Podcasts about in english

In English, the word “foreigner” can sound somewhat distant or formal. In Chinese, however, “laowai” is a much more everyday term - you might hear it on the street, see it in short videos, or even come across it in casual conversation. - 在英文里，“foreigner”这个词听起来多少带着一点距离感；但在中文里，“老外”却是一个非常日常的说法——你可能在街头听到它，也可能在短视频里刷到，甚至在聊天中被很自然地提起。 澳大利亚人罗瑞也分享了他30多年前在北京当“老外”的经历。（点击上方收听音频）

Today, I want to talk about something very important. Pancakes. Yes. Pancakes. Get the transcript here: https://speakenglishpodcast.com/381-are-pancakes-healthy-english-food-vocabulary/ I'm trying to eat more protein and fewer carbs these days. In English, we often say low-carb. That means we try to eat fewer carbohydrates, like sugar, bread, pasta, rice, or white flour. But there is one little problem. I love pancakes. Maybe you understand me. You want to eat healthier, but then you think, "Oh, pancakes would be nice." And suddenly, your healthy plan is in danger. So today, let's learn some useful English vocabulary about making a healthier pancake. Not a perfect pancake. Not a magic pancake. But a simple pancake with more protein and fewer carbs than a normal pancake.  

In English, we hear that Jesus has promised to be with us – always.  It's hard to imagine how it could get more comforting than that.  And Greek has a great word for always.  However, Jesus didn't use that word here.  Instead of one word, Jesus actually used three.  Literally, what He said was, “I am with you all the days.”  It means the same thing but take a look at how it sharpens the focus of what Jesus said and makes this promise even more wonderful!

How can you supercharge your creativity in an age when AI is reshaping everything — including how we write, edit, and market our books? What does it look like to use AI as a genuine creative partner rather than a shortcut? And could professional speaking become an income stream that complements your writing career? With James Taylor. In the intro, Audible's new royalty model; New royalty model details [ACX; Kindlepreneur]; Public Speaking for Authors, Creatives and other Introverts; Why Indie Authors Should Ignore the Market's Mood and Focus on their Mission [Self-Publishing with ALLi]; Lichfield Cathedral; This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors. This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn James Taylor is a nonfiction author, professional speaker, podcaster, and entrepreneur who helps people unlock their creative potential. He hosts the SuperCreativity Podcast and his latest book is SuperCreativity: Augmenting Human Creativity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes How to define creativity and why it's becoming the most valuable skill in the age of AI The five stages of the creative process — and the stage most people skip Three types of creative purpose: play, self-expression, and legacy How James used multiple AI tools alongside human collaborators to write, edit, and market SuperCreativity Bulk book sales, industry-specific editions, and revenue models for nonfiction author-speakers Practical tips for authors who want to break into professional keynote speaking You can find James at JamesTaylor.me. Transcript of the interview with James Taylor Jo: James Taylor is a nonfiction author, professional speaker, podcaster, and entrepreneur who helps people unlock their creative potential. He hosts the SuperCreativity Podcast and his latest book is SuperCreativity: Augmenting Human Creativity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Welcome to the show, James. James: Well, thank you for having me as a guest. I'm looking forward to this conversation today. Jo: It's going to be really good. First up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing. James: Well, today I'm a professional keynote speaker, so I deliver about fifty to a hundred keynotes per year in twenty-five-plus countries. Primarily I speak on creativity, innovation, and artificial intelligence. Go back into my deepest, darkest history—I actually used to manage rock stars. That was my old job. I used to be in the music industry for many, many years. I worked with members of The Rolling Stones, and for our listeners in the UK, I managed bands like Deacon Blue. Then I went to the dark side. In 2010, I moved to California to work in Silicon Valley, to work in the world of tech. That got me involved in artificial intelligence. Right about 2017, I was speaking at an event in San Francisco and someone came up to me and said, “You realise you could probably speak for a living, you could do this for a living.” So I thought, well, how does that work? And he told me. Then I embarked on the career that I have today, which is primarily as a speaker, with writing now coming a bit more to the fore. Jo: Wow, I remember Deacon Blue. James: Yes. Jo: “Dignity.” That's crazy. Very, very cool backstory there, but we'll come back to the career side of things. Let's get into super creativity, because my listeners are certainly creatives. Most of the listeners will have a book either on the way or they might even have lots of books. So we all do want to be super creative. How do you define creativity, and why is it important to keep focusing on this even if we do identify that way? James: For me, creativity is about bringing new ideas to the mind. Innovation is about bringing new ideas to the world, but without creativity, there is no innovation. So creativity is really the engine of innovation. Whether that is designing new products, new services, or creating new works of art and new books. The reason that creativity is becoming more important is because of what we're seeing right now in terms of artificial intelligence. AI is going to replace a lot of the non-creative tasks that we currently do in our jobs. If you look at things like the World Economic Forum, there was recently a study with a thousand global business leaders, and work from companies like LinkedIn—they all highlight that creativity is going to be one of the foremost important soft skills for this new future. So creativity, strangely, will actually become more important, not less important, as we go ahead. That's the creativity side. Probably for many of the listeners here, they'll consider themselves to be creative. That is not the norm. As I mentioned, I speak in about twenty-five countries a year, and if I ask the audiences—primarily corporate audiences—to put their hands up if they consider themselves to be creative, only between ten to forty per cent of the audience will raise their hands. So part of my job is to show them why they are more creative than they think they are and why we're all born with this creative potential. Then moving into the super creativity side, it's really to show them how they can augment that creativity by collaborating more deeply with other people or machines—things like artificial intelligence. So SuperCreativity, the book that I've written and the speeches I give on it, is really about how we can augment our individual creativity by collaborating more deeply with other people or artificial intelligence. For me, that's been the thing I've been fascinated by for the past few years, and probably for many of our listeners who are now using AI in their writing, their researching, and their marketing of their books, they're probably getting into this space as well. I really wanted to dive into that—both the collaboration with other people and with machines and AI. Jo: In terms of the super creativity then, do you have any practices or ideas? Before we get into collaboration, many of us authors work alone—and of course we can come back to the AI stuff in a minute—but in terms of super creativity, are there ways that we can even supercharge what we do already? Then, of course there are people listening who might not feel creative. So give us a few tips on how we can potentially change our mindset or become even more creative. James: In the book I talk about what I call the eight Ps of super creativity, which are purpose, personality, practice, people, process, place, product, and persuasion. Persuasion is really the marketing piece at the end. Probably the one that could be most useful to many listeners today is the practice piece—the practice or the process side of things. For many of us, what that usually consists of is just having some type of daily creative practice. Different people do it in different ways. Many of your listeners will know the works of people like Julia Cameron—the morning pages style of having some type of daily practice. Other people do it in slightly different ways. The process bit is really interesting. I talk about this creative process that we all have, and I talk about these five stages of the creative process. The first stage, let's say if we're writing a book, is really that preparation stage. That is usually the stage where we are trying to absorb as much information as possible about the thing that we're going to be writing about. The topic, if it's nonfiction, or going to the places, visiting the scenes that we're going to set certain things within for the book. So that preparation stage is really about absorbing as much information as possible from the outside. It's not going to look very creative. We're just absorbing at that stage. Now the mistake that a lot of people tend to make is they immediately try to jump from that preparation stage to looking to generate ideas. But what all the studies show us is we should spend a little bit of time in what we call the incubation stage. This is where it's often very useful if we've done some research, that we put things to one side for a little while, maybe a few weeks, move on to another project, think about something completely different. Your brain will continue to work in the background. Your unconscious brain will work on that content you've been absorbing. Then what often happens as a result of that is we come to this third stage, which is that insight stage—that aha moment. That happens for various different reasons and you can seed that in slightly different ways so you're more likely to get inspiration in your day-to-day work. Then as we know—as you are a writer of many, many books—many people think, “Well, that's it. I've done it. The idea for that book or that chapter has come to me.” That is really just the first five per cent of the process. The next stage is where we look at all the different ideas we have and decide which ones we want to pursue, which ones are going to make the grade. This is what we call the evaluation stage. Once we've done that, we move to that final stage, which is the elaboration stage. If it's a startup, this is when you're building your minimum viable product. As a writer, this is where you're actually doing the work, putting those words out onto the page. It's a very iterative process, so it's not necessarily linear. You'll go back and forth. Even as you're getting input from readers and audiences in that last stage, that is then giving you the material to move back to the preparation stage and think, “Oh, I wonder if this next book in this series, maybe I go in a slightly different direction with this character.” So each of those different stages, you can do different things to increase your levels of creativity. Jo: I love all of that, but can we go back to purpose? Because you mentioned that as one of the Ps and I think this is something that a lot of us need. As we are recording this in April 2026, the world is an interesting place. There are lots of things going on that have people worried. Well, we are not talking about politics, but I think one of the things that people struggle with is, what's the point in writing this story, for example, or what's the point in trying to get my words out there when things are difficult? I feel like coming back to purpose is perhaps the thing that helps people even take it into the process as you were talking about. And then of course, just from a practical angle— Is purpose about making money or reaching people? So maybe you could talk about the purpose side of things. James: Yes. So I talk about three different purposes, and it's not that there's just one that predominates, but usually there's one that maybe predominates on different projects. The first one is creativity as play. It's what we're basically, as humans, hardwired to do—this instinctive joy that we get just for creating for its own sake. There's nothing that really sits beyond that. We just have fun. We find pleasure in creating something. That could be a musician creating a piece of music, a sculptor creating a sculpture, an entrepreneur creating a new business or product or service. There's just this sense of play. One of the things I talk about in the book is this idea of being childlike, not childish. If you look at children, you see this very instinctively. If you see a three-year-old or a five-year-old, you give them some crayons and they will just naturally create. That's part of who they are and it's pretty abstract. Then what happens is they go to school and they're taught useful conventions—”this is how you should do it.” You even see their work start to change. You start to see them move from abstract paintings to more formal structures. Then you get your peer group, then you go to college or university and the world of work, and you're taught all these useful conventions. That's fine, but as adults, it is our responsibility to become what we call post-conventional, where we see these conventions as a useful signpost but we're willing to challenge them. We're willing to have a playfulness in what we do. So the first one is just this hardwired thing—creativity as play. The second one, and this is maybe for a lot of your listeners the reason that they are writers, is self-expression. It's a way of placing something out into the world. I was actually just in France recently, and I was talking to a young visual artist, a painter from Hungary, and she had to go up and give a speech. She really hated doing it. She was having to talk about her work and she was really uncomfortable. I could see the discomfort and my heart went out for her, because that is not the way she primarily expresses herself. She expresses herself through her art form, which is painting. For many of us, we might struggle to get on a stage, but we can express ourselves in the written word. We have something we want to say, a position we want to have, and we want to express that and get that out into the world. The final one is just this idea of legacy. That is not going to be for everyone. I can tell you, for me personally, legacy is not the reason that I write and do a lot of the stuff that I do. Maybe that changes—maybe as we get a bit older, we want to leave a body of work. So those are the three main purposes that we tend to see. Then you mentioned the financial side of what we do as well. This starts to come into that self-expression, because we need to be able to get people to buy our books or download our books and read our books in order to give us the ability to write new works and create new things. The financial side is an important component of it, but it is not the only one. I think there's a great question any writer should ask themselves. One of the first questions that I asked myself as a relatively new nonfiction writer is: why am I writing this book? What is the purpose of this book? For me, primarily it is a form of self-expression, and then you have to go, “Well, that's fine, but I also need it to have some type of financial basis for it.” It doesn't need to be the main driver of my income, but I need to have some type of revenue model. I'm happy to talk about revenue models, because probably the type of revenue model that I have as a writer is going to be different from other listeners. I tend to focus more on bulk selling of books rather than individual selling of books. Jo: Yes, I definitely want to come back to revenue models and business, but a few other things first. I want to circle back to collaboration, because I've certainly co-written with some humans, and I know a lot of listeners either have co-written or collaborated with other humans—and some of it works and some of it doesn't. You have some great information on human-plus-human creativity and collaboration. So maybe you could give us some tips on how we can be more effective collaborators with other humans. James: So there's a whole section about this idea of creative pairs. Often if you look at great creative work or innovative companies, very often when you strip it all back, you'll find at the core lots and lots of creative pairings. That is usually two different but complementary personalities who are willing to develop and challenge and improve each other's ideas. We think of Jobs and Wozniak in the world of business, or Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. For authors, often that relationship is the work with their editor. There was a documentary I saw—I think it was a New Yorker documentary that came out a while ago—talking with a writer of history books about his relationship with his editor. It was a really beautiful relationship. These were two very different personalities, but what worked was the fact that they were different. A core component of having these creative pairings is a sense of trust—or what some people today would call psychological safety—that you are willing to challenge someone's ideas, but in a space of trust. The Germans have a great phrase for it. In English it translates as “someone to steal horses with,” which I love. Hopefully our listeners have that person where you can go to them and say, “I had this idea for a book or a chapter or a character,” and that person is a “yes, and.” Like, “Yes, and have you thought about doing it this way?” or “What would happen if you did this?” They stress test your ideas. They make your ideas better. For many of us, maybe it's our husbands or wives, our partners. Some of us are lucky enough to have editors. When I started rewriting this latest book, I actually had someone like that—a human, not an AI—that I worked with, especially on taking all these random thoughts and ideas I've been expressing in keynotes and putting them into more of a book form. The format and the structures that we use for telling stories in a speech are quite different from the structure that we would use for a nonfiction book. I didn't have as much experience there, so I wanted someone who could say, “Have you thought about structuring it this way?” or “This is a great story arc you might want to think about.” So I don't know, for you, who is your creative pairing? Who is your “someone to steal horses with”? Jo: Well, it's funny. I really think since the arrival of Claude Opus 4.6, it is absolutely Claude. James: Yes, yes. Jo: All the way. I mean, so we could come onto that next in terms of how AI has changed, because I do still work with a professional editor for both fiction and nonfiction, but it is very much in the “make my finished work better” stage. It is not in the exploratory phase. I find particularly the latest reasoning models to just be fantastic at this. And my Claude is not sycophantic. The Opus 4.6—I'm sure you've been using it too—it just doesn't behave in the way that a lot of people think these AIs did. They did behave like that, and now it's changed. So let's talk about that. What are your thoughts on collaborating more effectively with AI tools, especially as they become more and more powerful? As we record this, Claude Mythos has not come out, but it's certainly rumoured to arrive. I'm pretty excited. James: So because I've been doing this AI thing for a little while, it's given me the ability to experiment with things—the early versions of what many people are using today. I'll give you an example. Even before I started writing the book, I decided to write a book proposal. Even though I could pretty much sense I wanted to independently publish this book through my own publishing company, I thought it's a good practice to put it down into a proposal form, even though I don't go to a traditional publisher or a hybrid publisher. One of the things I did within that was get a sense of who my ideal readers are. I used a very early version—this was a few years ago—of an IBM AI tool, creating what we call a psychometric map of my ideal reader. This basically tells me, over about seventy-two different factors, how this person thinks, how they feel, what their value system is, very broadly for my ideal reader. I pulled in different sources. I knew the kind of magazines and books they were reading and what their general worldview was. So I created this—going one step beyond just creating your ideal reader to really understanding their psychometrics. I do this in my keynotes too. Before I ever give a keynote or an important pitch or a presentation, I use AI to analyse the psychometrics of the audience I'm going to be speaking to. This might tell me, for example, this audience values humour a little bit more, or this audience values a bit more practicality so they want actionable next steps, or this audience is going to be a little bit authority-challenging so they're going to push back. So even in those very early stages, just starting to think about the book—who was I writing this book for, what was the purpose of the book—I was using AI to understand the psychometrics of my absolutely perfect, ideal reader. I gave her a name. It was a female reader. There was someone similar to her that I already knew. Probably for some of your listeners, they do this instinctively anyway. They maybe have a person or a few different people they think of in their head. Then from that stage, because I've been delivering lots and lots of keynotes—and this may be an important distinction in the way that I have decided to write books as opposed to how other people write books—my family were all jazz musicians. The difference between a rock musician or a pop musician and a jazz musician is this: a rock or pop musician will go into the studio, create this opus, this work, and then tour that for the next two years. A jazz musician, on the other hand, goes out and performs the songs and the things from the album that they're eventually going to create hundreds of times, thousands of times, to find out what works with audiences, and then they go into the studio and record the stuff that works best. So I created a book more like a jazz musician. I'd delivered keynote versions of the book hundreds of times before I ever decided to actually write the book. So it had been stress-tested with real people to a certain extent. Then, getting into it, I thought—well, what works as a keynote is not necessarily going to work as a structure for a book. So what I did was start using ChatGPT models at that point to think about the structural edit of the book. What was the structure going to be? What was great is you can basically feed it every single keynote you've given over the years, all the notes, everything you've done, and it could start to give me something to riff with and really get into thinking about how I was going to create this. I was using it a little like that creative pairing we spoke about earlier. Then once I'd done that—so I've now got an idea of a structural edit essentially—I then go back and speak to some humans about it. “What do you think about this?” “What do you think about that?” And try some things out over dinner conversations. “I'm thinking about doing this—what do you think?” Then once I did that, I just did the thing that I really didn't want to do, but I guess you absolutely have to do: sit in a seat for multiple weeks and just get that crappy first draft done. That was just me writing, from my voice, in my way of doing things. Every so often I would use an AI to research a particular thing, but I didn't want to slow down the pace too much. I was focused on getting that word count done. Once I had the first draft, I then brought the AI back in. In this case, I was still using OpenAI at this stage, to act more like an editor. To tell me what was weak about the book. At this point I was starting to give it the overall framing. What was weak, what chapters needed to be improved. I then went back, started reworking each of the chapters, and worked chapter by chapter using that AI as a sparring partner. But once again, the AI is not really writing my words for me. It's maybe saying, “This part could be said better. You might want to think about doing it this way,” or “You are missing a really powerful case study or example here,” or at the very end of each chapter, I have actionable next steps, and “You're missing some things here.” So I've gone through that entire process of writing, and now I'm essentially at the second draft. At this point, what I'm doing is using another AI tool—Claude, in this case—to have a different perspective on it. I gave it the work. I mentioned a couple of editors that I really respect and different writers I respect and said, “I'm going to create a virtual beta readers group. Give me feedback on this now.” For someone that's listening to this, and we're recording this in April 2026, here's some good news for you. There are now a bunch of tools out there that use AI swarms, as we call them. You can basically feed it your book and it will create synthetic readers—thousands and thousands of synthetic readers that read your kind of style of book—and it will then give you feedback from these synthetic readers. Essentially, I was just doing an early version of that. So I got the feedback from the synthetic readers, the AI readers, and then reworked a little bit. Some of the stuff I just decided not to do because it didn't align with what I was trying to say in the book. Then the next stage was I had a beta reader group of about thirty human beta readers—my ideal readers. I sent the book to them, they gave me feedback. I then used AI to give me an overview report of all their feedback, and then I was able to go back into reworking the book. That's still really just draft three of the book, not the final book at this stage. But just to give everyone a sense of opening up the process: you could see how the human and machine were working together. Jo: Yes, I love that. I also often say to people who are speakers first that you can, if you have recordings of your talks or if you use your slide decks to record them as MP3s and then just use that transcript as the basis of a draft. Obviously it's not the book or a chapter, but it can actually preserve your voice—your speaking voice—which I think can be really effective for speakers. I like your multi-step process there. And then of course, if you have audience avatars in AI, that can help you design your book marketing. So take this into book marketing and how you're doing that. James: So I still decided to go old school with a human editor—a book editor that someone had recommended to me. I used that human book editor just to go through the book. At that point we're talking about style, some stylistic things that we wanted to do, and they can pick up other things as well. So I've got that book, and then I'm obviously starting to use AI to understand what tags, what kind of copy do I want to have in terms of putting it onto Amazon, putting it onto IngramSpark, and all these other platforms I want to put it out into. I'm using Claude here in particular—and with Claude, you have something called Cowork. It wasn't quite fully happening at that point, but there were early versions of it and Claude Code—to almost start working with and creating a virtual marketing team. I give it the book and then they could start thinking about: what is the marketing strategy for this book? What does the campaign look like? What are the things that we need to do? That was then starting to break it down. We're now three months out or so before the book is due to get released, and I'm starting to deploy that particular campaign. So for example, I'm on a podcast right now, and we try different versions. We have a human going out and reaching out to potential shows for me to be a guest on, but I also have an agent. There's also one going out and finding and researching podcasts and reaching out to those podcast hosts to have me as a potential guest. So they're doing some of the tactical work there at the same time. One mistake I made—and I don't know if you've experienced this as well—if I was to go back, one thing I would do differently is this: I decided to record the audiobook version after the physical book was already committed and ready to go out. Jo: Mm-hmm. James: And I noticed so many small errors or things I would change after having spent two days in a studio recording the voice for the entire book—changes I would have made. This is something other people did ask me: why are you not using ElevenLabs or an AI clone of your voice to read the script? There are some things I feel quite personal about, and my voice is one of those things. As a professional keynote speaker, I decided I wanted to keep that and have it in there. So it's going to be different for everyone which things they decide to offload to AI, which things they decide to give to a human member of their team, and what they decide to keep to themselves. Jo: Yes, I mean, I human-record my nonfiction, but I have an AI voice clone with ElevenLabs for my fiction now. But obviously, for people listening, you can't put an ElevenLabs voice-cloned audiobook on Audible, and a lot of your sales will be on Audible, especially for a book like this. So I think that's also important. I agree with you on doing the audio edit. There's always things you want to change. But as you mentioned, you're self-publishing this, so you can just go in and change your files. James: Yes, and that was the other reason, and this was part of the marketing—now we're moving into the marketing and the business model behind the book. For me, the book doesn't have to be a financial driver in its own sense. The way that I sell books, and usually people like myself—professional speakers—is we bulk sell books to our clients. Let's say I'm speaking at four different events this month. Each has about a thousand people at them. Those organisers will buy, say, a thousand copies of the book. So at the end of that month, you might have sold four thousand copies—not individual copies. Anything that sells on Amazon or in other places is almost like a positioning piece. Obviously you want people to buy the book and learn things from the book, but in terms of the distribution model, it's slightly different because I'm primarily selling through bulk sales. Now, here's a little twist you can do on this, and this is a decision I made even before we released this version of the book. I speak to lots of different industries. There was a speaker and author—I've forgotten his name now, I think he was from Florida—and what he decided to do was to write a slightly different version of his main book every year, but for a different industry. So what this allows him to do is, let's say in my case, I'm doing a version of the SuperCreativity book just for legal professionals because I speak to a lot of law firms and legal groups. I've already started working on a version of the book which is a little bit more attuned to that audience. As a speaker, it allows me to go to all these law firms and legal associations and bar associations and say, “Hey, I've just written the book on creativity and artificial intelligence for the legal industry.” That makes you a very bookable proposition for a client. And then obviously you can sell books from that as well. And that's before we get into the foreign language versions. That's just a model that happens to work pretty well for my part of the industry, but obviously it's going to be very different for other types of authors. Jo: No, I think that's great. For nonfiction authors, as you say, there are different revenue models. Your income, I guess, would be what, eighty, ninety per cent speaking revenue? Or do you have other things as well? James: Yes, primarily it's the keynote speaking, and anything that comes from the back of that. Sometimes it's boardroom advisory work that I do as well. But primarily it's the speaking side. So really the book is just the simplest form to get my ideas out and the most affordable form. Jo: Mm-hmm. James: Because the other thing is, you want as many people getting your ideas as possible, and there is no better, more affordable way of getting someone's ideas out there than in the form of a book. I think it's just the most unbelievable transmitter of knowledge—a book. That's why I love to write the book as well. A lot of my friends say, “Listen, books are old hat. You don't need to do a book any more. You can do these other things, other forms, online courses.” I've done lots of online courses in the past and membership sites and all those things, but there's just something that is great about a book—to be able to summarise your ideas at a particular point in time. It's also a great transmitter of value to other people. And it is affordable. Any book, someone can download a book on Audible or wherever they want—that's just an affordable way of absorbing that content. Jo: Yes. Well, of course we are all fans of books here. I do speak—I don't tend to do keynote speaking. I do more content speaking at conferences. For people listening, keynote speaking is where you tend to get the higher revenue. So if people listening have books already—let's say they have nonfiction books or even fiction books that could be turned somehow into different topics—if people want to get booked for speaking gigs, preferably ones that pay— How would you recommend authors think about moving into speaking if that's something they want to do? James: So obviously it's much easier for nonfiction authors to do that. I mean, I'll give you an example. I was speaking at an event last week in New York for L'Oréal, the hair care and cosmetics company. They had six different speakers. One of them was a speaker on macroeconomics and geopolitics. Another was an expert on communications. Another was an expert on AI. Another was an expert on storytelling. So you have to think: does my topic have value for that type of audience—that corporate audience? An easy way of finding that is if you just go onto any of the speaker bureau websites, type in “speaker bureaus,” look for the speaker bureaus, and then type in your topic area—emotional intelligence or whatever the topic area is—and look at the other speakers. See if there is obviously a number of speakers talking on this area. Importantly, look at how busy they are and look at their fee levels as well. I did an online summit a few years ago called the International Speakers Summit, where I interviewed a hundred and fifty of the world's best professional keynote speakers. I interviewed Sally Hogshead, who's an author and a speaker, and she said to me, “James, you're going out speaking about creativity, but if you just twisted it a little bit and spoke more in terms of innovation rather than creativity, you would earn an extra five thousand dollars per keynote.” So creativity and innovation—an extra five thousand dollars. That's just a simple thing that, as you get to understand the industry, you learn. Then once you do that, it's like any business—you have to treat it like a business, obviously. What makes someone a great storyteller on stages is not the same as what makes a great storyteller on the written word. So depending on where you're at, you might need certain training and skills development. If you are listening to this from America, there are things like the National Speakers Association, the NSA. If you're living in the UK, the Professional Speakers Association. These are great ways just to develop your skill set and learn from other professional speakers. Here's the good news, I didn't know anything about professional speaking until 2017–18, and it was only from having a conversation with someone who said, “Listen, you have some original thoughts. You can get paid to speak about this on stage.” Then I spent the next year really researching and understanding and looking at how to do it and creating a minimum viable product—a speech—that was a very short period of time, a year. Most of the listeners here have gone through that process of writing a book, which takes many, many months. So you have the stamina to do this type of work. You just need to find out where you fit. I thought I was going to be a speaker in marketing. I thought that was going to be my thing. And it turns out that's not what the market wanted from me. They wanted me to talk about creativity and artificial intelligence. So you have to listen to the market, like you have to listen to your readers. Jo: Yes, I think that's really interesting. I was also a member of the PSA here, and I learned in Australia with the NSAA as it was. James: Yes. Jo: And that thing about who you speak to—I mainly speak to author conferences, who, I just want to be frank, don't pay very well, if at all. So exactly what you said there— If you want to be a highly paid speaker, you have to pick the audience who's going to pay, as well as a topic that works with them. It is a very different thing to writing a book, I think. James: It is a different model. This is what was interesting when I interviewed those hundred and fifty professional speakers—the thing that came back loud and clear is there is a model to suit everyone. Jo: Mm. James: So the model that works for me—getting paid high fees to go and travel around the world, speaking on stages to primarily corporate audiences—that is not the only model. There is another model, which is called the “sell from the stage” model, where you maybe don't get paid anything to go and speak on the stage, or very little, but what you're doing is you're selling your consulting, your online course, your books, your other products from the back of the stage. That's another model as well. I have friends who have young families and they are writers and they don't want to schlep on planes like I do. I know one speaker in particular who never leaves his own city. He is a very successful professional speaker. He happens to live in Orlando, Florida, which is one of the busiest cities for conferences. So literally, he's home with his kids every night. He gets to do all this cool stuff he wants. He never has to step on a plane if he doesn't want to. That just shows you the range. I remember I once interviewed a person whose title was a Buddhist monk, French speaker, and author. He figured out he could live very affordably by living in Thailand. So he lives in Thailand for part of the year and he's very into meditation, mindfulness, yoga, and writing. He figured out he only had to give two keynotes per year to pay for his entire lifestyle. That was it. So that gives him a lot of freedom. He does those two corporate keynotes a year and for the rest of the year he's doing his yoga, his meditation, his writing, and surfboarding, whatever he's into as well. So you can see there's a whole range of different ways you can design that life. Jo: Yes, we talk a lot about definition of success and it's great to hear those different examples. So before we finish up, I just want to come back to your journey into the writing side, into books and self-publishing. We all understand, me and the listeners, how hard it is to write a book and also to market a book, but we've got the bug. So we wonder: how much have you got the bug? Do you plan on doing more writing, more books, or do you still want to lean more heavily into speaking? James: Primarily the income for me will still come from speaking. I remember listening to Elizabeth Gilbert once when she talked about her writing. She said she always wanted to have other things, so she never had to push onto her writing that it had to be the income stream for her. If it was successful, great, that's fantastic. So I have a little bit of a similar view to that. In terms of my own writing, I've got about five different nonfiction book ideas I'm now looking at. Some of them relate to speeches that I already do. Some don't. I'm looking at different versions of the SuperCreativity book, so there'll be other versions coming out—different industries, different languages. That gives you a few years of work. The other side that I want to develop is the fiction writing side. I'm already starting to work on a fiction book at the moment—a little bit like this idea of one for them, one for me. Jo: Mm-hmm. James: So one for them is for the corporate audience, that world that I live in, and the other one is for me, for my own creativity. My hope—and I don't know, maybe we need to speak in a year's time when I've written and published it—is that by doing the fiction side, it will make me a better storyteller on stages as well for my corporate audience. It will help me understand story arcs, slightly different ways of expressing stories, building emotion, building the anti-hero characters within a book, for example. So I'm hoping that they both feed off each other. But we will see. Jo: Yes, we will. All the best with that. So where can people find you and your books and everything you do online? James: The easiest place to go is JamesTaylor.me, and you can find the book, which is called SuperCreativity, there. Or just go to wherever you buy your books—your local independent bookstore—and get a copy of SuperCreativity. The audiobook may already be out by the time you're listening to this as well. If you want to learn a little bit more, we also have a podcast called the SuperCreativity Podcast, where I interview lots of wonderful guests talking about this area of super creativity. Jo: Well, thanks so much for your time, James. That was brilliant. James: Thank you, Joanna. Thanks for having me as a guest on the show.The post SuperCreativity And KeyNote Speaking With A Non-Fiction Book With James Taylor first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Hey there! It's Michael here - and welcome back to English Tips in a Minute from Happy English. I'm here every week with a short, simple tip to help you speak English more naturally and confidently. Today, let's look at a really natural American English sentence pattern:  go + verb.In English, we often use go before another verb when we mean go somewhere and do something.You can say things like, go get lunch,  go buy something, and go see a movieLet's go get lunch after the meeting.I'm gonna go buy a new TV this weekend.We're gonna go see a movie tonight.So feel free to  go ask your teacher or go pick up some coffee or go check it out a new restaurantAgain, just use go followed by a base verb. This pattern is super common and sounds very natural in conversation. Go try using it this weekHey, thanks for listening! And remember to follow and subscribe so you don't miss the next Happy English Podcast and next week's English Tips in a Minute.  Until next time, keep learning and keep it cool.The Happy English PodcastHelping people speak English better since 2014Over 1,000 episodes • 8 million downloads

