This video is part of a study series titled Biblical Salvation Settled Wonsome for All. Please see the playlist link in the video description. To kick off this study series, I'm going to be looking at the Gospel of John between chapters 1 to 3. There's not going to be a huge amount that I actually need to cover in chapters 1 and 2, so most of it's going to be focused on chapter 3. So the Gospel of John is probably the best place to start this series, because it's a unique book in the purpose of which it's written. So in John chapter 20 it says between 30 to 31. And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written that he might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life through his name. So the Gospel of John is written with the specific purpose of helping you to obtain eternal life by believing on Christ, and that is very unique in that regard, because most of the books in the Bible are written to those who are already God's people. So the Gospel of John is the best book to start the series because it serves as what you might call a beginner's course to salvation. It uses simpler language pertaining to salvation than other books in the New Testament, such as Romans or Galatians and so on. So to kick off in chapter 1, I'm not really going to read all of these verses here, because the first chapter of the Gospel were introduced to who Christ is, but it's slightly off the topic of what this series is intended. So this is who Christ is, and it will set the premise for the Christ that we're called to believe in frequently throughout John's Gospel. But regarding salvation instruction and doctrine, there's not really anything there that I feel I need to cover right now. One thing I do want to focus on is that in verse 11 it says, he came onto his own, and his own received him not. And so what you'll find frequently is that the people who should have been most receptive to Christ were the least receptive to him. We'll see this repeatedly throughout John's Gospel. He came for the Jews, he kept preaching to the Jews, and many of them were very difficult to reach. They would not accept him. And interestingly in the New Testament, actually when giving the Gospel, sometimes Christians can actually be the most difficult people to deal with funnily enough. So that's all I'm going to say on those first few verses there. And then in verse 12 it says, but as many as received him to them, he gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. So we're too early on in the sense that it's not yet clear in John's Gospel what it means to be the sons of God, quote unquote, or a son of God. But this will become more apparent as we progress through the New Testament. But there are powerful truths in the Bible that stem from us becoming the sons of God. So I'll just list a couple here. So we have adoption, so that's shown by Ephesians 1.5, that he's predestined us onto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ. We have future hope, so 1 John 3.2 shows that now we are the sons of God, and it doesn't yet appear what we shall be, but we shall know that when it shall appear we shall be like him, we shall be like Christ. And then we have the chastisement of believers justified by Hebrews 12.6, that whom the Lord loves, he chasens and he scourges every son that he receives. So these things will become more apparent as the series progresses. So we're too early on to really talk about what it means to be the sons of God yet, but it will become more important later in our study series. But building on this point as to what it actually means to become the sons of God, verse 13 says, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And so it raises the question, what exactly does it mean for the sons of God to be born of God, as opposed to of flesh or of blood or of man? Note that in chapter 3, when we look at that shortly, Jesus will use the phraseology, be born again, so we'll explore that later in this video. But just to define exactly what this means. So when it says that not born of blood or of flesh, this is because being a physical descendant of Abraham, or even Christian parents does not make oneself a son of God. And one passage just to show you, this is John 8.39, that a group of people answered Jesus being Jews and said, Abraham is our father. But then Jesus said, if you were Abraham's children, you would have done the work, you would do the works of Abraham. And then he says to them in a later verse, that they're of their father, the devil. And so just being Abraham's children of blood or of flesh doesn't make you a son of God. And then when it says not born of the will of man there, we can take that to mean that there is no salvation by the works of the law nor in man's own religious philosophies or revered persons. Things that show that, for example, Acts 4-12, that there is no salvation in any other name, for there's no other name under heaven. That's Jesus given among men where by men must be saved. So we can't be saved by Joseph Smith or Muhammad or anybody else there. Or even any of the things that they say in their Gospels. Ephesians 2.89 says, by grace you are saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, less than any man should boast. So Ephesians is clear that we cannot be saved as far as our eternal life is concerned by our works. And so to say that we can be saved by our works or be saved by man's own religious philosophies, that that would be the will of man. But the sons of God can't be born of the will of man. They have to be born of the will of God. And this is because salvation is given to them that believe on him. So it's to them to them that they're given the power to become the son of God, just as the Gospel of John already said. So just to show this later in John's Gospel in 640, he'll say that, and this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone which sees the Son and believes on him may have everlasting life. And I will raise him up at the last take. So that's how we can define the will of God there, that the will of God is believe on him. They're the ones that become the sons of God. And then as I said at the beginning of the video, I'm not going to dwell too much on chapter one and two because it's when we get to chapter three that the real meat comes in as far as the salvation doctrine. So we don't need to delve too deeply into these passages because there's no major instructions to actually apply to salvation. We do see salvation-relevant bits come out, like for example in John 1.29. It says that the next day John sees Jesus coming on to him and says, Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world. That's obviously salvation-relevant. But the thing about Jesus being the Lamb will become more apparent in later books of the New Testament. And then obviously as John points us to Christ and so on. Later in John 2.19 it says that Jesus answered and said onto him, Destroy this temple and three days I will raise it up. So that again will become more apparent as we progress through the Gospels later. But there's not really any specific salvation instructions as to how we are saved or getting the right doctrine about salvation. So I have obviously summarized that fairly quickly. But now that we can get onto chapter 3, we can go through things a bit more carefully and slowly. Actually start to get our salvation doctrine foundation set up. So we're getting onto the real meat on the bone here for salvation doctrine. That's John chapter 3. So Jesus is approached by a man named Nicodemus there, a man of the Pharisees. And it says that the same came to Jesus by night and said onto him, Rabbi we know that thou art a teacher come from God for no man can do these miracles that you do except God be with him. So Jesus is approached by a Jewish man here.  His comment in verse 2 that you are a teacher from God, he may have been sarcastic there, we can't really be sure. But Jesus answered and said onto him, very, very, I say unto you, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus says onto him, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? So Jesus starts with this premise that will become very important in the next few verses that to see the kingdom of God, we must be born again. And he will define this in a few verses. What exactly that means? Nicodemus is unable to grasp the meaning of being born again. Virtually all unsaved people actually do not understand the distinction between the flesh and the spirit which we will show in a few verses later. So some context to this idiom be born again. We use actually in Christian lingo a lot more than the Bible actually uses it interestingly. Although several other passages in the New Testament do reference the new birth. The phrase born again only appears once outside of John 3 and 1 Peter 1 3. As far as I'm aware, don't quote me on that. I may have been mistaken on that, but that's just when I ran a search on it. Just an interesting fact is that most Jehovah's Witnesses do not claim to be born again. As far as I'm aware, because they apply it to very specific believers who will rule from Christ's heavenly kingdom rather than resurrecting on an earthly kingdom. But we can see here that by not being born again, they won't even see the kingdom, let alone live in it. But that's something again, we'll see that become more apparent as the series progresses. So continuing this conversation then in verse 5, Jesus answered, Now these two verses are heavily misunderstood and misinterpreted by a lot of people. So Jesus here, let's just examine the passage first. So Jesus makes a distinction in verse 5 between being born of water and then being born of the spirit. Okay, so to clarify what exactly is meant being born of water is that we can compare it with verse 6 where he re-emphasizes that at the same point just told a different way. He says that which is born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of spirit is spirit. So therefore we can interpret being born of water as just being born in the flesh, i.e. when you were born as a newborn baby. And how that's often misunderstood is that this phrase born of water is often wrongly associated with baptism. And so this passage is used to prop up the doctrine that water baptism, the physical ceremony is a mandatory component to enter into the kingdom of God.  You will get comments where people say well the Bible says to be born of water. Sounds perfectly simple to me. You say that that's not really what the Bible means by being born of water. It doesn't mean baptism because verse 6 shows this by contrasting the flesh and the spirit. So that which is flesh is a flesh, that which is born of spirit is spirit. Born of water and of spirit to enter the kingdom of God. Well we're already born of water anyway. We already know that we're born of flesh, but we need to be born again in spirit. And that's the concept that Nicodemus is failing to grasp. And even being born again in spirit is sometimes wrongly associated with continual acts of repentance throughout one's Christian life.  