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A Sermon for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany St. John 2:1-11 by William Klock On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee.  Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding.   “On the third day.”  All through the first week of John's Gospel he tells us, “On the next day…on the next day,” but now it's not just the next day, but the third day.  That should resonate with us.  John knew that a Christian can't—or shouldn't be able to—hear “the third day” and not think of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  John's Gospel is a story of the birth of God's new creation and it culminates on the third day after Jesus was crucified, the day when Jesus burst from the tomb, triumphant over sin and death to inaugurate God's new world.  Already here at the beginning of the story John wants us to anticipate, to be looking forward to Jesus' resurrection.  God, in Jesus the Messiah, is going to do something amazing this day—something will show a bit of his new creation and reveal his glory. So Mary and Jesus are invited to a wedding in Cana and Jesus' disciples along with him.  Cana was small village just a few kilometres from Nazareth.  The people of one town would have known the people of the other.  Many of them would have been related, which explains why Mary and Jesus were invited.  One Second Century extra-biblical source says that Mary and the groom's mother were sisters.  Another fairly early source claims that the groom's mother was Mary's sister, Salome—which would make the groom none other than John.  It's hard to say how reliable these traditions are.  They're not inspired scripture.  But if they're true they certainly make sense of the details in the story.  John tells it as someone who was an eyewitness. Weddings in that world were a big deal.  Way more of a big deal than even the biggest weddings are in our culture.  The whole thing would begin with a feast.  The actual ceremony would follow later in the evening.  Once married, the guests, carrying torches, would parade the couple to their new home.  They would wind their way through the town, taking the longest route possible so that the guests could wish them well for as long as possible.  But that wasn't the end of it.  The bride and groom didn't go away on a honeymoon.  Instead, they would keep an open house for the rest of the week.  They'd dress like a king and queen while they entertained their guests.  You can imagine how big a deal and what a time of celebration and happiness this would be in a time and place when people were poor and spent their lives in hard work. Picture the festivities.  People eating and drinking, celebrating the bride and groom, and enjoying themselves.  It was a reminder for them of what the Lord had promised it would be like on the day when he would finally return to set his world to rights.  The Prophet Isaiah had written: On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all the peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. (Isaiah 25:6-8) The world was not as it was supposed to be, but a wedding gave the people an opportunity to look forward to the day when the Lord would visit them, wipe away their tears, and defeat their enemies—even, somehow, death itself. Now as we're picturing this great celebration, John writes that the wine ran out. This was bad.  Really, really bad.  There was no such thing as teetotaling in Jesus' day.  The rabbis said that without wine there is no joy.  You couldn't have a feast without it.  That doesn't mean they were all drunk.  The Bible condemns drunkenness and so did Jewish society, but they nevertheless enjoyed their wine as one of God's great gifts.  So to run out of wine at a wedding was a party killer.  More than that, it was a disgrace to the groom.  Hospitality was a big deal and the groom was responsible for being hospitable to his guests.  But where did all the wine come from?  The groom's family provided some, but so did the guests.  Depending on their relation with the groom and whether or not they were married or unmarried, there was an expectation amongst the male guests of reciprocal gifts.  An unmarried relative might bring ten dinars worth of wine to the feast with the expectation that when it was his wedding day, the groom would return the favour with ten dinars of wine himself.  For others, the groom's generous hospitality at this wedding was in return for the hospitality they had once shown to him.  If the wine ran out, it wasn't just a social disgrace for the groom—it could heap financial obligations on him that would be hard to repay.  Remember, these weren't wealthy people.  Cana was a small country village. So the wine ran out.  Maybe it was even Jesus' fault.  It's hard to say whether or not he would have been expected to bring his own gifts of wine.  That sort of thing was probably beyond his means.  But regardless of that, he shows up at the wedding with his disciples.  How many is also hard to say.  Up to this point, John has only told us of four, but John tells the story out of order, so that doesn't mean all twelve—or even more—weren't there with Jesus.  In a situation where people would have taken great pains to make sure there was enough wine for everyone, the presence of Jesus and his disciples may explain why it ran out. The worried servants went to the hostess, the groom's mother to tell her disaster had struck.  Mary—possible her sister—was there with her.  Maybe—again, I'm speculating—but maybe that's why they went to her first: “Your son and his friends were guzzling away despite having brought no wine themselves!”  And so, John writes, “Mary, Jesus' mother, said to him, “They have no wine!”  Whatever the case, it's clear that Mary told Jesus because she expected him to do something about it.  And by do something about it, I don't mean ducking out for a quick stop at the Cana liquor store to grab a case of wine.  Getting more wine wasn't nearly that easy.  I think it's pretty clear that Mary was expecting some kind of miracle even though, by all accounts, this would be Jesus' first.  But Mary knew who he was, she knew that he'd finally begun his ministry, she knew he'd been baptised by John and had heard all about that whole scene with the heaven's being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.  She'd met these men he'd been calling as his disciples.  Mary knew: it was time for the Messiah to start doing Messiah things and what better opportunity—and especially so if Jesus and his disciples were the reason why the groom was in this awful spot. And yet, John writes, Jesus replied, “Oh woman!  What's that got to do with you and me?  My time hasn't yet come.” What does Jesus mean?  He responds to Mary with a phrase that's found quite a few times through the Old Testament.  Specifically, though, I think Jesus is deliberately recalling an episode from the ministry of the Prophet Elisha.  In 2 Kings 3 we read about the kings of Israel, Judah, and Edom.  They were on their way to do battle with Moab.  Their armies had been travelling for a week and had run out of water.  They were thirst—just like the wedding guests were about to be thirsty.  The King of Israel was wailing that the Lord had sent them out only to be defeated by the Moabites, but King Jehoshaphat—the King of Judah—told them that the Prophet Elisha was nearby and they should go to him and inquire of the Lord.  Elisha wasn't keen on Jehoshaphat's request.  “What's that got to do with you and me?” he asks the King.  (Those are the same words Jesus says to Mary.)  But Jehoshaphat insists.  The Lord had sent them to battle Moab, but without water Moab would defeat them.  So Elisha finally relents to the King's request and the Lord speaks through him: “You shall see no wind or rain, but the streambed will be filled with water…and he will also give the Moabites into your hand.”  And, sure thing, the next morning a nearby stream was filled with water.  Not only that, they defeated the Moabites just as the Lord had promised. That Jesus adds that it wasn't yet his time, I think highlights that what Mary is asking of him runs a very good chance of getting him into trouble.  Jesus hadn't yet officially launched his public ministry, but doing what Mary was asking him to do would get him noticed and being exposed as Messiah—well—it was bound to spark opposition.  But I have to think that Mary knew her Bible and recognised Jesus' echo of Elisha.  She knew he would do something and so she turns to the servants—again, this suggests that she was an insider to this family and was involved with the preparations for the feast—she turns to the servants and she tells them what to do with her own quote echoing the Bible: “Do whatever he tells you to do.” Those were the words of Pharaoh to the Egyptians when he put Joseph in charge of Egypt.  Remember Pharoah's dreams about the grain and the cows and how Joseph interpreted them to mean that Egypt was about to experience seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine.  Pharaoh was impressed with Joseph's wisdom and put him in charge of Egypt.  For seven years the crown would store up as much grain as possible for the famine to come.  Pharaoh presented Joseph to the people and said, “Do whatever he tells you to do.”  And Joseph, because the Lord was with him, saved Egypt.  And now Jesus, because the Lord is with him, will save the wedding.  Like Joseph saving the Egyptians.  Like the Lord causing that dry streambed to run with water. So, John writes, “Six stone water-jars were standing there, ready for use in the Jewish purification rites.  Each held about twenty or thirty gallons.” Big stone jars.  This was the water used to wash people's feet when they came in from the streets and it was the water they used to wash their hands before a meal and between courses, so that they would be ritually pure.  The jars were big and there were so many of them, because the water was usually poured into a mikvah—like a big bath that could be used for immersion.  Presumably these had already been emptied into the mikvah and were standing empty.  John writes: “‘Fill the jars with water,' said Jesus to the servants.  And they filled them, right up to the brim.”  This was no small thing for them to do.  Did they have to carry the water to the jars or the jars to the water?  Whichever it was, there would have been a lot of heaving and grunting and it would have taken time to fill those six big, heavy jars.  But they obeyed.  Then Jesus said, “‘Now draw some out and take it to the chief steward.'  They did so,” writes John. Surely they could see and smell the wine as they drew it out and you can imagine them running excitedly to the chief steward.  He was sort of the ancient Jewish equivalent of a wedding planner and head waiter for the wedding.  He had no idea that the wine had run out.  He was just wondering what had taken the servants so long to bring more.  John goes on, “When the chief steward tasted the water that had turned into wine (he didn't know where it had come from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew), he called the bride-groom.” The chief steward is confused.  This wine was good.  Really good.  Better than anything they'd served so far.  I'll go so far as to say that since Jesus made it, it was probably the best wine anyone has ever tasted in the history of the human race before or since.  And so the steward went to the groom.  It was too late now, but he had to say it: “What everybody normally does,” he said, “is to serve the good wine first, and then the worse stuff when people have had plenty to drink.  But you've kept the good wine until now!” I can only imagine the groom's confusion?  What's this guy talking about?  We did serve the best wine first.  And then he took a sip and was even more confused.  The steward was right.  This was the best.  In fact, it was better than any wine he'd ever had—certainly better than any wine he could afford, better than any wine made in Cana or even the whole of Galilee.  