主播：Meimei（中国）+ Maelle（法国） 音乐：Enemy最近，一部国产短剧《ENEMY》在全平台播放量接近20亿，成为年轻观众热议的现象级作品。这个剧的主创团队，煎饼果仔和夏天妹妹在之前就靠着他们自导自演的短剧《逃出大英博物馆》火了一把。今天就让我们一起来聊聊，是什么让这部剧如此之火？这里面打动网友的又是什么？01. What is Short Drama？什么是短剧？短剧一般非常浓缩，每集只有1到2分钟，情节紧凑。It is super short, like one or two minutes per episode. 我们可以称之为“short drama”。They're usually pretty dramatic (抓马) — like rich people fighting (豪门争斗), secret babies (秘密生子), or sudden amnesia (突然失忆). 这种剧情节奏让观众欲罢不能，也就是这类作品的魅力所在。2分钟里就能发生很多事情，而且每一集都留下 cliffhanger（悬念），让人忍不住继续往下看。cliffhanger: （剧情）悬念；吊人胃口的结尾很多网友说：本来只是随便点开，结果一口气追完。这部剧的火爆程度也吸引了国外观众的关注。这部剧一出就火，可以用smash hit来形容。smash hit: 非常流行和轰动的内容那相反的，如果有一些作品起初无人关注、不温不火。但后来突然大受欢迎并获得成功，那就可以叫做sleeper hit。sleeper hit: 先沉睡，后爆火的作品回到《ENEMY》这部作品本身，它很吸引年轻人们的另一个原因就是它里面的无限流元素。02. What is Infinite Flow？什么是“无限流”？“无限流”是中国网络小说的一种题材，常被改编成短剧。可以翻译为 infinite flow 或 infinite loop genre。主角通常被困在一个危险的游戏空间里，必须完成任务才能生存。In English we might say: multiple universes (多重宇宙) or alternate realities (平行世界).每一关的规则可能不同，可能是恐怖片主题，下一关又是科幻片。例句：The protagonist is trapped in a game space, where there are multiple universes(主人公被困进了多重宇宙的游戏设定).She has to complete missions in multiple universes to stay alive (她必须在多个宇宙中完成任务才能生存).03. Patriotism Rooted in Family Love 让人“破防”的家国情怀观众在观看《ENEMY》时，常常会被戳中泪点，这在中文网络被称为“破防”。“破防”就是原本心理防线很强，但突然被某个瞬间击中。In English we might say: That scene hit me hard emotionally（某个瞬间情感上被击中）或者 It was really tear-jerking（非常催泪）。很多网友就此指出了女主夏天妹妹的表演功力。There's one scene where she barely speaks (几乎没有台词), but you can literally see the affection and devotion in her eyes (但眼神中充满深情和不舍).Her eyes did all the talking (她的眼神已经表达了一切).这部剧的情感核心不仅是生存，还有保护他人和家园。It becomes about protecting other people, her home, and something bigger than herself. 这种情感在中文中被称作“家国情怀”。在英语中，家国情怀可以是 the idea of patriotism rooted in family love (根植于家庭之爱的爱国主义)。It really elevated the drama (这份情感让剧情更加升华).04. AI and Human Emotion 人工智能和人类真实的情感许多网友讨论，AI可以生成剧情，但无法生成灵魂。AI can generate plots, but it can't generate souls.人们关注 copyright (版权) and creative rights (创作权)，同时网友们也在关注情感的真实性。Whether AI can truly understand human emotions（AI是否能真正理解人类情感）仍是讨论热点。当作品原创、走心时，观众会说它是“手搓”的。It doesn't literally mean “made by hand” (并非字面意思是手工制作). 而是有人认真打磨过，有 human touch（有人性化的用心）。It feels handcrafted 或 It has a human touch（作品有手作感或人性化气息）。观众能够明显感受到这种区别，这也是《ENEMY》爆火的原因之一。《ENEMY》之所以火，不只是因为剧情刺激，更因为观众与角色产生了情感共鸣。People feel emotionally connected to it.尤其在AI越来越强大的时代，大家反而更珍惜真实传达出来的人类情感。Because maybe what moves us most… is still humanity itself. 也许打动我们的，依然是人性本身。欢迎在评论区留言：正在收听节目的你，有刷到《ENEMY》吗？Have you watched the short drama 《ENEMY》?

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 3, 2026 is: métier • MET-yay • noun Métier, sometimes styled metier, is a formal word that refers to something that a person does very well. // After trying several careers, she found her true métier in computer science. See the entry > Examples: “Turning from his father's trade of corset-making, [Thomas] Paine tried his hand at business, met and impressed Benjamin Franklin in London, sailed to America, and there found his true metier as a pamphleteer and radical.” — Matthew Redmond, The Conversation, 9 Oct. 2025 Did you know? Over the centuries, English has borrowed several French words related in some way to work or working, among them oeuvre (“a substantial body of work of a writer, an artist, or a composer”) and travail (“work of a laborious nature, toil”). Métier (pronounced /MET-yay/) is another. It is sometimes translated from its original French as “job” or “career” but in that language it more accurately refers to the trade or profession in which one works (it traces back to the Old French mistier, meaning “duty, craft, profession”). In English we tend toward a narrower meaning for métier, referring either to a job for which one is perfectly suited or a particular field in which one is extremely skilled. This makes it a synonym of another French borrowing, forte.