You ask them, well show me that from the Bible. And this is one of the passages that also turn to well see. It says we have to be born again in spirit. You know, this daily sacrifice that we have to be doing. But if that were what that meant, then the phrase born in spirit doesn't actually make any sense whatsoever. Because being born, the very meaning of being born, is a one-time event. When you were born as a baby in your flesh, you will not continue with being born. Now you are actually dying in fact in the flesh. So your fleshly birth was a one-time event. And therefore being born in the spirit is a one-time event. And you immediately get born in the spirit and step on to eternal life. And this is something that will become more apparent as we continue our study through John. And I'm not actually going to cover here whether the ceremony of baptism is required for salvation. I'll just wait until we get to the relevant passages that actually deal with it. So we can just move on to the next few verses in John. So continuing through this same passage, the same conversation in verse 7. So is everyone that is born of the spirit. And so this is a somewhat unusual saying, but the implication is here that we as mankind, whether saved or unsafe, we do not fully comprehend in the sight of eternity where, why and how someone gets saved. Now obviously there are scriptures that we can turn to about heavenly reasons such as predestination and so on. And there's also the carnal reasons as to why one man rejects God and another does one, whatever their personal reasons are. But we cannot fully comprehend how and why. Why does one person get born again? Another does not, even though it's the same gospel. One person might give a list of his carnal reasons for rejecting the gospel. But then another person who's been through worse trials actually accepts the gospel. Well, the wind blows where it lists. We don't know where it came from. We don't know where it is going. So is everyone that is born of the spirit. Okay. Then continuing this same conversation in verse 9. So still Nicodemus fails to grasp the concept of being born again. And what I've found is, see many unsaved Christians have this same problem. Being highly educated or being important in ecclesiastical circles or being an expert theologian does not enlighten oneself to understand this what really should be a simple concept of being born again. It's quite a basic concept. I find often that virtually all unsaved Christians just utterly fail to grasp the concept of being born again and just completely twist its meaning. So like for example, first of all, they turn being born again into a lifelong salvation process of like daily obedient living, which completely contradicts the very meaning of being born in the first place. You know, when you were born a flesh, it was a one-time event. You are not still being born now. So to equate a lifelong process with birth is just a bad analogy, right? Spiritual birth is a one-time event. This will just become more apparent as the series progresses. Or sometimes what they do is they read a phrase like being born again. It's just meaning something that it doesn't actually say. So for example, they think it means you have to turn from all your sins to be saved. But that is not what it says. It says you have to be born again in the spirit. So I once asked an evangelist in the street, show me in the Bible where it says this phrase repent of your sins to be saved. Because I keep hearing that phrase. And she pointed me to this passage in John and says we'll see it says you have to be born again. But I never asked her whether where it says be born again. I already know where it says to be born again. I asked her where it says repent of your sins. But she just took that to me. Well, it says born again. But that's not saying the same thing. They mean two different things. And I tried asking her if, you know, when you were born as a baby, was it a one-time event? Are you still being born as a baby now? And she kept dodging the question and just couldn't understand this simple point. And then one key thing that they fail to grasp is that they do not distinguish between the flesh and the spirit. So they do not recognize that the flesh is still condemned and dying. It cannot be redeemed. So they assert that believers may lose salvation or that if a believer still has sin in one's life, then one's faith is dead or in vain. So let's just establish a little bit this difference between the flesh and the spirit. Now, I don't want to spend too long on this. I've only got one slide because I don't want to drift too far away from John. I want to keep things simple. But just to help expound on this point that we've been reading about, I've just pulled some verses from Romans and Galatians. So the point that I'm trying to get to you is that when we're born again, our spirit is reborn. OK, that's what's born again. OK, because our flesh has already been born. That's because, so Jesus says, you must be born of spirit. But the point is that the flesh is not reborn. The flesh is still condemned. It is still aging. It's still dying. And so I've just summoned some verses from Romans and Galatians to help bring this point together. So in Romans 7, Paul talks about that the law is spiritual, but he is carnal. He's sold under sin. And he does that which he would not allow, and he doesn't do what he would do, essentially. But then he says in verse 17 that, now then, it is no more I that do it, referring to sin, but sin that dwells in me. So sin still dwells in him, but when he thinks it's no longer he himself that does it, it's the sin that dwells in him. For I know that in me, and that is in my flesh, Paul says, dwells no good thing. So no good thing dwells in your flesh. So when you're born again, don't expect the flesh to catch up. OK, there's no good thing that dwells in him. For so will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find on. So he talks about wrestling between what he should do and what he does do, essentially in that passage there. And then a little while later in the same chapter he'll finish it off by saying I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord, so that with the mind, I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. So he makes a distinction between himself and his flesh. OK, and we can understand that if we understand the distinction between the flesh and the spirit. OK, Galatians also picks up on this point in chapter five. It says, this I say then, walk in the spirit. So he has to give a commandment to walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. And this is key. Watch this verse 17 for the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary one towards the other. So that if you be led by the spirit, you are not under the law. So he's showing here that the flesh and the spirit are contrary to one another. And that's why I've shown them in a little boxing match there. They work against each other. So you have a born against spirit that wants to do good, but you still carry around this flesh that doesn't want to do good. And so that's what Paul's talking about there. Notice also as well in Galatians 2.16 and Romans 3.20 reads very similar that knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and that not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law, watch this shall no flesh be justified. So he says no flesh shall be justified. He doesn't refer to the spirit, but the spirit is the aspect that's born. Again, the flesh is the aspect that's dead in sin. So this establishes, if we can grasp this concept, that Christians do still have a propensity to sin, but the difference is that now they have a spirit wrestling against it. Okay, whereas the unsaved man is either not wrestling against it at all, and that would perhaps be a non-Christian who doesn't have a problem going out and getting drunk and doing this and doing that. He's not even wrestling against the flesh there. Or he is wrestling against the flesh with his flesh, and this is probably unsaved Christians where they trust in their own obedience to the law for eternal life. And they do use swings and roundabouts to special terminology about works of faith versus works of the law, and that's just something that I'll have to cover later in the series because we're too early for it now, but they think that their own obedience and helps their salvation somehow, it's not just enough to just believe on Christ, but we'll see this unfold as the series progresses. When we actually do a study series on Romans and Galatians, it will become more expository. It's just that here, remember that John's Gospel is keeping things fairly simple because it's just written that you would believe and get eternal life. He's not expounding on doctrine too deeply in that regard, although it is a very deep book in its own way. He's just establishing the foundation when he says to be born again. Romans and Galatians, they're not written as instructions to unbelievers how to get saved, they're written to believers. And so those books can actually go into more advanced language and more advanced concepts, building on the foundation that John's Gospel is actually laying out here. So unsaved Christians, they just cannot understand this doctrine at all. Christians with a workspace salvation or that they think you can lose salvation, they just cannot understand this distinction between the flesh and the spirit, rather like Nicodemus in a way. And it's because they themselves have not been spiritually born again, that's why they can't understand the spirit. So they think that they're justified by their works, but the thing is no matter how obedient you are or you say you are, even if they're more obedient than someone who is actually born again, they're still wrestling against flesh with flesh because flesh cannot be justified. There is no justification by our works or our own obedience. Our works help us with eternal rewards, which again we'll see later, but it doesn't help us with salvation itself. And so this is why they don't know what to do with a believer who sins. They just don't know what to do with that.  Or they'll say, well, you should be a sinless perfectionist. You will never sin again if you're truly saved or whatever ways they'll find their way around that. But ultimately the flesh is still aging and dying. When you die, the flesh gets left behind, but the spirit is the bit that's actually going to heaven and it has eternal life. And then we look forward to a future resurrection with a new body powered by the spirit. So only the spirit is born again and saved. And if you can just grasp that, everything else will start to fall into play and make sense. So I know I've branched off a little bit there and it's too early really to get into the deeper things in that, but it's just to help you understand that basic foundation because it does confuse a lot of people. So returning back to the conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus will clarify why he was unable to grasp the concept of being born again. So in verse 11, verily, verily I say unto you, we speak that we do know and testify that we have seen and you receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things? So Jesus clarifies why Nicodemus is unable to grasp this concept of being born again.  