already knew APA format, so when I write papers, I'm like, psh, I got this APA. No problem. When I'm in a class and there's an assignment that pertains to something that I can apply from my nursing experience, it makes it that much easier when you have this prior knowledge. You're able to leverage what you already know into your master's degree. I had a class that I just wrapped up that the assignment was about find a problematic area in the healthcare world and what can we do about it? How are we going to change it? What education do people need to make this change? How are you going to evaluate it? So it's very easy for me to be like, done. One problem in the nursing world, we get central line infections. Another problem in the nursing world, staffing. Another problem in the nursing world, catheter associated UTIs. We hear all these things every single day and we're at work. Just listen in your huddle at work. They'll tell you five things that we need to make changes on. So now I'm in my program and I actually get to think of these changes and how I'm going to implement it. I'm able to leverage my knowledge and apply that information and it saves me time in some of my classes when I have this personal experience. So I'd like to hear from you guys. Is there something in nursing school or for your bachelor's degree or from your master's degree or doctor's degree that you have been able to pull from a prior experience and how are you able to apply that to your current program? Let me know in the comments below. Thank you guys for watching this video and I'll see you in my next one. Bye.


The second form of purchasing power parity is known as relative purchasing power parity. The relative purchasing power parity phenomena tells us that what determines the change in the exchange rate over a period of time. To understand the basic idea behind the working of relative purchasing power parity let's take an example. We assume a spot exchange rate between Great Britain Pound and US Dollar at 0.50 Pound. Next year's inflation is expected to be 10% in Britain and 5% in US. If this is the case then what will be next year's exchange rate? So that is the question. We see that Dollar is currently selling at 0.5 Pound in Britain and inflation will rise prices in Great Britain by 10% So the Dollar's value will also be increased by this percentage to the tune of 0.55 Pound. If the inflation rate in US is at 0 then we need to worry about the relative inflation rates in both of the countries like US and UK. Now we assume that there is a 4% inflation rate in the US economy. This means that relative to the prices in US, prices in the UK will be increased by 6% and 6% is basically the difference between inflation rate in US and the inflation rate in UK. So this 6% is the difference between 10% and 4%. Now if we grow the value of Dollar at this 6% this will come to 0.5 Pound. So what is the result? You see that the relative purchasing power parity says that changes in the exchange rate is determined by differences in the inflation rate of the two countries and that we have seen earlier. Let's see another example. We assume that S not is equal to the current spot exchange rate for US Dollar and EST refers to the expected exchange rate in T time periods and H US is the inflation rate in US whereas H UK refers to the inflation rate in UK. So using these notions relative purchasing power parity says that the expected percentage change in exchange rate over the period is equal to the differences in the inflation rate and if we put this statement into an equation form we see the equation has two sides. The left side refers to the percentage change increase in the exchange rate whereas the right side of the equation refers to the difference in the inflation rates of the two countries. If we rearrange this equation this equation can be read as that the expected change in the exchange rate is equal to the spot exchange rate grown at the differential inflation in the two countries. Now to understand this equation we have an example where we see that relative purchasing power parity allows an exchange rate to grow by 6% which is a difference between 10% inflation rate in UK and 4% inflation rate in US economies. Now assuming there is no change in the inflation rates so the expected changes in the exchange rate in the next two years will be equal to 0.562 and that 0.562 is basically the product of the expected spot rate grown by the inflation rate over the next two years. In general we can see that relative purchasing power parity says that the expected exchange rate is basically at some time equal to the spot exchange rate multiplied by the differential inflation rate compounded at the difference of inflation between the two countries. We have another example whereas we see that current exchange rate between Japanese yen and US dollar is 0.105 Japanese yen per US dollar. The expected inflation rate over the next three years is predicted to be 2% in Japan and 6% in US and based on relative purchasing power parity what will be the exchange rate in the next three years. To solve this puzzle we see that the higher inflation in the US will lower the value of the dollar in other economies. So the exchange rate will be now negative 4% and that negative 4% is due to the difference between 2% inflation rate in Japan and 6% inflation rate in the US and when we grow our spot exchange rate for three years at this negative inflation rate the expected exchange rate comes to 92.90 Japanese yen. There is a difference between currency appreciation and currency depreciation. Currency appreciation refers to the requirement of more units of foreign currency to buy one unit of domestic currency. For example, movement in exchange rate between Euro and US dollar from 1.10 to 1.15 means that Euro has appreciated by 0.05 US dollar against the dollars. Currency depreciation is opposite to the currency appreciation. This means that requiring a lesser unit of foreign currency to buy one unit of domestic currency. For example, movement in exchange rate between Euro and US dollars from 1.10 to 1.05 means that Euro has depreciated by 0.05 against the US dollar.