Day 1,517.Today, amid another exchange of drone and missile strikes between Ukraine and Russia, we report on growing speculation that the European Union's €90 billion loan for Kyiv could finally be approved as early as tomorrow. We also examine Ukraine's efforts to develop its own alternative to US-made Patriot air defence systems. Then, later, we take a deep dive into a major new Western film, The Wizard of the Kremlin, exploring how accurately it portrays Vladimir Putin's rise to power – and the wider questions raised by telling Russia's story through a pre-war, fictional lens.Contributors:Adelie Pojzman-Pontay (Host on Ukraine: The Latest). @Adeliepjz on X.Francis Dearnley (Host on Ukraine: The Latest). @FrancisDearnley on X.With thanks to Chief Film Critic at The Telegraph Robbie Collin and political scientist Anna Colin Lebedev.NOW IN FULL VIDEO WITH MAPS & BATTLEFIELD FOOTAGE:Every episode is now available on our YouTube channel shortly after the release of the audio version. You will find it here: https://www.youtube.com/@UkraineTheLatest CONTENT REFERENCED:Exclusive interview: World faces new nuclear arms race (The Telegraph):https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/04/20/world-faces-new-nuclear-arms-race-head-of-un-atomic-agency/ Former tank commander reviews Challenger 3 (Hamish de Bretton-Gordon in The Telegraph):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PLOyJKtGKw Russian nursery-school children taught to fly drones (The Telegraph):https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/04/21/russia-nursery-school-children-fly-drones/ Jude Law as Vladimir Putin? It's a strangely flattering choice (Robbie Collin in The Telegraph):https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/review-wizard-kremlin-putin-jude-law/ (Hom)mage du Kremlin, Anna Colin Lebedev: In French: https://colinlebedev.fr/2026/01/22/hommage-du-kremlin/In English: https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article77848Personal Website: colinlebedev.frJude Law plays Putin in a film shot in Riga. Latvian officials say it serves Kremlin propaganda (Meduza):https://meduza.io/en/feature/2026/03/07/jude-law-plays-putin-in-a-film-shot-in-riga-latvian-officials-say-it-serves-kremlin-propaganda The History Bureau, Putin and the Apartment Bombs (BBC):https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m002q5dkUkraine pushing to produce home-grown ballistic defense system 'within a year,' Zelensky says (Kyiv Independent):https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-pushing-to-produce-home-grown-ballistic-defense-system-within-a-year-zelensky-says/EMAIL US:Contact the team on ukrainepod@telegraph.co.uk . We continue to read every message, and seek to respond to as many on air and in our newsletter as possible.HIGHLIGHTS: Russian nursery-school children ‘taught to fly drones'Reviewing new film 'The Wizard of the Kremlin' Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Put on the New Humanity Ephesians 4:11-24 by William Klock Back in the Fall of 2007—after you'd hired me, but before we'd made the move here—I came up for a standing committee meeting in Victoria and then a visit here.  The trip from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay started out like any other trip, but about half an hour in, the winds picked up.  It got bad enough that the terminals were shut down for the rest of the evening.  But there I was.  It was one of the big Spirit-class ships.  But there I was on a ship in the middle of the storm.  What was supposed to be a two-hour trip took a little over three hours as the ship drove into the winds and the waves.  Every few minutes the ship would hit a wave and the loud “thud” and the shudder would reverberate through the ship.  But we made it.  It took longer than it should have.  And all through, even though we could feel the reverberation of the waves through the ship, it was steady as a rock on the churning strait.  Its design, its stabilisers all did what they're supposed to do.  I was a little impatient to get to the destination, but no one was seasick and  never once did I fear we wouldn't make it. Brother and Sisters, in the midst of the wind and waves of the world, that's how the church should be.  The church should be the great ship, rock steady, in the middle of the storm, not being tossed this way and that way.  The church should be the ship, dead on course, sure of its arrival even if the storms slows her down.  The church should be the ship—like Noah's ark—a place of security, a place of peace, a place of safety in the midst of the wind and waves.  But the ship won't be that steady rock in the storm if we don't get the preliminaries right.  Those big ferries that sail the Strait are carefully engineered: precisely designed hulls, precisely designed stabilisers, paired with precisely designed engines.  And just so the church. Remember last week as we began our look at Ephesians 4. I said that what Paul was doing there was a bit like designing a three-legged stool to support what comes next.  And so he stresses, first, that we—as individuals, but then collectively as the church—need to be humble, meek, and patient, bearing with each other in love.  You can build a church without those things, and it might even be rock steady in the storm, but it's going to the sort of place—or the sort of ship—that throws people overboard when there's a problem, or it's going to be the sort of ship that sees someone floundering helplessly in the sea and runs them down instead of rescuing them.  It's going to be a ship sailing to the wrong port. And, second, the church needs to be one—to remember the unity it has in the one Spirit, the one Messiah, the one God and Father of all.  We've all been baptised in one baptism and strive forward toward the one hope shared by the one church.  It's hard to be steady in the storm if we forget that.  Instead of all pulling together to accomplish our gospel mission, this person is doing this and that person is doing that and someone else is doing something else over there and the ship goes nowhere or drifts aimlessly off course. And then, third, and closely related are the gifts.  Paul wrote in 4:7-10, loosely quoting Psalm 68:18, that when Jesus ascended to his throne, he sent the Spirit to bring gifts to his people—so that he might fill all things.  That was temple language and a reminder that God's ultimate purpose is to fill the whole of creation with the knowledge of his glory and ultimately with his presence.  And that's our job, our purpose, our mission.  It's the port our ship is headed for as we proclaim and live the gospel, making God known.  But we don't do it on our own.  Our knowledge and experience of God's glory will only go so far, and so he's not only filled us with his Spirit, but the Spirit the equips us for the mission.  In the Spirit, the presence of God goes with us. And that brings us to our text today as we pick up with Ephesians 4:11. [Page 1161 in the pew Bibles.]  As Paul wrote verses 11 to 16, it's one really long sentence.  In English we have to break it up.  It has two “movements”.  First, look at 11-13.  Paul writes, “The gifts he gave were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for their work of service, for the building up of the Messiah's body, until all of us come to unity of faith and the knowledge of the son of God, to maturity, measured by the standard of the Messiah's fullness.” This is one of those lessons that it seems the church has to learn over and over and over.  We're all different.  Paul, thinking in terms of the First Century, talks all the time about Jew and Gentile, slave and free, rich and poor, man and woman, but we bring all sorts of difference.  We come from different cultures and backgrounds, different socio-economic classes, different languages, different levels of education, different sorts of families.  We have different interests and different likes.  We have different personalities and different skills.  Sometimes we find that those who were once enemies—soldiers on different sides, criminals and their victims, people from different political parties—are now brought together by the gospel.  The Spirit binds us together.  We share one baptism in one Lord who is the son of the one Father and we all yearn towards that one hope in which the earth is full of God's glory and creation set to rights once and for all.  And it's not only that, but the Spirit gifts us all differently.  What those gifts are and how they work and how they're received isn't fully clear.  I think sometimes we've had a tendency to try to nail this down too much.  To say, for example, that the gifts Paul talks about are all somehow miraculous gifts that we wouldn't have without the Spirit or we take Paul's lists of gifts (and there are several lists and they're all different) and we tell people that they have to have one of those specific gifts from his lists.  Brothers and Sisters, I think it's more organic than that.  The Spirit can give someone an entirely new gift that they could never come by naturally, but many of the gifts are just who we are and what we're gifted with naturally, but now empowered and given gospel direction by the Spirit.  And I think the full list is as diverse as the church is.  None of us is entirely quite the same as anyone else. So there's a vast panoply of gifts, but Paul puts his focus here on the ones that steer the ship: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.  I wonder if Paul puts his focus here because of his own experiences with rejection as an apostle.  Or maybe it was because he'd seen churches torn apart when leaders and teachers put themselves above the unity of the church.  Some people followed this teacher and other followed that teacher.  It's still a big problem today. I'm always suspicious of men and women who develop big ministries that aren't anchored the church and who name those ministries after themselves or ministries, again not really tied to a church and all centred around a person or personality.  We just don't see that in the New Testament.  It's the opposite of the model for ministry scripture gives us.  And it's also sadly common these days for churches to split because people have decided to follow this teacher, instead of that one.  When the gospel is being compromised and the people doing it refuse correction, that may be just cause for division in the body.  But an awful lot of our divisions today are the result of leaders and teachers who have forgotten the great importance of maintaining the unity that Jesus and the Spirit have given us. Whatever Paul's reason for focusing on these kinds of leadership or authority or teaching gifts, it's not exhaustive, and his point is that the Spirit gifts us—not just some “saints”, but all the saints, all of God's people—in order to equip us for the work of service.  Some translations say “ministry”, but I think “service” is probably better in our context.  When we think of “ministry” today, a lot of people immediately think about the clergy, about pastors.  The way we talk about the clergy can be misleading.  We often use the term “minister” for someone who is ordained.  Or we say, “He's in the ministry.”  And that can leave people with the false impression that people like me or like our bishop are the ones who do the real work.  But that's not how it's supposed to be.  We're all ministers and we're all equally involved in ministry—or service.  The Greek word is diakonia.  That's where we get the word “deacon”, meaning one who serves.  But that's what we all do.  The church isn't like a ferry, where you've got a few people who run the ship and everyone else is just along for the ride.  In his providence, God has brought us all together and each of us has a natural place to serve.  If we struggle to find it, it might just be because we're thinking too narrowly of what “ministry” is or looks like. And that ministry, whatever it is, Paul is stressing, is for the building up of the body.  Paul longed for the Ephesians to grow into maturity.  And that meant growing to the point where they—not just as individuals, but as the body—the point where they faithfully put on display the truth of Jesus the Messiah.  It happens through a combination of unity in faith and knowledge of the son of God, of Jesus.  And the standard for measuring that maturity is the fullness of Jesus himself.  Think of it this way.  The risen and ascended Jesus is the embodiment not just of God's new creation, but more importantly he is the new human being, the new Adam.  He is everything Adam was supposed to be and more.  And Paul wants to see the church grow into just that kind of image: to grow into Christ-likeness.  It will never be perfect this side of eternity, but Brothers and Sisters, when the world looks at the church, it should see Jesus and it should see his new creation. And this maturity, this growing up” is the main point of verses 14-16.  Paul goes on, “This is so that we won't be babies any longer.  So that we won't be toss to and fro by the waves, carried away by every gust of teaching, by human tricksters, by their cunning and deceitful scheming.  Instead, we must speak the truth in love, and so grow up in everything into him, that is, into the Messiah, who is the head.  He supplies the growth that the whole body needs, linked as it is and held together by every joint which supports it, with each member doing its own proper work.  Then the body builds itself up in love.” We all start as spiritual babies.  God plunges us into his Spirit and gives us new life, but that doesn't make us mature saints—saints who have grown into the stature of the Messiah—overnight.  That said, it's often remarkable what the Spirit does do.  Often the Spirit will convict of sins that we didn't even know were sins.  Often the Spirit will suddenly flood us with one or more of his fruit and dramatically change us.  But on the whole, it takes diligence and effort to grow as Christian.  We don't learn the great story, we don't learn God's character, or what he expects of us by osmosis; we've got to steep ourselves in the scriptures.  We've got to invest in prayer—talking to God—in response, as we hear him speak to us through those scriptures.  We have to exercise our faith as if it were a muscle and the same goes for all the fruit of the Spirit.  We have to work diligently to put off the old and put on the new, not just to leave our sins behind, but to resist going back to pick them up.  We have to work at guarding the unity of the body of Jesus.  Because the world, the flesh, and the devil are all doing their damndest to make sure we never grow up. And this may be why Paul puts the emphasis here on gifts related to authority, leadership, and teaching.  There are heresies and false teachers out there.  People proclaiming false Jesuses and false gospels, people promoting gospels that promote selfishness or sin or health and wealth.  There are people proclaiming violence and politics as gospel.  There are people inventing their own scriptures and there false prophets.  And there are even real Christians and real churches out there that have, themselves, never grow up.  They got as far as the spiritual toddler phase, and somehow they got a platform—the modern church is sadly really good at giving it to them—and they're proclaiming that Jesus just wants you to come play forever in the sandbox instead of doing the hard work of growing into his full stature.  We need the people with those gifts who will lead us where we need to go.  The apostles—who were unique and whom we only meet in the New Testament—it's their authoritative writings that speak with the authority of God.  There are those uniquely gifted to shepherd the flock into green pastures and to protect them from wolves.  There are those with gifts to faithfully teach.  God even gifts some to be prophets.  We too often today think of prophets in terms of someone who tells the future, but in scriptural terms a prophet is really someone who applies God's truth to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.  A prophet comes alongside the faithful in times of trouble to comfort and to exhort.  But a prophet also confronts the church when it is in error or has gone astray and calls it back to faithfulness lest it experience God's judgement.  These are the people who guide us as we grow, who protect us from wolves, and who confront us when we've gone off course—or when we'd rather just play in the sandbox. And, of course, it's all done in love.  Remember the first leg of the stool that supports all this: humility, meekness, patience, and love.  As we minister in the name of Jesus, we need to minister with the heart and character of Jesus.  But if we do that, we will gradually grow up into Jesus, who is the head of the body.  And Paul stresses: never forget that he is the one who ultimately grows us up.  It's all of his grace.  He's ultimately the one who has brought us all together and holds us all together.  If we want to grow up into his likeness, we need to keep our eyes, our focus on him. So Paul started the chapter by urging them to live up to the calling they've received—in other words, to be the new humanity that Jesus has made them.  And now he gets back to that in verses 17: “So this is what I want to say; I am bearing witness to it in the Lord.  You must no longer behave like the gentiles, foolish-minded as they are.  Their understanding is darkened; they are cut off from God's life because of their deep-seated ignorance, which springs from the fact that their hearts are hard.  They have lost all moral sensitivity, and have given themselves over to whatever takes their fancy.  They go off greedily after every kind of uncleanness.” This should be a no-brainer.  I think that was especially so for the Ephesians.  They'd come out of the dark, hopeless world of paganism.  They knew how everyone just looked out for themselves.  They knew what a world without grace was like.  They knew that world in which things like humility and meekness and forbearing with people below your status was a sign of weakness.  They knew a world of idolatry and moral filth that, even as bad as our world sometimes seems, we can only begin to imagine.  They'd been delivered from that kind of life.  They'd been made part of God's new creation.  And yet, over time, bits and pieces of that old world kept creeping back into the lives of these Christians.  The same thing happens to us.  We're captivated by the gospel, we repent, we turn aside from sin and idols, we embrace Jesus.  We read our Bible and we pray and we walk with our brothers and sisters.  But slowly bits and pieces or our old life start to creep back in.  Or maybe we've never full repented in the first place.  So we commit ourselves to Jesus, we love God, but money is still an idol.  Maybe not as much as it once was, but we haven't really let go of it and that starts affecting our spiritual growth and our witness.  Greed leads us to be dishonest in business or to treat coworkers or employees unjustly.  It keeps us from being generous with God and with others.  Or maybe it's sex.  We continue to use and abuse others, whether physically or virtually through pornography, to gratify our desires.  Maybe we indulge our anger and wrath.  Maybe we let our self-control slide.  And instead of maturing into the stature of Jesus, we stagnate or we even start to revert back to being babies again. Paul warns us: Don't behave like that.  You know better.  The fallen world and fallen humanity are like that because their hearts are hard and their minds are full of foolishness—and, most importantly, they know nothing of real life.  But you know better.  The Spirit has softened your hearts.  God has filled you with his wisdom.  And, most important of all, he's not only given you a taste of his new creation and made you a part of it, he's made you a steward of it.  No, Paul says in verse 20: “That's not how you learned the Messiah—if, indeed, you did hear about him, and were taught in him, in accordance with the truth about Jesus himself.” Notice: Living in such a way that Paul would question whether you ever actually did know the gospel, that's not a good place to be.  No, Paul's saying, remember what you were taught: “That teaching stressed that you should take off your former lifestyle, your old humanity.  That way of life is decaying as a result of deceitful lusts.  Instead, you must be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and you must put on the new humanity, which is being created the way God intended it, displaying justice and genuine holiness.” I love the way Paul puts in terms of how we “learned the Messiah”.  That's how it works.  We were captivated by the gospel because we learned an image of Jesus: wise and loving, tender and gentle with the hurting, confronting and stern with the hypocrites and the wicked.  And we realise, that's what true humanity looks like.  That's what men and women set to rights by God are supposed to be like.  And so, in our baptism, we put off the old, fallen, broken, decaying way of being human—a way that leads only to tears and death—and we put on the new humanity embodied by Jesus and enlivened, made possible by God's indwelling Spirit.  Maybe we need to bring back the old practise from the ancient church where those being baptised put off their old clothes and put on clean, fresh, white robes. It might remind us what we committed to in our baptism: to put off the old way of life that leads to death and to put on the new life of Jesus and the Spirit, the new humanity, God's new creation.  Because, Brothers and Sisters, we need to ground ourselves in this renewal every single day.  This is what it means to be a Christian.  This is what it means to live as God's renewed humanity. And, Paul stresses in verse 24, such a people will display God's justice and true holiness.  Let's close with that image: justice and true holiness.  Such a people will display their—our hope—as we live together as a people washed clean by the blood of Jesus and renewed by the Spirit.  We live out and bring to the word justice.  Or righteousness.  The Greek word, dikaiosune, means both.  And that's why Paul can couple our display of justice and righteousness with true holiness.  Brothers and Sisters, as God sets us to rights, he makes us a people who witness the very thing the whole of humanity and all of creation so desperately needs—the solution to the pain and the hurt and sickness and the tears, the solution to the brokenness of the world.  It's not just moralism.  It's justice finally brought to a world of injustice.  It's righteousness finally brought to world of unrighteousness.  It's a people, made holy by Jesus so that we can be a fit place for the dwelling place of God—a temple that carries his presence to the ends of the earth.  It begins in our baptism, but it does not stop there.  It continues as Jesus grows us into his full stature of justice and holiness, and as he brings us together to share our gifts in a united mission of service: to bring the good news of that justice and righteousness to the world.  To be the temple through which God will make his glory known through all the earth. Let's pray: Almighty God, who gave your only Son to be for us both a sacrifice for sin and an example of godly life: Give us grace that we may always receive with thankfulness the immesasurable benefit of his sacrifice, and daily endeavour to follow in the blessed steps of his most holy life, who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, on God, for evermore.  Amen.

By Michael A. Youssef, Ph.D. Read John 19:28-30. Just before He died, Jesus declared, “It is finished” (John 19:30). In English it's three words, but in Greek it's a single, triumphant word: Tetelestai—a perfect passive verb meaning the work has been fully accomplished, and its effects continue on and on. In today's episode of the MY Devotional Podcast, Dr. Michael Youssef unpacks why that matters for your faith right now. On the cross, Jesus completed everything necessary for salvation—atonement for sin, forgiveness, reconciliation with the Father, and an everlasting place in God's family. And because Christ's sacrifice is sufficient, its life-changing power continues to reach people from every nation as they confess Jesus as Lord and believe God raised Him from the dead. Dr. Youssef also reminds us this has always been God's plan: Old Testament believers were saved by faith in what God would accomplish through the coming Messiah. From Genesis to the prophets to the Psalms, Scripture anticipated the moment the serpent-crushing Savior would declare, Tetelestai—and nothing can separate those in Christ from God's love. This episode calls you to rest in the finished work of Jesus—and to proclaim it boldly to a world still trying to earn what Christ has already completed. Prayer: Lord, I praise You that it is finished! By Your incredible grace, You have redeemed me from the grave. May I lovingly and boldly share Your Good News with those You put in my life. I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. “When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.' With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30). Learn more in Dr. Michael A. Youssef's sermon It Is Finished: WATCH NOW | LISTEN NOW The voice you hear on the MY Devotional podcast is digitally generated with Dr. Youssef's permission. If today's devotional stirred a question, burden, or need for prayer, you don't have to walk through it alone.

What do Mirza Ghalib and OneRepublic have in common? More than you'd think.OneRepublic sang "everything that kills me makes me feel alive" — Ghalib wrote the same feeling two centuries earlier. When streams can't find their path, they rise. When the poet's nature is blocked, it flows even stronger.In this episode, Kshitij and Burair unpack one of Ghalib's most quietly radical couplets — and ask whether going in unprepared is actually the best test of what you truly know. Plus: Kshitij's story of showing up 4 hours late to an interview and still getting the job.Urdu poetry for the diaspora. In English, Hindi, and Urdu.