It's not because Nicodemus was not willing to turn from all his sins and start living a righteous life and whatever terminology Christians will use nowadays. There's no evidence in this passage that that's the issue at all. Okay. Nicodemus would not believe. He would not receive Christ's witness. Now, it's possible that there was a surrounding crowd because when it says thee there, that singular you, but when it says ye, that's plural. So there may have been a crowd around Nicodemus, although it's not entirely obvious or it may have just been you as in he was referring, he was talking to Nicodemus, but talking to the Jews plurally. But the issue is Nicodemus would not receive Christ's witness, which is just synonymous with believing on him because those two things go together here. And we also saw that in John 1-12 as well. So that's the problem. That's why he can't grasp the concept of being born again. And so this is essentially why unsaved Christians, quote unquote, don't grasp the concept of being born again. And it will just come more clear as the study progresses, but ultimately it's that they will not receive Christ's witness, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. That's in the upcoming verses, by the way. They're not satisfied that salvation is as simple as believing on him. You know, for them that's too easy, or it's just it makes grace cheap, or however they want to phrase it with their little catchphrases and parroted things, because they want to insist that their own obedience merits their salvation in some way, or that it justifies the validity of their faith. So they'll say, well, of course we're saved by faith, but I know I'm saved because I have all these works to accompany my faith. You know, it's just this self-absorbed measurement of salvation by works when it's by faith not of works, even though they sometimes say that it's by faith and not of works. Or what they as well, what they'd rather do is they would rather build their salvation doctrine on less clear minority scriptures, such as, for example, James 2, then reinterpret the majority of the more clear scriptures, such as Romans and Galatians, so as to bring it back to man's fleshly obedience. And so I gave the example of James 2 there compared with Romans and Galatians. Well, throughout Romans and Galatians we keep reading, save by faith not of works, save by faith not of works, not justified by works, not justified by obedience, saved by believing on him. Ephesians also reads this way, but because we have this one tiny little passage in James 2 that says that we're justified by faith and works, that doesn't even say technically that faith without works can't save it, doesn't actually say that verbatim, okay, that they just want to throw out all of Romans and throw out all of Galatians and throw out all of Ephesians because of this tiny little tidbit in James 2, instead of just reexamining what they believe about James 2 in light of the multitude of other more clear scriptures. Okay. And so just another example of this is that though eternal life is simply believing, which we'll see throughout Gospel, John's Gospel, particularly later in this same chapter, they sometimes take statements like the go and sin no more, which is not talking about eternal life and they apply it to eternal life. So again, you search a YouTube video, do we need to be saved by faith alone or faith plus works and the video might argue it's faith alone and then somebody goes in the comments, well the Bible says go and sin no more, sounds pretty clear to me, but the thing is if they actually went and read where the Bible says that because it actually comes up later in John's Gospel, it's not associated with eternal life in either passage, okay, we'll actually see that later in this series as I do those chapters in John. And ultimately they want to insist that their own turning from sins credits their salvation instead of just recognizing that they dwell in sinful flesh even with the redeemed spirit, it comes back to they don't want to just believe in Jesus, they insist that they have something to do with it, that they must play their part, okay, and that's why they just fail to grasp the concept of being born again, just like Nicodemus. Moving along then into verse 13, and no man has ascended up to heaven but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven, and Moses lifted up the servant in the wilderness even so the Son of Man be lifted up. So these verses can be misconstrued pertaining to believers going to heaven prior to Jesus' resurrection and ascension, so you know, what happened to all testament believers before Christ died and rose again? Well, there is this doctrine where believers supposedly went to what's called the good side of Hades or held in Abraham's bosom, waiting to enter heaven by which they will be able to do when Christ has resurrected, they're just waiting there and then they can go to heaven when Christ has resurrected. I disagree with that doctrine because the doctrine of the good side of Hades or Abraham's bosom as being somewhere that's not heaven, Abraham's bosom, is to me conjectural, there's no clear scripture to prove this and if you go to Luke 16 where it mentions Abraham's bosom, it doesn't actually say that that's in Hades, it just says that there's a chasm between there and Hades. Regarding whether all testament believers could go to heaven, well, we do have an old testament example of Elijah being carried into heaven, that's in 2 Kings 211. The book of Hebrews does explain that all testament believers were saved by faith as we are in the New Testament, so it is essentially the same gospel, it's just that the name of Jesus hadn't been revealed yet, so it was the name of Jehovah or Yahweh or however you would pronounce that. Jesus says in verse 13, the Son of Man is in heaven, so that kind of implies then that Jesus is already in heaven, even though he's saying this to Nicodemus on the earth. So what we can take to mean from this is that from an eternal perspective, it doesn't actually matter when on the calendar Jesus actually died and rose again because in the sight of eternity, it's already happened. All right, and although we can't prove this as easily with the resurrection, we can prove it with his death, so have a look at these passages. So 1 Peter 1 19 to 20, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without sport, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you. So he was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but manifest in these last times for you, okay. Revelation 13, 8, and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of life of the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Another one, not sort of referring to the crucifixion per se, but John 8, 58, Jesus said onto them, verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am, that's already, okay. So there's no reason why Jesus' death, burial and resurrection, was not then already pre-effective for all testament believers. They just understood less about it than we do now in the New Testament. So that's not hugely important. I mean, you know, even if people believe in this Abraham's bosom doctrine, I don't think it makes them unsaved. I just think it's very conjectural, and I think if we can just understand from the eternal perspective that everything Jesus came to do had already happened, it makes perfect sense why all testament believers can go to heaven even though Jesus hasn't technically died, buried and resurrected yet, as far as the earthly calendar is concerned. And then moving along, we're probably now onto one of the most important sections of the Bible you will ever read, okay. We're on the ultimate stuff now. So following this point that the Son of Man must be lifted up, I've grayed it out because we've already read it, verse 15, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He that believes on him is not condemned, but he that believes not is condemned already. Why? Because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son. So bearing in mind that, yes there are passages that other people will turn to and say well this also applies to salvation and that also applies to salvation but let's remember before we even get on to those passages, John's Gospel is the one book in the Bible that is written specifically to tell us how to have eternal life and he only gives one condition. He doesn't say repent of your sins to have eternal life. He doesn't say get baptized to have eternal life. He doesn't say go to church and receive sacraments to get back your eternal life. He doesn't say live in daily sacrificial obedience to have eternal life. He says, believe on Jesus and have eternal life. All right. John keeps it very, very, very simple. Okay. Now this is going to be a repeated theme throughout John particularly in the next few chapters probably up until about chapter 12 but very, very specifically over up until chapter 6 that it keeps saying believe, have eternal life, believe, have eternal life, believe, have eternal life and he's saying this over and over and over and over again. So if people then want to turn to another part of the Bible that's not necessarily actually written with the intention to tell you how to get eternal life, something about being baptized or something about obeying commandments or whatever and people say well that also you must be doing that then to have eternal life. Well then you would have to say then that Jesus is not giving a complete gospel here. He's giving an incomplete gospel if there's not enough steps here how to be saved. And again, I'm sure people just make stuff up about that but all in good time my friends. So on top of only saying this one condition Jesus uses very certain language. He did not say you might not perish, you might not be condemned. Well you could have eternal life, you know, you might be saved. You shall have eternal life as long as you continue on the right path and endure to the end but you know you might not if you don't make it. He says you are not condemned. You have now it's an everlasting life. Well guess what everlasting life is everlasting. That means it's forever. It doesn't end okay. And we'll unpack that more throughout the study series. So Jesus makes the path to eternal life simple. He makes it easy to understand. He uses certain language. There's no