And what they'd find before too long wasn't just that it was the best wine ever, but that there was no danger of it running out.  If you do the math, those six stone jars full to the brim with wine work out to about 900 modern bottles of wine.  Jesus never skimped, because God's new creation is all about abundance.  Like the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, there was always plenty left over.  It pointed to the new thing God was doing in Jesus.  These miracles reminded people of God's provision of manna in the wilderness, but whereas there was ever only enough manna for the day and anything left over would spoil, in Jesus God's abundant provision was a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.  Brothers and Sisters, that's God's amazing grace. John then wraps up his telling of the wedding saying, “This event, in Cana of Galilee, was the first of Jesus' signs.  He displayed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.” He displayed his glory—that's kind of the theme of John's whole Gospel.  And seeing his glory, the disciples believed.  I have to think others at that feast believed too.  The quality and the abundance of the wine—imagine the people of that little village scrambling for skins to hold all that wine so it didn't go to waste—they saw the promises of God, the words of the prophets beginning to come true.  As it turns out, it was indeed Jesus' time.  In the very next episode John tells, Jesus goes to the temple in Jerusalem and throws out the money-changers and the merchants and announces the coming destruction of the temple and a new one that he will build in three days.  There's John reminding us about those three days again. But the disciples.  Jesus had just been calling them.  First, Andrew and Peter, who had been disciples of John the Baptist, and then Philip and Nathanael.  And here, John says, they believed.  Just the day before Nathanael had said to Jesus, “You're the son of God.  You're the king of Israel.”  “Wait a minute,” Jesus said back to him, “Are you telling me that you believe just because I told you I saw you under the fig tree?  You'll see a lot more than that!  In fact, I'm telling you the solemn truth.  You'll see heaven opened, and God's angels ascending and descending on the son of man.”  And see he did.  I wonder if Nathanael had any idea he'd see such great things so soon.  Again, John says that the disciples saw the sign and they believed. That was the purpose of Jesus' signs.  With each one he planted another signpost pointing his people towards God's new creation.  This time the wine was the signpost, pointing to that feast for all the peoples, the feast of rich food, the feast of well-aged wines the prophet had foretold.  In Jesus the God of Israel was on the move—turning famine into feast, sparing his people from disaster, saving the day—leading the people towards God's new creation. Again, when John gives us details, they're always rich with symbolism.  Those six stone jars for the rites of purification are one of those symbols.  The stone jars are symbolic of the law and of the old covenant.  Jesus doesn't ignore them or smash them.  They served a good purpose.  Just as the old covenant was God's way of preparing his people for the new, Jesus fills those jars with his wine.  He made them useless for their original purpose in order to serve a new and better one—to usher in a feast where no one would ever again have to worry about being unclean, because the son of God has shed his own blood to make us clean once and for all. That's the final sign in John's Gospel. At the end—after Thomas has examined Jesus' wounds—on the third day—John writes that “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which aren't written in this book.  But these are written so that you may believe that the Messiah, the son of God, is none other than Jesus; and that, with faith, you may have life in his name.”  Jesus' resurrection was the final and ultimate signpost.  Follow it in faith and you become part of God's new creation yourself, washed clean by Jesus and filled with God's Spirit. And that brings us to a final point.  Those words of Mary, quoting Joseph: “Do whatever he tells you to do.”  Brothers and Sisters, believing—faith—produces obedience.  Obedience isn't always easy.  Think of those servants and the big stone jars and 120 gallons of water.  It was through the faithful obedience of those servants that Jesus manifested God's new creation at the wedding.  And so it is with us.  Brothers and Sisters, we have seen his glory.  Now we follow—we obey—in faith.  Kingdom work is hard work, but it is joyful work.  It's work that wipes away the tears of the people around us.  It's work that brings God's abundant grace to the lost.  It's work that reinforces our hope.  God will surely set this broken world to rights as the good news of Jesus, crucified and risen, goes out—light spreading in the darkness.  But remember, it doesn't go out by itself and more than that wine made it to the steward and the guests all by itself.  That's why God's called us—just as he called John to tell his story.  He's forgiven us by the blood of Jesus and made us his own; he's equipped us by filling us with his own Spirit, and he's given us—he's made us stewards of—the story, of the gospel, of the good news.  We're the servants joyfully carrying Jesus' wine to the wedding guests that might rejoice and be glad and see his glory. So come to Jesus' Table this morning.  The Lord's Supper is another of his signposts pointing to his kingdom.  Come and feast.  Eat his bread and drink his wine, then go out in faith to do whatever he tells you.  Go out to live and to proclaim the good news of Jesus the Messiah that all the world might see God's glory. Let's pray: Heavenly Father, in Jesus you have shown us your glory.  Strengthen us now that might be faithful stewards of your good news, going out in faith to make your gospel of glory known to the world.  Through Jesus our Lord we pray.  Amen.  

Mark Zuckerberg announcing the end of censorship and misinformation policies and blames “fact checkers” for misinformation (00:36) Joseph - Do you have to be Catholic to receive last rites? (13:12) Susan - I have pictures from inside of a Church of Jesus. I feel weird throwing them out. (18:22) Fran - Do you know of a Catholic or Christian alcohol in-patient recovery program? (22:30) Gloria – How can I help my husband to pray more? (28:18) Kaylee - What do you think happens to the art that we have created at the end of time and Jesus comes back? (33:46) Elijah - If dying non-Catholics cannot receive communion, would Jesus refuse that same person? (39:36)

Patrick shares a powerful story about a father taking drastic measures to enforce household rules by removing his teenage daughter's bedroom door. This sparks a discussion on setting boundaries, tough love, and the importance of guiding kids with firm, but loving discipline. Patrick also hears from listeners with their own impactful stories of parenting. It's all about balancing love, wisdom, and firmness to raise responsible and respectful adults. (Encore from 10/7 Hour 3) Audio: Glen Loury - As a man of the West, I inherit its great traditions. Tolstoy is mine, Einstein is mine, Newton is mine, Franklin, Hamilton, and Adams are mine! They're yours, too, no matter your skin color. (03:53) Maria - Someone brought me Holy Water from Lourdes and said that if I put a drop of it in water than it turns it all into Holy Water. (05:50) Ray - Is it wrong to throw away religious items that come in the mail? (14:12) Maria - I am in a nursing home recovering from an accident. Am I excused from fasting today? Is it okay to wear a Rosary around my neck? (21:51) Audio: dad removing the door from his daughter's room because she's not following the rules (27:12) George - Can I attend the wedding of Protestants who are getting married for the second time? (36:25) Judy - I think we need to be more charitable when it comes to people talking with the priest. (40:33) Joseph - Do saints go straight to heaven when they die or do they still go to purgatory? (41:59) Cathleen - My dad made my sister return a bikini to the store (43:08) Jacinto – I took the door off my daughter's room (47:16)

Patrick shares a powerful story about a father taking drastic measures to enforce household rules by removing his teenage daughter's bedroom door. This sparks a discussion on setting boundaries, tough love, and the importance of guiding kids with firm, but loving discipline. Patrick also hears from listeners with their own impactful stories of parenting. It's all about balancing love, wisdom, and firmness to raise responsible and respectful adults.   Audio: Glen Loury - As a man of the West, I inherit its great traditions. Tolstoy is mine, Einstein is mine, Newton is mine, Franklin, Hamilton, and Adams are mine! They're yours, too, no matter your skin color. (03:53) Maria - Someone brought me Holy Water from Lourdes and said that if I put a drop of it in water than it turns it all into Holy Water. (05:50) Ray - Is it wrong to throw away religious items that come in the mail? (14:12) Maria - I am in a nursing home recovering from an accident. Am I excused from fasting today? Is it okay to wear a Rosary around my neck? (21:51) Audio: dad removing the door from his daughter's room because she's not following the rules (27:12) George - Can I attend the wedding of Protestants who are getting married for the second time? (36:25) Judy - I think we need to be more charitable when it comes to people talking with the priest. (40:33) Joseph - Do saints go straight to heaven when they die or do they still go to purgatory? (41:59) Cathleen - My dad made my sister return a bikini to the store (43:08) Jacinto – I took the door off my daughter's room (47:16)

In the novel Charlotte's Web, a pig named Wilbur enjoys an unusual friendship with a barn spider named Charlotte. When a little farm girl discovers Charlotte can write words in her web, the girl's mother takes her to the doctor, concerned that something is wrong with her. The doctor agrees he can't understand how a spider can write words in a web, but he points out, it's just as impossible to understand how a spider can make a web in the first place. We have to leave room for the mysterious. The angels show up at the birth of Christ to keep us from writing off the wonder of God learning how to walk and talk and just staring at things like little babies do. Don't say, “Impossible.” Just say, “Mysterious.” And let the angel tell you what he told Joseph: “Do not be afraid.” We've gathered to revel in the mystery and worship God for it. We're so glad you've joined us!

Rudy - 1st Samuel Chapter 3 seems to point to the importance of praying for the dead when David prayed for Saul. What do you think? Susan - Can people other than God give grace? (06:35) Chris - How can I deal with friends and family who are homosexual but raised Catholic? (13:20) Madeline - Regarding the marriage debt, is it no longer a free choice to give yourself to your spouse after you are married since you have to fulfil it? Emily – My young adult son thinks communism is good. Why does communism reject religion? (25:45) Patrick recommends “The Black Book of Communism” and “1917: Red Banners, White Mantle” and “With God in Russia” and “Dedication and Leadership” by Douglas Hyde for books that shine a light on the horrors of communism Alex - People who are in favor of Palestine must not read and understand their bible. Cristina - I can't make it to Daily Mass for the First Saturday Devotions. Can I go to the Vigil Mass instead? Joseph - Do you know about the 7 Mountain Mandate and the New Apostolic Reformation which has loud music and impartations of grace. Kevin - What do you think of forced fatherhood? Rafael - Could you explain the meaning of the temple being rebuilt and the other things that Jews believe the Messiah must do?

Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum, talks with a diverse panel that includes former NYPD Sergeant Joseph Giacalone, forensic psychologist Dr. Joni Johnston, Mike Morford of the Criminology Podcast,  polygraph expert Lisa Ribacoff, and Kerri Rawson, the daughter of the infamous BTK killer. They explore leads of the LISK case, discuss the importance of identifying victims, and theorize about the killer's methods.  The conversation also touches on mental health within the police force and the ripple effects of trauma on victims, their families, and entire communities.  Show Notes: [0:00] Welcome back to Zone 7 with Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum.  Sheryl shares a high school story that sets the tone for the importance of teamwork in solving complex problems [1:10] Listen to the previous episodes on the LISK case: LISK (Long Island Serial Killer) Panel: A Zone 7 Discussion; LISK (Long Island Serial Killer): Part 2 with Kerri Rawson [1:15] Sheryl reintroduces guest, Sergeant Joseph Giacalone to the listeners [1:40] Cold Case Handbook; Criminal Investigation Function [1:45] Question to Joseph: What do you think is next for this investigation, the next steps? [2:26] Question to Joseph: Do you see this task force being even larger than we think that it is?  [2:31] Joseph talks about the growth of the task force. He emphasizes the crucial role of expanding the investigation team [3:45] Sherly reintroduces guest, Lisa Robicoff to the listeners  [3:48] Question to Lisa: With a case of this magnitude, how do you think private investigators could possibly help this task force? I'm thinking specifically interviews with sex workers, possibly internet searches, and government records. What do you think? [4:00] Lisa Ribacoff is brought in to discuss private investigators' roles. Her insights highlight the value of collaboration in the task force [6:10] Sheryl reintroduces Mike Morford of the Criminology Podcast [7:32] Sheryl reintroduces Dr. Joni Jonston back to the listeners   [8:17] Dr. Joni Johnston discusses the age of the Long Island serial killer. Her thoughts explore the psychological implications of age in serial killing [10:00] Sheryl reintroduces Kerri Rawson back to the listeners  [10:14] Question to Kerri: How do we continue to advocate for victims and keep that mindset of being respectful toward victims, families, and suspect families? [13:33] Sheryl and Joseph discuss the use of humor in dealing with police mental health [17:53] Question to Lisa: When you start identifying some of these victims from the Long Island serial killer, that's going to give us the date that they actually disappeared. How important is that intel?  [20:48] Question to Dr. Joni: I firmly believe he's going to have journals and calendars and maps and I think he's been very detailed in what he's done. What do you think? [22:30] Joseph elaborates on factors that influence serial killers. Insight into the identification of a killer's first victim and the mistakes they make [25:42] Sheryl and Mike discuss the possibility of the killer owning secluded land  [27:33] Lisa highlights unusual property in South Carolina. A potentially significant clue [30:36] Kerri shares personal experiences as the daughter of the BTK killer [34:54] Mike talks about crime scene investigations' impact on criminals' families. An exploration of the emotional toll and aftermath [39:11] “Nothing about murder is clean. Everything is messy. Everything is horrible. Everything is gross.” [41:24] Final thoughts from the panel [45:55] “We will support this task force with every tool it needs to hopefully bring this investigation and these murders to a successful conclusion.” -M.J.D Thanks for listening to another episode! If you're loving the show and want to help grow the show, please head over to Itunes and leave a rating and review! How to Leave an Apple Podcast Review: First, Open the podcast app on your iPhone, Mac, or iPad. Then, hit the “Search” tab at the bottom right-hand corner of the page and search for Zone 7. Select the podcast, scroll down to find the subheading “Ratings & Reviews”. and select “Write a Review.” Next, select the number of stars you'd like to leave. Please choose 5 stars! Using the text box which says “Title,” write a title for your review. Then in the text box, write the review itself. The review can be up to 300 words long, but doesn't need to be much more than: “Love the show! Thanks!” or Once you're done select “Send” in the upper right-hand corner. --- Sheryl “Mac” McCollum is an Emmy Award winning CSI, a writer for CrimeOnLine, Forensic and Crime Scene Expert for Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, and a CSI for a metro Atlanta Police Department. She is the co-author of the textbook., Cold Case: Pathways to Justice. Sheryl is also the founder and director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute, a collaboration between universities and colleges that brings researchers, practitioners, students and the criminal justice community together to advance techniques in solving cold cases and assist families and law enforcement with solvability factors for unsolved homicides, missing persons, and kidnapping cases.   You can connect and learn more about Sheryl's work by visiting the CCIRI website https://coldcasecrimes.org Social Links: Email: coldcase2004@gmail.com Twitter: @ColdCaseTips Facebook: @sheryl.mccollum See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fulton Sheen “Celibacy is a gift…We did not offer celibacy, we received it.” “My attitude toward celibacy would be seen always in direct relationship to my personal love of Christ,” “Celibacy is not the absence of passion; it is rather the intensity of a passion.” “If a man gives up freedom for a woman he loves, then it is also possible for a man to give up a woman for Christ.” St. Paul makes it very clear that remaining single allows one's attention to be undivided in serving the Lord (1 Cor 7:32–33). 32 I should like you to be free of anxieties. An unmarried man is thinking about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. 33 But a married man is thinking about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, 34 and he is divided. St. Paul recommends celibacy (1 Cor 7:7) 7 Indeed, I wish everyone to be as I am, but each has a particular gift from God, The Angel said to Joseph… “Do not be afraid to take Mary into your home” When you take Mary into your home – you take Jesus into your home. Do not be afraid to give your whole heart to God.

Joseph – Do demons oppress people? I was in an argument with my brother about issues of abuse in the past. Dave – he asks Patrick about the difference between Natural Family Planning and a contraceptive mentality. Patrick shares the story of a Navy UFO siting and how the government is writing an opinion on […] All show notes at The Patrick Madrid Show: May 19, 2021 – Hour 1 - This podcast produced by Relevant Radio

T.G.I.C.-LUKE 2-1-20---THANK GOD IT'S HISTORY---LUKE 2-1-3-------THANK GOD FOR THIS COUPLE---LUKE 2-4-7---What the angel said to Mary- The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you- therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.---What Mary said to the angel- Behold the maidservant of the Lord- Let it be to me according to your word.------What the angel said to Joseph- Do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.----What Joseph did in response- Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name Jesus.--THANK GOD CHRIST CAME---LUKE 2-7 - And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.--LUKE 2-8-14 --- Verse 11 - For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.--- Verse 14 - . . . Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men------THANK GOD FOR THE SHEPHERDS---LUKE 2-8--LUKE 2-15-20--- Verse 15 - . . . Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.---Cf. Verse 16 ----- Verse 17 - Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child.

Well we have been following the narrative of Joseph and we have watched Joseph go from basking in the privileges afforded to the favorite son of a doting father to an object that is auction off at a slave market to the highest bidder. We have watched his brother strip his coat from his body like skin from an animal. And that began a process by which his entire identity was just as violently stripped away from him. His language was stripped, culture stripped, values, name, reputation, influence, position stripped. He was truly naked - body and soul. If ever there was circumstances where you could say you were justified in being bitter, resentful and angry - circumstances where you’d be entitled to a bit of self-pity and depression it would be this. Imagine the confusion and loneliness in Joseph’s mind as he tries to make heads or tails of why all this happened. Is God even real? What did I do to deserve this? Joseph could have forever been imprisoned in these dark lonely walls of self-pity and feeling sorry for himself. God delivered Joseph from that mental prison. Joseph was able to trust God such that he not only was able to exist, but he thrived. He rose and became a blessing in Potipher’s house. And if you didn’t know better, it would sure seem that the rags to riches story is complete. Joseph has risen to a position of prominence in the house of Potipher. That’s a significant accomplishment. Potipher was a wealthy captain in Pharaoh’s army and probably had dozens and dozens of slaves. I know the English rendering captain of the guard doesn’t sound that impressive. The same title given to the Babylonian general who destroys Jerusalem in 2 Kings 25. Joseph is no longer doing manual labor. He’s administrating, managing, organizing. He has authority. He is respected. The text says Joseph was an attendant to Potiphar. That word ‘attendant’ is used to describe Joshua’s relationship to Moses. In other words, Joseph was not just a personal assistant. He was the COO of a major business, of the whole estate. I’m guessing that his lifestyle and influence as a slave in Potipher’s house far exceeded his lifestyle and influence as a shepherd in Palestine. The rags to riches story is complete. Joseph has arrived. Right? Put a bow around it. The end. But the story is far from over. In fact we are just getting started. The the screws are going to be turned in on him in ways he never could have dreamed. It’s not going to be pretty. And this stage two of testing begins with temptation. Now when you think Potipher’s wife and temptation you are likely thinking sexual temptation and that is there for sure - in spades. But it’s much more sophisticated as we are going to see. In fact, as we build out the temptations that surround the sexual temptation, it helps us to understand why sexual sin is so powerful and how to overcome it. Definition of Temptation Let’s begin with a simple definition. What is temptation? Temptations are like fishing lures. Picture a big juicy worm threaded on a sharp hook. To a fish, it looks really good, but there are really bad hidden consequences. That’s an enticement to do something harmful. And as we read the text, there at least 6 ways in which Joseph is tempted and so we’ll identify those lures that drift by and then talk about how Joseph avoided them. Now the first lure, the first temptation comes at the end of verse 6. Where’s the temptation there? That just sounds like a blessing. Well, be careful what you wish for. Being beautiful can be a curse. Well curse me. No. Think about it. Everywhere Joseph went, he was liked. He was liked by his father. He was liked by Potiphar and in this text we will see that he is also liked by Potiphar’s wife. And your saying, “Man, I hate people like that.” Ah! You see, you’ve demonstrated the curse of beauty. It is not fun to be hated simply because of your gifts. Isn’t that what Joseph’s brother’s said. Joseph’s dad’s favorite. He is handsome. Joseph got all the muscles, the height, the wavy hair, the charm, the athletic ability, the administrative ability. And did Joseph’s brother’s like him for that? They envied him. Being the object of someone’s jealousy is not fun. And it’s for no fault of your own? How can I apologize for being born? It’s actually not easy being extremely talented, extremely beautiful, extremely smart, extremely wealthy, extremely athletic. People envy you. People become jealous of you. You become, as in Joseph’s case, the object of someone else’s desire. Okay, so there’s a temptation for onlookers not to envy, but what’s the temptation for Joseph? The temptation is to believe it - to believe that because I have the currently in-style desirable traits that I am superior to those who do not have such traits. The Temptation is to believe that because you have wavy hair, because you have the muscles, because you have the beauty, academic ability, social talent, wealth that you are superior to others who do not. It is true that being handsome and beautiful will open many doors of opportunity, but in swinging wide, we better beware because many of them will close behind us and lock us into prison’s much worse than prison we thought we were in. And that much worse prison is the belief that you are better than others. Why is it a prison? Because then your value and worth is chained to those identity markers. And soon as that happens, you are living on borrowed time. You are valuable only SO LONG AS YOU are beautiful, athletic, successful, etc. but the second you lose those things, you are yesterday’s news. And so the prison is running from the drooling monster of time who runs at a pace you can barely outrun but the problem is he never tires and you do. Eventually he will catch you and gobble you up and you will be worthless. Time will ensure that one day you will not be beautiful, not successful, not athletic, not powerful….it will win. It’s tempting to believe that we are superior to others because we possess gifts they want. After all, it wasn’t even my idea. Others believe it and told me about it. Even our enemies believe it which is why they are jealous. If even my worst enemies believe it, it must be true. Because you want to be like me, that proves that I have more value than you. And there’s an incredible temptation to lord that over others - to subtly remind others of the valuable things you so effortlessly possess. Man, there is an allure of thinking oneself superior. BUT JOSEPH REFUSED THE BAIT! Here comes the second temptation. I’m focusing on one aspect of this sentence. The way the text captures this is perfect. After a time, his master’s wife ’cast her eyes on Joseph.’ When Joseph was first taken into captivity, he was a boy. He was just 17. He wasn’t even done developing as a man. He was in a low position. But as he aged. As he learned the language. As his form filled out, Potiphar’s wife began in her mind to look at him differently. At first it’s nothing overt. It’s subtle. It’s a second glance. It’s a slightly longer than normal glance. It’s being caught staring from across the room when you think nobody’s looking. At first it’s like, “Oh, there’s that new Cannanite slave. I hate it when Potiphar drags in these inarticulate slaves. What’s his name? Joseph. Okay. But then as he grew, oh, there’s Joseph… He’s kind of cute.” And maybe she starts picking him for certain slave related chores because he’s pleasant to be around. SHE WANTED HIM. And it’s nice to be wanted isn’t it. As Potiphar’s wife comments and remarks and peers at Joseph, this temptation, at least at first, is not appealing to Joseph’s sensuality. It’s actually appealing to his insecurity. You see beneath the sensual desire, is a soul desire. It’s among the most basic needs of the human being to be wanted. We all want to be wanted. To be wanted is flattering to our vanity. To be wanted is proof to our egos that we have worth. To be wanted silences our self-condemning consciences Yes, it’s sexual but it’s first spiritual. When there is a vacancy of worth, identity, value then we open ourselves up for sexual sin. This is so often the crack in the foundation that leads to adultery. A woman stops feeling loved, valued and cherished by her husband. She stops feeling wanted and then someone else expressed interest and desire and it’s over. Now if Joseph was in a vulnerable position of needing to be wanted, just think how influenced he would be by Potiphar’s wife’s advances. Joseph, dang. You got some rippling muscles. Joseph, my. Love the cheek bones and the washboard abs. Joseph, love your deep blue eyes. Joseph, wow. Your sandy hair is so seductive. I like your dark complexion. Who isn’t just totally flattered by that? Just to be wanted. Now the story is a girl wanting a guy. But the temptation works in reverse just as well if not better. What girl doesn’t want to be wanted by the eyes of some man. And there is all sorts of temptations that surround being wanted in this way. If I wear a modest swim suit, or modest clothing, well, nobody is going to look at me. Nobody is going to want me. I see the way they look at the girls with low shirts, tight pants or bikinis. So I want to be wanted in that way. It’s a temptation for a woman to dress this way, is it not? Or maybe it’s the type of photo you choose to post. It’s just slightly revealing, slightly seductive, just a bit edgy. It’s nice to get the comments, “You look great!”" from your girl friends and it wouldn’t be a bad thing if I got a little trolling admiration from some of the guys. If you have a figure that is attractive, well, then I want to capture the eyes of men so that I can feel like I have value and worth. Women, please. Don’t fall for that. Don’t sell yourself so cheaply. Dress for Jesus Christ, not for the shallow fulfillment of lustful men. The lust of men will never fulfill you. Once they get what they want they will spit you out and move on and you will have just barely tasted of the love and security you so desperately crave and then you will be left with nothing but the painful hook. Nothing in the text indicates that Joseph was fishing for this kind of attention but he is noticed nonetheless. The temptation for Joseph is to allow the attention of Potiphar’s wife to fill his soul. Taking the bait is the simple act of enjoying the attention, wanting the eyes to fall on you, wanting the attention to come your way again. If a man, woman, girl, boy enjoys the attention, the hook is set. You’re going to end up in the frying pan. To allow that deep desire to be wanted to be satisfied by the lust of fickle people will destroy your soul. It’s alluring to simply be wanted BUT JOSEPH REFUSED THE BAIT! Here’s the next one. Now there’s something that’s not apparent here in the text until you look a little closer. What’s the temptation being referenced? She says, lie with me! And then you look at Joseph reasoning against this seductress. I’m not seeing any temptation other than the obvious sexual temptation? That’s because he’s speaking from the position of someone who’s already won. Joseph is refusing the allure of power. Everything he says, is speaking from a man who has chosen to not use his power and influence and authority for his own benefit. Joseph is in a position of power. He’s got the trust of Potiphar. He’s got the respect of the other slaves. He’s got influence. He’s got authority to make decisions. A lesser man without character might have reasoned exactly in the opposite direction. You could imagine the exact same circumstances presenting themselves to another person, and he looks at them and he sees opportunity: I’m in charge. My master doesn’t concern himself with anything in the house. He’s entrusted everything to my care. He holds nothing back from me This is about as perfect as it gets! I am powerful enough to get away with this. I have enough autonomy in my life that nobody will question me. I have achieved that station of life such that I can be alone for long periods of time on business trips or alone in my hotel and nobody could ever question me. I am powerful enough to get away with it. The question for powerful people is always, “How am I going to use that power? Will I use it for myself or God?” Joseph speaks from a position where he has determined to use his power for God alone. Do you use your power for selfish gain or God glorifying purposes. Let me give you an example. My mom was a realtor for many years, back when you could buy 100 acres in Eagle for the cost of snowcone. And she really stood out in the market because she wasn’t working for people. She was working for God. People would call her up and say, "Hey, I want to make an offer on a house. She would look at the house and say, ‘you don’t want that house. They would say, yeah I do. No you don’tThey would look at her flabergasted. I’m ready to give you a large commission and you are refusing. Why would you do that?’ Because it’s not a good house. And she would list the reasons. She was in a position of power that she could have used for her benefit but she was working for God not for a commission. Joseph was working for God. Joseph could have seen his position of power as a means to his selfish end. After all the suffering I’ve been through, I deserve a little something for myself. And I’ve worked hard for this position of freedom and autonomy. Do you know that self-pity is one of the largest drivers of pornography. I’ve got it so hard. Nobody knows how difficult my life is, how much I have to absorb. Nobody knows how difficult my wife is. Or in Joseph’s case, nobody has any idea how difficult it is not having a wife, not having an outlet for sexual fulfillment. I deserve some relief. Joseph could have thought down these paths. I’m the big shot now. I’ve got the power and I’m tired of always serving other people. I have the POWER to do something about this problem. It’s time to finally use my position for my own benefit. That’s a real temptation. BUT JOSEPH REFUSED THE BAIT! But we are only on temptation #3. Here’s the next one that attacks him. There’s at least three temptations in this verse that I can see and I’m sure there’s more than that. I’m keying in on one phrase in verse 10. Joseph refused to lie with her, yes, but it also says, he refused to be with her. Make no mistake. Joseph was lonely. He was all alone and there was nobody to help him bear the burden of his sorrow. When a man is lonely, there’s nothing like the softness of a woman to give you sympathy and make you feel special. Man, I’m so sorry. You are an amazing person to have survived what you did. There’s nothing like the soft voice of a woman to say, “You really have a hard job. I’m so proud of you. Great job Joseph. I’m impressed.” There’s nothing like the velvet voice of woman to dribble in a a little respect. I am sure Joseph longed for intimacy because he was lonely. And sex is one of the best short term solutions to loneliness. It’s designed by God to create intimacy. I’m quite sure that Potiphar’s wife didn’t start out by grabbing him by the collar. It was much more subtle, much less brazen, and honestly, much more attractive. Just be with me. You don’t have to work today Joseph. Let’s just hang out at Starbucks. Let’s just enjoy life together. You’re always so deadly serious. Joseph, “Have you been thinking about me?” Joseph, “I’ve been thinking about you. I just like being with you. You make me feel special. You satisfy in me that craving to be close to someone. Hey just sit on the couch with me. It’s not going to hurt anything. I don’t bite.” And do you not think this would be attractive to Joseph? Do you not think his soul was lonely for companionship? BUT JOSEPH REFUSED THE BAIT! But we are still not done. Let’s look at another temptation in the text. What do we mean by this? This temptation happened day after day. Day after day after day a slow drip that just wears away at a person’s resolve. It’s one thing to resist temptation once or twice or three times. But it’s another thing entirely to resist temptation indefinitely, never yielding but always being presented with opportunity. And there is a temptation to yield not for the pleasure but to simply silence the tormenting voices inside your head. If I yield it will all be over. The Navy Seals have a famous training called hell week. And that tortourous week includes laughable amounts of exercise, exposure to cold, minimal sleep and deprivation of pretty much every sort. As the week wears on, you are just mentally, emotionally, physically exhausted. Under those conditions, your body is just screaming. Please stop. You just want it to be over. And it can all be over if you walk up to a bell in the center of camp and ring it. And once you do that, you can take a shower, the pain stops, you can go to bed; it’s all over, but you are also out. That’s how sustained temptation sometimes feels. Your reward for resisting temptation is just more temptation, more torture. It’s not like there is an end in sight. It’s not like you can just attain some level of resistance where suddenly these thoughts and images and desires just go away. We just want to silence the voices in our head that are screaming at us. And caving is what you want to do simply to silence the noise. Don’t you think Joseph felt this way? Of course he did. Man, just the repetition is wearing away at my resolve. I only have so much in me. How long did this go on? Weeks, months, years? And clearly it’s growing in intensity. Joseph, it can all be over, if you just yield. BUT JOSEPH REFUSED THE BAIT! Now I want to talk directly about the allure of sex as pleasure. I’m sure potiphar’s wife was beautiful. I’m certain of it. What wealthy powerful person doesn’t magnetically attract the most beautiful people in society? Of course she was beautiful. Joseph was handsome and well-built. I’m sure Photiphar’s wife was beautiful and well-figured. And to a young single man, a virgin, the height of his sex drive, this would have been very difficult. It would have been pleasurable to catch her eyes. She knew how to use them. The way she dressed. What she chose to reveal. The way she moved. It must have all been quite seductive. But the reason I saved the allure of pleasure to the very end is to help us remember that sex is almost never about pleasure exclusively. It’s a very complex in it’s relationship to our deeper needs for power, respect, intimacy, security. We are complex creatures and everything is connected. We have biological desire for food and even physical necessity for it but that’s only a small reason we eat. Many of us eat for very complex psychological reasons. We eat for social reasons. We eat to take the edge off depression. Sexual intimacy is similar. It satisfies the desire to be wanted. There are elements of power involved. There is closeness and intimacy. There are physiological factors. There are pleasure factors. Pleasure is a powerful