In this concluding conversation, Pastors Clint and Michael explore how faith is the glue that holds all of the other Christian character traits together. In this conversation, faith and works are not diametrically opposed but rather mutually complimentary. Transcript 00:00:01:23 - 00:00:29:06 Michael Gewecke We are going to be exploring as our last mark of Christian character, the last pillar we're going to be looking at the idea of faith, and we're going to also be having a kind of concluding conversation towards the end about how these pillars might fit together and the ways in which we think about Christian character as being unique to our lives that we live out in Jesus Christ. 00:00:29:09 - 00:01:09:21 Clint Loveall There is some overlap between the idea of character and the idea of ethics, and Christians and non-Christians would agree on some ethical ideas, right? Don't hurt people. Try not to be dishonest. We we would agree on some of the pathways that we would call better and worse, but to the idea of motivation. Christians hold up those things not simply as good ideas, not just as good practices, not just as good ways to be students or citizens, but as a reflection of our faith commitment. 00:01:09:24 - 00:01:42:07 Clint Loveall And so even though we would have some commonality with lots of people and we could agree on things that are good for us, for Christian, our primary motivation is not that the thing in itself is good, but the one that it reflects is good, and we seek to reflect him by doing that, by being that. And so I, I do think while we stand on some ground together, we get there two very different pathways. 00:01:42:07 - 00:02:18:12 Clint Loveall And bear with me. We, you know, you give examples and you don't want to, well, whatever. Here we go. This is, I think, one of the interesting detours you get there has recently been another movie by people to put the Ten Commandments in public spaces. Right. And on the surface, there's nothing wrong with the Ten Commandments being known, but that's fine. 00:02:18:15 - 00:02:49:09 Clint Loveall But the Ten Commandments are not first and foremost good ideas to live by their covenant practices within the faith. And so when we treat them the same as be nice to each other, or we think that when we post them, they represent good ideas instead of covenant faithfulness, we're using them in a in a social. And I would. 00:02:49:12 - 00:03:29:12 Clint Loveall I would argue at times almost a secular way. And so I think those are the conversations that Christian people have to be. We have to be cautious with. Because, yes, the Ten Commandments are good ideas, but that's not primarily what they are, and that's never what they are to us. They are always more than that. And if we let them be reduced to instructions that go on walls, we have lost something in our understanding of what it means to practice Christian character. 00:03:29:17 - 00:03:56:24 Clint Loveall So again, don't go tell everybody Pastor Kuntz against the Ten Commandments. That's not my point. My my point is that underneath. Civics and civility and good practices, there is a layer deeper that Christians hopefully get to when we when we discuss character. 00:03:56:26 - 00:04:28:27 Michael Gewecke You can tell them, Pastor Michael, for the Ten Commandments, they'll get spicy. No, I want to we need to press on. But I just want to make one really short comment here about the Ten Commandments, which I think is is instructive because Christian character cannot be dissolved down to moral truisms, because Christian character is always rooted inside the reflection of Jesus Christ, who is a person. 00:04:28:29 - 00:05:00:01 Michael Gewecke It's always relational. We're always seeking to live into the character of Christ, into the world in which we live. So to put a thing on the wall and to point to people to it is a little bit like pointing them to the monument when the living thing is literally in you, it's to say, hey, look, we came to see the, the, the, the scaffolding of what a moral Christian ethic looks like when actually, because the Spirit of God lives in you, that Christian ethics should be living. 00:05:00:03 - 00:05:18:03 Michael Gewecke And so these things should reinforce for us what is true and how God expects us to live as covenantal people. But we should be the illustration of it in the world. People should see those ten commandments inside the people of God, because we are relationally living that out in the world. 00:05:18:06 - 00:05:49:19 Clint Loveall Yeah, the law itself is to point to something deeper, something better, something bigger. Michael's comment made me think, I don't have a nice way to ask this question. How many of you have been to a concert recently, or at some point in the recent past that was also attended by young people? 00:05:49:22 - 00:06:17:13 Clint Loveall Okay. Okay. Well, yeah. I'm on thin ice here, but if you have been to a concert where young people. It is incredible to me that young people will run and push and work as hard as they can to get close to the stage. And then if you watch them, they are watching the band on their phone while they film it. 00:06:17:13 - 00:06:56:17 Clint Loveall And as an old person, I think they're right there. You you're you're looking at a copy of the thing that's happening right in front of you. And I think sometimes that's how we treat law or prescriptions like the Ten Commandments. They are the embodiment of a Christ like life. They're not rules. They are the way to live a life that honors Jesus, and we should not allow them to become less than that just because they're also good ideas in other contexts. 00:06:56:20 - 00:07:25:22 Clint Loveall If that sounds a little crabby, I will admit to you it is because they are ours. They belong to the church, and and we need to be aware of that anyway. Oh, that's enough preaching. So we are talking tonight about the character pillar, that we would summarize by faith. And if you talk to people about faith, I would say that that falls in in two categories. 00:07:25:22 - 00:07:56:13 Clint Loveall The first is generally if you ask people what faith is, they're going to talk to you about what? Their beliefs. Yeah, I agree, I think one way that we talk about the faith is the collection of things we believe that we label Christianity, and when we put our mind to the faith, what we are doing is trying to ensure that we think correctly about following Christ. 00:07:56:15 - 00:08:29:06 Clint Loveall So these are where we run into words like our doctrine, our theology. Right? We want to have the right ideas. We want to have the right thinking. This is a major part of going to seminary. When you want to be a pastor and you do the seminary thing, part of what they're trying to do is train you to think, well, they're trying to train you, teach you what is our traditions take what is theology, take on concepts like salvation and sin and providence and justification and justice. 00:08:29:09 - 00:09:07:17 Clint Loveall What do we think about God in our corner of the church? And is that thinking both biblical? And is it Christ like? You might also add historical, traditional, but primarily the lenses we've tried to use. Is it biblical and is it like and? We are in a tradition that prides itself on being thoughtful and often for good reason. 00:09:07:19 - 00:09:11:18 Clint Loveall But it's not always the case. 00:09:11:21 - 00:09:35:29 Michael Gewecke Yeah, we know throughout history, and this has been true, by the way, in every age that we as Christians succumb to bad thinking, our theology does not always rise to the level of or beyond the, the weight and the anchoring of our times. Right? So the church has been guilty, over, over the years. Our thinking hasn't risen above racism. 00:09:36:06 - 00:10:07:17 Michael Gewecke We've struggled theologically with, with classes, and nationalism, legalism. I mean, all of the isms we've at some point, run our way down the wrong path. And the truth is, Christians aren't always good about consistent thinking. We are often guilty of being sloppy. Sometimes, quite frankly, we get called out on bad thinking and we just double down and say, yeah, what are you going to do about it? 00:10:07:19 - 00:10:36:13 Michael Gewecke Because we we find ourselves backed into a corner. And so one of the ways that we as Christians have to refer to faith is, is we have to, in the spirit of the Reformation, remember that the Spirit of God is always at work, both before we are reformed people, but we're also being reformed. We also always have to be open to that work of the spirit within us, and that becomes an active practice. 00:10:36:13 - 00:10:54:00 Michael Gewecke In the same way that we say that a doctor is practicing medicine. I don't think we have any doctors in the room today so I can make a doctor joke. I think right now you think it's okay for you to practice medicine. Just don't practice it on me. Right? Get it right on me. But the reality is, Christians are practicing the faith. 00:10:54:02 - 00:11:16:03 Michael Gewecke We're always practicing it and embodying it. The world in which we live. But truth is, we don't always get that right. But the the focus of church is that we take what we believe and we live it out in a meaningful way. And this is one of the most essential understandings for why church is an essential part of the Christian life. 00:11:16:06 - 00:11:44:10 Michael Gewecke Because if you believe that at its core, the faith is an individual adventure, then ultimately what you might believe is that it's all what's in your head and really what you do with it is a matter of your choice in the world in which you live. But anyone who has been a brother or sister in Christ in a church family knows because of experience and practice that this is the incubator. 00:11:44:10 - 00:12:11:06 Michael Gewecke It's the laboratory. It's the place where that thinking has to work its way into our living. It has to be in our hearts, and it has to live in and out through our mouths, our hands and our feet. And I think that that is one of the reasons we need to focus on faith at the end is because I think in some ways, faith becomes this bridge, that this character that we are seeking to live in, to all of the things we talked about. 00:12:11:06 - 00:12:31:00 Michael Gewecke Grace. Right. All love, all these things that we believe live in us. Faith is the way in which those things get integrated into our lives, and we lean back into them and trust that God's doing that in us. And that's what gives us the courage and bravery to live it out in a place with other people doing the same. 00:12:31:03 - 00:13:11:29 Clint Loveall So tonight we are going to focus on this second idea that faith not only is what we believe, but equally as importantly, faith is what we do. Faith is the beliefs we put into practice, and we are all well aware that the gap between what we believe and what we do, we call hypocrisy in the church. When I know what it is that I am to do, but I don't do it or I do something else, I'm choosing to live in a way that doesn't match my professed beliefs. 00:13:11:29 - 00:13:33:21 Clint Loveall And, the ancients gave us that word hypocrisy. It's the word they use for actors. People who played roles. So I say one thing, but I act differently. So we're going to focus tonight on the action and the case. We're going to make or try to make is that the collective of our Christian character is not an attribute. 00:13:33:21 - 00:14:05:26 Clint Loveall If faith is not just one thing in our character, faith is the foundation, the primary expression of our character. And I think we've maybe touched on this. This gets a little difficult in English. In English, faith is a noun, so it's something you do or don't have. We generally make it equivalent to belief, but Greek has a way of making faith a verb so that life can be faith. 00:14:05:29 - 00:14:31:14 Clint Loveall Work can be faith, family can be faith. And it's unfortunate that we can't really do that with our English word. The closest we could get, maybe, is that faith is the collection of things we think are true, and living up to them would make us faithful. So we might be able to talk about our faithfulness as an attribute of faith. 00:14:31:14 - 00:15:01:07 Clint Loveall But it's very difficult for us to talk about faith. Any. And I wish we could fix that because it's a wonderful advantage. I think, that biblical language has over English. In the Bible you can faith things, you can faith, relationships, and I wish we could say it that way. I think that would be helpful. The difference between faith and faithful. 00:15:01:08 - 00:15:31:11 Clint Loveall Again, this English struggle is not really a separation that the Scripture makes it. Even Paul, who is very clear to talk about faith versus works, understands them to be connected, understands them, to be both essential. Paul is not in those conversations saying that what we do doesn't matter. He is only saying that what we do is not the mechanism by which we are saved. 00:15:31:14 - 00:16:03:05 Clint Loveall We are saved by faith. But Paul himself writes, we are saved for good works in order to do good works. So Christians should stand out not just for the things we say or the things we believe, but for the things we faith, for the things we do. We should be faithful people, literally full of faith, connected and committed to the God who calls us. 00:16:03:08 - 00:16:40:03 Clint Loveall Because in our life, our attempt is through gratitude for what we've received to show the character of God in the character of his people. You know, our character as Christians, we are to display something of what we know to be true of God. So in the Old Testament, faithfulness is the equivalent of obedience, which is still in there, but in the New Testament, far more faith is our belief put into practice. 00:16:40:06 - 00:17:01:15 Michael Gewecke I think when we make the mistake of making faith a thing that we possess, we begin to lose our ability to make sense of the Psalms we make. We lose our ability to make sense of limitations and job. Because when a person is crying out to God says, how in the world are you letting this affliction happen to me? 00:17:01:15 - 00:17:27:21 Michael Gewecke When we experience grief, Christians feel this pang of guilt. Well, how am I feeling this way towards God? I have I lost my faith. You heard this before, and if that is the way we can sit, our faith that it's a thing that we can have, then it's a thing that is so fragile that we forget that faithful people can be angry. 00:17:27:24 - 00:18:02:12 Michael Gewecke Faithful people can have doubts. People who are facing God to be the kind of people on the journey of faith, and yet still finding ourselves in a circumstance where faith is hard. And I think that that is essential for us to understand that there's a real danger in trying to drive a wedge between faith and works. So trying to say that if I just have enough faith, then that is separate from what I do is is by definition, creating the hypocrisy is, by definition, playing a role. 00:18:02:19 - 00:18:31:29 Michael Gewecke Because what it means is we're not connecting the truth of what we say with the reality of how we live. So if our character is forged by what we believe, that is revealed by what we practice, and no doubt Christians should be people who are worthy of trust, we should be exemplars of moral living, practitioners of love. We should be the kind of people who demonstrate forgiveness in the world. 00:18:32:02 - 00:19:02:01 Michael Gewecke But we should not, at our core, be people who are looking at our lives from a checklist of moral maxims, like to say, the perfect student in your classroom who could get an A on all the character marks, good for them. That would. That's great. But a Christian has to look at that and recognize that if we're not living out a thing that we profess to be true, then it's not facing our character. 00:19:02:06 - 00:19:27:02 Michael Gewecke And if our character hasn't been transformed, then we're not yet within the relational connection with the newer transformer of the universe. Right? It so it it's a connection between what we say we believe, what's internal and the lives that we live externally. And so therefore, life together should be the highest witness of Christian character. The church should demonstrate the truth of our profession. 00:19:27:04 - 00:19:51:12 Michael Gewecke In fact, if you want to see that played out, I encourage you to keep reading on the text that we read for the sermon today in Corinthians, because Paul makes that literal argument. He goes on to say that people who have the mind of Christ are the very people who live their lives as if they do. And here's an accusation against the Corinthians, or that they're not living up to it. 00:19:51:15 - 00:19:59:11 Michael Gewecke And so the church becomes a place where the truth of our witness is seen, and the lives that we live together. 00:19:59:13 - 00:20:32:03 Clint Loveall And this is, this is a challenge for the church. I think we are at our absolute best in terms of witness when we do this. Well, imagine that the church is a place where someone could come and lose $1,000 and guarantee they'd get it back. The place where someone could show up hungry, and we would guarantee that they get fed or show up needing prayer, and we would pray over that. 00:20:32:06 - 00:20:56:27 Clint Loveall The idea is that as community, we would be a place where the character of Christ would be on display. And sure, none of us are going to hit that note perfectly. We are always going to be out of tune a little. But when the church is able to live into that reality, it is an incredible demonstration to the world. 00:20:57:00 - 00:21:25:21 Clint Loveall You may know this, the word Christian is essentially a word that means small Christs, miniature Christs. So, so that Christians, the very thing we call ourselves, is a reminder of the one we're trying to imitate, which we can do only through his grace. What Christian character is to keep primary. What would Jesus have me do and say? 00:21:25:24 - 00:21:59:06 Clint Loveall Who would Jesus have me become so that a Christian tells the truth? Not because telling the truth is important, it is, but because Jesus Christ said, I am the truth and a Christian loves their neighbor, not because that makes community better, which it does, but because Jesus said, love God and love neighbor. And so the end of Christian character for us is what we hear and see in Jesus Christ. 00:21:59:08 - 00:22:32:17 Clint Loveall And sometimes, sometimes that's hard to discern. I suspect all of us have had a moment where we've wrestled with what's the right thing to do. We've genuinely struggled. I have this moment. I don't know if A is the Christian thing to do, or if B is the Christian thing to do. That happens. But in my experience, it's rarer than we like to admit, because mostly the Christian thing is not hard to figure out. 00:22:32:20 - 00:22:56:29 Clint Loveall It's hard to do. And most of the time, I would say we generally know what Christ would have us do. We don't want to do it. We don't want to be honest. We don't want to love our enemies. We don't want to stay silent. We don't want to give or forgive. And and many Christians, as we know, get caught stepping outside the boundaries of the faith. 00:22:57:01 - 00:23:26:25 Clint Loveall And many more don't get caught. And many tell us how sorry they are after they get caught. But none of that is the point. Because the point is, what would Jesus have me be? What would Jesus have me say when we bend the rules and leave the path? My experience is that most of the time I know it, and most of the time, though, I'd love to claim otherwise. 00:23:26:28 - 00:24:01:22 Clint Loveall I did it willingly, and if it's not in that moment that I choose to change my behavior, apologize, repent, and confess, then I am not using Christ as my guide. I'm following some other thing. I have let something else set my course and I have lost sight of my goal, which is to be what I claim to believe. 00:24:01:24 - 00:24:04:23 Clint Loveall That is my purpose as a Christian. 00:24:04:25 - 00:24:32:24 Michael Gewecke I think the reformed tradition helps us here, and I don't want to be too autobiographical, but I think I do have a personal illustration of this. Rochelle and I both went to the same school, so she can tell you if I butcher this story. But while we were at Oral Roberts University, the the night came where we were all called to go to an emergency night chapel, which wasn't a thing that regularly happened. 00:24:32:27 - 00:24:57:15 Michael Gewecke And we got there and it was a whole fraught moment. And it was, lots of praying and and prophesying. And I at the end of that night came out that the president of the university had legal charges, substantiated legal charges made that he had been pilfering money from the university, millions of dollars flying U.S. dollars to the Bahamas. 00:24:57:15 - 00:25:30:24 Michael Gewecke And all of these shopping excursions and the response from the university in the in the wake of this major moral lapse was, this is an attack of the enemy. This is Satan coming after us, and that is a human temptation. We're all tempted to say, not me, something else. Right, Adam? And eat this woman that you gave me right. 00:25:30:27 - 00:25:55:20 Michael Gewecke The reformed tradition, I think, helps us tell the truth. It reminds us we are sinners. That's the reality. The call on our life is Jesus Christ, and it's his character we're called to emulate. One of the things I most deeply respect about our tradition is we build systems which aren't always effective, but we wholeheartedly try to build systems to keep people from going on. 00:25:55:20 - 00:26:19:24 Michael Gewecke The private jets. Because we know people are sinful. We know that too much power often leads us to positions of compromise. We know that our character is not always strong enough to stand in the face of what might be beckoning us over the border. Right. And I think one of the things that as Christians, we need to recognize is that the truth is our brokenness. 00:26:19:26 - 00:26:44:06 Michael Gewecke The gift is restoration, that the gift is what Jesus Christ wants to do within us. And it is out of that gift that our character could be transformed. And so I just want to point out, I think checks and balances is not against being people of character. It's intended to be the laboratory in which that character can be formed. 00:26:44:09 - 00:27:13:05 Michael Gewecke And I think that we sometimes miss the opportunity to recognize that our practice is not just to know what's right, but also to be living our lives in such a way that when others see us, they can see that goodness living in us and the more and more that Christians seek to decrease the gap between what we say we believe versus how we actually speak and act in the world. 00:27:13:07 - 00:27:48:03 Michael Gewecke That is when our witness becomes compelling. Because this isn't going to be a surprise to you. It was not a significant evangelistic moment on Tulsa television when they found out about the private jets, because it exposed the the motivation underneath the facade, the hypocrisy made a moment in which the truth of our sinfulness, which is true, was suddenly disarmed, opened because we claimed to have it all put together. 00:27:48:06 - 00:28:09:24 Michael Gewecke And the moment in which Christians compare. Ten pair humility with gratitude for Christ's gift for us is the moment we start experiencing Christian character in face that we can face, we can live into, we can demonstrate to the world because it's honest, and that's a place where we don't always start. 00:28:09:27 - 00:28:32:17 Clint Loveall One of my favorite conversations with the New Testament is that it calls us saints. The New Testament is comfortable calling every person who believes in Jesus, all the people in the church, you, me, saints. And I say to the new Testament, no, I know these people. I've, I've been in I've been in church a long time. I'm. 00:28:32:17 - 00:29:11:09 Clint Loveall I'm in the church myself. You gotta find another word. And the New Testament says, are you and Jesus Christ say, well, yeah, yeah. We try to be sure. And it says, then your saints, you are made right in Jesus Christ. His holiness is now your holiness. You are saints. And I say, wow, that sounds good. Thanks. And then it says, now, dang it, start acting like it. 00:29:11:12 - 00:29:41:24 Clint Loveall And I, I love the I love the idea that even when we talk about ourselves as Christians, as saints, when the Bible talks about anybody who believes in Jesus, it uses words that we don't own, but we aspire to. We are trying to live up to and sort of try and summarize some of this. The Christian task as it regards to faith is, I think, twofold. 00:29:41:27 - 00:30:12:17 Clint Loveall We have to work to make our beliefs sound. We should work on our thinking, we should study, we should read Scripture. We should interact with ideas to make sure that they're biblical. And they are in keeping with what we know of God in Christ. And we should try to guard our thinking from being led astray by bad ideas, even if they come to us in religious garb. 00:30:12:19 - 00:30:47:26 Clint Loveall Secondly, as Christians, we should put those beliefs into practice. We must strive to live them out to decrease as much as we're able. The gap between what we say and how we speak and how we act and what we do. Because Christian character is not some religious version of being a good person, Christian character is to pursue the character of Jesus Christ. 00:30:47:29 - 00:31:23:02 Clint Loveall The reason we call it Christian character, it seems to me, is because we've so often failed at being Christian. If we could do that, we wouldn't need to modify it. We would just call it being Christian, but we wouldn't need the word character. We would understand that being Christian is to have Christian character, but since we don't always do that, we think about it in terms not only of being Christian. 00:31:23:04 - 00:31:37:03 Clint Loveall What? Trying to be Christian in a way that reveals and portrays and in acts and embodies the character of Jesus Christ and in a. 00:31:37:06 - 00:32:19:20 Clint Loveall In an ironic way. Christians are. But you guys know I'm not a the world is terrible kind of guy. I try not to, but Christians may be the last ones who are going to care about character. The world is increasingly unbothered by lapses in character. If it gets you to your goal, if you arrive at money or power or whatever, winning and you have to take a shortcut, the world is increasingly not bothered by that. 00:32:19:23 - 00:32:51:21 Clint Loveall So Christians have to make sure that we are taking our cues and getting our guidance, not from the world around us that doesn't know what to do with character, but from the one within us who is the only model of what it truly means. Christians alone are to be guided by higher thoughts and better ideas, because Christians alone seek to make Jesus above all else. 00:32:51:23 - 00:33:00:00 Clint Loveall Our guide. So to be Christian is to pursue the character of Christ. 00:33:00:02 - 00:33:26:25 Michael Gewecke So I think this is where we enter into that conversation about the importance of the foundation of our character. Because at the end of the day, if the foundation of our character is that me living out some version of a moral ethic set of statements, and if I do that, if our foundation is, then it will go well with me. 00:33:26:28 - 00:33:52:05 Michael Gewecke Think of how quickly it changes when the rules change and your life isn't any better. When you do the things. Actually, when not paying the whole amount of taxes not only financially benefits you, but isn't going to be caught for this and this and this reason, suddenly the better choice for you and for your family. College is expensive these days. 00:33:52:05 - 00:34:38:00 Michael Gewecke I'm going to write. The better choice suddenly becomes to take the path that would have previously been called good character. And you say, in this case, what? I'm still living out of some version of character because I'm doing what's best for me, for my people. Right? So the foundation of character matters. And as Christians, when we come to talk about character, I honestly to emphasize Clint's point, we might be in a moment in which the renaissance of character is possible, but because Christians no longer have to discern and try to give words to people, the difference between what it means to be a person of an upstanding person who is kind and good and generous, 00:34:38:00 - 00:35:04:18 Michael Gewecke and the community thinks positive things about right. And then a Christian who stands on the foundation of who Jesus Christ is, and that that's the things that forms our lives and our commitments and that that moves us into a Christian community like we used to have to try to, to bridge that gap. Now we may just be the ones talking about character and in a way that may give us a new opportunity to say, well, why in the world did you do that? 00:35:04:20 - 00:35:51:03 Michael Gewecke That's what Jesus would do. Right. I mean, that's what Jesus would. I as I read the Bible, Jesus would have stopped to to to care for that person. What you do realize that that person voted for them, right? Yeah, absolutely. I do know that Jesus loves everybody, right? The way which Christian character calls us to live outside of ourselves, into the story of Jesus Christ's mission in the world has a unique way, I think, in this moment of helping Christians differentiate ourselves, because the reality is, at the end of the day, the quickest way for us to realize where our morals are rooted is the moment in which the ground under you shifts, and the 00:35:51:03 - 00:36:14:14 Michael Gewecke thing that is now good for you is no longer in field of the morals that you once had. The choice that you will make will determine the foundation upon which your character is built. Let me say that more simply, if Jesus Christ is not the center, then if the world says take the shortcut, it'll get you there faster. 00:36:14:16 - 00:36:46:05 Michael Gewecke We'll take the shortcut. That thing that your parents said character is the thing you do when no one's watching, right? Or Christian's character. Here's the thing that we do because Jesus Christ, alive in union through us, compels us so that we have no other option. The truth is, the world is increasingly having conversations about what you do in public and in private really has no bearing on the outcome of your life. 00:36:46:08 - 00:36:54:17 Michael Gewecke And if that's the case, Christians have a unique opportunity to give witness to a radically different way of living in the world. 00:36:54:19 - 00:37:12:04 Clint Loveall Let me end with what I think is a fun story. Then we'll do some questions. Conversation. If there's anything out there. One of my favorite, authors is a pastor, Methodist pastor who became a bishop, and as bishop, he had to go to a church one morning and he was there after church. They have a soup kitchen. 00:37:12:07 - 00:37:34:24 Clint Loveall So he's during the soup kitchen. And there's a gentleman at the sink that he recognized who was a prominent attorney in town. And he said, good to see you here. It's nice to see you here. And the guy said, yeah. And he said, how long you been doing this? And the guy said, 14 years or something, some long period of time. 00:37:34:26 - 00:37:58:29 Clint Loveall And the bishop said, well, I'm really impressed. And the guy said, good for you. Yeah. And then he said, you must really enjoy it. The working with the homeless to come here so often. And he said, enjoy it. Have you met these people? They're crazy, they're dirty. They talk to themselves. Half of them are on drugs. And the guy said, well, he didn't. 00:37:59:03 - 00:38:25:15 Clint Loveall He kind of stumbled easily. I why are you here? And the guy said, I'm here because Jesus put me here. Why are you here? And okay, on one hand, we could say that's a guy not having a great day, right? On another hand, that's a guy who Jesus compels to do something that makes no sense to the world around him. 00:38:25:17 - 00:38:56:03 Clint Loveall A rich, successful man elbow deep in dishwater, serving the homeless for no other reason. Not because he made him feel good, not because it was community service. Look good on a resume. Because he believed that his Savior, Jesus Christ is Lord, said go humble yourself and serve people who need serving the least of my brothers and sisters. I'm here because Jesus told me to. 00:38:56:05 - 00:39:23:19 Clint Loveall Why are you here? It's, there's a lot in there. I'm glad I get to speak there, but, there's a lot in there. Okay. We've, We said a lot of words. Hopefully some of them have made sense. What do you think? And questions? Comments? Anything out there? Yes, sir. 00:39:23:21 - 00:39:28:27 Clint Loveall Yeah. Thoughts about. 00:39:29:00 - 00:39:32:25 Clint Loveall Yeah. 00:39:32:28 - 00:40:13:12 Clint Loveall So we if if we if we're when you say we can't do it by works for me Lee. Everything hinges on what you understand it to me. If you mean be saved. If you mean receive the grace and righteousness of Jesus Christ. Because I earned it, then that's 100% true. You cannot. If you mean live out your faith and show Jesus Christ to the world, then I say 100%, you can't. 00:40:13:15 - 00:40:41:29 Clint Loveall So I think that I think there is a difference in there, because that argument of faith and works was so prominent in the Reformed Presbyterian Church. It's really given us the idea that those are separate things. And I think that hurt us. I think when we had the argument because we were fighting, you know, the Catholic Church and and they were they were bigger on works and Luther and Calvin. 00:40:42:06 - 00:41:06:16 Clint Loveall I think in order to win that battle, we had to go a little far. And so we we then kind of got to the other side and somehow left people with the impression that because you can't be saved by works, you don't really have to do them. And that's that's not biblical. You don't have to do them to be saved. 00:41:06:16 - 00:41:33:27 Clint Loveall But once you were saved, they're not negotiable. It's non-negotiable to to live your life doing the things of Jesus Christ. So I don't know if that helps, but but from no sorry. You you cannot be saved by works. But once you're saved, there's work to do. That's what I'd say. 00:41:33:29 - 00:42:01:25 Michael Gewecke Okay, I'm not going to answer your question, but I have a fun illustration, so I'm going to give it, So recently I've been getting to go to a lot of music events, and, I think all of you know that I'm not a musician, so I get to learn a lot. And one of the things I've been learning this season, and this is in the vocal world, I've been learning about this thing called resonance and this idea of singing out in front of you. 00:42:01:27 - 00:42:20:25 Michael Gewecke And I've been learning about this because the judges were telling the high schools, this is a whole lot of different events. And the great thing about it was all of these different judges were trying to describe this thing to kids. I mean, they're all experts, right? So they hear it. They're trying to help the kids achieve it. They're all saying it in different ways. 00:42:20:28 - 00:42:42:18 Michael Gewecke So I'll give you an example. One guy, and maybe one of the less helpful ways was say, well, you got to imagine that someone drills through the back of your skull, and then that the air goes through and out. And the kids were, like, shocked by that idea, right? Because that's a very graphic image. And then and then another person said, well, you need to get that sound like the Death Star. 00:42:42:18 - 00:42:58:16 Michael Gewecke You need to sort of like, get it out here. And, my mother in law, who's a music professional and educator, I was talking to her about it and she said, well, that's often how I describe. I describe as you have to sing out like a unicorn through, like, the top of your head. That's the image I have. 00:42:58:18 - 00:43:21:11 Michael Gewecke Okay. All of these are different ways in which people are trying to put an experience into words. These kids might not have yet had the experience that they're trying to describe, but they're trying to all come at it from different ways so that the kids, once they have the experience, they'll know what it is, and then they can do it again. 00:43:21:13 - 00:43:44:03 Michael Gewecke That's, I think, the relationship Christians have to works is that the Ten Commandments aren't there as a checklist that you do that results in an outcome. They're a way in which Scripture and God and this covenantal relationship is trying to tell us, when your life is lived like this, you're going to start experiencing the thing that is relationship. 00:43:44:03 - 00:44:22:23 Michael Gewecke We're trying to get you to. So. So it's a way in which we can begin to get words from all of these different places in church history. The book is this collection of people's experiences with God that why do we do these things? Because it's like singing like a unicorn. And once you experience the freedom of Christian community, once you experience what it's like to live with integrity and honesty, once once you live your life in such a way that your marriage is held sacred, when you come to worship and you worship God as God and not as some Christian, once you start experiencing these things, the plane lifts off and you're like, oh, this 00:44:22:23 - 00:44:47:17 Michael Gewecke is what this is. But we can't quite put it into words that simple. So this is the best that we have. And I don't know if the illustration helps you, but it's not about did you did you have somebody drilled through the back? It's not about the image. It's not about what it invites us to. It's rather about once we experience the thing that's intended. 00:44:47:20 - 00:44:57:01 Michael Gewecke Now all of that makes sense because there's other people trying to describe it saying that's indescribable. That's my take on it. 00:44:57:03 - 00:45:02:28 Clint Loveall Lynn, let me give it one more shot. 00:45:03:00 - 00:45:43:26 Clint Loveall As a Christian, your works have zero bearing on whether you're saved or not. As a Christian, your works are the absolute best representation of being saved. The way you live is the best way to live out the fact that you're saved, which is not something you earned, but something you were given. So I think of, I think from our perspective as Presbyterians, that's pretty close to the proper way to understand the priority of faith. 00:45:43:28 - 00:46:22:25 Clint Loveall But the. Necessity, the importance of works. I'll back off on the word and assess the importance works. So, Yeah. What what else? Might make you not in our first trailer, but realize that the worst. And then boy hamper. Because that last part. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I don't know of anybody who does this better than Paul. 00:46:22:25 - 00:46:49:07 Clint Loveall In the second chapter of Ephesians, the eighth verse, Paul wrote, you are saved by grace, not by works, so that no one can boast, this is not your own. And then in the 10th verse, he says, you were created in Christ Jesus to do good works. So not not a of a verse after he said, you're not saved by works, he says you're to do good works. 00:46:49:09 - 00:47:00:11 Clint Loveall And again, I think in the Reformed Church we've unfortunately given the impression that we could separate those into two things. 00:47:00:13 - 00:47:28:28 Clint Loveall Our, Our choices and the way that we live is essentially a confirmation of the faith that we have. It shows evidence of it. It if I, I know I hate stupid analogies, but if I told you this building was about to fall down and you don't see me running for the door, why would you believe me? 00:47:29:01 - 00:47:31:19 Clint Loveall Right? I'd be saying the thing that I wasn't doing.