maybes perhaps as possibilities. And additionally notice he keeps repeating the same point multiple times. Believe, have eternal life. Believe, have eternal life. Be saved through him. Believe, you know, not condemned. Believe, not already condemned. He's using simple repetitive language there okay. So that means it's important all right. He's not saying believe and do this, that and the other to be saved. Believe and do that, this, that and the other. Believe and do this, that and the other. He just says believe, have eternal life. He keeps repeating it because that's what's important. We need to believe him okay. So you know as I've already said this will just become a repetitive theme in the upcoming chapters of John. So we'll just move on. So just a small point that I want to make here is that where it says have everlasting life in verse 16. And then it says be saved in verse 17. And then in 18 it says not condemned. So even though these are slightly different terminologies and strictly speaking, you know, you can argue they have different definitions, but they are simple terms that are synonymous. So if we say we are saved from condemnation, I'm born again in spirit. So now we have eternal life. They're all synonymous terms. If you are saved, you have eternal life vice versa okay. So throughout this series, we may use the phrase saved or salvation and eternal life interchangeably. So if I say you are saved or you have salvation, it's exactly the same same as saying you have eternal life okay. I'm saying the same thing just worded slightly differently. Let's play pay closer attention in verse 18 because this is important. We have he that believes on him is not condemned. And then he that believes not is already condemned. Why? Because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. So in this verse Jesus establishes in this verse there are only two types of people here two okay. There's those that believe and have eternal life. And there's those that do not believe and are condemned. They're the only two people that he hypothesizes here. Notice also in the blue bit that those who do not believe, they have not believed. That's perfect present tense, which you could argue is from the past until the present okay. Up to now from the past until now they have not believed. So therefore anybody who is condemned because they do not believe present tense has not previously believed past tense. And the reason this is important is because conditional security advocates and that that's those who claim that we can lose or forfeit our salvation is that they use other passages in the Bible that are not necessarily explicitly talking about eternal life or salvation in all cases actually. And then they inject those into this passage to create a new type of hypothetical person that doesn't even exist based on the verses that we've got here. So for example somebody who we've got somebody who believes and is not condemned here but what we don't have is somebody who stops believing and no longer believes and goes back into being condemned again. That's not hypothesized here. We also don't have hypothesized somebody who does believe but then sins too much so they forfeit their salvation by sinning too much and therefore goes back into condemnation. Again that type of person is not hypothesized by Jesus here. Now people say well yeah we should use the whole Bible we should use well yeah but you can't use other parts of the Bible to inject a hypothetical person that doesn't exist. All right there's only two types of people that betrayed here. So Jesus is very clear here there's those who do not believe and they have not believed. Therefore somebody who allegedly stops believing and does not have eternal life if we assume that they fall under that category then they fall under the category of has not believed. There is no prospect here of a believer losing salvation. There is only the prospects of somebody who never believed to begin with i.e. they were never saved. Now this will become more apparent later in the series so I don't need to dwell on that now but we'll get to John chapter 6 and we'll see the issue of Judas Iscariot because he's one of the token children for Bible characters that allegedly lost their salvation. So we're going to disprove that and prove that it actually agrees with this verse right here. So continuing in the chapter this is where the Gospel of John actually describes what the condemnation is that he's just been talking about. So and this is the condemnation that light is coming to the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone that does evil hates the light neither comes to the light unless his deeds should be reproved but he that does truth comes to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrote in God. So now in John's Gospel the condemnation of the non-believer is not specifically related to Hellfire. Obviously Jesus gives plenty of warnings about Hell in other gospels so when we get to them then we'll deal with them but it's because that's not the point that John's Gospel is actually getting at here because what we've seen so far in the passages that we've just read is that salvation is as simple as believing on Christ. Okay so the condemnation described is not really about the end destination for the condemned but rather the reason why they are condemned. Okay so well what's the reason? Well Jesus the light come into the world but men love darkness rather than light they do not come to the light so they will not believe therefore that's why they are condemned so that that's just the point that John's trying to get across there. And then also just different parts to focus on in these verses that where it says he who everyone who does evil hates the light but then he that does truth comes to the light because this statement says do truth someone might misconstrue this statement as requiring works for salvation you know it's something you've got to do. That would be outside the context of this passage and it doesn't actually say that he who does truth has everlasting life that's not really what it says it says that he who does truth comes to the light well that's synonymous with believing on him coming to Jesus. Okay so when and then when it says his deeds may be made manifest they are rotting God we'll understand this later as the series progresses but a really simple explanation is that when we are unsaved our works have no eternal value okay now once we are saved our works can have value but they don't warrant or credit our salvation in any way but rather now that we have salvation by faith now we can start to earn eternal rewards because our works are rots or another word he might use is shaped in God okay so the Bible is clearly that salvation is by faith not of work so works only help with eternal rewards if you're already saved but not eternal life itself okay because otherwise what you would be doing is turning the effect into the cause okay the cause is believe have eternal life and then the effect is now you can work and get eternal rewards if you said well you must have these works to have eternal life well you're taking the effect and making it the cause okay but we can also demonstrate not with a lot of scripture but with a couple of pieces that even the man who was built no eternal rewards with no useful works is still technically himself saved if he believes so Romans 4 5 but to him that works not but believes on him that justifies the ungodly his faith is countered for righteousness and then 1 Corinthians 3 if any man's work abide which he has built there upon he shall receive reward there's that word if any man's work shall be burned he shall suffer loss so he shall suffer loss but he himself shall be saved yet so was by fire and that that doesn't mean hell fire but it means his work would be burned that that's his work being burned there that's what it's a reference to we'll cover that when we do Corinthians now between chapter sorry verses 22 to 35 that's John's testimony about Jesus there's not really anything that I feel I need to pluck out for this particular series but for the purpose of what we're trying to achieve so there's no salvation instruction basically and verse 36 that's the last verse in the chapter we end with this statement he that believes on the sun has everlasting life and he that believes not the sun shall not see life but the wrath of God abides on him now what I've brought close attention to here is that the ESV English Standard Version Translation is that instead of saying believe not it says does not obey so in the King James Bible we have belief is the opposite of disbelief but then in the English Standard Version we have belief is the opposite of disobey now there is an issue with translational difference here where the underlying Greek is translated as believe not in one translation but then does not obey in another and many more of the literal modern translations agree with the ESV such as the the new american standard so this does give rise to the debate on the issue of bible translation because you might ask the question well does the ESV sneak works and obedience into the gospel by placing disobedience against belief because now this implies that believers will automatically walk in obedience and anybody who is disobedient that they they do not believe so in that wonder is the ESV doing that but then they might flip it back and say well did the King James translators deliberately mistranslate disbelief because of the reformation reaction to Catholicism and the proclamation of solo faith alone so so just a couple of points to consider on this is that most textus receptors based and therefore most reformation era bibles agree with the King James translation as far as I'm aware so Tindale, Covertale, Bishops Bible even like the Reina Valera in Spanish, Luisa Gondin French, Dio Datti in Italian, Almeda, Portuguese, Chinese Union version and so on and so on so it's the King James is not the only Bible to translate it as disbelieve and also actually if you're going to say that it was just a reaction to Catholicism and solo faith a while the Catholic Douay Reims translation does actually agree with the King James so you know the Catholics themselves translated as disbelieve as well and there was one reformation era Bible that agreed with the ESV and that's the Geneva translation so it's not as if people didn't know that disobey is a possible translation there and the underlying Greek is the same in both textus receptors and critical edition text so this is this is an issue of just how the Greek is translated it's not what manuscripts we use now just as a sort of a disclaimer I don't speak Greek okay and this study series is not about textual criticism and correct Bible translation but the thing is because of differences like this where it starts to affect our salvation doctrine this is going to happen multiple times and so I am