motive. Sex from the standpoint of desire is among the most powerful biological drives we have. It’s why it’s used in advertising with great affect. So you have all these psychological factors in the background. And the reason this is important to mention is because Joseph won this battle before it even started. The opportunity presented itself, but all these other areas of his life were settled and determined long ago. Conversely, the man who would have fallen here, would have lost the battle long ago. It is said that the man who falls into adultery doesn’t fall very far. One compromise after another after another and that final step is just the next logical small progression. Sure the attack is full on sensual. If he had managed to this point to stay at arm’s length from the woman, he no longer was now. Now he’s within the orb of her perfume. Now he can see her exactly as she is, he can feel her. But it’s all reactionary at this point. There’s not time to think. And because of all the right decisions made to this point, he did exactly what he should have done: he ran for his life! BUT JOSEPH REFUSED THE BAIT! How Joseph Crushed Temptation Now, how did he do this? Let’s get serious. Listen, the only reason temptation works is because of deception. Nobody would ever fall for temptation without deception. What fish would ever choose to bite a hook with a worm on it if he knew what would happen next. Is the enjoyment of that dinner bite worth becoming a dinner bite for some fly fisherman. Certainly not! But the bait works because you can’t see the hook. It appears so, so different. You can imagine a young fish looking at that bait ball and thinking, man I’ve never seen a worm so juicy. I didn’t even know they made them that big. That’s the most delicious looking thing I’ve ever seen. But he hears in his head the voice of his mother or father saying, “Son, if you ever see a worm that looks so beautiful, so delicious so SEDUCTIVE that you think it can’t be true, run for your life. It will kill you.” And he inspects it from all angles. How can that be bad? These old fish, they don’t know anything. The are always so negative and crusty. They don’t even have instagram and snapchat. How could they possibly know what’s bad. And they go for it and end up on a plaque in someone’s bedroom. A temptation is simply an enticement to do something that is harmful to you. The power of temptation is in it’s ability to deceive. So to overcome temptation it’s all about uncovering the deception. Here’s the first deception to uncover. We are deceived into believing that we are strong. We are not strong. It seems like we are really strong. But in reality we are very weak. Don’t tell yourself that you can someone handle it. You can’t. You are a sucker. You are impulsive and immature. When you know that you are - weak, vulnerable, a wimp, you will do things to ensure that you stay away from danger. If you know you have bad balance, you won’t get near the edge of the cliff. If you think you have good balance but actually have bad balance, then you’ll be dead. Don’t even mess with temptation. The [Welsh] proverb says, “He who would not enter the room of sin must not sit at the door of temptation” If you struggle with going to the beach because of all the immodest swim wear, don’t go. Why put yourself in that situation? If you know your weak that guard your eyes. If you know you will tempted on you computer, then don’t lock it down. The eyes are the gateway into our souls. Be careful little eyes. If you think you can handle it, you will fail. Why? Because what will happen is you will begin to nurse sin at the level of the imagination, a place that nobody else can see. I’m just going to extract some pleasure just thinking about it. It won’t hurt anyone. I can handle that. But you can’t handle it. You had no idea how weak you were. It’s like the guy who thinks he can handle drugs. You can’t handle even a little bit. It will hook you and you will be reeled in to death. Run. Run for your life. You can’t handle a train barreling down on you. You can’t handle an attacking Grizzly. You can’t handle a mountain lion.Run for your life! Every year in Yellowstone, some guy gets gored or run over by a Bison. He looks slow and innocent. Let me just get a bit closer. It’s why the Bible’s recommendation for dealing with sexual sin is flee! We are told to stand firm for the faith. We are told to defend the faith… But when it comes to sexual sin we are told to run for our lives! If you don’t obey this verse (at the level of you MIND), your body is already defiled. The decision is already been made. The only thing that is missing is the occasion. And because we’ve already gone down the road so far that all we need is the occasion, and once the occasion arises, we are done. So first deception to uncover, “I can handle it.” No you can’t. Here’s the second deception to uncover. We are deceived into believing there is no hook. There is a hook. It doesn’t seem like it. It doesn’t seem like there will be any consequences at all. Where? All I see is delight! But the hook is very sharp, very powerful, and very deadly. The consequences of sexual sin are very real. And because they are very well documented, we should all put into our minds, that sexual sin in any form is not an option. Don’t even toy with it. Don’t dabble with it. Don’t be like the fish…man, I wonder if there really is a hook in there? Just believe it, close down mental discussion and resolve it in your mind. Those people who I know who have been most successful in overcoming sexual sin all think about it in the exact same way. It simply is not an option. Don’t make disobeying God in this way something that comes up for discussion. Let’s take a vote on it. What are the pros and cons? There are only cons. Why would I do this? It’s poison. It’s a land mine. I’m not going to play flag football in an uncleared mine field. It’s just not an option. Now here’s why that is so important. There is a world of difference, psychologically, between something that is nearly impossible and something that is actually impossible. Winning the lottery is nearly impossible.. Statistically speaking it’s about 1 in 300 million. Your many times more times more likely to get hit by lighting and get attacked by a shark and get in both a plane crash and a car crash consecutively than winning the lottery. And yet people happily say, “You can’t win if you don’t play.” If it’s even the slightest possibility, that minuscule chance has toyed with the imagination of so many and destroyed thousands and thousands of lives. Because it’s possible it controls your imagination. Conversely, if it’s not an option, if it’s impossible, if you’ve closed down discussion, ratified it, made it an unalterable policy, then it cannot control your imagination. You don’t just crave owning the country of Spain. That would be cool, and you might even start dreaming about it if it were possible, but it’s not possible. No human could ever do that. It’s not an option. So it occupies zero space in your brain. This by the way, is the way you silence the torture of daily temptation. You may think, God that’s not fair that you just keep torturing. Day after day he has to entertaining Potiphar’s wife’s proposition. No, he doesn’t have to entertain it day after day. He entertains it once and then kills it. It’s a non option. He slayed it. My mom, bless her soul, my entire life lived on pop corn, coffee and carmel. But then she got diagnosed with cancer. And that changed her diet for good. She gave up coffee, sugar and eats kale, green beans. If you believe your only chance to live is by eating healthy, guess what, you’ll eat healthy. If you believe you might get lucky and you can eat unhealthy and still live. Well then of course you will cheat. We all do. Here’s the third deception to uncover. We are deceived into thinking that we can improve on God’s design. It sure seems like we can improve on God’s design. I mean this sure seems like a pretty old sexual ethic. Do we really need to listen to this stuff? Isn’t there a way we can update this to be more compatible with the modern moral appetite. It sure seems like if we obeyed to the letter of the law here, that obeying God isn’t worth it. I’m not sure God is really worth all the suffering involved in denying myself. It doesn’t seem like he is. But here’s the truth. Nothing in this worth more than the smile of God. Do you see that Joseph trusts God’s design. My master doesn’t deal with anything in the house anymore. The only thing he cares about is his food, and he’s kept nothing back from me except you because you are his wife.” In other words, he says, “There is a rightness about sexual intimacy staying in the bed of a husband and wife, and I understand it.” That’s the way it’s designed and who am I to question God’s design. Oh, come on Joseph. What’s your problem? Do we really need to be so principled about all this stuff? Isn’t there a way we can update your religion to be more compatible with the modern moral appetite. It may seem like sexual freedom and God are compatible. Sexual sin and God are not compatible. There are not many ways to build spiritual intimacy with God and others. There is one way and it is the only way. Do you hear it in Joseph’s voice, “How could I do this great evil and sin against God? I love the smile of God so much…how could I ever do anything to dismiss his gaze.” You want to know what’s way, way, way better than any sexual experience? Closeness with God. Now you want to know why this last point is so important? Because you can appreciate your own weakness and even fear the hook to some degree, but when the right opportunity comes you’re still a goner. Because you are only motivated by not doing something in a negative sense. You aren’t motivated by doing something positively. There’s no carrot. Listen, if your only concern is getting caught or spoiling your reputation then you are done. If the only thing that is stopping you from looking at pornography, or having an affair is that you fear consequences or don’t have the opportunity, well, the opportunity is going to come. For Joseph the opportunity came. She comes and she grabs him: “She caught him by his cloak.” But opportunity changed nothing for Joseph, because lack of opportunity isn’t what was preventing him. It was love of God and that doesn’t change when opportunity presents itself. If the only thing that is stopping you is circumstances, then you will fail. No question. Just wait. Potiphar’s wife will find you alone and seize you by the cloak and you are gone. You want to know why? Because you really want her to grab you. You want her to steal you away. And you want to lay the blame on her. It wasn’t my fault. It was her fault, but that’s exactly what you wanted. We may think we merely respond to outward temptations that are presented to us, but the truth is our evil desires are constantly searching out temptations to satisfy our insatiable lusts. When Joseph came to Egypt, he could have said to himself. Sweet, they have a different sexual ethic. Look at all these women throwing themselves at me. I can get used to this. “Hey, spring break! Spring break forever! Joseph was absolutely decisive in his refusal because how could he sin against the God he loved so deeply? The most powerful deterrent to sin will always be love for God. Thomas Chalmers wrote an article that really changed my life. It’s entitled, the expulsive power of a new affection. Most people think self-control works like this. You look in your heart, and you have all these desires, and you say, “These desires are going to get me into trouble? So I must suppress them. Self-control.” That’s not what happens here. Joseph is not looking inside to suppress his desire for her. He’s looking outside to enhance his desire for God. He was satisfied in Jesus. And because he was satisfied, he could respond from a position of great strength. What does he say? What is his ultimate argument against doing this? He says, “This is a sin against God.” The smile of God upon me is the most precious thing in the world. How could I jeopardize that? A Final Word on Forgiveness. Now, in a room this size, there is undoubtedly a lot of guilt. I haven’t been like Joseph. I’m more like Potiphar’s wife than Joseph. Listen, this is the glory of the gospel. What makes you righteous is not your sexual purity. What makes your righteous is Jesus Christ. And accepting his righteousness will cause your soul to leap to such heights, it will cast your eyes to heaven and catch the gaze of Christ, such that you will live a sexually pure life. Joseph was not perfect and he certainly would have failed and asked God for forgiveness. We know that. But we see a man who, overall as a whole, was victorious because he was so enthralled with the beauty of God. So no matter how many times you’ve failed, messed up, disappointed someone, there is forgiveness in the cross of Jesus Christ. You may have to deal with the consequences of your choices for the rest of your life, true enough. But you are forgiven. You can receive the smile of God upon your life not because of your righteousness, but because of HIS righteousness given to you. So I want to pray a gospel pray that applies to everyone in this room who wants to follow Jesus Christ. If you are a believer, it applies to you. If you are an unbeliever who wants to become a believer it applies to you.