And I'm going to say something potentially controversial. Something that is often attacked, high frequency trading, has made the world more just and fair, particularly for small investors. High frequency traders, I watched the Republican debates last night so I know to change the topic to something I'm comfortable with. They do a lot of different things, but the core trading strategy is just to do the other side of whatever you want to do. So if you want to trade, sell X, they'll buy it from you, and they charge a little thing called the bid-ask spread. They will buy it from you for a little less than they'll sell it to you for. And it's very competitive. They fight with each other to do your trade, so they can't just charge any bid-ask spread they want. That is always, but they get attacked because they charge a bid-ask spread, and when you ask them to do a lot, they start moving the prices because they're getting scared that you might know something they don't know. But we've always had to trade with someone else. We've always needed market makers out there. Used to be much more expensive, worse bid-ask spreads, worse execution, particularly for the small person. There's some controversy with high frequency. I mean, small investors, not literally small people. You know that, right? For very large investors, you're trading large amounts of money, I believe high frequency has made our trading costs cheaper. But there's at least an argument for the other side. Some will say, market impact, the price moving on you when you try to execute and buy or sell a lot of a stock is bigger now. I don't think so, but that's a fair argument. There's no argument for the little guy. What you worry about in trading is something called front-running. Someone figuring out what you're doing and doing it before you. There's the illegal version where someone actually gets a peek at what you're doing, which they're not supposed to get. And then there's the completely legal version. People notice trades occurring and prices moving and think, oh, I better get in front. Maybe this is a wave. That's nothing illegal about that, but it still costs you money. No one bothers, no one front-runs a small-dollar investor. And it's not because people are nice and kind and care about. There's no money. You want to rob banks, not people? So there's no money in it. So the small investor, I think, unambiguously has a fairer, cheaper world.


Welcome. I'm fairly honored to be in the stage. I've been on some Drupalcon stages earlier. Perhaps some people have seen me in Prague singing the opera at the pre-node. Maybe some people have seen me unproposed to my boyfriend and Amsterdam last year. And actually, I'm more nervous right now at the last couple of times I was on a Drupalcon stage. I'm a first-time speaker. So I'm very happy that I have an audience to tell you something more about large scale agile and Drupal development. So this is what was on the, this is the subject, how to hurt a flock of product owners. And I talked to some people already prior to this talk about that it's also sort of like how to make an elephant dance the cha-cha. We started out, I started out doing some projects for some small NGOs and some small companies who needed something more than just a digital flyer. And it grew and it grew and it grew. And my customers became bigger and bigger and bigger. And sometimes you work for customers with a million budget and 3,000 employees. And well, it feels like making an elephant dance the cha-cha-cha sometimes. So that's why I wanted to talk about these problems and challenges that you face when you work with large clients. A little bit about myself. No nick needed to get the frequently asked questions started already. Yes, I do like beer. You can't really read it, but on the t-shirt Ruben is wearing there, it says, calm down and get the beers in. It really is my last name. And no, I will not marry you or anybody else for that matter. There are 1,559 beers in the Netherlands. So if you really want to marry one, just go there and find one. Probably somewhere above the area of Amsterdam. You will find a lot of people called beers actually. And I would love to get my hands on the t-shirt. Ruben, have you found it yet? You lost it in Prague, right? Yeah, I found it. You found it? Yeah. OK, if someone can get me one of these, I really would appreciate it. OK, I'll pick you. Awesome. Who am I? Why this presentation? I told you something already about this because I think a lot of Drupal shops around Europe and the world cope with the same kind of challenges when meeting with larger companies.  Thank you to my employer, Sennetig, which makes sure I could get on the stage here today. So thank you, Rene Rizziers. Thank you, Rene. So this was made possible by them. OK, a little bit more about myself than just my surname. I've been active in open source for about 13 years now. I started out at a small company doing open source CRM, open source voice-over IP using Asterix and also open source CMSs, home broom. But it takes a while before you get smarter than that. I've been a Drupalista for about five years now. You can find me on Drupal.org, Nancy Beers. And I've been a product owner for two years. I started out Waterfall, he brings two stuff like that. And then I saw the light and became Scrum Master and a Scrum Product Owner. So I'm fairly new, actually, to the whole product owner thing. I'm working at Sennetig. And I'm loving