Have you ever noticed how spring feels like a fresh start? The weather gets warmer, the days get longer, and suddenly you feel like doing something new. Maybe you want to start exercising, clean your house, or even change your habits. That feeling of new energy and new beginnings is something we often connect with spring. In English, we actually have a lot of idioms and expressions that reflect this idea of growth, change, and starting over. For today's podcast English lesson, we're going to look at several very useful idioms related to spring that you can use in everyday conversation.The Happy English PodcastHelping people speak English better since 2014Over 1,000 episodes • 8 million downloads

Have you ever been in a meeting that felt like it would never end? You keep looking at the clock and thinking… “Is this meeting ever going to finish?” But then there are other times when the opposite happens. Maybe you're hanging out with friends, watching a great movie, or traveling somewhere fun, and suddenly you look at the clock and think, “Wow… where did the time go?”In English, we actually have several very useful phrasal verbs to talk about situations like these. So in today's podcast English lesson, we're going to look at some common phrasal verbs related to time that you can use all the time in your everyday conversations.The Happy English PodcastHelping people speak English better since 2014Over 1,000 episodes • 8 million downloads

Today, we're going to look at similar nouns.Our topic is words for students and teachers in Japanese.In English, we usually just say student or teacher, but in Japanese there are several different words depending on the situation. After listening to this episode, you will feel more confident using the right words in the right situations.

Welcome to Day 2807 of Wisdom-Trek. Thank you for joining me. This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom. Day 2807 – Wisdom Nuggets – Psalm 116:15-19 – Daily Wisdom Wisdom-Trek Podcast Script - Day 2807 Welcome to Wisdom-Trek with Gramps! I am Guthrie Chamberlain, and we are on Day 2807 of our Trek. The Purpose of Wisdom-Trek is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, and to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. The Title for Today's Wisdom-Trek is: The Costly Departure – A Sacrifice of Thanksgiving Today, we are bringing our deeply personal journey through Psalm One Hundred Sixteen to a glorious, triumphant conclusion. We will be trekking through the final stanza of this profound song, covering verses fifteen through nineteen, in the New Living Translation. Before we take our next step, we must look back over our shoulder at the trail we just traveled. In our previous trek, covering the first fourteen verses of this psalm, we stood beside a man who had stared into the terrifying abyss of the underworld. We heard his raw, trembling testimony. He told us how the ropes of death had wrapped around his neck, and how the terrors of the grave had overtaken him. In his absolute helplessness, he cried out a simple prayer: "Please, Lord, save me!" And Yahweh, the Most High God, bent down from the heavens to listen. He severed the cords of death, dried the psalmist's tears, and stabilized his stumbling feet. In overwhelming gratitude, the psalmist lifted the "Cup of Salvation," promising to praise the Lord in the land of the living. We also remembered that this is part of the Egyptian Hallel, the collection of psalms sung during the Passover. Jesus Himself sang these very words in the Upper Room, just hours before He faced the ultimate terror of the cross. Now, as we enter the final five verses, the psalmist transitions from the private terror of his near-death experience, to the public courts of the temple. He begins with a stunning revelation about how God views the death of His people, and ends with a communal feast of thanksgiving. It is a transition from the darkness of the grave, to the bright, joyful center of cosmic geography: Jerusalem. Let us walk into the temple courts, and listen to the conclusion of this magnificent testimony. The first segment is: The Weight of the Faithful: A Costly Departure. Psalm One Hundred Sixteen: verse fifteen. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful servants. This single verse is one of the most famous, and frequently quoted, comforts in the entire Bible, especially during times of grief. But to truly understand its depth, we must peel back the layers of the original Hebrew language, and view it through the lens of the Ancient Israelite worldview. The word translated as "precious" is yaqar. In English, when we hear the word "precious," we often think of something sweet, sentimental, or cute. But that is not what yaqar means. In biblical Hebrew, yaqar means heavy, rare, costly, or of immense value. It is the word used to describe rare jewels, or the heavy, expensive stones used to lay the foundation of the temple. Therefore, the psalmist is not saying that God finds our death sweet or pleasant. Death is the enemy. Death, in the ancient mindset, was the ultimate expression of the chaotic realm of Sheol. Instead, the psalmist is making a profound statement about our value: "Heavy, costly, and of immense consequence in the sight of Yahweh, is the death of His faithful ones." God does not view the passing of His people casually. He does not treat us as expendable pawns on a cosmic chessboard. When the forces of chaos and disease try to drag a believer down into the grave, the Lord takes it personally. It costs Him something. He values His human imagers so highly, that their departure from this earth is an event of cosmic gravity. The term "faithful servants" is the Hebrew word chasidim, which is rooted in Hesed—God's unfailing, loyal, covenant love. The chasidim are the loyal ones, the ones bound to God by covenant. Because He is fiercely loyal to them, He does not surrender them to the grave without a fight. In the case of this psalmist, God looked at the high cost of his death, stepped into the fray, and said, "Not today." He severed the ropes of Sheol, because the life of His servant was simply too valuable to lose to the darkness. When Jesus sang this verse on the night of His betrayal, He was acknowledging the profound weight of what He was about to do. His death would be the ultimate, costly departure. Yet, because it was so precious in the sight of the Father, it would become the very mechanism that defeated death forever. The second segment is: The Joyful Captive: Freedom Through Submission. Psalm One Hundred Sixteen: verse sixteen. O Lord, I am your servant; yes, I am your servant, born into your household; you have freed me from my chains. Having reflected on how much God values his life, the psalmist responds with an absolute surrender of his identity. He repeats his title twice for emphasis: "O Lord, I am your servant; yes, I am your servant." The word for "servant" here is ebed, which can also be translated as slave or bondservant. But this is not a forced, oppressive slavery; this is a willing, joyful submission to a benevolent King. The psalmist adds a beautiful, intimate detail: "born into your household." Literally, the text says, "the son of your maidservant." In the ancient Near East, a slave who was purchased from a foreign land had a very different status than a slave who was born within the master's own house. A servant born into the household was practically considered family. They grew up under the master's roof, ate the master's food, and enjoyed the master's protection. By calling himself the son of a maidservant, the psalmist is claiming a deep, lifelong, family connection to Yahweh. He is saying, "Lord, I belong to You. I have always belonged to You. I am a child of Your estate." And here is the beautiful paradox of the biblical worldview: true freedom is found only in becoming a servant of the Most High God. Notice the next phrase: "you have freed me from my chains." Just a few verses earlier, the psalmist was wrapped in the ropes of death. Those were the chains of chaos, destruction, and fear. By submitting himself entirely to Yahweh as a servant, those chains of oppression were shattered. In the Divine Council worldview, humans will always serve a master. We will either be enslaved by the dark, rebellious principalities of this world—forces that seek to bind us in addiction, fear, and ultimately the grave—or we will bind ourselves to the Creator, whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. The psalmist declares that because God broke the chains of death, he is now happily, permanently bound to the Lord. He is a free man, precisely because he is God's servant. The third segment is: The Public Feast: Testifying in the Sacred Courts. Psalm One Hundred Sixteen: verses seventeen through nineteen. I will offer you a sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord. I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people— in the courts of the house of the Lord, in the midst of Jerusalem. Praise the Lord! Now, the psalmist takes his private, internal gratitude, and makes it undeniably public. He transitions from the prayer closet, to the temple courts. He promises: "I will offer you a sacrifice of thanksgiving." This is a very specific reference to the Levitical law. In the Book of Leviticus, Chapter Seven, the Todah—or Thanksgiving Sacrifice—was a type of peace offering. When an Israelite was rescued from a life-threatening illness, a dangerous journey, or a deadly enemy, they were instructed to bring an animal sacrifice, along with unleavened bread, to the tabernacle. But this sacrifice was unique. It was not burned up entirely on the altar. The priest took a portion, but the vast majority of the meat and bread was given back to the worshiper. The worshiper was then required to host a massive, joyful feast, inviting their family, friends, and even the poor, to eat the meal with them on that very same day. Think about the profound psychology of this ritual. You could not eat an entire animal by yourself. You had to invite a crowd. And as you passed the meat and the bread, people would naturally ask, "What are we celebrating?" That was your moment to testify. That was the moment to say, "I was standing at the edge of the grave. The ropes of death had me. But I called on the name of the Lord, and He saved me!" This is exactly what the psalmist intends to do: "and call on the name of the Lord. I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence...

主播：Meimei（中国）+ Maelle（法国） 音乐：本草纲目无论在东方国家还是西方国家，养生文化再一次掀起了热潮。今天我们就一起来聊聊那些中国独有的滋补食材，以及西方健康的流量密码。01. What Is Bird Spit Soup? 到底什么是燕窝？主播Meimei前段时间被自己的美国朋友问住了：“Do Chinese people really eat bird spit soup？” 她一时还没反应过来。原来，这位朋友在网上刷到了中国人吃的炖燕窝。在英语里，燕窝被叫做bird spit soup。Spit是指吐痰的行为，这个名字听起来有一些kills the appetite instantly（让人瞬间胃口全无）。燕窝其实是金丝燕用唾液做的巢。中文里“燕窝”听起来就很高级、很滋补。In English，燕窝可以翻译为nest，但是外国人一听到nest都会想到泥土和树枝的混合物，所以最后还是决定用bird spit表示。燕窝在中医里有养肺、养颜、提高免疫力的功效，也可以作为产后料理食材（postpartum food）。主播Meimei的朋友表示无法理解“How can saliva (唾液) be healthy”？这是因为西方的滋补大多来自于药物（chemicals）和日常食材的营养（nutrients），一般不会来自animal secretions（动物的分泌物）。像燕窝这样的“滋补品”，在英语里用tonic food或nourishing food表示。Tonic：对身体很好的补品，不是药，但是可以调理健康。Nourishing food：健康有营养的饮食。人们也会用wellness regimen或health regimen来表示。It is a long-term way (长期) of taking care of your body.Regimen：方案疗程，长期主义的滋补品。02. Other regimens 其他的滋补品（1）Donkey-hide gelatin——驴皮阿胶另一个让老外听了很崩溃的食材是阿胶。阿胶是用驴皮熬煮成的胶，英语中可以翻译为donkey-hide（兽皮）gelatin（胶质品）。驴皮在中医里有补血、养阴、止血的功效。对于像anemia（贫血）, fatigue（慢性疲劳）, or feeling depleted（精力耗尽）这样的状态，都是可以用阿胶来调理的。Anemia：贫血Fatigue：慢性疲劳Depleted：精力耗尽这是一种非常滋补元气的食材，it really helps you bring back the energy。（2）Sea cucumber——海参另一个要聊到的补品就是海参——sea cucumber。海参非常fascinating（神奇的），虽然看起来奇怪（weird），但是充满了胶原蛋白（collagen）、氨基酸（amino acids）和欧米伽-3脂肪酸（Omega-3s）。Collagen：胶原蛋白Amino acids：氨基酸Omega-3s：欧米伽-3脂肪酸Sea cucumber在中国是抗疲劳、抗衰老的高级食材。虽然被offered（推荐）了好多次，但是sea cucumber的texture（口感）还是让主播Maelle无法下口。It does not look very appealing (吸引人). 但是确实算得上是一种Super Food。03. What is Super Food? 什么是超级食物？Super Food（超级食物）是一种养生的生活方式（a health-preserving lifestyle），不仅仅是为了treating diseases（治疗疾病）。Super Food is the ingredients that is natural (天然的) and nutritious (有营养的). 这些食物营养密度非常高，而且富含抗氧化剂（antioxidants）、维生素（vitamins）和矿物质（minerals）。常见的Super Food有：Chia Seeds：奇亚籽Quinoa：藜麦Kale：羽衣甘蓝Turmeric：姜黄但是也有一些人认为，Superfood is like a marketing propaganda (营销策略), to make people incline (倾向于) to the more expensive food choice. 现在也有品牌推出superfood powder（超级食物速溶粉）或者superfood drinks（超级食物浓缩饮品）。不过很多Superfood里的微量元素可以从日常中更加常见和本土的食材里获取。比如：并不是一定要吃到巴西莓才能补充抗氧化剂，就像吃不到阿胶的时候吃红枣也可以补血养颜。所以，无论是让老外听到后有些错愕的中国稀有食材，还是西方文化中的各样超级食物，养生文化已经成为了现在人们关心的焦点。Sometimes the weirdest-sounding (听着奇怪的) foods can be the most nourishing (富含很高的营养成分)!欢迎在评论区留言：What is your favorite healthy food?你最喜欢的养生食物是什么？

ART BOOK CLUB is a segment where a guest suggests a book which was not written with visual arts in mind and yet is a source of inspiration, guidance and / or creativity for their work. Hosted by Joana P. R. Neves, this episode welcomes visual artist Laisul Hoque.How can a work of fiction influence the work of an artist? Can a visual arts practice be illuminated by storytelling? How can art practices she light on the value and limitations of archives and photographic documentation of the past?To what extent do images convey the truth? Is visual arts the territory where we reckon with our ties with the past, and our emotional needs? Laisul chose: Babu Bangladesh!, written by Numair Atif Choudhury.To know more about our guests → ⁠SIGN UP TO THE EXHIBITIONISTAS FILES.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://joanaprneves.substack.com/s/exhibitionistas⁠+ you can become a member and support us.What you get from this episode: Curating revelations, unexpected curating methods, lessons in community, art philosophies, ethical art questions.→ DONATE (give it some time for the donorbox window to charge):⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://exhibitionistaspodcast.com/support-us⁠If you appreciate Exhibitionistas but can only go for a small donation: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://buymeacoffee.com/exhibitionista⁠For behind the scenes clips, links to the artists and guests we cover, and visuals of the exhibitions we discuss follow us on Instagram: @exhibitionistas_podcast0:00 Intro04:19 Choosing an artistic career11:13 Autobiography in visual arts18:26 Book: Babu Bangladesh! By NUmair Atif Choudhury20:14 How a book intersects with personal life22:15 The personal, the politics, the art, the book28:20 What is Babu Bangladesh! about?35:14 Family photo archive and visual arts39:26 Break and call for action41:43 Speculative fiction as device for truth telling45:58 Why is Babu Bangladesh! In English?48:32 Taking ownership of the historical archive?56:18 StorytellingThe Ground Beneath Me: An artistic exploration of care01:03:34 Displaced spaces of art01:10:16 Does art provide answers?01:21:14 Outro #visualarts #visualartist #bangladeshiartist #bangladeshart #arteducation #artbookclub #bookclub #bangladeshfiction #numairatifchoudhury #joanaprneves #exhibitionistas #exhibitionistaspodcast #arttalk #art #visualartsepisode #visualartspodcast #contemporaryart #talkart #youngartist #bowarts #nunnerygallery #londonexhibitions #londongallery #londonmuseum #bestlondonart

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO PLAY DUMB and DUMB LUCK.TRANSCRIPT:In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to play dumb. In English, when you play dumb, it means you pretend you don't know something when you actually do. The most common example would be when someone does something they're not supposed to, and then when asked about it, they might play dumb.If you watch a TV show and the cops arrest the criminal, the criminal might play dumb and say, I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't steal that car. As a teacher, sometimes I'll catch students doing something, and then when I ask them what they were doing, they play dumb.They pretend that they didn't do what I saw them do. The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is dumb luck. Dumb luck simply means that something happens to you that's good and it's not because of anything that you've done to make it happen.So a great example of this would be you suddenly, let me see. I'm trying to think. A good example of dumb luck would be you're driving along and you lose control of car in the snow, but you don't go in the ditch. But it has nothing to do with you steering properly or anything.It's just dumb luck. You didn't go in the ditch because of dumb luck. So to review. To play dumb means to pretend you don't know something when you actually do, usually when someone's accusing you of doing something wrong. And dumb luck simply means to be extremely lucky.And you had no... not because of anything that you did. Sorry, I'm a little distracted with all the traffic this morning. I'm doing this during morning rush hour in my town. But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Tammy.Yes, my son likes to use the expression, oh, shoot from time to time. Thank you. And my response is it's better than the alternative, which is kind of a minor, vulgar, word. And then Tammy says, you can say that again. Great use of the phrase. You can say that again, Tammy.And thanks for the comment. So, yes, I am here in my local town. You can see behind me. Let me get you guys a little further away so you can see a bit more. You can see behind me that, well, there's a school bus over there because kids are getting picked up for school.As you know, I teach in the afternoon now, so I'm here in the morning shooting my video. Yes, I did leave my tripod all by itself over there on the sidewalk. We're hoping no one takes it. And this is what I look like.There I am in the window, shooting my video on a nice quiet morning here in town. I do have to admit a couple of things. One, in spite of the fact that I love winter, I do find it way easier to make videos when the weather's a bit warmer.You can see that I'm just wearing a jacket right now. Actually, these... These windows really do help. You can see I'm just wearing a light jacket right now. You can see that people are out and about, just wearing a ball cap instead of a winter hat.There's even just people standing, checking their phones. Like, even just last week or a week and a half ago, that would not have been happening. It was far too cold for people to be outside and being somewhat leisure or to be moving at a slower pace.So in spite of the fact that I love winter, I must admit, it is much nicer being out here today. I am putting my hand in my pocket occasionally, though, just to warm it up a little bit. But, yeah, this is just much nicer than it was.Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this little English lesson, and I'll, see you next week with another one. Bye.

主播：Flora（中国）+ Erin（美国） 音乐：恭喜发财Happy Chinese new year! 大家过年好！今天我们就来聊一聊那些地道、常用的新年祝福语，不仅仅是翻译，更包含着语言背后的文化趣味。01. “恭喜发财”英语该咋说？一段“Merry Fa Cai, Gong Xi Christmas”的视频在社交平台刷屏，“圣诞快乐”混搭“恭喜发财”，感觉怪怪的（weird），但是又很好玩（funny）。A little Christmas, a little CNY (Chinese new year), and a whole lot of festive cheer (满满的节日欢乐)!其实我们过年的时候挺常用“恭喜发财”这样的祝福语和memes（表情包）的。When you go to the supermarket, you'll hear “Gong Xi Ni Fa Cai” (刘德华的《恭喜发财》) playing everywhere.��“恭喜发财”英文是怎么翻译的呢？直译（literal translation）是“May you get rich.”——“祝你变富”！听起来很豪爽，但是英文听起来有些奇怪（sounds a little strange in English）。 我们可以说：Wishing you happiness and prosperity!Prosperity：繁荣/兴旺主播Erin表示：在实际生活中，when sending others new year wishes，很少会把祝福说得这么具体（specific）。像“恭喜发财”、“万事胜意”这样的祝福语是很有中国特色的（very Chinese）。02. 地道英文版新年祝福当我们想要给外国朋友送上来自中国的新年祝福，或者你的外国朋友想要体验一下中国过年的氛围，我们就可以用到下面地道的英文祝福语表达：（1）新年快乐 Happy New Year！（2）身体健康Wishing you good health.（3）万事胜意：希望所有的事情都能比自己所希望的还要好Wishing you all the best. 希望你一切都好。May everything go your way. 所有事情都顺心如意。（4）心想事成：心里想的都能实现May all your wishes come true. 祝你所有的愿望都能实现。（5）阖家欢乐：祝你家庭欢乐，其乐融融Wishing you and your family happiness.（6）年年有余Wishing you abundance year after year. 希望你每年都很富裕。May you have surplus and prosperity every year. 愿你年年都有盈余，生活富足。��为什么中国年要挂鱼？Because in Chinese, the word for “fish (鱼)” sounds the same as the word for “surplus (剩余/盈余的余)”. 当你每年挂鱼的壁画在墙上的时候，就象征着“年年有余”。这些福语都是以“wish or may”开头的。In English, “wish and may” are how you say I hope or I wish for you. They're perfect for holiday blessings (节日标配).03. 西方人怎么说“新年快乐”?（1）“Happy New Year”是主播Erin的go to（首选）。（2）All the best for the new year. 祝你新年一切都好。（3）Wishing you a great year ahead.祝你来年一切顺利。（4）Cheers to the new year!为新年干杯！（5）Here's to 2026!为2026举杯！中国的新年祝福往往离不开prosperity (繁荣) and good fortune (好运)，而西方的祝福则更多围绕happiness and new beginnings (新的开始)。Different cultures, but the same idea - everyone just wants a good year.不同的祝福语都有共同的愿望，那就是下一年一切都好。Happy New Year! Wishing you good health, Wishing you all the best, and may all your wishes come true! 新年快乐！祝你身体健康、万事胜意、心想事成！欢迎大家在评论区分享：What kind of New Year wishes do you usually share with family and friends?你过年一般会和家人、朋友说什么样的祝福语呢？