going to have to bring it up again to my better judgment so I because I don't speak Greek I can't give you any authority on what's the better way of translating it but let me just point out something here is that back in verse 18 both the King James and the ESV say him that believes versus him that does not believe whereas in verse 36 that's when we actually have the difference and so the reason for this is that the the underlying Greek antonym used in verse 18 is not the same antonym that's used in verse 36 and that that's why it's an issue it's not exactly the same word in both of those verses in the underlying text and this issue will crop up again in the New Testament particularly in Hebrews 3 to 4 so I'll sort of park it there for now but although translators may debate on which is the better translation at least in the English language the King James Bible appears to be consistent between verses 36 and verses 18 and that's that's all I'm going to say about that for now now an overarching point that I want to make about the whole chapter on reflection is that in verse 3 Jesus talked about seeing the kingdom of God when a man is born again then in verse 5 he said enter the kingdom of God when a man is born of spirit so we just assume that those are obviously somewhat synonymous and then continuing that same thought between verses 12 and 13 he says you know how shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things no one has ascended up to heaven that came down from heaven and the Son of Man is in heaven and then continuing that exact same thought he says in verse 16 and you know have everlasting life and so that shows that heaven the kingdom of God and everlasting life are just synonymous terms okay entering having eternal life means you go to heaven and enter into the kingdom of God and so you know it's just to show you that that relationship and the reason that I point that out is because some groups like say the seventh day Adventists and the Jehovah's Witnesses have a sort of soul sleep doctrine where when you die you're not conscious anymore until the future resurrection and they claim that there are no clear passages that say that believers actually go to heaven specifically when they die but we can see here that they are interchangeable terms okay eternal life is equated with heaven and the kingdom of God now they want to sort of break it down and say well there's heaven and then there's the kingdom there's eternal life but this means that you know you'll go to sleep and then you'll go in the future kingdom but you won't be in heaven and they make all this sort of stuff based on other passages in the Bible which not only the wrong about those other passages but the thing is they then turn the Bible into such a convoluted book that it might as well be the Quran now because the thing is this is written as a letter okay John's letter should make sense we should just be able to read it and see he's using kingdom of God heaven and eternal life interchangeably there's no like oh we invent a doctrine that this means this and then this means this and then invent another doctrine for that based on these it just becomes so convoluted that you can't just read the Bible as a letter anymore you've got to keep going like that and then nobody knows where to go and you could really just point to any verse that you want to make up a doctrine so this will become more apparent as the series progresses you know just allow the book to flow in a sensible manner okay so just some final thoughts about John 3 if you already saw my series introduction which included a gospel presentation or if you see my standalone gospel presentation I've already actually talked about this but it's just clarifying that Jesus hypothesized only two types of people so those that believe in having to have a lasting life and those that don't believe in our condemned and then anybody that does not believe has not previously believed and the final thought is that people might wonder well wait a minute don't most people believe in Jesus I mean all Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Protestants, Evangelicals, Seventh-day Adventists, Mormons believe in Jesus some Jewish sects even believe in Jesus like Jews for Jesus and Messianic Jews what is that about but then there's Muslims and Hindus and they also believe in Jesus and then even some atheists actually like scholars claim that Jesus existed and maybe was even a good man so lots of groups claim to believe in Jesus and we saw that whosoever will believe in Jesus but they all believe different things about Jesus so then are they all saved then it begs the question so well the Bible does give us a warning about another Jesus okay and another gospel and that's in 2 Corinthians 11 2 and 4 that Paul warns that there is a danger of their minds being corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ and that someone may come and preach another Jesus and another spirit and another gospel and we risk bearing with him okay so there is such thing as another Jesus and another gospel so based on what these different groups believe about salvation well in Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy you've got to participate in the sacraments to be saved okay in Islam you know to enter Jannah to be you know you must believe in Allah and his messenger and do many good deeds and repeat prayers and so on and then the Jehovah's Witnesses will say that to live forever you must learn about God exercise faith build a good strong friendship some branches of evangelicalism and Protestantism and I'm not getting them all but you know it's obviously a very much more diverse group than the others some of them will say things like you must repent of your sins or you must surrender your life to Jesus which what that means when you're dead in sin I don't actually know and you and you know you must walk in daily obedience or you must progress towards perfection or whatever they'll say different groups will have different sort of catchphrases Seventh-day Adventists will say that when you're saved you will strive to be good and pay attention that you won't fall away Mormonism will say that you know you must exercise your faith and do the best that you can in your own ability then trust in Christ I've seen that on some website somewhere I can't remember Eastern religions are obviously very different in what they believe but there's still something along the lines of good karma in some way and you know the way that you act in this life and so although they all have different instructions on how to be saved they all have one thing in common it's your works well we've already established that it's by believing anyway but let's just let's just pick on this point briefly about works so we have multiple passages here that say that salvation is by faith not of works Ephesians two eight to nine is one of them Romans 11 six is one of them Romans four two three is one of them okay Galatians two twenty one is one of them and and Romans actually points out in for that if Abraham were justified by work so if that were the case as these different denominations proclaim well they can glory actually he has glory wear of the glory but notice this not before God though okay now I'll unpack that when we get to Romans four and James two because you know that's that's something they like to parrot we can unpack that later in the series but it's clear that salvation is by faith not of works it's by belief okay so if someone then wants to say that we're saved by works well there's no grace in work salvation okay so they are ultimately believing in another Jesus and another gospel you can't say oh well we must believe in Jesus but then I've also got to do my part by doing this list of things because then you're no longer believing in Jesus you're believing in another Jesus and you're partly believing in yourself okay so that's just a finalizing comment that when it says you must believe on him that means by faith and not of works it's just that John hasn't clarified that yet because he's using simpler language whereas Romans and Galatians that are written to the saved they'll use more advanced language as well Ephesians that he was even more advanced language in Ephesians okay so that will become clear as I start to get to passage as those in a few weeks or a few month time further into the series so if you are trusting in your works you are believing in another Jesus and another gospel and therefore you fall into the category of does not believe ultimately and this is something that Jesus will end up hammering with with the Jews is that they won't accept him and that they still have a works-based mentality so I hope that this first video of this series the first study anyway has really helped you and I plan on doing more videos and going through the rest of the chapters of John and then branching out into other books in the Bible I want to make it as part of a series and ultimately the goal is to cover every passage possible at least in the New Testament that is used to apply for salvation in some way and then show either what it actually means or to show you how people are just getting it wrong it's going to be a work in progress it's going to take several months to do so if this is the first video that you've watched and it's still fairly on in my channel's history then click that subscribe and you know you'll be notified when more study videos become available if you're watching a bit later when I have actually finally managed to do those then just go in the video description and I'll provide a link to the playlist where you can just see all videos there and I'll put a link to the PowerPoint as well if you want to download a copy