Thinking about the -big picture- of Genesis 37-49 and Joseph's promotion at the conclusion of Genesis 41. Do you see how your life fits in the pattern of Joseph- Do you know something specific about your future from God's special revelation- Are you acting in accordance with that information-

IDEA Pharma: IDEA Collider Mike Rea talks with Joseph Owens from Google X https://vimeo.com/269261531  Joseph Owens: Good to see you.  Mike Rea: Thanks for coming over. So, this is just for the benefit of everyone who has seen the previous live streams with me talking [in the camera]. This is hopefully the start of a new series of live streams and recordings where we're going to interview people that I find most interesting among the folks that I come across. Joseph Owens: Well I hope you find some interesting folks. Mike Rea: Well you're about as interesting as it gets. So, for those of you who don't know Joseph - Do you want to do a quick introduction? Joseph Owens: Yes. I'm Joseph Owens. I am a Neuroscientist at Google X, which is now actually just called X. It's the R&D factory for Alphabet, which is the parent company for Google. I am a Neuroscientist and a Management Consultant by training, by way of McKinsey and Northwestern. And right now, I'm on a team we call The Early Pipeline and we're looking for big ideas that would eventually be companies that would rival Google, basically. So, for Alphabet, we are de risking to bet on Google by creating other bets. Before that I was a Consultant at Google actually, in the Ad side. And then way back when, I mentioned my PhD was in neuroscience of sleep. So back when I was a Consultant, I was one of the experts on why the job was not very good for you. Mike Rea: And just for everyone who knows my background, Joe and I got over the McKinsey thing quite quickly. We've settled that conversation. So, one of the things that was most interesting actually in the conversation was really -- one of the things that pharmaceuticals struggle with is scaling innovation. And I know that you've had thoughts on that before you joined Google, and clearly since you've joined Google. It'll be interesting to hear whether you think pharma's going the wrong way, in terms of its approach, or do you think that there's a different approach possible? Joseph Owens: Well, I don't know if I can speak so well towards what pharma is doing specifically, but I can speak towards some of the things that happened in Google that are good and some of the things that I think we're improving. One of the things that Google was blessed with was, and I think it was really funny because we both knew this analogy, which was, it was a windless tree. And so, it had so much revenue for quite a long time that basically it made sense to plant as many flowers as you could. And so, by spreading bets as widely and sometimes even duplicative, you have the opportunity to let things bloom and let things figure out. As you have businesses that are more related to each other -- a great example is DoubleClick, which is programmatic advertising. The pipes for that are so complex. Having three different versions of that doesn't really work. And in some cases, we've made smart acquisitions -- DoubleClick was actually an acquisition -- and in others, we've built our own from the ground up. I think for innovation to be learned from Google, I would say it's knowing when to pull -- it's giving the engineering directors -- so Google is an engineering-led company and so the equivalent in pharma would be like the scientists or the people closest to it -- some leeway to make a call on whether they're going to let their [directs] just sort of experiment. From what I do know from you and others from pharma, that experimentation is probably not -- the degree of experimentation is probably radically different. And it is software, so you have to remember that some of that experimentation is a little bit cheaper from an opportunity [inaudible 03:51] point of view. But Google engineers are pretty well paid. Mike Rea: That metaphor of the windless tree, I think I wrote something about that like two or three years ago. It was based on the observation and the biased biome or biosphere or whatever the name is -- the trees grow to a certain height without wind but they fall over quickly because they need distress of the wind to grow. And I think that was an appropriate metaphor for companies and pharma’s that are doing very well despite much pressure from anywhere else. They haven't really needed to think about that innovation thing. But I wonder whether in pharma we spend too much time -- make it a quick call, "Right, well we've done the science already, now let's go to market with this thing." We stop experimenting at that point. So, I wonder whether that's a lesson to be learned.  Joseph Owens: So, Google has made a lot of changes around how it proceeds to launch, and specifically, how it measures that. Because of its size, it's pretty hard, just statistically, to figure out whether something's successful because it's got the Google brand with it. So, it's like, what is the adjustment factor for Google [to] launch this. And I think that's been something teams have been figuring out -- how to actually [re-weight] the metrics to see whether this would have been a success on its own. And there's some interesting programs in Google right now. There's a program where they're actually encouraging entrepreneurship within Google. So, people have great ideas and they might want to leave. They're allowing them to form their own teams and startup and pitch them to internal sort of VC-like group. Not necessarily with upside for the individual, except for just being able to pursue this thing that they see is really important. And so, it's a way to catch some of those folks that might otherwise leave and start other things. Because everybody has that entrepreneurial spirit. Mike Rea: We spoke with that a little bit [inaudible 05:54]. We covered that. It was one of the things that I thought about it over time. You look at [inaudible 06:00] with a lot of people who've left Genentech because they had to, to go and pursue their other interests. Interesting that you mention that there's no actual incentive for folks internally other than the progression of their careers. Joseph Owens: Yeah. I think it's interesting. If you look at -- I think it's Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs or whatever -- once you're paid a decent rate -- the monetary incentive, and you're comfortable -- If you're engaged with your work and you feel like it's doing something worthwhile, I think the monetary upside can be a bit overvalued in that scenario for a lot of people I've seen. There's great engineers who have families and are comfortable and would be great on startups, but they're not going to do that. And so, I think it actually taps into, maybe it's a slightly different slice of who would do that, but they're willing to do it because if they can keep their Google job and go for it. There's other people who want to strike it rich -- go [inaudible 07:04]. Mike Rea: But that spirit of innovation is encouraged within people that join Google? Joseph Owens: Oh yeah, definitely. So, Google still has, and I'm a product of this, the 20 Percent Program. I was a Strategy Consultant and I came into Google. I wanted to learn the main core business, how ads work. It's a lot more complicated than you think is.  Mike Rea: It's become a big issue recently. Joseph Owens: Google touches a lot of surfaces that you might not be aware of. Like how ads get populated across all of these different elements of the Internet, how they're sold, how they're traded in real time. All of these things. And like we talked about with the windless tree, they hire a lot of consultants, specifically from McKinsey, to come in and help them make those calls. While I was doing that, using my core McKinsey skillset, I started a 20 Percent Project. And so, for those that want to and have the inclination and [inaudible 08:01] and we formed a team, were running for six months or so, we had engineers, businesspeople, marketers -- our own little thing -- pitched it to all sorts of people. And that's actually what landed me at X. We had that drive because we saw an opportunity that Google should be working on this thing, and we can't talk about the thing. But we said we want to make sure that Google or Alphabet, actually, is working on this thing. And we pushed it until they took recognition of it.  Mike Rea: So just let me walk through the basics of the culture -- they enabled you to put together a bunch of people to pitch it to someone else. What's that look like? Joseph Owens: First off, to do a 20 Percent Project you need to be doing well in your role. But then the idea is -- It's based on good psychology, which is, you can't focus on one problem all the time. It's sometimes switching over to a different problem that actually helps you. And you can pull things over from that. Maybe you're going through a lull where you're bored with the implementation of your project and you're waiting for that next interesting part of your project, but you're still the right person to do that thing. Use some of that spare mental energy, connecting energy, whatever it is, on that 20 Percent piece. And instead of it being seen as lost time away from core work, it's more of an acknowledgement that you can only do core work very, very well for four or five hours a day. The idea that we can do more than that -- my background in psychology, you can't. You check your email, check the stocks, you check the news, go have coffee. And then when you look at your time across the day, whatever. But if you have something that was really driving you on the side, and you can keep up that -- The other thing is momentum. You're keeping up the momentum with the one thing that carries over the first.  Mike Rea: So, the 20 percent time isn't like Friday, it's spread across.  Joseph Owens: It's spread across, yeah. I don't think it would be effective if it was like everybody takes one day and puts on a different hat. There might be teams that do that. The other 20 percent thing I've done in my time is, I teach a mindfulness course. And that's actually a two-and-a-half-day course called Search Inside Yourself. And there's an org that runs that, a not for profit that now runs that. And we teach it to Googlers. And so, once a quarter I go and do that. So that sort of is a different day. Now that I've turned my 20 percent job into my full-time job, I have a different 20 percent job.  Mike Rea: So, people internally, they have the permission to spend that 20 percent time. Are they looking for each other? Joseph Owens: Oh yes. There's so many ways in which people find people. I just happened to be really crazy interested in this one topic. And someone introduced me to somebody else who's interested in that, and then found one more person, and then steamrolled from there. I said, "Google has to be doing this." And we just pushed it.  Mike Rea: And then you mentioned X as a special place. What's the special sauce about X that's different from Google itself? Joseph Owens: So, X is meant to build new companies. There is [triad] of criteria. One is that it would affect enough people. So, we think of a billion people, which means it needs to not be just U.S. So, it can't be just a U.S. business. Mike Rea: Basic rule of thumb. Joseph Owens: Basic rule of thumb. And it needs to be some sort of radical advancement of technology that has some real breakthrough way of solving a problem. And so, that's the three criteria, and you put X marks the spot in the middle. And it's always in the eye of the beholder, obviously, how breakthrough something is. But it has to be for good and it has to be a self-sustaining business. So, it's not [inaudible 12:07] Mike Rea: So, the really interesting thing about the business side is that those rules of thumb are not market size. The problem [inaudible 12:17] and the benefit, those are interesting rules of thumb.  Joseph Owens: Yeah. And all of the things that happen at X will touch regulation because they're [inaudible 12:28] business model plays, they aren't regulatory plays. We have a rule, you can't break the laws of physics but you might, for a little while, break the laws of man maybe, at least as they currently exist. So, for example, we have a project that literally launched drones into the air, called Wing, in New Zealand. And because the laws of man there were a little more friendly towards flying things, that was a good place to literally launch. And so, you have to figure those things out. Same thing with [inaudible 13:05] which is the inertial project at X, which was driverless cars -- figuring out how to get those safely on the road and get enough miles driven to train the AI. Obviously had [inaudible 13:17]. Mike Rea: Someone was telling me, actually yesterday, internal [betting] that happens at Google. Is there a market internally on which projects are going to succeed and which ones aren't? Joseph Owens: I don't know of one. But I've only been there for three years. I've been at Alphabet for three years, about a year and a little at Google and a year and a little at X. Mike Rea: Again, someone from pharma had heard this and felt, "This is an interesting way to see which projects are likely to succeed and which ones aren't." Because internally there's a culture of -- you know stuff internally that maybe senior management don't know about.  Joseph Owens: Yeah. I would be interested in that. There's a company called Steam; they do video for gaming. So, it's a very engineering -ed company somewhat. It's much smaller than Google. I think what they do are sort of a platform for online games, but then they also I think, sort of video. Could get that wrong. But an engineer friend of mine told me that they vote with their feet. So literally, their desks are attached to their chairs and people just move their desks together to work together on whatever the project is. I like that model. You can see what's working and what isn't, based on where people are moving. But the betting on things, we have a different version of that at X which is, before we kick off and get really running at speed on a project or even an idea in our early pipeline, we create kill criteria. And so, these kill criteria are what would be convincing reasons to stop working on this. Because the most valuable thing is our time. And those are easier to make before you spend a lot of time on a project because you're not as invested. You haven't hired as many people and all of these things. And you try to make them as objective as possible. And the way we do it is we just [sense] test with other people. "Is this significantly better than what exists?" or "Will this out compete the current thing on the market?" And that allows you as you get further down, if you realize you're not meeting that -- and you choose when you're going to check in with your ill criteria beforehand. So, it's like good statistics, it's a priority bet. And that allows for a more objective decision later on down the road. So, it's a way to manage your bets. I guess.  