Skits in Drupal, London. So that's about four years now. And next to that, my biggest passion or even, yeah, I love Skits and Handball more than Drupal, I'm sorry. I'm a Handball player and referee and the biggest fact about the refereeing is that I revered the Dutch championships last summer. So I'm pretty proud of that. Sorry? You can count. Great. I'm not a programmer, but I'm a storyteller. So let me take you away to a little story called Scrumtopia. A long, long time ago in a kingdom far, far away, there was a little town called Scrumtopia. There were a lot of villages there, like the Customer Village, the Scrum Master Village, and the Developer Village. In the, oh, I'm sorry, I wanted to scroll. In the Customer Village, there were customers with limitless budgets. The only thing they needed to be happy was working software in short sprints so they could adjust what they wanted at any given time. They simply loved change and changes and change some more and think out of the box and stepping out of their comfort zone. The customers knew exactly what they wanted and their leader, the product owner, had the ultimate mandate and overview of all their wishes to communicate it with the Developer Village. CPI prioritized, knew all the processes, did it again? Sorry. CPI prioritized, knew all the processes within the Village, handled politics very well, and was always available to the developers, which was great, since the developers were always working on one project at a time, all week. Once a project was finished, they simply started a new one because the product and the sprint back loss block was perfectly managed by the product owner. Every once in a while, two Princess came down, peddling the nearby waterfall to tell the developers, sorry, to tell the developers to write extensive reports for the change advisory board, which is or the great CFO wizard up the mountain. We need more paper, they demanded. It or it's off with your heads. Luckily, the Scrum Masters from Scrum Master Town came to their aid and told the Prince two Princess to bugger off and stop wasting the developer's valuable time and resources.  Please, let us be working in peace and deliver products. The Princess came to their senses, started the buff session on the Village Square and told everybody how they had come to understand that making reports can be just a way of window dressing instead of being completely transparent on what's going on in the project. In a nearby forest, there also lived two giants. One was called Fix Scope, who seems to be as mythical as unicorns or the monster of Loch Ness, by the way. Next to Fix Scope, there was another giant called Fixed Budget. They were friendly giants when you meet them. The developers lived in harmony with them and when they were encountering them, they just followed their rules and they'd be okay. For instance, when Fix Scope came along, who doesn't really exist? When Fix Scope came along, the developers started building, using modules from the Drupal Tree of Wisdom so they could meet the requirements needed to keep the giant happy. Some other times, encountering Fixed Budget, they kept a keen eye on the business value, they offered building their software so the giant would acquire the most for his golden coins. On a dark, windy night, Fix Scope and Fixed Budget met and went to the developers together.  The developers all got worn out by having to build more within the Fixed Budget's limits because somehow, Fix Scope wasn't so fixed at all. Now he knew they would charge him not any more money anyways. The developer asked for the aid of the Scrum Masters, but they weren't empowered to change anything about the giants. So they moved on and asked the product owners for help. Together, they waited until the giants were asleep, carried them into a forest and with a big fence, they made sure they were never able to bug the developers together again. Everything just worked perfectly well in this little software building kingdom and everyone lived happily ever after, simply living by a simple set of rules. I call this a fairy tale for a reason. I think most of you, can I have a show of hands who are familiar with the Airtel Manifesto? Why, basically, a lot of you, the biggest part of it. I love this, I really, really love this and I would really want this to work all the time everywhere. But as I laid out in the little fairy tale, I just told you, we don't live in a perfect world. So sometimes you do have a fixed budget and a fixed scope and sometimes they do want to have prints to excessive reports. So, I've got a bunch of tips to break the fairy tale down a bit. This is my first tip. Know the stakeholders and culture and use an Airtel approach to keep it that way, actually. Know the customer village.  