So hello and everyone and good afternoon. I am Martina Quejeta from Uruguay and I'm going to present the first chapter of my PhD thesis at Universidad Nacional de la Plata in Argentina that I finished thanks to the UNU-Wyther visiting program last year under the mentorship of Rodrigo Oliveira that's here in the audience. And the paper is entitled Impact of Female Peer Composition and Gender Norms, Perceptions and Skill Formation in Secondary School. So just to start with a brief motivation of the paper, the analysis of the importance of gender norms on the labor market outcomes has received a great deal of attention in the last decades. Gender norms comprehend behavioral expectation according to gender, what we expect by women and men, and also the relationship between genders in each society. And by that and shaping preferences and also skill formations, gender norms may become an obstacle to girls' educational achievements and also affect labor future economic outcomes and also educational outcomes. And we have a lot of evidence showing that in fact gender norms are affecting that labor outcomes. But in why pioneer theoretical frameworks based on human capital factors explain a decreasing portion of the gender gaps in education and in the labor markets in our countries, there is an emerging literature showing that, appointing that gender norms and the stereotypes in our societies could help to understand the persistence of the gender gaps and the gender inequalities. Yet, how gender norms perceptions are formed and what drive changes over time of the gender norms are still open questions. Gender norms formation process involves many actors along the life cycle and while families are key at the initial stages of our lives, the school and peers interactions are increasingly important with the age of the individual. Peer gender composition might affect our perception on the gender norms by at least two different channels. On the one hand it can affect social attitudes and behaviors between groups due to the diversity in the class composition. And there is evidence showing that the higher exposure to, for example, poor students, leads to more pro-social or more egalitarian attitudes from the rich to the poor students. And on the other hand, it can also affect the interaction between teachers and students. And there is also evidence showing that there is in fact a transmission of the gender views from the teacher to the students. So in this context, my research question is, how gender composition in secondary school affects students' perception on gender norms? And with this question on this paper, I'll be contributing to, on the one hand, to the peer effect literature. We have a lot of evidence showing that, sorry, there is a lot of evidence for developing countries and there is well-established stylized facts for developed countries. But the literature for developing countries is scarcer and this is mainly due to stringent data requirements required for credible causal strategies in our countries. But even for developed countries, the literature addressing the gendered impact of the peer effect literature is still scarce. And moreover, the effects on skill formation have been widely studied by little, we don't little about the transmission of gender norms within the school context due to peer effects. This paper is also related to the gender norms literature. The gender defects of the gender norms on economic outcomes has been widely studied as I mentioned in the motivation slides. But literature, not how are they formed and what drive the changes over time is still scarce. We know there is a family intergenerational and transmission of gender norms within families. We know that there is a transmission of gender views from teacher to students. But to the best of my knowledge, there is only one related work in paper from Javier García-Brazales, analyzing the school peer effects on the gender norms for the Vietnamese case. The main differences between that paper and mine is that for the Vietnamese case, we are going to have the long-term effects with Javier analyzes the effects of peer school composition on later educational outcomes and labor outcomes. And in this paper, I'm going to show you the contemporaneous effects of the peer composition. And also I analyzed this question from an interesting setting that is your way that is characterized by more progressive gender views within the developing countries context. And also the study of the gender inequalities within the school context is important from a policy perspective, not only from a justice perspective due to the equality of opportunities among genders, but also from a justice, sorry, efficiency perspective. That is, we know that there are long-term effects at the individual level that are affecting women's educational outcomes, career choices and labor outcomes in the future. And that can affect the allocation of talents in our societies and does affect also the economic growth after all. So just to give you a brief institutional context of the setting I'm going to analyze in this paper, in your way, mandatory basic education includes 14 years of former school and including two years of preschool education. Typically, at age 12, students enter secondary schools that comprehend six levels from the seventh to the 12th grade. The admission to public secondary school is based mainly on a geographical criteria and thus students and families can choose the school but within a limited range of options due to the region or geographic area of residence. But when opting for a private secondary school, families can choose any school without any external restriction. But nevertheless, in both public and private secondary schools, the assignment of students to classes are made by the head of the schools aiming to seek some homogeneity within the groups in the school. So some interesting point of the Uruguayan context is that the students are reassigned to different classes every year at the beginning of the school year and they share all curricular activities throughout the year. So the peer interaction I'm going to analyze in this paper is intense because students share the same curricular activities and the same room within the year but the interaction is short because each year students are changing classes within the same school. So the data I'm going to use in the paper is the Uruguayan survey for a multi-dimensional evaluation of the educational system. They are named Arista's survey and they are representative of the nine great secondary students attending urban schools in my country. The novel sampling design is basically a three-stage sampling design where first schools are randomly selected, then classes within those schools are randomly selected and finally all students within classes are gonna be interviewed by this survey. And the field work was done in October 2019. So for the estimation sample, I'm gonna take only students from public and private regular secondary schools. I'm gonna drop out of the sample the technological secondary schools. I'm gonna use only information of non-missing information in the analyzed variables. And I'm gonna only take classes with more than 12 students that are in the sample and only schools with two or more classes and this is due to the methodology I'm gonna use that I'm gonna explain you in a minute. So I'm gonna take around 60% of the original sample and in the paper I provide some descriptive statistics showing that there is no sample selection or that the final sample, it's basically equally distributed that the original sample. So just to show you some main descriptives of the data, female students are younger than male students. They are less likely to live to be only child and to live with both parents and grandparents but more likely to pertain to the lower socio-economical households in the country and they are also less likely to have an experience previous repetition in previous weights. The main independent variable in this case, it's gonna be the share of female peers in the classroom that is around 51 or 52% in the sample and the means are different because I'm gonna compute this share of female peers as they live one out to distribution that is taking out the student's hair or himself from the sample and something important here is that I'm gonna compute this variable taking the original sample and not the estimation sample and that these two account for the actual sex composition of the classes within the sample. So regarding the main outcome variables that are the student views on gender norms in this figure here, I show you the main distribution level of agreement of the students regarding six statements on gender norms. They are asked about six gender norms such as, which is a pointer here, here they are asked about the level of agreement with some statements such as women shouldn't work, men and women should earn the same wages, men are better in politics than women, women should perform all the domestic works, women are the primary caregivers and women and men should practice the same sports and for this figure and the whole analysis, I rearrange the outcome variables so that higher level of agreements like the green bars here represent more progressive gender views for the six statements. We can see that for wages, sports, they are the two statements with the higher level of agreement that is the more progressive gender views but for the six statements, female students hold more progressive gender views compared to male students in the sample. So the empirical strategy basically follows the widely used linear in mill models where the share of female peers is the live one out proportion of female peers in the classroom. This takes a vector of students' control variables and these the same variables taken as peer variables like mean within the classroom. This lambda coefficient account for school level affects effects to control for and observe school quality characteristics and also to sort out potential selection issues from students to the schools. And the error terms, the error are clustered at the class level to allow for correlation of the outcomes within the same classes at the school. So basically the empirical strategy exploit the quasi-random variation in the percentage of female peers across classroom within the same school for the identification of causal effects. So basically the main identification assumption here is that the main independent variable, the share of female peers in the classroom is not correlated with the error term. So basically the main challenge to actually identify causal effects is the potential sorting of the students and families to schools. And to deal with that or minimize that bias, I include the school level fixed effects that are possible due to the three stage sampling design of the survey. But there could also be some potential selection issues or self-selection of the students within the school but into different classes and to test if the assignment of the students to classes is as good as random I will perform two alternative tests. First I'm gonna follow the Laby and Schlosser methodology and I will randomly simulate the assignment of the students to classes and then I'm gonna compare the observed or the actual distribution of the students to classes with this randomly simulated distribution and then I'll also test if the student characteristic by the proportion of female peer that is to check if classes with different proportion of female peers have the same predetermined characteristic in my sample and the results for both test supports the identification strategy I'm gonna use in this paper. And finally I check if after controlling for school fixed effects and individual control variables and peer control variables, I still have enough variation in the share of female peers among classes within the school that is gonna be the main independent variable and the test also supports this identification strategy. So going quickly into the main results, this table here reports the main results of the paper that is the effects of the proportion of female peers among on gender norms. We can see that almost for four out of six of the statements the coefficients are positive and significant and there is only two exception that it's wages and sport that if you remember where the two statements with the higher level of agreement or more progressive gender views in the whole sample that is they have less marching for improvements for this under the circumstances. And so the gender norm index that is an average of the other six statements. It's positive and significant. And so their main result here is that the higher exposure to female peers in the classroom lets to more progressive views among secondary students in the sample. And the magnitude of quite a magnitude is important and because if you remember we are talking about contemporaneous effect like immediate effects of interacting with female peers and we are talking of only one year interaction. So it's quite short compared to other previous papers. Yeah. Share of female. So is this an increase of 1% or an increase of 1%? 