Mike Rea: And then one of the things I was really keen to recover was you mentioned the "Thank god its Thursday" and I described to you this  environment where in pharma that we spent so much time moving towards this six-monthly review with senior management of very polished, carefully curated slides that they're allowed to see. Can you describe a little bit more about this? Joseph Owens: Yeah. So, speaking completely for myself, and I think it's well known that this exists out in the world, but the company is -- Steven Levitt, the guy from Freakonomics wrote about this in the early days of Google. Larry and Sergei and others of the founding team decided to have a meeting every Thursday with the company. And I think the first meetings were around a ping pong table, which is also like their boardroom. And that tradition has carried on. That was on Fridays. As the company grew to have enough [inaudible 16:47] components they moved "Thank god it’s Friday" to Thursday. And crazily enough, Larry, Sergei, now Sundar, Susan Wojcicki -- all these folks get up there and talk about the state of the company, weekly. Mike Rea: Every week. Joseph Owens: Weekly. And it's kind of funny because Sergei also does a lot of things at X, and so he is often out of breath from making the one mile, mile and a half, from X to doing the same thing at X -- going over to main campus. And I think I said this to you. That's really good, but if you're a product manager, your product's coming up this week. You're going up in front of the CEO and chairman of the board and whatever, and they'll tell you what they think. I think that level of transparency is something Google obviously has struggled with this last year, because of the leaks. And I won't talk about that. But maintaining that transparency, it's amazing. I came into the company, my first day and they give you a computer and you're on the Intranet and you're like, "I can see this?" In any other company I wouldn't be allowed to see that. And that trust in a first day Googler -- Well, maybe I'd go look at that, I'm like, "Wow!" In my last business, we were doing that a different way. "Maybe I should let that person know," And I often do. When I get launch notices from people and they haven't -- from PMs and they'd go out to all of Google -- and I see something that I have a point of view on, I'll let them know. I'll just reply to that launch notice. Not to everyone, but to the PM and say, "Hey, I noticed that you guys did something here." And I think there's a lot of people that do that. And it's not liked a trolling sort of way. It's like there's something I really care about, that maybe you should know about it. And they might ignore you. They might not. But sometimes you get really long responses. They're like, "Oh I'm so glad you pointed out that. I was really struggling with how to weight that decision. And I'd love to have coffee." whatever exactly.  Mike Rea: And that was what struck me about that idea of Larry and Sergei and their [comfort] to do it. I'm the type to do it as well. I think we spoke about the [inaudible 19:13] book about the beginnings of Pixar and pulsing and the way that -- Pulsing sounds nice and gentle but sounds like there it's also not. You do get your animations ripped apart by everyone -- the magazine, then Pixar. That's not a destructive thing but it's a constructive, enabling, empowering way to -- Joseph Owens: As an employee, you can get an answer. If there's an issue that you believe is important enough, you can stand up at the mic and ask the heads of the company, from the beginning. You might face social feedback on that. I've never heard of anything of someone's manager getting mad at them for saying something like that. I think I would have heard that if -- Someone would tell you, "Hey, don't get up to the mic." And then they take internet questions from around company. And then they take my questions and they alternate. Mike Rea: Okay. I've spoken to a few people in pharma about whether they could imagine a pharma CEO standing there every day, every month, every week.  Joseph Owens: It goes with overall cultural transparency though. So, if they get at -- Mike Rea: Is it just transparency or is it something about the connection to the product or the ideas or the -- Joseph Owens: Yeah. I think you've got to be willing to go both ways. You have to defend your project, the people getting up there and talking about whatever they're launching or whatever or the bad news cycle on their project, whatever it is. That's one side of it. But then them asking like, "Hey, we did this launch and --" The thing that was in the way might have been you. Can you tell the audience why you made that decision? I don't know if I would go up and there do that, but people in the audience will. They'll say like, "Why did you make that decision?"  Mike Rea: Right. Okay. It's interesting because part of that same conversation that we had around whether they could imagine pharma CEOs doing that, people tend to go with the ones that they've worked for, that they could imagine being that. And actually, at the same time, those people also seemed to be the most empowering and best leaders -- the people talk I'm talking about in pharma -- people like Bob Levinson at Genentech have a [proof ability] but also deep -- you'd follow them anywhere with the science. So, I wondered whether that was a -- Joseph Owens: Well you have to remember that Larry and Sergei were grad students at Stanford, in information sciences. So, the transparency piece is there. The depth of engagement is there. These are future academics made into CEOs. And I think Larry's written about this bunch, about what that transition was like for him. What they're gifted with is all these great people who can teach them these things. And so, as they were going through -- I think I've seen this written in a number of books about Google -- One of the things I did before I applied to Google was, I read all the books about Google, at least the ones that are available. When I was at McKinsey what I did was a lot of reorgs. And so, I worked on helping organizations be more effective, because I liked the novelty of that problem every time. And reading about their early history and seeing the problems they faced in changing their worldview -- I was a PhD student. That is a very different [person] to being an executive. And so, the attitude there is you have journal club. And I got to say, TGIF is not that dissimilar from journal club. Journal club, you get up, you talk about some data, you beat it up. The goal is everybody gives their opinion. And if someone is silent then you're losing out on something useful. Because all the researchers in the room are going to have different takes on that data, or maybe they have statistics or genetics or whatever it is. It's not that dissimilar. It's bringing a little bit of that academic culture into corporate; I think. Mike Rea: There is something about pharma which I think we [could] change. We've got [inaudible 23:30] with people with project teams to say, "Well, what are all the things that could go wrong here?" Remarkably, it's the first time we've ever been asked, typically. And then they have this long list of things that could go wrong. They're not just about the product succeeding or failing on its basic parameters, but everything else that needs to be thought about it to get it there. If they're not being asked, those things will still happen and we're just going to ignore it until they do. Is there something that's enabled -- Let me describe it perfectly just from the beginning -- it always was that way. Joseph Owens: Yeah. If you're not working [in] your culture at the beginning then you're going to have whatever culture you get. The changing it though, is that what you're asking? Mike Rea: Well, I was wondering because one of the approaches that you have, clearly, is that you stop other cultures that are separate -- that you've created companies within Google that are different. Joseph Owens: Yeah. That was one of the things that kept me awake the most when I was working on the 20 Percent Project. I said, "Okay, we've got five people on this. Whatever we do right now that's the beginning of the whole proto-companies culture. And those are big weighty problems to think about. So how are you making decisions as a group? How are you choosing the direction? Are you going to be monolithic based on that one engineer or are you going to be consensus driven? Those decisions are made on those teams as they form, and a lot of big projects in Google started out that way. I'd say there's an example that teams can learn from, which is what's happened at Google and maybe what's happening on their own teams. And then when they make these new teams -- like the 20 percent ones for example, or the new bets at X, or the acquisitions -- there's a lot of freedom given to them to make those calls. I think it's an experiment that keeps happening over and over. Mike Rea: And we also discussed the accidental versus on purpose nature of the organization within Google. Which you can say about the way that it's organized and your observations on how controlled that is versus uncontrolled.  Joseph Owens: I think Google, last couple of years, they made the switch to be a holding company, I think quite wisely, while I was there. And the reformation that happened because of that has objectively been good for at least the short-term stock price. And starting to compare some of these projects against each other, and to make some of these calls. I think those things happen in cycles. And so, they're on that cycle of it. I think the culture probably still has this exploratory way. And so, if you go through one cycle of comparing things and choosing which ones of the best ones, you'll go through a growth phase. I think the inertia is clearly there for it to be a [inaudible 26:54] thing, not like a, "It was doing this and now it's doing that." Mike Rea: And there was an observation that you mentioned along the way about how much people want to work for Google, as opposed to somebody else. Joseph Owens: Yeah. So, Google maintains a pretty amazing reputation, at least as a place to work, in the world. I always saw it on lists with McKinsey and other consulting companies. And I feel like those are pretty different jobs, which is interesting. Mike Rea: Those rankings are usually done by [inaudible 27:24] Joseph Owens: Yeah. [inaudible 27:26] does rankings too. If you want to be a world class software engineer and you want to have some of the best tools at your disposal, and obviously the [inaudible 27:43] places to work, and smart people -- I think I've got a little bit off the question -- but the attractiveness to do that, I think it's quite high. What was the question again? Mike Rea: Well,  it's linked to that. Because we had the conversation around the pharmaceutical innovation index, on whether that leads to retention of people over time or the ability to recruit.  Joseph Owens: Yeah, I think there's everything at Google. So, there's enterprise businesses at Google, there's consumer businesses at Google. With the cloud bet, that's a very different business than the hardware bet. And one of the things Google has is a lot of ability to move around. I think that's what I was mentioning. And so, you might work two or three years in one role and then you might change ladders as I did. I went from a strategy consulting ladder -- I'm actually on the engineering ladder now. I don't know that that happens that frequently, but I definitely see people who might go from, say, a sales ladder to PM ladder or a program management to product management, or one type of engineering to another type of engineering, as they change their skill set. One of the things I do as a 20 Percent Project is, I work on what's called G to G which is Googler to Googler training. And we have loads of that. We have an engineering school. If you want to get ML training, there's weeks of training you can go take to start teaching yourself to be an ML engineer. There's Python 101. There's everything you can imagine if you want to spend that effort to train yourself. Now there are tools that are available for online training and any person training, you can literally change your career while you're at Google. And I've seen a lot of people do that. Mike Rea: And you can start your 20 Percent Project from any one of those ladders? You don't have to be on -- Joseph Owens: Yeah. You can be a salesperson and be the PM on your 20 Percent Project. Or like me, you can be a strategist on your normal ladder and you can be a scientist on your 20 Percent Project.  Mike Rea: Because one of the things that we haven't spoken to anyone yet about is about the rankings that lead to companies being perceived as more innovative, and whether that leads to the ability to attract and retain all the time. Joseph Owens: Google made a big bet on hiring ML engineers and that looks like it's paying off. Mike Rea: That's machine learning? Joseph Owens: Machine learning, yes. Sorry. Everything where you teach a computer to label things. That's all ML is. So, it's saying, "I give you a lot of data --" and then computers are very good at saying, "That is A and that is B." Assuming that you have good enough examples of A and B. That is all machine learning is. And Google made a big bet on that because they get a lot of -- it's an information technology. We're categorizing and making available the internet. And so, all that tagging, that's kind of the grass of machine learning. You have videos on YouTube that are labeled, and voice recognition and all these things. These were the data we were taking in. And so, not being [inaudible 30:39] ML was pretty obvious, you're not going to work. And then we happen to have servers. So, the other thing that's happened to make machine learning capable these days is something called deep learning. And that's only possible with the amount of server space, basically. The amount of little, literally, processors to throw at the problem to run these iterative models. And without that you can't do the kind of machine learning that we do. And so, we had both of those things and then we are where we are. Mike Rea: Which is interesting, the ability to understand and deconstruct at the same time, is important. And then clearly within the health space, I know we spoke a lot about the essential problem of hundred-year-old disease definition still being part of the fabric against which we're developing new drugs and new ideas.  