Ask questions. I'm blissfully living in Holland and the Dutch are known to be fairly blunt and honest and that helps a lot, actually. So the first question I always ask when at a kickoff with customers is what problem are we solving for you building this application? And ask it all of the stakeholders. Ask all of them because there might be someone sabotaging. There might be someone who's not that keen of change. There might be someone who is very keen of change and you will really help him or her to solve the problems they encounter. Also, by asking these questions at your stakeholders, you can also figure out the culture of a company. A good question to ask to find out whether a company is agile or not or has some agility is, how long did it take you to start this project? I have had customers who have been working for five years to start a new project. You know they won't be agile. But some companies are like, oh yeah, we just made a plan and three months later we asked you to build it and then you're fairly sure that the whole scrum methodology will work. Knowing the stakeholders is a continuous project. You do have to check them during every sprint because stakeholders change. Not only in person, but also they change their minds about the project and how it's going. So keep on checking on your stakeholders what their view is of your project, of what you're building. Make sure the team also understands the stakeholders and the client. What I usually do, I draw it on a board, I draw a couple of hats, just hats or some with curls and I keep track of how the stakeholders are feeling about the project by scribbling pluses or minuses on the board so everyone can visually see, it's visualized how the stakeholders are feeling about your project. And it changes through time, so keep on challenging that. Also, I got some examples, for instance, about culture, cultural stuff. I've been working for the Ministry of Finance in the Netherlands and it took them two years to start a new project and it was a type of three migration to Drupal. And one of the stakeholders was the type of three content manager. I hear some, you know, for sure that in this case she wasn't happy with this change because she loved typo. She was, but in typo three, it does, maker, what I did was making her the new queen of Drupal.  Do you have some questions? Can I help you? Can I please are there some things you miss about Drupal? Can we find a module for you to make it closer to typo three? So that actually turned out to work great because she came a Drupal ambassador within the company and that's a way to keep on challenging your stakeholders and keeping them enthusiastic about the project. The wrong thing we did there was a fixed budget migration. Never do that. Don't ever. I have to look at what I tell because my boss in the audience but this was at a former company that helps. Another good example of what I encountered was I thought I knew all the stakeholders I thought I had them all and I was fairly certain my backlog was okay, my sprint backlog was okay and okay, we're going to build this. So we had the first sprint, we had the second sprint, we had the third sprint and then I went to the demo and a colleague of mine, I always let the developers demo of course and I type out what happens in the demo. And then a woman came barging in 15 minutes late or 15 minutes late, all sweaty and yeah, I'm sorry it wasn't a meeting and she sat down and I said okay, well welcome, who are you? Sprint three, I'm the project manager. I'm sorry, come again. I'm the project manager. So I gave the demo and then afterwards she said, well this is wrong and this is wrong and this is wrong and this is wrong and this is wrong and I said well, I'm sorry to be blunt but I'm Dutch like that. Why are you arriving here at the end of sprint three? And she was like, well I'm just project managing stuff. So other people are doing this for me, right? Yeah but you weren't here for the last couple of months to make this project so it's an example to stress out even more, know your stakeholders. It happens. I also have some good examples about the culture part. We work for a company that makes seeds, vegetable seeds and now it's not the big bad company from America but a tiny, cute Dutch one which does biological, organic and good stuff. They have 15 companies around the world, 15 organizations and they are innovative in core. They have been around for 100 years just innovating seeds, make it better, making better cabbage, making better broccoli and they are very agile in the core because they have machinery that is very blinking and new and just the latest of the latest technologies but they also have an old sort of seed shaking thing standing there in a corner which is about 50 years old but it works so don't fix it because it works. And they look at innovation like that, we just okay, they're so lean, where can we make things better? Where can we make small changes and keep on plan, do, act, check and make this better so they understand how agile work from the core from like 100 years ago. That helps a lot when you're at the table building their new website because they understand that change doesn't come in a split second and that sometimes you fail at things and sometimes innovation, you cannot innovate without failure and so I was there sitting down with a product owner. We wanted to make a link with the product database and we had thought out the whole plan, how to do it and what was the best technical solution to do that and later as we found out the third company, third party software worked differently than we had assumed and the customers I see department had assumed. So we were like okay, now we have to start over again or at least change this view of how to find a solution for this problem so that'll take us time. Okay, so the project owner says that's too bad because now I won't have as much icing on the cake at the end of my website than I used to have because my budget is getting smaller and I was like yes, you get it and that's exactly how it works. We need more time here so you won't have enough budgets left over at the