10 percentage points, yeah, sorry. So an increase in 10 percentage point in the share of female peers in the classroom lent to a 3.84% of a standard deviation increase in, yeah. So then I split the sample between by student sex and we can see here that while for both male students are and female students, the coefficient is positive. It's only significant for male students. And so the baseline results are driven mainly by male students that it's important because they were the ones holding more traditional gender views among the whole sample. And this is true for almost all of the separate statements. I then analyze other heterogeneous effects by other predator mind characteristic of the sample and we can see that while for repeaters and by socioeconomic level, both coefficients both are positive. It's only significant among a student with previous repetition and pertaining to the 40% of lower socio-economical context. And it's also mainly explained by students living outside the capital city in my country. So just moving to other outcomes that I analyze in the paper to analyze the consequences of female peer effects. I exploit one dimension that is also asked in the survey that is a frequency of which students declare helping with domestic chores within the household. So students are asked about the frequency of which they help cooking, clothing, washing clothes, cleaning or caring for siblings or other family members. And then I compute a total index of domestic or time devoted to domestic chores. And what we can see here is that while for male students there is no significant effect of interacting with more female peers in the classroom, there is a significant effect for female students that are reducing the time devoted to caring activities and total domestic work activities. I also analyze the peer effects on some cognitive skills. I take advantage of the survey that ask also that within the survey, they also perform two standardized cognitive tests on mathematics and language. And one important aspect here is that the tests were designed by the survey and it's also qualified by the survey itself. So it's unlikely to be biased by teachers by the teachers. And so what we found is that there is no significant effect among male students and again there is a significant effect of female peers composition on female students on mathematics which is important because it's an area of cognitive skills where female students under perform male students and this is an stylized fact. So I perform some robustness checks of the baseline results. For a mother's time I'm not going to go through all of this but the results are on the paper. But I basically include teacher and class controls. I test if the missing observations on outcome variables and control variables affect the main results. I also perform the, I re-estimate the, oh sorry, I re-estimate the model for a sub-sample of schools with the higher probability of random assignment of students to classes. And I also re-estimate the results dropping one school but at a time. And the results on the gender norms index may basically hold under these tests. So just to conclude, in this paper I investigate how gender composition in secondary school affects student perception on gender norms in the Uruguayan context using a nationally representative survey in the country. And I found robust, significant and positive effects that a higher exposure to female peers in the classroom affect or led to more progressive gender views for old students. But the effects are mostly driven by male students and from students from lower socioeconomical background that are the ones holding more traditional gender views. But the effects of female peer composition goes beyond that result. And I also show some evidence that they are changing actual behavior and female students are reducing the time devoted to domestic work and also improving academic performance in mathematics that are improving academic performance in mathematics. So even short interaction in secondary school so it's just only one year may have substantial effects in reducing gender stereotypes and changing actual behaviors of secondary school students. And that's it, thank you very much. Thank you.


doing. So I am back finally with a in-depth tutorial of the Mish products. Now these are her two styling products. This is again the quench, hydrating, and twisting butter, made with kapa, I have to pronounce this correctly, kapa-su, kupu-wasu, kupu-wasu butter, and mango butter. This comes in 8.5 ounces and this is what it looks like. I will be having much more information below in the description box. It is a fairly thick product and I will show you the consistency. This is how thick it is. It's a styling product, very creamy, okay? Look at that. Very creamy. This is how, okay, I'm not gonna be petty. I was gonna say something about Shea Moisture but I'm not gonna be petty. But it's a nice consistency. Reminds me similar to how the Shea Moisture Curl Enhancy Smoothie was before they changed the formula. But anyway, and then we have her leave-in conditioner called Lavage, made with Oliveira and avocado oil. It's a 3-in-1 leave-in conditioner that moisturizes, detangles, and softens dry hair. It is fairly large. 12 ounces. Now you guys, I have been using these products for quite a while now. And look how much I have. I used them, it's gone on, I would say about two months. Yeah, two months off and on. Not consistently but a few times and I have a lot left. Look at that. It's only down to here.  It is very dry. She needs to moisturize, she needs some love. And I'm going to be doing a braid out. It's something that I don't normally do. I washed my hair four or five days ago and I moisturized my hair two days ago. So she's dry. Yes, she's dry. So we're gonna go ahead and section my hair off to make it easier to apply these styling products. Now I will be using water before applying anything and my great mister here and I will be using oil to seal in my the moisture. So you guys, I've been using which will be a separate video. I'm gonna figure out how to basically track this but these are fenugreek seeds and I've been using this oil now for about six weeks. Yeah, so yeah. So let's go ahead and get my hair together now. Okay, I'm going to untwist. All right, you guys, let me go ahead and clip this out of the way in certain areas. And I typically, I tend to make the braids in the front and around the crown of my hair smaller than the sides in the back. So taking my spray bottle, lightly misting and now the leaving conditioner again comes in this pump. Perfect, perfect packaging. No problems with the pump. Very smooth product, light, lovely shade butter scent to it. I'm gonna smooth this into my hair. Very nice. And then I'm going to take, I tend to be heavy handed especially since I live in a dry area. I live in Phoenix Arizona but I took 10 cents.  I'm more than likely allowed my hair to set for a couple of days but still or at least one day. I never take down the next day you guys. Rarely, I mean I yeah I just don't. All right, so let's get started on braiding. Over braid else I find sometimes that my braids make my hair flat. I don't know, they seem like they're flatter than a twist-out. Maybe it's just me. I don't know. It could just be me. Hey you guys, so I am just about done setting my hair in these braids. I ended up making them a little bit smaller than I had intended but that is perfectly fine. Now I'm gonna use a little bit of oil on my scalp. I can do this. I know that my hair we're just soaking up. Not using a lot about 15 cents worth. And I'm gonna allow these braids to sit in my hair for about two days. Okay, here's two days later and I'm gonna take my time on Rave Land taking out a little bit more oil. I know just a little bit though y'all though just to help to reduce frizz. So continuing to take down these braids, I do apologize for the lighting.  So again I do apologize for that. Now it does take a while to take down braids just because they're braids. Okay, so I will say after about five weeks of using the Miche product I do enjoy her line. I've used her products on both my hair and my son's hair. Okay, I will be coming back. I posted a poll a couple of days ago asking for you guys to vote on a comparison video and it looks like the melanin twist elongating cream versus the Miche Hydrating Twisting Butter is winning. But I will do even more for you guys. I will go ahead and also review the Blue Magic Green versus the Blue Magic Blue. Greek's Hairgrey set is. That's just to give you guys update on what's to expect. So okay, again taking my time but look at the definition. Look at the shine. Right, you guys here is the final look of again the products by the Miche Line doing a braid out. Highly recommend both products if you are for type A, B or C. Even if you are for type 3C, but bear in mind that the products are a little bit heavier and designed for highly textured hair in my opinion. So you guys I'm going to turn around to the side and towards the back. Again loving the definition, the soft hold. I was able to maintain this braid out for about four days again because it was done on old hair. So that is it. I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Take care. Bye.


At least 50 people have been abducted from Maradun local government in Zamfara state. Mohamed Shehul, the state PPR, all confirmed the incident, saying four residents were also killed during the attack. Shehul said the gunmen came in large number when they invaded the community around midnight on Sunday. The police spokesman said tactical operatives have been deployed to the community. We gather that Yakubu, Elkana, the Zamfara commissioner of police, has ordered an immediate search and rescue operation for the victims. In the wake of this latest attack, the commissioner has urged residents to remain calm.