Listening is the most underrated sales skill because it's the one that actually tells you what the buyer is thinking, not what you wish they were thinking.  Most salespeople believe they listen well, but in real conversations—especially under pressure—we drift into habits that feel like listening while we're actually rehearsing our next line. In Japan, in the US, in Europe—whether you're selling to an SME, a startup, or a multinational—buyers can feel when you're not fully present. Are you really listening to the buyer—or just waiting to talk? Most salespeople aren't listening; they're mentally queuing up their next point, and the buyer can hear the delay. This shows up in every market: a SaaS rep in San Francisco, a relationship banker in London, or an account manager in Tokyo can look attentive while their mind is sprinting ahead. The trigger is usually one "important" phrase—budget, competitor, timing—then your attention snaps away from the buyer and into your internal monologue. You're still hearing, but you're not taking in. That gap matters because buyers don't only communicate in words. In executive-level meetings at firms like Toyota or Rakuten, meaning often sits inside tone, pace, hesitations, and what goes unsaid. Post-pandemic, with more hybrid calls on Zoom or Teams, these cues are easier to miss—unless you deliberately train for them. Do now: Treat every buyer conversation like a live intelligence feed: if you're writing your reply in your head, you've stopped listening. What are the five levels of listening in sales? There are five levels—Ignore, Pretend, Selective, Attentive, and Empathetic—and most sales calls hover around levels 2 or 3.  Ignore doesn't mean staring at your phone; it can mean being hijacked by your own thoughts the moment the buyer says something provocative. Pretend looks like nodding, eye contact, "mm-hmm"—but your brain is busy building the pitch. Selective listening is the killer in modern B2B: you filter for "yes/no" buying signals, but you miss the conditions attached to them (timeline, stakeholders, risk concerns). Attentive listening is full-focus: no interruptions, no filtering, paraphrasing to confirm. Empathetic listening goes further—eyes and ears—reading what's behind the words and "meeting the buyer in the conversation going on in their mind." That's as relevant in procurement-heavy Japan as it is in fast-moving US sales teams. Do now: Identify which level you default to under pressure—and train upward, not sideways. What does "ignoring the client" look like if you're still in the room? You can "ignore" a buyer while looking directly at them—by following your own thoughts instead of their words. This is common when the client says something that sparks urgency: "We're also talking to your competitor," "Budget is tight," "We need this by Q2." The moment you latch onto that, the rest of what they say fades into the mist because you're fixated on the counterpoint you must deliver. In enterprise sales, this is where deals quietly die: you respond to the wrong problem, at the wrong depth, to the wrong stakeholder. In Japan, where meaning can be indirect and consensus-based, this is riskier—what's not said can be the real message. In Australia, where communication is often more direct, you can still miss the nuance in tone—especially in remote calls where you're juggling slides, notes, and chat. Do now: When you feel triggered, pause and mentally label it: "That's my ego talking—back to the buyer." Why do salespeople "pretend" to listen—and how can you spot it? Pretend listening happens when your body language says "I'm with you" but your mind is already pitching, defending, or debating.  You nod. You lean in. You look professional. But internally you're preparing the product dump, building the objection-handling case, or rehearsing the "killer story." It's the classic "lights are on, but you're not home" dynamic—common across industries like consulting, insurance, tech, and professional services. The modern version is worse: you're also glancing at CRM notes, Slack messages, or the next meeting timer. Buyers notice because your responses don't quite match what they said. You answer a question they didn't ask, or you jump too early. In negotiation-heavy environments (Japan, Germany, regulated sectors), this reads as disrespect. In faster markets (US startups), it reads as shallow. Do now: After the buyer speaks, summarise in one sentence before you respond with anything else. Is "selective listening" efficient—or does it sabotage sales outcomes? Selective listening is efficient for hearing buying signals, but it often sabotages effectiveness by skipping the context that makes the "yes" or "no" meaningful.  Salespeople are trained to hunt for signals: interest, hesitation, resistance. But if you only listen for yes/no, you miss the conditions attached—like internal politics, compliance concerns, implementation capacity, or fear of change. You also jump the gun: you hear the "no" early and start crafting your rebuttal while the buyer is still explaining why. The Japan example is instructive: because the verb often arrives at the end of the sentence, you're forced to hear the whole thought before reacting. In English, you can start manufacturing your reply mid-sentence, which feels fast but can be sloppy. Across APAC, where indirectness can be a politeness strategy, selective listening becomes a deal-killer because the meaning sits in the qualifiers. Do now: Don't respond to the first "yes/no." Wait for the full sentence—then ask one clarifying question. What's the difference between attentive listening and empathetic listening—and which closes deals? Attentive listening makes you accurate; empathetic listening makes you influential because it reveals what the buyer is really protecting.  Attentive listening is full presence: you don't interrupt, you don't filter, you paraphrase to confirm understanding. This alone differentiates you in any market—Japan, the US, Europe—because most professionals are distracted. Empathetic listening is the next level: you listen with your eyes and ears, tracking tone, body language, and what isn't being said. You sense anxiety behind a budget objection, or politics behind a "we'll think about it." You aim to "meet the buyer in the conversation going on in their mind," which is exactly what executive-level selling requires. In leadership cultures where saving face matters (Japan, parts of Asia), empathy helps you surface concerns safely. In direct cultures (Australia, US), empathy helps you avoid brute-force pitching and instead guide the decision. Do now: Paraphrase the facts, then reflect the feeling: "It sounds like timing isn't the only concern here." Conclusion If you want to sell more, stop trying to be more persuasive and start trying to be more present. The five levels of listening are a diagnostic tool: most salespeople drift between Pretend and Selective because their brain is busy performing. Attentive listening earns trust. Empathetic listening uncovers truth. And the fastest way to improve your buyer conversations is to practise listening where it's hardest—at home, with people who don't have to pay you to stay polite. Author credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie "One Carnegie Award" (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results.  He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban "Hito o Ugokasu" Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー).  Greg also publishes daily business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan's Top Business Interviews, which are widely followed by executives seeking success strategies in Japan. 

Will you retire with purpose? Don’t leave it to chance. Design Your New Life after you leave full-time work. Learn more about our next small group coaching program starting in April here – and sign up here. __________________________ What if the word retirement is setting us up for the wrong life? After years in senior leadership roles, Cesar Aguirre discovered something most of us miss about retirement: the word itself matters more than we think. In English, we “retire” – we withdraw. In Portuguese, you become “aposentado” – left aside or left behind. But in Spanish-speaking cultures, retirement is called “jubilación” – which comes from the word for joy. That distinction changed everything for Cesar. Because when he stepped away from his career, it wasn’t the loss of work that shocked him – it was the jarring shock of losing an identity. He realized retirement isn’t just a life transition, it’s an identity transition, offering an opportunity to redefine who you want to become, and retire with purpose. Cesar joins us to share the framework he developed through his own transition – a ten-chapter roadmap for moving from “what I’m leaving” to “what I’m moving toward.” He’ll reveal why planning goes far beyond your finances, how to measure success when you’re no longer producing output, and the key warning signs that show up early when retirement first starts going wrong. This is a conversation about why approaching retirement with more intention might just create the most fulfilling chapters of your life. How will you retire with purpose? Cesar Aguirre joins us from Florida. __________________________ Bio César Aguirre is a seasoned HR executive with over 40 years of experience in global talent development. Now in active retirement, he embodies reinvention with passion as mentor, consultant, and author. In his book, Retirement with Purpose: The 10 Rs of Retirement, he shares his vibrant energy and insights to help readers rediscover purpose and embrace joyful living in their post-career lives. He currently resides in a lively 55+ community in Central Florida with his wife, inspiring others to design their authentic journeys for the second act of their lives. _______________________ For More on Cesar Aguirre Retirement with Purpose: The 10 Rs of Retirement _______________________ Podcast Conversations You May Like How to Prepare Mentally for Life After Work – Joseph Maugeri Re-Visioning Retirement – Susan Reid, PhD How to Retire – Christine Benz _________________________ About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You'll get smarter about the investment decisions you'll make about the most important asset you'll have in retirement: your time. About Retirement Wisdom I help people who are retiring, but aren't quite done yet, discover what's next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn't just happen by accident. Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms. About Your Podcast Host Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Joe has earned Master's degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University. In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He's the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy. _________________________ Wise Quotes On The Power of Language “Retirement becomes a celebration, not a retreat. I think the languages shape mindset. And mindsets shape behavior. So when retirement is framed as a joy, planning shifts from survival to flourishing become more natural.” On Measuring Success in Retirement “A good day is no longer about output, it’s no longer about how much you produce. It’s about action that is intended, an action that aligns with a master plan.” On What He’d Do Differently “I wish I had thought about it and prepared for my post-work identity a little sooner and more deliberately. In my job in HR, I helped many others plan careers, but I underestimated how much my own self-worth was tied to that job in that title. I think I did it humbly. I can say that I did a solid job planning financially, but probably not as good in preparing emotionally for the change. For a brief period of time, a few months, I underestimated that the identity shift that was occurring and the loss of a daily structure that I was so accustomed to.” On What He’s Gained in Retirement “Presence, the ability to not just having the time, but having the mindset of real presence, presence with my wife, which I neglected for a few years while I was traveling or working, presence with my kids, now with my grandkids, the rest of my friends, and new friends. I also gained a space and time for mastery, my hobbies. I enjoy cooking, well, time to do more and do a little better, exercising, riding the bike three or four times a week, playing pickleball. Retiring has given me time to go more in depth on my preferences instead of just speed, because in my working years, I was always rushing. Even when I was at home, I needed to accomplish, I needed to do things. I needed not to be idle. And retirement has now given me presence and bandwidth.” On Warning Signs “I think there are three main things that one needs to start paying attention to. Isolation. If you don’t have that network, social network, family network, and you become isolated. A loss of structure. Doing nothing without a structure or living in the past tense. When people stop connecting with others, when they drift through the days without an intentional plan, or when they only talk about what they used to be, that should be a warning, – a huge yellow flag for oneself and for loved ones that are looking after them.”

主播：Flora（中国）+ Adrian（美国） 音乐：十二生肖今年是2026年，也是中国生肖中的马年（the year of the Horse）。巧合的是，主播Flora和主播Adrian都属马！今天我们就来聊一聊，“马”在中西方文化中，究竟有着什么样的形象和用法。01. Horses in China and English 中国生肖与英文中的“马”在中国生肖文化中，每个生肖都代表着不同的特征。属马的人常被形容为勇于尝试（willing to try）、精力充沛（full of energy），并且容易迈向成功（gain success quickly）。��为什么马会有这些象征呢？很多成语中藏着马的身影：（1）马到成功：means instant success / success comes swiftly (迅速取得成功)。（2）一马当先：means take the lead (领先或带头)。（3）龙马精神：means full of energy and drive (精力旺盛、干劲十足)。这些成语不仅体现了马在中华文化中的积极象征，也呼应了属相马的人的特征。在英文语境中，马的形象也很正面。人们常将马与strong（强大）、hard working（努力）、loyal（忠诚）、majestic（庄严）等特质联系在一起（associate with）。主播Flora表示她的朋友就会用这些词来形容她；主播Adrian表示except for (除了) “majestic”，其他词对他来说都很适合。02. Common English Idioms Related to Horses 与“马”相关的英文日常习语Hold your horses → 慢慢来许多年前，当人们还用马拉车时（had horse-drawn carriages），有时候需要hold（拉住）马。“Hold your horses” is a way of telling someone to wait (别急), slow down (慢一点), or be patient (耐心些) before acting. 其实这句话在生活中很常用：要是自己有点冲动的时候，你可以自言自语一句“Hold your horses”。Straight from the horse's mouth → 一手消息It means getting information directly from the source (源头), 不是二手的（not second-hand）.比如：当你和同学说，我是从老师口中得知的这件事情，绝对是一手消息。You can say, “I heard it straight from the horse's mouth”. 听起来有些奇怪（weird），实际上we could just say, “I heard it straight from the teacher's mouth”。这可能是因为“马”象征着忠诚（loyal）。当然，不建议当着teacher本人的面这么说。That must be super awkward (尴尬的).Dark horse → 黑马In English, dark horse refers to a person who is little known (不起眼) but unexpectedly wins or succeeds (意外大获成功). “Dark horse”经常用在比赛语境中（context of competitions）。这和中文里的“黑马”几乎完全对应。Workhorse → 吃苦耐劳的人 / 物它形容努力（hardworking）、可靠（reliable）、坚韧的（tough）人或物。不仅可以形容人，也可以形容工具、设备等，例如：“This old laptop is a real workhorse; I've used it every day for six years.”（这台笔记本很耐用，我用了六年都没有坏。）Get off your high horse → 别骄傲自大当有人自大（superior）、傲慢（arrogant）的时候，你就可以说：“get off your high horse (从你的高马上下来——别自大了)”。Beat a dead horse → 徒劳它字面意思是“打一匹死马”，实际是指“没什么用，徒劳”。经常以否定形式“don't beat a dead horse”出现。当你劝一个人不要费力去改变不可能改变的事情（something that is impossible to change）时，就可以说：“Don't beat a dead horse”。Don't horse around / Quit horsing around → 别闹了这是主播Adrian爸爸最喜欢对Adrian和其他兄弟姐妹（siblings）说的话。当你希望对方认真一点（act serious）时，就可以说：“don't horse around / quit horsing around”。03. 主播们最喜欢的习语在这些关于马的习语（idioms）中，主播Adrian最喜欢“get off your high horse”，因为它总让人联想到西部电影里的牛仔（cowboys），而且特别适合用来回应那些自大的人（a comeback towards arrogant people）。主播Flora最喜欢“hold your horses”，她觉得这个说法特别可爱——仿佛每个人心里都有一匹想往前冲的马，我们要抓紧它（hold it tight），以免它突然冲出去（dash out），并且告诉它：别急，慢慢来。欢迎大家在评论区留言：你有没有喜欢的和马相关的习语或者中文的成语呢？Do you have any favorite idioms about horses, in both English and Chinese?

In this episode we look at compound words with the word -φοβία (-phobia) as their second component. The word φοβία comes from φόβος, which means fear. So, all the words we'll see today describe having a fear of something, and that “something” is defined by the first part of each word.The first word we'll look at is υψοφοβία, from the words ύψος meaning height and φοβία. So, υψοφοβία means the fear of heights.In English, we use the word acrophobia, which also exists in Greek as ακροφοβία.Next, we have αγοραφοβία, from the words αγορά, which in this case means public space and not market, and φοβία. Just like in English, agoraphobia, it refers to the fear of open or crowded places.Then we have κλειστοφοβία, from κλειστός, meaning closed, and φοβία, which means the fear of confined or enclosed spaces. The English word is claustrophobia, where the first component comes from the Latin claustrum and the Greek φοβία.Our next word is αρρωστοφοβία, from άρρωστος, meaning sick, and φοβία. This describes the fear of getting sick.In English, the equivalent term is nosophobia, from νόσος, the ancient Greek word for illness or disease, and phobia. Although this term exists in English, it's mostly used in medical contexts. In everyday language, we usually say fear of getting sick or health anxiety.Check out our Instagram @greek_lang_experts or visit our website for our upcoming⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Greek classes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!If you enjoyed this episode please rate our podcast and leave a comment!

Patrick fields listener calls exploring everything from the quirks of Latin and Spanish translations in Catholic tradition to personal stories of family genetics and the odd surprises that pop up in RCIA. He considers questions about prayers, confession, annulment, purgatory, and even warns about the dangers of the occult, weaving serious advice with bursts of humor and pop culture nods. Conversations zigzag with unexpected warmth as Patrick jokes about Wham! albums while breaking down Catholic doctrine and practical faith questions. Robert - I taught Latin for many years. There are words in Latin that don’t exist in English and the same with all languages. In English, we have articles that don't exist in Latin. We need to add them in where we think they belong. (01:15) Pat - I think Las Nuevas is more of an idiom. I am not sure which is correct and if Las Nuevas has a religious context. (05:30) Jose - I know you come from an ethnic mixed marriage. How did you and your siblings come out as far as complexion? (08:39) Natalia - What about the use of language in certain prayers? (12:21) Sammy - My sister said that Purgatory is not in the Bible. She wanted to know why she had to go to a priest for Confession. (21:11) Greg - I have a question about an annulment. My brother got a girl pregnant before getting married. Wouldn’t Confessing fornication be grounds for an annulment? (30:11) Michael – Has Cyrus translated WHAM! lyrics into Latin? (37:10) TC - I believe that occult practices are an invisible addiction. Is there anything in the Bible that we can use to turn spells back on people who cast them? (38:33) Sophia - My mom has been away from the Church. Is it possible for her to go to Confession without OCIA and can she receive Communion? (46:41)

John 1:29-42The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.' I myself did not know him, but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Chosen One.”The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter). A couple of weeks ago, I signed up for Better with Time, a weekly newsletter course. Each week, I get a new tip in my inbox. Something small I can do at a different time of day to add a little more joy and adventure to my life. I'm two weeks in, and so far, I've experienced no added joy and absolutely no adventure.And it's not because I didn't try—well, maybe the first one. Week one's suggestion was to eat chicken parmigiana for breakfast. I mean… who would do such a thing? The point wasn't nutrition. It was control. The author argues that breakfast can be whatever you want it to be, and that by eating chicken parm for breakfast, you reclaim a sense of freedom over your life. You start thinking outside the bowl.You can let me know how that goes.Week two didn't do much for me either. The challenge was to spend twenty minutes flipping through a dictionary. The most joy I got from that was asking Pastor Mark for a dictionary—who, of course, had one from 1922.I signed up for this newsletter because, honestly, I could use a little more joy in my day—who couldn't? I don't necessarily need more adventure. But a distraction would be nice. A distraction from the endless updates of insanity that seem to flood our newsfeeds, no matter which one you're looking at. So when I saw something that promised to tell me how to live my life in a way that might add a little joy—and it was free—I thought, why not?After all, we are constantly being told how to live a life. By people, by companies, by experts. We're told what we should want, what we should value, and then—almost always—we're offered a solution. Usually at a cost. But our passage today gives us a pretty good picture of how to live a life.This is Jesus' first public appearance in the Gospel of John. And instead of John the Baptist doing any baptizing, he shows up here as John the Witness—or John the Testifier. He doesn't perform a ritual. He points. Literally.Every time Jesus walks by, John points and says, “Look! There he is!” Honestly, it's a little odd. John is like a toddler in public, loudly pointing at a stranger: Look at that person! I can't help but wonder if it was as embarrassing for Jesus as it can be for parents when that happens. But that's the scene. John sees Jesus, and he wants everyone else to see him too.The second time John points and shouts at Jesus, two of his disciples finally pay attention. They hear what John is saying, and something about it catches them. So they begin to follow Jesus.And then—Jesus turns around.He looks at them and asks, “What are you looking for?”In English, the question sounds simple. But it doesn't really capture the depth of what Jesus is asking. It's closer to: What are you seeking? What do you hope to find? What do you long for? The disciples respond to Jesus by asking, “Rabbi, where are you staying?”It's a richer question than it first sounds. They aren't asking for an address. They're asking where Jesus dwells, where he abides. And that word carries the sense of belonging. It's the difference between a hotel and a home. You stay at a hotel. But you abide, you belong, at the place you call home. That's what the disciples are really asking: Where do you dwell? Because we want to dwell there too.Jesus responds with a simple invitation: “Come and see.” Not an explanation. Not a theological lecture. Not a test to see if they believe the right things or are worthy enough. Just an invitation. Come and see.And they do. They spend the rest of the day with Jesus. The text doesn't tell us what happens while they're there, but something clearly does happen. We know this because before abiding with Jesus, they called him Rabbi, teacher. Respectful. Formal. After spending time with him, they leave calling him Messiah: the anointed one, the one who saves and frees.Don't you wonder what happened in between: what they talked about? what they saw? what they experienced? Whatever it was, it changed them. They had to be impressed. Amazed. Astonished. So much so that Andrew immediately goes and tells his brother Simon what he has seen and experienced.I wonder how Simon took that news. If he's anything like me, I imagine his response was something like, No way. Are you sure? Prove it. But Andrew doesn't argue. He doesn't explain. He simply brings his brother to Jesus. I wonder if he used the same invitation Jesus used with him: Come and see. Because no sooner than he tells his brother the two of them are off to find Jesus. And that's when it clicks for me.I don't need a newsletter to tell me how to live a more joyful or adventurous life. I don't need influencers, companies, or marketing campaigns promising they have the product that will finally solve all my problems. What I need in this life is what those two disciples just experienced—because that is living a life: paying attention, being astonished, and telling about it.And that's not my framework, but the poet, Mary Oliver's. In her poem Sometimes, she writes: “How to live a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”The disciples paid attention to what John was saying about Jesus. They noticed where he was pointing, and they were willing to look in that direction. That's often how faith begins, not with certainty, but with curiosity. With listening to those who point us toward Jesus, and being willing to follow their gaze. And sometimes that pointing takes us somewhere we didn't expect.Then they abide with Jesus—and they are astonished by him. What a gift. When was the last time you were astonished by Jesus? Truly astonished—filled with wonder, caught off guard, surprised by grace.Maybe it happens in the quiet of prayer, when you aren't looking for an answer, and Christ meets you with peace instead.Maybe it happens through the words of Scripture - when you read a passage for the one hundred and first time and finally hear the promise it has for you. Not because the words changed, but because you did.Maybe it happens through a song - when the Spirit overwhelms you at the very moment you least expected it.You know this kind of astonishment when it happens - because it changes you. No longer is Jesus only a teacher, someone with wise words to admire from a distance. He becomes Messiah: the one you follow, the one who meets you, the one who saves and frees. And once we are astonished, just like Simon, we can't help but tell about it.About the Messiah we've found. About the astonishment we've experienced. About the abiding that has changed us.And the way we tell isn't by arguing or proving or persuading. It's by offering the same invitation Jesus offered in the first place: come and see. Hearts and minds aren't changed by data or debates. They're changed through stories and experiences.Siblings in Christ, Jesus gives the same invitation to us: come and see.Come and abide with me.Come and be astonished by me.This is what I hope for us at Cross of Grace. That we are a people who have seen Jesus, and who can't help but point to him. A community astonished by his mercy, forgiveness, and grace. So that when others are searching, when they know something is missing, when they are looking for more hope, more joy, more belonging in their life, we don't try to convince them or fix them.We simply point. We point to Jesus. We point to a place where he abides with us. A place where they will be welcomed and loved. And we offer the same simple invitation: Come and see.Come and see why our joy doesn't come from newsletters, but from being astonished by the grace of Jesus Christ. Come and see a place where you can experience that grace for yourself.That's how we live a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.Amen.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 30, 2025 is: charisma • kuh-RIZ-muh • noun Charisma refers to a special magnetic charm or appeal that causes people to feel attracted and excited by someone. A person with charisma is captivating and often admired. // The young singer has the kind of charisma that turns a performer into a star. See the entry > Examples: "Sports and showbiz have gone hand in hand since newsreels in the 1920s showcased the skills and charisma of Babe Ruth." — Carole Horst, Variety, 16 July 2025 Did you know? The Greek word charisma means "favor" or "gift." It comes from the verb charizesthai ("to favor"), which in turn comes from the noun charis, meaning "grace." In English, charisma was originally used in Christian contexts to refer to a gift or power bestowed upon an individual by the Holy Spirit for the good of the Church—a sense that is now very rare. These days, we use the word to refer to social, rather than divine, grace. For instance, a leader with charisma may easily gain popular support, and a job applicant with charisma may shine in an interview.