end of the project for new spiffy thingies. So there are companies who actually understand how this works but it takes a while. Then a big problem is more than one PO is basically what my subtitle of my presentation is, how to heard a flock of product owners. In big companies there never is one person, the one product owner who knows all the business processes, who knows, who has all the mandate about the budgets, who knows everything. It's basically about a little bit like the giant fixed scope. I don't think they exist. That's fairly dangerous standpoint because a lot of people say there must be a product owner. I don't think in a bigger company that they exist. But maybe they do because when you work with a product owner team, we're building a website for a big city in the north of Holland and they have two product owners which I actually kind of like in this case because one product owner is from the IST department and one product owner is from the customer side department and they work together to make the backlog. So you have the business and the technical department combined together in a PO team. So I said, okay, this will work out fine. But at the first meeting kickoff on how to just to make some appointments about who's calling who, when, where and when, sure day off because product owners tend to work part time somehow. I was like, okay, so you want a multi-lingual thing, right? Yes, the IST guy, yes, we want a multi-lingual thing and we want to have it in Drupal because Drupal's created that and we would like to have that build in Drupal. Okay, so the customer-facing guy was like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no. We're not gonna do that because in our current website which is the Drupal 6 site, we have a little tool called LiveWords and we can translate on the fly. So if someone goes to our website, clicks on the link to go to the English part of the site, it will just translate on the fly through a third-party component and it works just perfectly fine for us. But it's expensive. So I had a problem there because there were two product owners telling me something different and I was glad that it happened at an early stage because at that point I could say, fine, so you both think someone else, who's going to tell me who's right? And in came the project manager. Hi, I'm going to tell you who's right. Fine, then you're the product owner now because you're the one who's telling me what to do. So these guys are the stakeholders now and you're the product owner.  So he was, hmm, I don't know if I liked that role. No, but he just took it. So live with it. But I also worked for an NGO a while ago and they had basically not really a product owner. There were a lot of stakeholders but they were worrying about sick children and not about websites. And they knew a lot about sick children and how to make them happy and that's what they did all day. And yeah, of course we need a website because we need sponsors and we need it, but we don't know what we need. And they were completely blindfolded about who's going to be the product owner. We don't know. And I think at that point with customers like that, it's the best way to find a product owner on the supplier side and put them in the company. You must have trust for that. That's because the customer must trust you not to make choices based on the idea to make more money. Well, it's an NGO.  But you have to have a lot of trust but sometimes it's just the best way to have a product owner on the supplier side, I guess. Okay. Did I forget anything? Oh yeah, I checked with a lot of my peers before I made this presentation. And one of the things I heard and I think it's a very good point that a good product owner needs about a year to grow into his role. The problem is that projects are not that long, most of the time, but it's good to know that it takes a good year to become a good product owner. So maybe that is also why it's a good idea to have them on the supplier side because they got trained to do it. Okay. I'm gonna say another dangerous thing now for the Scrum lovers, under you. Prince II can't be all bad. It has been working for ages. So you could try and embed some old systems things. I know there are a lot of purists around who were like, no, what are you telling? But I think it might be a good plan, especially to have, for instance, I make sprint reports. That's so not Scrum, that's so waste, but the sprint reports I make are about five pages, so it's not extensive reports. And it says, when the sprint was what we delivered, if there are known defects, I know in Scrum there are no known defects, but in the real world there are known defects and also a report of the demo. That's not really waste because I type the report while being in the demo. So actually I have the report ready. The only thing that's missing is hours, an hour report and the sprint demo report. So I type them when I'm at the demo. And it helps me a lot, actually, especially when you have large projects like 10 to 20 sprints to look back at one of the sprint reports. I thought we talked about this earlier that you can just go back to the reports and find, okay, we made the choice on that particular time a couple of months ago. Why did we do that? What was the discussion about? So you have some legacy you can fall back on just to check why you made the choices you made. So I think that's a good idea. One thing that every large customer has is changed