Let us get started. So in the last lectures, we discussed discrete random variables, right and in that we talked about Bernoulli, Binomial, Geometric and Poisson. So anybody has any questions so far on what we have discussed? Okay, today we will talk about these continuous random variables. So as I said the definition of continuous random variable is the range over which my random variable takes value is uncountable, okay. The first example in this case is called uniform. This is comes with two parameters and it is denoted as uniform AB, where A and B are some real numbers. So we have a random variable X which is uniformly distributed A and B are some real numbers. Now the parameters A and B says that my random variable X takes in the value in the interval A to B. Now this is a continuous random variable, there will be an associated probability density function here, okay and that probability density function is defined for this as in the range AB it is defined as 1 upon B minus A. Notice that this does not depend on X, so this function is constant in the interval AB and this is 0 outside. So pictorially if I have this and let us say this is my A and this is my B, so this looks like this and this quantity is 1 upon B minus A, okay. Now the examples could be many where you want to use such a random variable. For example, you want to model somebody's height and weight as some uniformly random variable in which case we will mention that okay my height is between some value A and B and also temperature you can mention it is between some value A and B of the time and this is often used when you have do not have any prior information and you are going to assume that everything is like almost equally likely. So that is why like you see that this function is constant in the range A to B that means as we said the rate of change of probability at any point is going to be same here. So there is an analog of this in the discrete case also which actually we did not discuss. So what could be the analog of this in the discrete? Suppose let us say now I am slightly instead of continuous now I am talking about discrete. Let us say your random variable is discrete and it takes value in value let us call x1, x2, x3 and let us say it takes up to value xn. Now I want to say that my x discrete random variable is uniform. What could that potentially mean? Yeah all these x's they have the same probability that means probability that my x takes any of these values xi is going to be what? 1 by n. 1 by n. This is for i 1, 2 up to n and now if it is for discrete we said that it has a probability mass function right and for that we can drop probability mass function this is for x1, x2 all the way up to xn and this is its PMF and this value is going to be what? This is going to be like this. All of them have the same heights and this value is exactly 1 by n ok. So uniform you can have discrete in that case all the probability mass function have the same value and you can have uniform continuous in this case its PDF is going to be a constant in the interval 0, 1. Now similarly we can have another random variables but in those random variables may be like all things are not need not take the same value there could be different like different values can happen with different probabilities that random variable one possible thing we are going to study is exponential and exponential is going to be divided as exp lambda and that comes with a parameter lambda which is strictly positive ok. Now this random variable x is a positive value random variable and it takes value in the entire positive range between 0 to infinity and its PDF is defined like this lambda exp to the power minus lambda x whenever x is greater than 0 and it is defined 0 otherwise. So if this is a PDF we know that if you integrate it between minus infinity to plus infinity it has to be 1 just ensure that if you integrate the area of this function is actually 1 that is pretty straight forward. Now if you want to just look into its figure so how does this function look like? So what is the value of this function at less than equals to 0 but this is going to remain 0 for all the negative portion of my real value and it at x equals to 0 what is this value is going to be it is going to start with lambda and as x increases it is going to decay exponentially with the rate my lambda here ok and that is something look like like this. Let us say this is some curve this corresponds to some particular lambda exp lambda 1 some lambda 1 and now I will take lambda 2 which is greater than lambda 1 ok. Now if I have to plot that curve will that be above this curve or it is going to be below this curve it is going to be something like so this is this is like maybe going to be like exponential lambda 2 ok. So it is basically that is why this factor lambda is called the rate of this exponential larger it it has a higher rate and that is going to fall faster. And now this is often used to model lifetimes ok for example how much time my bulb let us say you have bulbs how much time my bulb is going to work before it breaks down. So it is going to be some number it may be it will work for 100 like I am going to count time in seconds like it can break down after x seconds or like y seconds whatever but those seconds are like continued values I am even fractions we are counting in fraction of the seconds also like all possible values. So it could be like like if the bulb is going to last for longer and longer that probability becomes smaller and smaller right because if the bulb is learning maybe it its life is now reducing and it may break and there you want to use such an exponential distributions. This is Gaussian and this is the one of the most thing commonly we are going to use because of its nice properties. It is denoted by two parameters called mu and sigma square and it takes value over the entire real line from minus infinity to plus infinity. Notice that x when it was exponential it was only taking between 0 to infinity but now we want sometimes both positive and negatives. So we are looking for one such possibility Gaussian which is going to take value between both minus infinity to plus infinity and it has this pdf which is given like this ok. So x minus mu whole square divided by 2 sigma square and now there is also one factor 1 upon 2 by 1 upon square root of 2 pi square. Now how does it look like? So mu is one parameter and if you look into it this is going to be symmetric around this like and it is going to take the maximum value at mu and then after that it going to decay on both left hand side and if you see that this is going to be symmetric around your main point ok. And now mu is deciding where the peak happens but there are two parameters right what does this parameter sigma decides? The sigma decides the width of this loop ok larger is the like if your mu is larger that means your loop shifts towards right and right. Suppose let us say this is for some mu 1 and you have another quantity mu 2 obviously mu 2 here is larger than mu 1. So in this case your loop has shifted like this and now again this is symmetric around this point mu 2 and the sigma square defines how big is the how big this loops are. If sigma square is larger this spread is going to be larger ok. So for example if this is let us say for one sigma square let us call one and now if I make it larger then this is going to be more prominent like this it becomes a bulgy. I do not know if you can look into this like this upper one is with a larger sigma square but for a same value of mu 1 ok. Now this is often used whenever you have to handle both positive and negative quantities one of that that comes commonly in handling errors, errors could be positive or negative ok and noise, noise could be also positive negative. So whenever we want to model such noise you want to use this Gaussian random variable. One example is suppose let us say you are trying you have one target like one target is here and you want to hit it and whenever you hit it may fall short of this target or it may go beyond the target right. So when it goes beyond it is going to be taken as exceeding positive when it is fall short it could be negative ok. Now in modeling that like that is like an error like you want to be exactly falling here but sometimes you may exceed sometimes you may fall short and because every time it will not same things will not happen sometimes you may fall here sometimes you may fall here and sometimes you may exceed here that is like a random quantity every time you shoot you may be falling depending on so many factors that will decide maybe wind velocity humidity temperature all these things matter when you are basically firing something and all those things are random. So in such case you may want to model them as a Gaussian distribution. Other thing is Rayleigh distribution ok. So Rayleigh is actually now a derivative of Gaussian and this is like comes with a parameter sigma and it is often denoted as Rayleigh sigma square and where is sigma is a positive quantity. And here this Rayleigh takes a value between 0 to infinity that means it takes positive real numbers and its pdf is denoted like this. Notice that it is somewhat similar to Gaussian but not exactly the same. It has a X variable coming in out not only so there is a typo where they should have been X. So the X is not only inside the exponential but it is coming out outside exponential also and now one property is like one property of Rayleigh distribution is Rayleigh can be thought of an envelope of two Gaussian random variables. For example, let us take you have two Gaussian random variables X1 and another in is X2 and if you are going to take their squared sum like you are taking X1 square and X2 square and take the square root the new random variable X this is going to follow your Rayleigh distribution ok. So this is often thought can be thought as like envelope of noise suppose let us say whenever you have some signals right you basically take their squares and let us say when you want to add this is like a finding the amplitude like if you have two signals y1 and y2 let us say this is like your this is let us say this is your y1 axis and this is like y2 axis and ok maybe let me call this as ok I should have denoted this also look. Let us say let us say this is some X1 axis and this is your X2 and you have some particular point here X1 and X2 and you want to know the distance and this distance is from origin is naturally X1 square plus X2 square right. If your X1 distance and X2 distance are both are Gaussian distributed then their distance from the origin is Rayleigh distributed.