不少小伙伴听到 “as old as the hills” 这个表达可能会觉得奇怪，“as…as” 是像……一样，“old” 是老的，“hills” 是山丘，字面直译好像是 “像山一样老”。但实际它是个非常地道且常用的比喻！先来听一下它的英文解释：In English, when you say something is as old as the hills, you're kind of saying that whatever you're talking about is as old as the earth, as old as the hills and valleys that we see around us.在英语中，当你说某事与山一样古老时，你有点像是在说无论你在说什么都和地球一样古老，就像山丘一样古老和山谷我们在我们周围看到的。这个短语的起源颇有渊源，最早可追溯到宗教典籍《圣经·约伯记》第15章第7节。不过它以现在的固定形式“as old as the hills”流行开来，是在18世纪之后。1734年弗朗西斯·哈钦森的著作《为古代历史学家辩护》中首次明确使用该表述，19世纪后更是被马克·吐温等知名作家在作品中引用，逐渐成为英语中描述“古老”的常用习语，沿用至今。例如：She comes from a family as old as the hills.她来自一个历史悠久的家族（有着古老传承的家族）。This tradition is as old as the hills and has been passed down for centuries.这个传统由来已久，已经传承了几个世纪（有着悠久的历史）。“As old as the hills”This phrase is used to describe something that is extremely old, ancient, or has existed for a very long time. The hills are used as a metaphor because they have been on Earth for millennia.这个短语用来形容极其古老、历史悠久或存在了很久的事物。用“山”来比喻，是因为山已经存在于地球上数百万年了。翻译成中文有 “历史悠久、年代久远、老掉牙了、陈年老套” 的意思。常用于形容事物、观念、笑话或习俗非常古老。原声再现：This place has history as old as the hills.此地历史悠久，可追溯至远古时期。You might say, ah, that guy's old as the hills meaning that they're almost as old as the earth itself.你可能会说， 啊，那家伙和山一样老，意思是他们几乎和地球本身一样古老。更多卡卡老师分享公众号：卡卡课堂 卡卡老师微信：kakayingyu002送你一份卡卡老师学习大礼包，帮助你在英文学习路上少走弯路

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 28, 2025 is: yen • YEN • noun A yen is a strong desire, urge, or craving for something. // After dinner, the family went out for ice cream to satisfy their yen for something sweet. // Students with a yen to travel should consider studying abroad. See the entry > Examples: “If you've got a yen for succulent, right-off-the-boat Maine sea scallops, now is the time to get them.” — Stephen Rappaport, The Bangor Daily News, 26 Mar. 2025 Did you know? Although yen suggests no more than a strong desire these days (as in “a yen for a beach vacation”), at one time someone with a yen was in deep trouble: the first meaning of yen, used in the late 19th century, was an intense craving for opium. The word comes from yīn-yáhn, a combination of yīn, meaning “opium,” and yáhn, “craving,” in the Chinese language used in the province of Guangdong. In English, the Chinese syllables were translated as yen-yen, and eventually shortened to yen.

Friday, 26 December 2025   Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? Matthew 15:17   “Not yet you grasp that all, the ‘entering into the mouth,' into the stomach it contains, and into the john it ejects?” (CG).   In the previous verse, Jesus chided the disciples, noting their still being unintelligent. He now explains their question with basic information that any child could understand, beginning with, “Not yet you grasp.”   Two new words are seen here. The first is oupó, yet. It is not found in all manuscripts. Instead, some say, “Not you grasp.” Either way, the word will be found in all manuscripts starting in Matthew 16:9.   The second new word is noeó, to exercise the mind. Thus, it means to understand, comprehend, etc. To keep it distinct from other similar words in a translation, saying “grasp” satisfies the need.   HELPS Word Studies says that this word “underlines the moral culpability we all have before God – for every decision (value-judgment) we make. This follows from each of us being created in the divine image – hence, possessing the inherent capacity by the Lord to exercise moral reasoning.”   What Jesus wonders if they yet grasp is “that all, the ‘entering into the mouth,' into the stomach it contains.”   Jesus gives them a lesson in basic human physiology. In fact, it is characteristic of life everywhere. In these words are two more new words. The first is eisporeuomai, to enter. When a person feeds himself, food enters his mouth. From the very first moments of a baby's existence, this is understood. They know exactly what to do to obtain nourishment.   The next new word is chóreó, to be in space or to give space. Thus, it gives a sense of holding. When a person eats, the food doesn't just stay in his mouth. Rather, it takes a journey down the alimentary canal. As it heads down, it stops in the stomach. While there, the stomach contains it and processes it.   Anyone who has had a meal knows this. The feeling is sensational each time we eat as the stomach whirls and churns, breaking down the food. If there was something upsetting in the food, the feeling may still be sensational, but in a bad way. Maybe we would call the sensation miserable. Whatever way it affects us, it eventually leads to Jesus' next words, which finish His question, “and into the john it ejects?”   Here is yet another new word, aphedrón, a place of sitting. Eventually, the food is processed in the stomach, continues on a long meandering journey through the bowels, and eventually it is ejected in the place of sitting.   In English, we have innumerable words to describe the location. There are locative descriptions, such as outhouse. There are accommodating descriptions, such as privy. We have coyly deceptive descriptions, such as powder room. And then there are colorful descriptions that every schoolboy knows, and many build upon.   And there is, of course, the memorial word john. That is most likely named after Sir John Harington. He was a 6th-century godson of Queen Elizabeth I. Being Mr. Inventive, he designed an early type of flushing toilet. Even though he wasn't the first to invent a flushing toilet, his invention, along with a satirical pamphlet he wrote about it, popularized the word john. Thus, his name became slang for his device.   Jesus' basic physiology course ends. He will next teach a truth about this process, making a contrast with it to something else.   Life application: Imagine your name is associated with such an invention, being repeated millions of times every day. There are lots of ways to be remembered that are far more tasteful. However, the best way of all is to be remembered on the day the Lord comes for His church.   Paul describes the event –   “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” 1 Corinthians 15:51-53   You may not be famous now, but you are important to God if you have trusted the gospel. So get ready for transformation day when Jesus calls us out of this corruptible body. We are talking about a name with eternal fame, simply by believing. So be ready by trusting Jesus!    Lord God Almighty, You designed us according to Your wisdom, and we are wonderfully made. But what will we be like when we have our change? The thought captures our attention. How we long for that day. May it be soon. Amen.

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by research scientist and professor Julie Van Dyke, Ph.D., who explains why syntax instruction may be the missing piece in our mission to improve comprehension outcomes for all students. Together, Julie and Susan discuss why syntax is the part of the language system that matters for comprehension, how the same systematicity and rule governance that you find in teaching phonics also exists in syntax, and how explicit syntax instruction could be the next breakthrough in evidence-based literacy education.Show notes:Register to join our Science of Comprehension Symposium.Submit your questions on comprehension!Connect with Julie Van Dyke on LinkedIn.Learn more about Julie Van Dyke's research on her website.Watch an interview about Syntax Comes First: Understanding How Syntax Is the Backbone of ComprehensionWatch Dr. Van Dyke's webinar: Finding the Missing Link in Reading Comprehension. Access recent Perspectives issues via the IDA. Listen to Season 2 of Amplify's Beyond My Years podcast.Join our community Facebook group.Connect with Susan Lambert.Quotes:"In English, syntax is word order. Syntax is the relationship between the entities in a sentence." —Julie Van Dyke, Ph.D."If you want to increase comprehension, you need to be explicit in syntax because that's the part of the language system that matters for comprehension." —Julie Van Dyke, Ph.D."Comprehension is the glue between the words. It's the process of gluing the words together, each word as you go." —Julie Van Dyke, Ph.D.Episode Timestamps:00:00 Introduction: Syntax and comprehension with Julie Van Dyke, Ph.D.06:00 Nervousness around syntax instruction11:00 Comprehension is the glue between words15:00 The difference between grammar and syntax19:00 How the brain learns language and how syntax is related to that learning24:00 Oral language is much less complicated than written language30:00 Explaining regressions33:00 The need to be explicit in syntax instruction36:00 How we develop fluency as syntax44:00 Closing thoughts: Syntax can move the needle on the nation's report card*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

Well, hello and welcome to Wednesdays with Bob. Remember, even though this isn't a traditional English lesson, it can be used as one. There are word for word English subtitles if you need to turn them on, and a complete English transcript in the description below.So you might be wondering what's going on. Number one, it's not Wednesday today, it's Tuesday, as you watch this probably. And number, two, you might be thinking, I thought these videos, these Wednesdays with Bobs, were for members only. Well, this week is really, really busy for me and I didn't really have time to make an English lesson. And I didn't really have time to also make a Wednesdays with Bob. So I thought I would kill two birds with one stone.In English, when you kill two birds with one stone, it means you get one thing done. You get two things done at the same time. Am I explaining that properly? It means that as I make this Wednesdays with Bob, I'm also going to put it out as my Tuesday video this week. So all of you who, who are members, thank you for supporting the channel. All of you who aren't members. This is one of, the things. This video is one of the things that members get, almost every Wednesday, actually I think 46 or 47 times out of the year, I do a Wednesdays with Bob video.And what do I talk about in a Wednesdays with Bob video? Well, sometimes I just talk about the weather. I talk about how we have a little bit of snow here on the farm. I might talk about how it's really cold out here today. It's actually minus eight right now. I should probably be wearing, probably be wearing a winter hat. I also talk about my life and things that are going on.One of the reasons why I'm busy is I need to go to work tonight. I have to go to work tonight to be recognized for working at the school for 25 years. I don't know if it's just going to be a little presentation. I don't know if I'm going to get a gift. But, I have to go to work, tonight.And, last Friday night I actually had to chaperone a school dance. When you chaperone something as a teacher or as an adult, you are, responsible for, the behavior of the students who are at that event. So there was a school dance. I chaperoned it late Friday night. I still don't feel like I've fully recovered from that. I still feel pretty tired.And then I have to go back to work tonight. But, it is, I guess me and a few other teachers are being recognized, for our years of service.You might be wondering, do I ever talk about the chickens? Well, sometimes I do. The chickens actually at some point need to go into the barn. It's not too cold out here for them. They are protected from the wind. But I think this weekend we'll be moving them into the barn and they'll have a much more enjoyable place to be.I'm trying to find Jen, but she's running away from me. She's, she's trying. I tried to hide from you, you're trying to hide from me. I'm killing two birds with one stone. I'm doing a Wednesdays with Bob, but then I'm going to release it Tuesday to everybody. So then I don't have to worry about, getting that done. I was just explaining how busy I am. Oh, and there's Walter. So, do you have anything to say to my wonderful audience? It's cold. It is cold. I wasn't ready for this. Yes, it's definitely colder than we expected.Where am I at here? Oh, I've already talked for too long. I better wrap this up. So I'll walk away now. Anyways, this is what Wednesdays with Bob is. It's me rambling and there actually is some English to learn. If you want to learn a bit of English with this video. I've probably talked too long to include the whole transcript in the description at this point. So I will.Note: This is the audio portion of a Youtube English lesson which you can watch right here and the full transcript is in the description there:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt1GRURds9g or by searching Youtube for, "Bob the Canadian 243"

The The Aiki Dojo Podcast - A Discussion About Budo Renshu With Glenn Yoshida SenseiIn Episode 75 of the Aiki Dojo Podcast, Glenn Yoshida Sensei from Renshinkan Dojo shares he thoughts on O'Sensei's book Budo Renshu. Budo Renshu is a book published by Morihei Ueshiba in the late 1930s. It features drawings of the execution of his techniques before Aikido became “Aikido.” In English the book is titled: Budo Training in Aikido. Yoshida Sensei was a student of Chiba Sensei and brings over 65 years of Aikido experience to his interpretation of Budo Renshu. Enjoy!For more information about Budo Renshu, please contact Yoshida Sensei at: glennyoshida@gmail.com   Watch this episode here: https://youtu.be/n36gsyyWdegThe Aiki Dojo Podcast's goal is to translate traditional Aikido and traditional martial arts training into the modern world. The podcast is hosted by David Ito Sensei who is the Chief Instructor of the Aikido Center of Los Angeles and he brings over 35 years of Aikido training to the podcast. The podcast is co-hosted by Ken Watanabe Shihan, and Bill D'Angelo, Aikido 5th Dan. Let us know if you have a topic that you would like Ito Sensei and the team to discuss in the next podcast.You can also listen to this podcast on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you download your podcasts. Enjoy!For more information about Budo Renshu, please contact Yoshida Sensei at: glennyoshida@gmail.com   Watch this episode here: https://youtu.be/n36gsyyWdegThe Aiki Dojo Podcast's goal is to translate traditional Aikido and traditional martial arts training into the modern world. The podcast is hosted by David Ito Sensei who is the Chief Instructor of the Aikido Center of Los Angeles and he brings over 35 years of Aikido training to the podcast. The podcast is co-hosted by Ken Watanabe Shihan, and Bill D'Angelo, Aikido 5th Dan. Let us know if you have a topic that you would like Ito Sensei and the team to discuss in the next podcast.The calligraphy that appears in this podcast are original creations by Yoshida Kuniharu. He can be reached here: https://www.instagram.com/kuni_rhythm/https://www.facebook.com/kuniharu.yoshida92Watch our 2 Minute Technique series:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiXORPL-lO6CxvDYf8RXbmKN_Pbw1XPWPWatch our podcast: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiXORPL-lO6Ak4vwXgRtzWY7ohjMTmJhQRead our blog, the Aiki Dojo Message: http://www.aikidocenterla.com/blogRead our Newsletter:http://www.aikidocenterla.com/newsletterFollow us on social media:Facebook: Aikido Center of LA: https://www.facebook.com/aikidocenterlaIto Sensei: https://www.facebook.com/aikidoteacherInstagram:https://www.instagram.com/aikidocenterla/Ito Sensei: https://www.instagram.com/teacher.aikido/For more information about Aikido http://www.aikidocenterla.comRev. Kensho Furuya: http://www.kenshofuruya.comIf you enjoyed this video, please support Furuya Sensei's vision and our non-profit foundation and the Aikido Center of Los Angeles. https://www.paypal.com/biz/fund?id=85D4U4CXREWN4

This week, we're proud to feature NALC members who have served in our nation's military or are currently on active duty in honor of Veterans Day! Tune in to hear overviews of essential topics and resources for our fellow veteran letter carriers. Our sincere thanks go out to our special guests and to all our veteran members for their service to our nation. Watch or listen wherever you get your podcasts! Info about NALC Veterans Group and the Veterans Group Guide are both available at nalc.org/veterans. 00:00:50 – Committee of Presidents 00:03:56 — NALC Health Benefit Plan Seminar and Open Season 00:09:17 — Bargaining Subcommittee Updates 00:10:50 — 2025 National Rap Session 00:13:50 — "Shut Down Hunger" Food Drive 00:20:20 — Introduction to Veterans Day Episode 00:25:01 — Nora Stamper | Seattle, WA Branch 79 | Marines | Veterans' Preference—Discipline Process and the Merit Systems Protection Board 00:39:12 — Troy Saunders | Baltimore, MD Branch 176 | Marines | Buying Back Your Military Time, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service Website, the Buy Back Estimator, and Annual Leave Accrual 00:47:27 — Artegus Felder | Montgomery, AL Branch 106 | Army | The Hoover Executive Order 5396, MOU 00165, and Wounded Warrior Leave 00:55:56 — Carman Montgomery | Mobile, AL Branch 469 | Active Duty Air Force | Military Leave and Uniformed Services Employment & Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) 01:07:02 — Charles Bundy | Chicago, IL Branch 11 | Navy | ID.me Virtual ID, Veteran License, State and County Benefits, DMV Plates and Stickers, and the NALC Veterans Group 01:14:04 — Shane Davis | Jonesboro, AR Branch 1138 | Navy | On-the-Job Injuries—OWCP/DVA Dual Coverage, Veterans and Mental Health 01:27:53 — (In English and Spanish) Christopher Cotto-Sanchez | San Juan, PR Branch 869 | Army | DD 214 Requests and the Veterans Affairs App

Wednesday, 5 November 2025   and said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him.” Matthew 14:2   “and he said to his servants, ‘This, he is John the Immerser! He, he is aroused from the dead, and through this the miracles work in him!'” (CG).   In the previous verse, it said that Herod the tetrarch heard the words about Jesus. Now, that continues, saying, “and he said to his servants, ‘This, he is John the Immerser!'”   Both Matthew 16 and Luke 9 show that there was speculation about who Jesus was. Among them, there were three predominant views –   “When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, ‘Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?' 14 So they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.'” Matthew 16:13, 14   The reason Herod was certain that Jesus was actually John the Baptist will be the subject of the coming verses. Through verse 12, it will explain Herod's interactions with John and members of his household that led him to a seemingly neurotic state concerning John. Of this deduction made by Herod, he emphatically continues, saying, “He, he is aroused from the dead.”   The word dead is plural. In English, “dead” is normally a cumulative word, especially when preceded by a definite article. Herod is stating that John was among those who had been dead, but he had somehow been raised from among them. The emphatic nature of his words shows that he was certain this was the case. As a result of this, he continues, saying, “and through this the miracles work in him!”   Herod ties the power of working miracles as the result of being raised from the dead. This confirms the words concerning John recorded in John's gospel –   “Then many came to Him and said, ‘John performed no sign, but all the things that John spoke about this Man were true.'”  John 10:41   In his life, John didn't perform any signs. However, Herod says, “through this,” meaning through the resurrection, he was now able to perform signs. If one thinks this through, it shows the ridiculous stupidity of his thought process.   If John were raised from the dead, after losing his head, that itself would be the greatest miracle, not any of the others instead. And more, it shows without any ambiguity at all that Herod thought that the dead could be raised.   Life application: Have you ever talked to someone about Jesus and been told that he didn't believe it is possible for the dead to rise? It is not uncommon for people to hold this view.   And yet, the same type of people accept that the universe exploded itself into existence and then put itself together in such a way as to create the precision of life on planet Earth. Along with that, it planned the placement of the sun, moon, and earth, so that eclipses can take place with absolute predictability and precision, the seasons are perfectly marked to support life and return at the exact time necessary for the cycle to continue, etc.   Others claim that life is sacred and killing a person, even if he has committed the most horrendous of crimes, is wrong. And yet the same people claim that killing the unborn or euthanizing the physically or mentally defective and elderly is perfectly acceptable.   Still others believe that ghosts exist, demons can live within people, various gods have control over events in nature, or things coincide within the span of time in order to have certain objectives met according to predetermined plans (things understood by divination, for example).   People can accept the most ridiculous propositions, including people rising from the dead (like Herod's belief about John the Baptist), but they turn around and deny that the dead can actually rise when presented with the evidence concerning Jesus.   It is as if we have a default setting in us that says, “If the true God is involved in the process, it cannot be true.” However, we will accept the exact same type of evidence without reservation once the true God is taken out of the picture.   God created and made everything perfect for man to inhabit the earth. “No, it cannot be!” God says that life is sacred and that when someone violates that principle, he must be executed. Jesus came to die for the sins of all people, including murderers. He died for them and rose again. “No, it cannot be!”   Jesus rose again, proving there is more than the material realm that is working in the world around us. “No, it cannot be!”   If you encounter such unclear thinking, as frustrating as it is, you can use their unclear reasoning (if they are willing to consider your thoughts) to show them that they already believe what they deny, and that what they need to do is to reconsider the source of their belief, going from a non-God centered reality to a God-centered reality.   It is not always easy, but if you have the time to work with people by learning what they accept or do not accept, you can then help them understand the hypocritical thoughts going on in their head, assisting them to realign their thinking to what is sound and reasonable.   Lord God, You have changed our hearts and minds to go from a state of unbelief to one of accepting the proposition concerning the good news of Jesus. Help us to now work with others to think clearly about what we believe, demonstrating to them why our thoughts are reasonable. We know the truth of Your word, so help us to present it to others so that they can see it as well. Amen.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 2, 2025 is: arbitrary • AHR-buh-trair-ee • adjective Arbitrary describes something that is not planned or chosen for a particular reason, is not based on reason or evidence, or is done without concern for what is fair or right. // Because the committee wasn't transparent about the selection process, the results of the process appeared to be wholly arbitrary. // An arbitrary number will be assigned to each participant. See the entry > Examples: “The authority of the crown, contemporaries believed, was instituted by God to rule the kingdom and its people. England's sovereign was required to be both a warrior and a judge, to protect the realm from external attack and internal anarchy. To depose the king, therefore, was to risk everything—worldly security and immortal soul—by challenging the order of God's creation. Such devastatingly radical action could never be justified unless kingship became tyranny: rule by arbitrary will rather than law, threatening the interests of kingdom and people instead of defending them.” — Helen Castor, The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV, 2024 Did you know? Donning black robes and a powdered wig to learn about arbitrary might seem to be an arbitrary—that is, random or capricious—choice, but it would in fact jibe with the word's etymology. Arbitrary comes from the Latin noun arbiter, which means “judge” and is the source of the English word arbiter, also meaning “judge.” In English, arbitrary first meant “depending upon choice or discretion” and was specifically used to indicate the sort of decision (as for punishment) left up to the expert determination of a judge rather than defined by law. Today, it can also be used for anything determined by or as if by chance or whim.