advisory board. And I know it's kind of prissy, but I think it's kind of needed to cope with the politics within an organization because it helps, because people can have their say in a sort of official way because we're changed advisory board and we can say something about it. And that helps to bring the scrumming is my point of view. And another great tip I got is when you have a risk log, visualize it. I heard of a former colleague of mine who had this risk log plotted on a radar. So they had a big radar screen on the wall with impediments, a pint on them and other risks within the company. And when the impediments grew or got bigger or got more problematic, they moved it to the center of the big radar. So everyone could see in just one overview, okay, these are the risks and this is how big they are. And I really liked it. I think I'm going to use that. So a free tip. This also helps a lot to have an ambassador at the clients. Also have that from a colleague of mine which might not be the PO by the way, but you want to have someone within the company who has lunches with the CEO at that corporate level who explains agile and the agile way of working. You need an ambassador. If you don't have it, it's very, very hard to keep explaining it and it takes a lot of effort to explain everything to the whole team within the company. And especially if the CEO is like, but there's my report and when is it ready and can you deliver me a planning and because I have to allocate budget, it can be quite hard to bring the whole scrum thing in. So have someone to talk to upper management and to make them understand what agility means. Okay, I think it's not only project management. I think it's change management because if you want a customer to be really agile and really work with you and really have the bonding and really have all the big issues within the agile manifesto, the whole company has to change. And this is a big thing. This is not just, okay, we're building a website and we're doing it with scrum. Now you have to change the whole mindset of a company. And that's hard. And that's maybe sometimes even, I think some clients just won't change. And it's not a very happy ending of this fairytale, but I think some companies will work for air traffic controllers in the Netherlands. They are so strict and so strict for a reason, of course. That is very hard to bring in the whole scrum thing. And maybe then it's just not the best way to go. And maybe you just have to let them be or say, okay, maybe we're not a company to build a website for you. Which brings me to the, I don't know if you know it, the manifesto for half-assed agile software development. This is basically what happens if the clients won't move. You can find it online. It's not for me, but I would just take a sip of water. It really made me laugh, yeah. My sheets will be online. So if you want to read it later, that's fine. Sometimes it just won't work. Okay. So my recap. Know the stakeholders and the culture of your clients. No, no, no them and keep, this is not, this is an ongoing process. It's not standing still. You have to have an ongoing process to know your stakeholders, know your villagers. Work with the PO team and then define the real one that could be at the customer side or at the supplier side. Embed old systems, at least that's what I do. Have an ambassador at the client at the highest level in the organization. I think HL development isn't project management, it's change management. And some clients just won't change. Well, that was basically my talk. I'm gonna do some aftermaths. Sprints are on Fridays. Please do so. Because we need it. All of you get Drupal 8 out of the door. I'll do my part. And this is a picture of Drupal Camp, Spain, in Geres de la Frontera. I really, really, really, really love the Spanish Drupal community. I'm standing over here in case you missed it. And they asked me if I could promote their next Drupal camp in 2016 in Granada. So I especially wore the Granada t-shirts if you want to know anything about Drupal, Spain camps, I can tell you because I've been there. And please go, go, go to Granada. These are my contacts. I also do geocaching, so I'm hanging in the tree sometimes. So if you want to reach out for me, you can use this contact information. And I'd like to thank you for your attention. And have a good talk. I don't know if there are any questions. Yeah, or I will repeat it for you, that's fine too. Do you have any tips or tricks for us? You are there with a team of product owners. They all have their ones, I believe. How do you make them change, how do you make them tell them what the business value is? So how do you make them prioritize? That's the question. Okay, well, you can do a couple of things. Once you have your backlog ready, and you can size them with your team, so give them story points. That doesn't say too much. What it says is how long will it take to build. And then you can say, okay, can the website go live without this feature or not? And based on that, you score them. So you give them an extra score between 100 and 3,000 or something. And then you can just say, okay, so you really want your Twitter feed on your website? Please don't. But you really want your Twitter? Can we go live without it? Yes, we can go live without it. Fine, I will give it 10 points. And when it takes 50 story points to build and it's a 10 points business value, and I have another user story which has, it