Joseph Owens: I just read the outgoing NCI directors book on cancer, which was I think, Curing Cancer. And it's a labeling problem. Initially, when you go into labels, if the label's too general, well, the machine can't learn to label below that. At least, it can't learn on its own. There are machine learning techniques called clustering and unsupervised learning, and those can begin to do some of that. And we're not -- Google is not the only person doing this. Unsupervised learning without the gold standard labels with it, and clustering these things out and then saying, "Hey, this is a cluster. Let's go study that." And yeah, these were all what we were calling cancer. But [now in terms of] mass childhood lymphoma -- and this is sarcoidosis or something, whatever it is --  Mike Rea: But we're getting there, or we're starting to get towards that in cancer. I think probably because it's had a molecular target for such a long time and people have explored the genetic mutation mode and so forth within the tumors. My concern is that you get into areas like mental health, that we're still using broad categories like schizophrenia or major depression -- Joseph Owens: Now you're getting into my wheelhouse. I'm not going to begrudge the people who hammer these things out in committee to make the DSM. That is exceptionally hard, based on what we have. Because we don't have data. We have an empirical wisdom and we have research going in lots of different directions. Because we just don't know very much. We don't know very much about the brain. We have to admit it. We don't know very much. And I won't compare neuroscience to cancer or anything like that but taking one of these labels and deconstructing it. And then, we have loads of studies. I was doing genetics too, where we say, "Wait, why does one disease and another disease and another disease, all radically different labels, run of the same family? Are these normal curves and we're just picking out the ends of the curves? Are these bimodal curves under certain environments?" Picking that stuff out, I think computers will be very good. But we need more labeling data. So, the move right now -- and there's a lot of folks doing this -- is to get passive monitoring. One interview in a doctor's office is not enough. And if you can move towards passive monitoring and long-range continuous datasets -- And then folks are very wary of doing that. Mike Rea: It starts to feel healthier as a way of -- if you take something like schizophrenia, we know there's genetic components, we know that there's typically socioeconomic components as well, and then the family environment components. But then also, the interventions that we've had are pretty broad brush and pretty crude measures, in terms of their effect. And if you look at the construct that you're describing of an appetite, to want to break it down into micro subsets -- Joseph Owens: I mean, it's been variously called personalized medicine, lots of different titles for it. But subcategorizing disease for neurological -- I mean, all of this -- is the next wave, I think. And hopefully we'll destigmatize it.  Mike Rea: And then you put together, what I see from the outside, as a kind of long bet that someone like Google is prepared to take on. If you look at mapping the roads and self-driving cars, there was no business in that for a long time. There's a long-time bet. Parmer is in that same sort of 20 or 40-year cycle of discovery to development to revenue. Do you see any parallels or any differences between them? Joseph Owens: Oh yes. I think pharma is interesting because it starts, and at the early stage if you can kill something and save you a lot of money down the road -- because the last trials were the most expensive, theoretically. We're at a point which is very different, where we say, "Let's take in as much data because we don't know what it's going to lead to." And that's a very different decision to make at the beginning. So, to take the mapping example, "Let's go out and put cameras on backpacks and on cars and take in this data." I don't think they knew exactly what product that would turn into. But when I did my interview at Google they said, "What product at Google do you admire?" And I said, "Apps. It changes my life every day." Every day I set out with confidence. I can get to where I want to go. Every day I can take a request from somebody to go meet somewhere I've never been. And I [inaudible 36:16] take that request. "Hey, come meet Mike in this building you've never been to." Didn't bat an eyelash. Before maps -- get on the internet, look up where I can find it, find a map, whatever it is. That's a radically different decision multiple times a day. I think when they first sent the cars out -- there's no way they're foreseeing that everyone would be making different decisions. At least that has, the luxury of having Google Maps.  Mike Rea: Yeah. And that's one of the things that we talk a lot about. That idea is that exploration and value early. Because no one knew where the iPod would lead, in terms iPhones and apps and a bunch of other things. And certainly, if you try to do what pharma tends to do, which is to try to put like five decimal place forecasts around a Phase 1 asset, you're already limiting -- Joseph Owens:  False precision is -- Mike Rea: Yeah. And how does that get approached at Google? Do use those rules of thumb all the way through or is it something that someone else [inaudible 37:14] Joseph Owens: I don't think I've been there long enough to see things from genesis to multiwave implementation at scale. So, mine would be snapshots across different projects. The decisioning that happens to kick something off at Google is, I think, laxer. So, it's experimentation. If you're really excited about, "Well, I believe in you because I hired you." or "we hired you" and you're coming to me and saying, "I really [inaudible 37:50] this." Your energy is the voting factor for a little while. At the point that you start needing additional resources, then you start to make decisions. So, then you're making prioritization. Some of the similar, "Let's make a business case for these things." pops up and you say, "Here's a design brief, here's a PRD -- product requirements document -- and here's the case." At the beginning of the product requirement document it would be, "Here's why we need the thing. And here's what the thing has to look like." From the ones I've seen, they're not trying to get to decimal places of precision. And that's probably a little bit because of the luxury of resources. I think things are allowed to flourish a little bit.  Mike Rea:  That's an interesting word -- flourish and thrive. Because one of the things that pharma tries to do is to project ten years into the future and then bring it back to today with a huge degree of accuracy, despite us all knowing whether it's wrong every time we do it. And then the project's not allowed to flourish, despite all the evidence that most of the great drugs have got where they are through serendipity. They've pivoted at some point in their life cycle.  Joseph Owens: My example for that is -- basic research is -- Carrie Mullins goes and works on a project which, its title, would every time get defunded. He's going to go measure proteins and enzymes in hot geysers. No one cares. No one cares about those organisms. But then you get PCR. His project, if it came up for a vote, everyone would, "De-fund." And then he's driving down the highway and he thinks -- So we have some core principles; more data, better; diverse data. So, try not to just collect data in Silicon Valley, these sorts of things. Build for scale down the road. Because everything we want to do is going to serve Google's customers. And so, things probably move more slowly than they would at a startup because we're building for scale early. That could be a headwind of saying, "We'll go get a bigger dataset than maybe a startup would want to launch their thing." Or,  "Build your pipes a little bit stronger than a startup might." Mike Rea: So, there's some value to their being Google? Joseph Owens: Right. But then you're slower. I mean, those are tradeoffs.  Mike Rea: And probably the last question, because we could carry on for another few hours, would be just really around how you personally see health -- the intersections -- health and Googling -- the kind of technology that sits behind those. Joseph Owens: So, health for me,  for Joe Owens, II vacillate between extreme jaded [inaudible 40:54]-- like I said, we don't know anything about the brain. And we're at that moment of Newton where we can't see Einstein. When you're Newton, you can't see Einstein. [inaudible 41:05] physics, you can't move into relativity. And I feel like we're -- that moment on brain -- But in the same sentence I have to say, there's so much science sitting on the table that hasn't been brought to people's lives. We have doctors that have no time to do the thousand things that have been recommended for them to do. Well that just sounds like a platform and it's fixing the issues that happened. If that's an operations problem, that's a more McKinsey [hat] problem. So, if we can take all of these recommendations that we have for our health, and figure out a way to [massage out] the way we live to meet them, well then maybe we don't need -- we don't actually have to know all those things about the brain to actually operationalize some of that. So, I think science [hat] kind of terrified, consulting [hat], I feel like we just need to do some stuff.  Mike Rea: So, some systems thinking? Joseph Owens: Systems thinking, yeah. And design thinking. Changing the way, we live to be healthier. We know what to do, we just haven't done it.  Mike Rea: Yeah. Some of those things are [inaudible 42:09]. If you've got socio economic problems -- Joseph Owens: Google, it changes every day of my life with maps. It could change every day of my life with my health. And I think there's people at Google who are seeing that. They have been thinking about it.  Mike Rea: And actually, [inaudible 42:29] is really around the ethics with that as well. I'm aware that there's a kind of internal ethics, people looking at whether you can do harm as well as good. Joseph Owens: Oh, yeah. First do no harm, is the first rule of medicine. So, if an IT company wants to get into medicine, they've got to follow that. One of the things we have going right now is a lot of people thinking about machine learning fairness. Do you collect first data sets? Things that work on one population won't work on another, unless you figure out the little bits. And so again, that'll be a tax for speed but it'll be in the effort of fairness. And ultimately, scale. So, the ethics of that -- I would say you probably don't see people out in the world talking about this, but teams talk about fairness a whole lot. [inaudible 43:23] would be a great example. And the computers are sometimes really good at this. They have an example where there's a woman out in the street shooting a duck with a broom. There's no way you're going to train your data [to solve] that because you could even conceive that the car would ever see that? And so, figuring out ways to end all of the niche cases via getting really diverse data sets and really good transfer learning, that's -- Computers actually may have a better shot at scale -- oh, sorry, in fairness.  Mike Rea: Excellent. So, I think I've promised everyone that this would be phenomenal, and it has been, Joe. It's probably obvious, we could carry on for another couple of hours and debate this. And I hope you get a chance to [inaudible 44:16].  Joseph Owens: Yeah. That would be great. Mike Rea: Thank you. Joseph Owens: Of course. Have a good day. Mike Rea: Thank you very much.  

This is part 2 in this series on Joseph. Specifically, Genesis this episode covers Genesis 39. Are we like Joseph- Do we, as Christians, exercise the same level of integrity and character in spite of our situations---Joseph is an example to us all and a type of Christ.

Without a doubt, we all have times of suffering in our lives. Some of those times are worse than others, but man... when we are down, we are down, and there's nothing comfortable about it. Even if you are able to be more like Joseph and never lose your faith in God’s plans and purposes, or if you are more like Naomi and feel like God has afflicted you, tough times are tough. Hurting times hurt. But there is a silver lining, friend. God does not allow despair in our lives without a purpose and plan. The hard part is trusting Him in that plan and being willing to suffer for the good of that plan. Will you join me today and grow and learn from Naomi and Ruth? Will you be willing to trust God in your suffering? Trust that His plans are higher than ours. BE IN THE WORD:But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” (Ruth 1: 16-17)BE EDUCATED:1. John Piper 4-week series Book of Ruth chapter 1, John Piper wants to refresh and encourage us by leading us through the book of Ruth, a book he calls a “beautiful story”.2. Ruth, Under the Wings of God, book about the book of Ruth, John Piper.3. The Living Room Series, Ruth by Kelly Minter, a 6-week Bible study series on the book of RuthBE DOERS, NOT JUST HEARERS:1. Are you more like Naomi or Joseph? Do you believe that God works all things together for His good? Are you willing for His good to be more important than your good? 2. Change your perspective. Just as we finished our Be Thinkers Series, where do you need to see the small cracks of light even in the midst of your darkness? For more resources, make sure to visit our website.You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.Join our Be Together Community! It’s a private Facebook group where we gather regularly to encourage, uplift and pray for one another. Click here to join!

Daniel 2:16-19 I invite you to reflect on this: Why was Nebuchadnezzar chosen to receive the dream and not Daniel? Why Pharaoh and not Joseph? Do you see a pattern here?