Abdaljawad Omar and Lara Sheehi will join us on the 2nd anniversary of the beginning of Tufan Al-Aqsa! We will remember the morning of October 7th 2023. In the two years since then there has been a genocidal counterinsurgency war waged against the whole Palestinian population, most acutely through the apocalyptic decimation of the Gaza Strip. There has also been constant resistance in many forms. How do we consider the present moment, the possibilities (once again) of "ceasefire," the attempts to end the "Palestinian Question," the actuality of resistance and the possibilities for a resistance that will produce a liberated Palestine, and more broadly a world that we all want to inhabit. Remind yourself of some of the images from Tufan Al-Aqsa.  Abdaljawad Omar is a Palestinian scholar, educator, and theorist whose work focuses on the politics of resistance, decolonization, and the Palestinian struggle. He has written extensively in Arabic. In English, in addition to being a frequent contributor to Millennials Are Killing Capitalism, he has contributed to Electronic Intifada, Ebb Magazine, Material, Mondoweiss, Communis, Monthly Review, and Rusted Radishes among other outlets. Lara Sheehi is a Research Fllow at the University of South Africa. She was the founding faculty director of the Psychoanalysis and the Arab World Lab. Lara's work takes up decolonial and anti-oppressive approaches to psychoanalysis, with a focus on liberation struggles in the Global South. She is co-author with Stephen Sheehi of Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine (Routledge, 2022) which won the Middle East Monitor's 2022 Palestine Book Award for Best Academic Book. Lara is the author of the forthcoming book, From the Clinic to the Street: Psychoanalysis for Revolutionary Futures (Pluto Press, 2026) Support Palestinians through the Sameer Project or Lifeline4Gaza

In the past week, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, globally known as Bad Bunny, has been everywhere in the news and lighting up social media with major moves in both music and pop culture. Starting with the biggest headline, Bad Bunny has been officially named the Super Bowl LIX halftime performer for 2026 at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, a decision that's sparked lively debates and reactions online and across TV networks. The announcement was quickly followed by a viral appearance on Saturday Night Live this weekend, where Bad Bunny both hosted and addressed the controversy swirling around his halftime slot.On SNL, Bad Bunny took the stage in trademark style, using his opening monologue to directly respond to critics questioning his selection for the Super Bowl show. In English and Spanish, he reminded everyone that his performance is a victory not just for himself but for the entire Latino community in the U.S., saying, “Our footprints and our contribution to this country—no one will ever be able to take that away or erase it.” He addressed the possibility of the performance being entirely in Spanish, which sparked heated responses from a segment of the U.S. political spectrum, especially after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed ICE officers would be present at the event, a move that many fans saw as politically charged. Social media erupted with support, memes, and the now-trending tag “Duolingo for the Gringos,” as people celebrated Bad Bunny's unapologetically Latino stance and infectious pride.While the Super Bowl news has dominated sports and entertainment commentary, Bad Bunny's musical influence remains just as strong. On January 5, he released his sixth studio album, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” (“I Should Have Taken More Photos”). The project has been hailed by many outlets, including NME and Wikipedia, as his most personal yet, blending reggaeton and house with deep dives into traditional Puerto Rican roots—plena, salsa, bomba, and more. Lyrically, the album explores Puerto Rican political realities, cultural pride, and the nostalgia of capturing moments before they pass. The record has already gone to number one on the Billboard 200 and its tracks are dominating the Hot 100, making Bad Bunny the first Latin artist with more than 100 entries on the chart. TikTok has been buzzing as song after song from “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” finds viral life with dance challenges and heartfelt covers.In addition to his SNL appearance and musical achievements, Bad Bunny just wrapped up a historic concert residency in Puerto Rico and is preparing for his “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” World Tour, which kicks off in November. Notably, he's skipping the U.S. on this leg, explaining in interviews that concerns about immigration enforcement and ICE presence influenced his decision. According to i-D magazine, Bad Bunny expressed that safety and respect for his community are at the forefront of his decisions, drawing widespread empathy and praise from Latino and immigrant supporters on X and Instagram.Adding to his pop culture reach, Bad Bunny appeared in the much-watched trailer for Adam Sandler's “Happy Gilmore 2,” showing that his crossover appeal remains sky-high. Forbes and Billboard recently reported his Most Wanted Tour raked in over $210 million last year, cementing his status as a live performance giant.With the Super Bowl, a hit album, SNL, viral singles, chart records, and a blockbuster tour, Bad Bunny is more than just a superstar—he's a cultural force redefining global music and representation. Thank you for tuning in. Come back next week for more. This has been a Quiet Please production and for more from me, check out Quiet Please Dot A I.Some great Deals https://amzn.to/49SJ3QsFor more check out http://www.quietplease.aiThis content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI

It's been just more than a week since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and in death, as in life, the far-right podcaster is proving divisive. While his supporters mourn, many critics have seized the moment to call out his polarising legacy - a legacy now being weaponised by far-right leaders from DC to Tel Aviv. Contributors: Jeffrey Sharlet - Professor, Dartmouth College Jude Russo - Managing editor, The American Conservative Kyle Spencer - CEO, The Pro-Democracy Information Lab Meredith Clark - UNC Hussman School of Journalism & Media On our radar: This week, the UN formally declared what Palestinians have long been saying: That Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza. In English, Israeli officials are indignant at the charge. But in Hebrew, they continue to provide more evidence of their genocidal intent. Ryan Kohls reports. Russia, Ukraine and The Trump Effect Donald Trump's second term has injected unpredictability into the Russia-Ukraine war: Unsettling Kyiv, emboldening Moscow and forcing media on both sides to recalibrate. The Listening Post hears from an exiled Russian journalist and a Ukrainian media scholar on how the conflict is being framed - and what both sides fear will come next. Featuring: Dariya Orlova - Associate professor, Mohyla School of Journalism Mikhail Fishman - Journalist, TV Rain

Preply is a great way to find an English conversation partner. Find the perfect tutor to help you make real progress on your English learning journey! Use this link: http://preply.sjv.io/e1XbJ1 to get 50% off your first lesson or use code BOB50 at checkout. In my experience Preply is a great way to take your language learning to the next level!In this English lesson I will help you learn phrases that have numbers in them. Have you ever heard someone say they were feeling 100% or that they wanted to split something 50/50? In English, we often use numbers in everyday expressions.In this lesson, I'll teach you some of the most common number phrases in English, explain their meanings, and give you clear examples so you can start using them right away.You'll learn useful expressions like giving 110%, to go halfsies, to rate something out of 10, to feel 100%, to be one in a million, to be second to none, and more.These phrases are common in conversations, movies, TV shows, and even at work. By understanding them, you'll sound more natural and confident when you speak English.I hope you enjoy this English lesson on number phrases! Have a great day!Note: This is the audio portion of a Youtube English lesson which you can watch right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEzzgXJWvPQ or by searching Youtube for, "Bob the Canadian Number Phrases"

In English, the word Immanuel has only eight letters. Yet I tell you it is heavier than the heavens and the earth. In that one word, Immanuel, you have the most offensive and the most comforting, the most repulsive and the most attractive message the world has ever heard. It means “God with us.” Let's see how this message 1) is the most repulsive because it says Jesus Christ is God, and 2) is the most attractive because it says Jesus Christ is God with us. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 19, 1993. Series: Understanding Jesus. Scripture: Matthew 1:20–23. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

It is one of the most important verses of the Hebrew Bible, and it's only six words! Well, six in Hebrew. In English, it's anywhere from nine to twelve words, depending on who's doing the translating. It's the Shema, a prayer from Deuteronomy still holy in Judaism. But why is it so important? What makes that one verse so special? And for the love of all that's holy- why is it so hard to translate? What exactly do those six Hebrew words mean? Then, we're heading back into the dark regions of the Apocrypha, and this time, it's the Letter of Jeremiah. What do we know about this text? Was it a real letter? Did Jeremiah actually write it? To whom? ---- For early access to an ad-free version of every episode of Data Over Dogma, exclusive content, and the opportunity to support our work, please consider becoming a monthly patron at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/DataOverDogma⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠      Follow us on the various social media places: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/DataOverDogmaPod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitter.com/data_over_dogma⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Have you ordered Dan McClellan's New York Times bestselling book ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Bible Says So⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ yet??? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Psalm 96,Oh sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth!2 Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day.3 Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!4 For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods.5 For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens.6 Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.7 Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength!8 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts!9 Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth!10 Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns! Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.”11 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it;12 let the field exult, and everything in it!Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy13 before the Lord, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth.He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness. You were made to worship God. That is true of every single human being that has ever existed. If you're here and you're a human, you were made for worship. Look around, most of us in this room would say that we were made for worship — so here's a question: What is worship? What is the meaning of true worship?You don't need to answer this out loud, but imagine for a minute that you're having a conversation with a friend or a co-worker — if they asked you to explain the meaning of worship, what would you say?See I wonder if worship might be the most important calling in our lives that we know the least about.So that's our topic this morning. We're gonna focus on the meaning of true worship because that's what Psalm 96 is all about. And I think we discover here at least two truths about what true worship is, and I can't wait to show you, but first let's pray again.Father in heaven, we recognize that there are countless things that could get in the way of our hearing you this morning. There are countless things inside us and outside us that would block our hearts from receiving what you have for us, and so right now, I ask that you would triumph over all those things. I ask that you break through every barrier to magnify your glory in the preaching of your word. In Jesus's name, amen.Here's the first truth we discover about true worship:1. True Worship is a vertical response to the greatness of God. In Psalm 96, there are 18 verbs spread across 12 verses and they're all about worship. Just listen to the verbs: It's … Sing, sing, singBless, tell, declareAscribe, ascribe, ascribeBring, worship, trembleSay, be glad, rejoice, Roar, exult, sing!This is most of the psalm.Now none of these verbs by themselves are true worship because you can sing, tell, and ascribe anything to anybody — and people do — so what makes this true worship, at the start, is that all of this is directed to God. And this makes sense. If it's true worship, of course, it must be to God, about God, and also because of God.This last part is really important. See, in the context of all these directives to worship God in Psalm 96, the psalmist grounds that worship in who God has revealed himself to be.We see this in verses 4–6 and in verse 13. And I want you to see it with me beginning in verse 4. Following the “For” in FourSo everybody find verse 4. This will be super easy. I want you to find the verse 4 and the word “for” — it's the very first word of the verse. Find verse 4, word “for” — if you see it, say Got it.Verses 1–3 has been sing, sing, sing, bless, tell, declare — here's why: 4 For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods. 5 For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Skip to verse 12: Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy 13 before the Lord, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. Our worship of God is because of God — this means that worship is a response. Now think about this: a response is something that comes second. It doesn't happen unless something else happens first. It's like answering your phone — you answer your phone after it rings. Most people still answer their phone after it rings. But what nobody does is just pick up their phone at random and say ‘hello' — if you did that we'd be concerned. You answer your phone in response to the ring.Worship is kind of like that — it's not an original act. It's a secondary act — we can only worship God because he first has shown us who he is. Without him doing that, we'd still be in the dark. We're not smart enough or good enough to worship God on our own. True worship is vertical in direction and vertical in source. God first has to tell us who he is — and he has through his world and his word. This is God's grace to us.The Greatness of God DisplayedAnd in his word, Psalm 96, we see the revelation of his greatness.We can see the word “great” in verse 4 — the Lord, Yahweh, is great and therefore he is worthy of our praise. And then we see that his greatness is demonstrated in two facts about him. Here they are: God is Creator and God is Judge. Now where am I getting that? …God Is CreatorFor Creator, we see it in verse 5. The psalmist does a little comparative religion here. He says:“The gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but Yahweh made the heavens.”And that's why Yahweh is greater. See, back in the day — which has been most of human history before the last 300 years — people were much more aware of how enchanted our world is. People recognized little-g gods everywhere — tribal deities, geographic deities, all of that. The world is still as spiritual today as it was then, but people saw it then. They were awake to it. And that's what makes verse 5 so amazing. The psalmist was well aware of the competing deities of his day, and he calls them all “worthless idols.” He is radically unimpressed by them. They're pathetic. They're useless. They're powerless. But, in contrast, Yahweh made the heavens.Your ‘little-g' god is a block of wood, while Yahweh is the one who spoke trees into existence. See the difference? Yahweh is greater. He's the Creator.Now, in our day, in our society, most non-Christians are not bowing down to carved statues — some do, most don't — but our world is still full of idols. There are still countless things that people honor in the place of God. And there are dark spiritual forces at work here. The big three for a long time has been money, sex, and power. These are gods in America.I had a conversation yesterday with a neighbor — a great guy — we were talking and he said he wasn't religious and I explained to him that everybody is religious. Everybody has some god, the question is who. I told him the gods of our day, for a lot of people, are money, sex, and power and he was like totally. It made sense to him. And if we're honest, none of us are oblivious to their seduction…If I could just get more money, how much better life would be! …If I could just have a romantic relationship, then I'd be satisfied …If I could just get my way all the time, everything would be great …These are the idols of our day, and like the psalmist here, we should be passionately clear that God is greater than all of them. They will not deliver what they promise. And what we'll find if we chase these things is one dead-end road after the other. But Yahweh made the heavens! Yahweh is behind and before everything that is. Yahweh is greater, he's the Creator!God Is JudgeBut not only that, Yahweh is also the Judge. That's the concluding fact in verse 13:“The Lord [Yahweh], for he comes. For he comes to judge the earth.”You ever heard that before?God is going judge this world. We learn more about this judgment in the New Testament. It's carried out by God the Son, Jesus Christ. Paul says in Acts 17:31 that God has “fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed [that's Jesus]” 2 Corinthians 5:10, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ…” One day, every human being will stand in front of Jesus and be judged by him. We don't think about this a lot, but the Day is coming. I remember the first time I met my friend Ray. He visited our church for the first time, and I was talking with him after the service, and he told me he wanted to be baptized and get plugged into the church because, he said, “Jesus is coming back to judge the world.” True story. That's what he said. He's right. God will judge the world.And that's why he's great. God is Creator and Judge. Which means he is first cause and final say. You've heard the phrase “you're about to meet your Maker.” That's a threat in action movies, but it's theologically on point. Every one of us will meet our Maker. The one who gave you life will one day call you to account for that life. The hands that formed you are the same hands that will judge you. And that's why God is great.God is great and greatly to be praised. True worship is a vertical response to the greatness of God.Here's the second truth we learn about worship …2. True worship is a horizontal declaration of the goodness of God.We see this in verses 2–3. We've already seen here that worship is the theme of Psalm 96, but notice what this worship includes. Verse 2: Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. 3 Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!Now the keyword here is that word “tell.” Do y'all see that in the second part of verse 2? I want you to circle that word with your eyes. This is a special word in the Old Testament. It shows up in some key places. One big one is Isaiah 52:7. You may have heard this verse before. Isaiah 52:7,How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”Now that phrase “brings good news” — that's the word translated as “tell” in Psalm 96:2. In the Greek Old Testament, it's word euangelizō. In English it means “preach the gospel.”Did you know that preaching the gospel is part of worship?According to Psalm 96, preaching the gospel (telling the good news) is part of worshiping God. Worship is a vertical response to God for his greatness and there's a horizontal declaration of his goodness.This means that true worship has a missionary character. We're singing and ascribing, and we're telling and declaring, because we want others to join us in the singing and ascribing. And if there is no telling and declaring it means that our worship is deformed. It's less than true. That's the implication here.And that's the danger of an ingrown church. I'll use that phrase “ingrown church” a lot these days because that's a real temptation for any church that's been around for a decade, and maybe especially for a church that has a nice building like this. Can't we just come here and worship, just us? Do we really need more people here? New people here? Can't we just keep it us?I want to be clear here: if our worship of God is not something we want others to be a part of, then it's broken. And I believe Jesus doesn't like it that way.True worship includes a horizontal declaration of the goodness of God. Because he is good. We have good news. We have a God who saves. He saves! I want to end like this: I want to give you three facts about God's salvation. This is what we get to declare.1. God's salvation is for all peoples.The psalm says it — we declare his glory among the nations and his marvelous works among all the peoples! We call all the families of the peoples to ascribe to God the glory due his name.This is amazing. It means that God is not just for one particular tribe, or one kind of people. He truly is for everyone from everywhere. To make it personal, think about your own life, your own story. There's nothing about your person or nothing about your past that excludes you from God. Listen: God can save you wherever you're from and whatever you've done — amen? If you're not moved by that it's because either you didn't hear what I just said or you're self-righteous.Seriously — the most literal Pharisaical thing someone could do is to despise or ignore the universal reach of God's salvation. Everybody gets to be saved if they would just come home. Come home to the love of God! That invitation goes to everyone. God's salvation is for all peoples.2. God's salvation is from his wrath. To be “saved” is a great Bible word, but it doesn't make sense to a lot of people. If we were to ask someone if they're saved, the first thing they might say is, “Saved from what?”This is where Psalm 96 is really helpful. The perspective here keeps in view the coming judgment of God. Again, remember Jesus is coming, as Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 1:8, Jesus is coming “with his mighty angels in flaming fire [to inflict] vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.”What does it mean to obey the gospel? That's a phrase used in the New Testament. It has to do with the reign of God. That's part of what makes the good news good. It's that God reigns. We heard that in Isaiah 52:7; we see it in Psalm 96:10; and it was also how the apostles preached. The apostles didn't just say, “Your sins can be forgiven” — they said, “Jesus is Lord of all” (see Acts 10:36). They proclaimed that Jesus is risen from the dead and reigning. They preached the supremacy of Christ as good news because it is — and that is one way to divide the world. When we read in Psalm 96:10, “Say among the nations, ‘Yahweh reigns!”' — there are two kinds of people in the world. There are those who love the reign of God and those who hate the reign of God. No middle ground. And if you hate the reign of God, too bad, because it's coming anyway. And if you hate the reign of the King when the King comes, you will face the wrath of the King. That makes sense, right?Well, the good news is that you can be saved from that wrath if you bow to the King. That is the proclamation! That's what the herald says:Hear ye! Hear ye! The King is coming! He has conquered sin and death, and his victory is on the way! Receive it now while you can!And I mean that. In this room right now, I'm inviting you … Stop hating the reign of God. Bow to Jesus Christ and believe. Receive his salvation. Receive the goodness of his rule.3. God's salvation is awaiting final consummation. The salvation of God that we receive now is real. We receive it by faith in Jesus and it's effective. We become new creatures; we're filled with the Holy Spirit; our lives are changed. But also, it's a salvation not yet complete. There's a grand finale of our salvation that we're still waiting for at the return of Jesus.The apostle Paul tells us in Philippians 3 that as Christians, “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it [from heaven] we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body…”And the theological word for this future transformation is consummation. It's the final and complete fulfillment of our salvation. When Jesus returns, every detail of brokenness will be restored and we will be made perfectly like him. The New Testament talks about this hope in several places, but Romans Chapter 8 is the go-to.Paul says in Romans 8:18 that we're waiting for a future glory that will be revealed to us … and then he says something that we didn't see coming. He says that all of creation is also waiting for our future glory. Romans 8:19, “the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.” The whole creation will experience the freedom of the glory of the children of God, and so the whole creation is groaning (or sighing) for that future day.Can you imagine that?Back in July, my family and I spent a week at the beach in North Carolina, and one of my favorite things to do at the beach is get up early and watch the sunrise. You're watching the giant orange ball in the sky right here, and then the waves are crashing here, and it's music. It's beautiful. And you can hear the longing in it, if you use your imagination. To think that all of us together are waiting for a future day. The sun and the sea, the seagulls and the sky — we're all waiting for something. So we can say:11 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; 12 let the field exult, and everything in it! Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy 13 before the Lord, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth.The day is coming. And we worship now in that hope.Two truths about worship:True worship is a vertical response to the greatness of God. True worship is a horizontal declaration of the goodness of God. And we come to the Table to do both. The TableAt this Table, we give thanks to Jesus for his death and we proclaim his death until he comes. Vertical response and horizontal declaration. It goes like this:If you're a Christian, if you have trusted in Jesus Christ to save you, let's eat and drink and give him thanks.If you're here and you're not yet a Christian, we proclaim him to you: Jesus is the Lord of all and he came to save you — put your faith in him. Come home.

Astronomers generally don’t play many official practical jokes. But an Italian astronomer played one more than two centuries ago. And the joke is still there for everyone to see. It’s in Delphinus, the dolphin. The constellation is small and fairly dim. But five of its stars form an outline that really does resemble a dolphin, making it easy to find. It’s a third of the way up the eastern sky at nightfall, with the dolphin’s tail on the right and its snout on the left. The brightest members of the outline are Beta and Alpha Delphini. Beta is a binary – two stars bound by their mutual gravitational pull. Both are bigger, brighter, and heavier than the Sun. Alpha consists of three stars. All of them are more impressive than the Sun, with the main star almost four times the mass of the Sun. The stars also have proper names. Beta is known as Rotanev; Alpha is called Sualocin. And that’s where the joke comes in. The names first appeared in 1814, in an atlas published by the director of the Palermo Observatory. The names caught on, but their origin was a mystery. It was solved by a British astronomer 45 years later. He realized that the observatory’s assistant director at the time was Niccolo Cacciatori. In English, the name would be Nicholas Hunter; in Latin, Nicolaus Venator. Spell the Latin names backwards, and you come up with Sualocin and Rotanev – a little joke among the stars of the dolphin. Script by Damond Benningfield

In English, we see a sign, look at the sunset, and watch TV… but why so many words for just using your eyes? If you've ever mixed up see, look, and watch, you're not alone! In this video, I'll teach you the difference with clear examples. Let's take a closer look at these 3 very common verbs.  Before we get started, my free gift to you is a PDF teaching even more confusing verbs - like start vs. begin, close vs. shut, and listen vs. hear. Click below to download it today so you can clear up your doubts about when to use each one.

Terry Ryan answers listener questions and features Canadian Actress and hockey savant Maxim Roy! Maxim Roy is a French Canadian actress. In English, she is best known for playing Detective Isabelle Latendresse in the English-language version of the Canadian police drama television series 19-2, Jocelyn Fray in the fantasy series Shadowhunters, and Mob mistress Michelle in Bad Blood...and NOW Shoresy! TR also answers listener questions, and dives into what further NHL expansion will look like in the future. You can now watch episodes of Tales with TR on YouTube! Head over to https://www.youtube.com/@THPN to watch the latest episode Check out TerryRyan.ca Terry Ryan answers listener questions! Welcome to Tales with TR: A Hockey Podcast presented by The Hockey Podcast Network. Join former Montreal Canadiens' first-round draft pick & Shoresy star Terry Ryan, as he talks about the sport of Hockey, brings on various guests, and shares tales of his life and professional hockey career. Host: Terry Ryan @terryryan20 Network: @hockeypodnet Editor: Isha Jahromi - "The City Life Project" on Youtube Sponsored by: Draft Kings - Use promo code THPN at sign-up for exclusive offers https://tinyurl.com/DRAFTKINGSPROMOTHPN MAKE SURE YOURSELF/FRIENDS/FAMILY TO GO SIGN UP FOR A GAMETIME AND APPLY/"REDEEM CODE" USING PROMO CODE: THPN

In English, many surnames come from the professions of their ancestors. These are called "occupational surnames". Examples include Smith (blacksmith), Miller (miller), Taylor (tailor), and Carpenter.  In this episode, you'll learn some of the more common ones and we'll explain the vocabulary related to the profession.  Show notes and more podcasts to improve your English at: http://www.inglespodcast.com/   Las notas del episodio y más podcasts para mejorar tu ingles están en: http://www.inglespodcast.com/  

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 10, 2025 is: minutia • muh-NOO-shee-uh • noun Minutia refers to a small or minor detail. It is usually used in its plural form minutiae. // Unaccustomed to legalese, I was bewildered by the contract's minutiae. See the entry > Examples: “The novel is an intricate thatch of corkscrew twists, vivid characters, dead-on colloquial dialogue, and lawyerly minutiae that culminates in a courtroom showdown worthy of Dominick Dunne.” — David Friend, Vanity Fair, 1 Apr. 2025 Did you know? We'll try not to bore you with the minor details of minutia, though some things are worth noting about the word's history and usage. It'll only take a minute! Minutia was borrowed into English in the 18th century from the Latin plural noun minutiae, meaning “trifles” or “details,” which comes from the singular noun minutia, meaning “smallness.” In English, minutia is most often used in the plural as either minutiae (pronounced muh-NOO-shee-ee) or, on occasion, as simply minutia. The Latin minutia, incidentally, comes from minutus (also the ancestor of the familiar English word minute), an adjective meaning “small” that was created from the verb minuere, meaning “to lessen.”