takes 10 story points to build, and it has 2,000 business value because it's the contact form, then you can prioritize like that with the scoring. But how do you make them agree on the value? Or they don't? The business, because you are making the business value. The idea is that they are making the business value, right? One feature has 10 story points to build, the other one 20. The one product owner wants really hard that one feature, but the nine others don't. So what value will you give it in your backlog? Do you give it 100 points? What I've heard is what you can do is let them pitch for their own value. So you have 10 product owners, they all do their pitch. I want this feature because I think my site needs a Twitter feed. After that, you will make a swarm thing, let them put all the 10 user stories on a board and let them swarm around giving priorities on the, and it will level out itself. That's also a practice I used to, when I have 10 product owners to prioritize. Okay, thank you. Okay, you're welcome. Any other questions? Okay, well, you can reach me anytime, so, oh, sorry. I thought you were leaving, I'm sorry. Come on.  Okay, what do you do when you have somebody that goes on sick leave or something happen? It's like how you do change management or this kind of stuff, use tools to document or? That are two questions, right? Okay, let's start with the first one. Let's start with the first. What do you do when someone goes on sick leave? Well, actually we're having the problem right now. One of the customers, the main product owner is on a long leave at the moment. Yeah, it's a bit of an open door, but find a new one. And you have to, and you have to make them, otherwise, I'm sorry, but we really need someone who can tell us what to do, otherwise we have to stop the project right now. And maybe you just have to say it like that. Okay, we're going to stop now and start later on. In another project we're doing, we're also missing some information to start a new sprint, and we're like, okay, fine. Then we just won't start the sprint right now. And that basically helps to motivate people to find someone else to do it, because the deadline also goes further away in time, of course, yeah. And your second question was, I'm sorry. Yeah, how do you do the change management? So do you use tools for documenting when you just? No, we use as much as needed. And it depends on the clients, how much, how excessive you document things. For instance, the seed supplier I was talking about, they're okay if you just have a three-page report about the things you've walked through in a conversation, but we also have a customer who wants their sprints officially, how do you say it, accepted by all of the stakeholders. So they have a real big form with all names on it and they all have to give their checkboxes. It depends a lot about, it depends on the customer. How excessive you do that. Yeah, it depends. Sometimes they have their own tools or sometimes you just suggest something, they don't like it and then you just change it. Yeah, right. Thank you and congratulations for the talk. Thank you. I have a question, it might be quite a silly question and maybe a lot of you will be able to answer. So you said that you can get, say lots of product owners to do a swarm and let them fight for what's more valuable and what should be done first. Yeah, basically do all the bitching. But I've noticed a lot of times what happens is that they do the bitching, then someone agrees, okay, fine, yeah, yeah, your stuff can go first, whatever. And the next thing you do is what happens is that they will walk away off the meeting and then next day they'll come to you specifically and be like, yeah, no, I think my stuff needs to be done because of that and none of other product owners are there whilst they're talking to you. How do you handle that? Because do you say, okay, let's go have another meeting? Because that means I'm spending basically every time dragging them into a meeting to fight and still have to handle them all the time? Waste, yeah. This sounds a lot like the famous OC layer eight politics. Um, you have to find the one product owner, basically, I think. I'm not quite sure. I've never been in this situation exactly, so. Yeah, it's more like. Maybe there's someone else in the room that has a better answer than I do, but. Well, if anyone does, I'm just there, so. Let me know. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else because I'm up for a beer now. Yes, go ahead. Well, I kind of know that situation, so what you have, I'm gonna lower it. I'm only 160. And the problem was even worse. There were three or some product owners and they had all different view. They agreed in the meeting and afterwards they all separately went to a higher level to escalate it and then you had this higher level coming in. You couldn't make them product owner because they don't have time to be product owner. The only way is go to that higher level and say and ask who will be the product owner. And they have to escalate it yourself, basically. Going up and asking them who will have the last word and who will you believe? And the only thing you can do. You can't solve it on your level. You have to solve it on higher. I'm afraid. Sounds good. Yeah. Yeah, thanks. Okay. Well, I'll be in here for a couple of more days. So if you want to have beer with me or ask me any questions, please feel free to address me. Thank you very much.