text:
We're looking this morning at 1 Corinthians Chapter 4, 1 Corinthians Chapter 4 and verses 1 through 5 in our continuing study of 1 Corinthians. We've been encouraged by the response of our folks to the series which we gave in the last three weeks on God and Satan, but now we're returning to our study of 1 Corinthians and find ourselves in Chapter 4 looking at the first five verses. I confess to you that the passage is written as much to me as it is to you. It is addressed to the Corinthian congregation, but it is the definition of the true place of the minister. It's the guideline or the standard by which the minister is to minister.
And it is the attitude in which the people are to hold him. And so it's a very important portion of Scripture. It's been a very heart searching time for me, a time of self examination, a time of measuring myself against the word of God in order to see that I fulfilled that which God has laid out as His pattern for His minister. One of the very popular games that people play in the church among many games is the game of evaluating the pastor. All kinds of criteria have been offered as the standard for who is to be the most honored pastor and who is to be the tops and who's the bottom and why so and so is better than the other and so forth, there are even institutions that give special honors to the people who fit their criteria. And I suppose that because ministers are in the public eye and because we're always up in front, it is tempting to rate and rank them and the game then is very common.
Ministers are generally ranked by the following criteria. The size of their church, the ability of their staff, the size of their staff, the style of their preaching, the degrees they've received academically, the books they have written, the particular scriptural emphasis that is associated with them, their popularity with people, their social status, etc., etc. And on this basis we all, I think, are tempted to rate and rank ministers.
And may I hasten to add that all of that is offensive to God. All of it. And in this passage, Paul discusses the issue of evaluating ministers. It is a very important text and it is highly instructive for us. Now, it's been a long time since we last studied 1 Corinthians so let me remind you of a few general things. It'll help you to understand what we're talking about. The letter of 1 Corinthians written by the apostle Paul to the Corinthian church was written because there were so many problems in the church. The church was being crippled by the sequence of problems that became manifest.
But of all of the problems that they had and they had about all of the problems there were, the most severe one, at least the one to which Paul goes at the greatest length to discuss is the problem of division. It is very likely that all of the other problems contributed to the problem of division. But division is the problem with which he deals in the first four chapters and Satan, as you well know, loves to divide the church. We've seen this in our study of Satan the last few weeks. Now in the first four chapters then Paul is writing to counteract the division in the congregation.
He points up clearly that the division was manifest because of two things. The exaltation of human wisdom and the exaltation of human leaders. The people were fighting over opinions and people. In Chapter 1 there is evidence that they were arguing about philosophies. They had one philosophy and this group had another philosophy and so forth and so on. And they had dragged their philosophies into the church and even though they agreed on theology, they were polarized over human opinion.
And secondly, he says in Chapter 1, verse 12 they were divided over men. One would say, I'm of Paul; another I'm of Apollos; another I'm of Christ; another I'm of Cephus. And so they were polarized over human leaders with the exception of course of Christ and over human opinion. So Paul attacks that simply in Chapter 1 and 2 he attacks the sin of exalting human wisdom. In Chapter 3 and 4 the sin of exalting human leaders. And he shows in the midst of all of it that the basic sin underneath all of it is carnality, Chapter 3, the first five verses.
So we're in the midst of his discussion of human leaders and he has already in Chapter 3 pointed out how ridiculous it is to rank men over the others. To say this man is superior to that man and this man is superior to that man and he's number one and he's number two and he comes in number three. That's sinful. That's an unjust evaluation because human beings are not in a position to have the proper criteria to make the judgment. Now let me hasten to add this. It is clear in the New Testament that where a man teaches false doctrine, we have the right to make a judgment. That is very clear.
It is clear in the New Testament that where a man is living in sin we have the right and the obligation to discipline that man. But where all men are equally true in doctrine and equally pure in life, there is no basis for ranking them, for evaluating them. For setting one over the other. For saying this man is superior to that man, where you have them teaching true doctrine and living godly lives there is not to be favoritism.
Where false doctrine enters in or where sin enters in then the church has the obligation to separate the false doctrine or be separated from that person and to discipline the one who is sinning. But in the case of Corinth there was Peter, Paul, and Apollos and they were equally true and equally godly. And yet there had been factions that had grown up around each individual on the basis of the style of his ministry and his personality, etc., etc.
Now in Chapter 3, Paul pointed out that to make such an evaluation shows you misunderstand totally the ministry. Not only that, you misunderstand God. Not only that, you misunderstand the rewards and you misunderstand the fact that all teachers belong to you anyway and you ought to be thankful for all of them. And he went through that from verse 5 to verse 23 everyone of those little things. Now beginning in Chapter 4 he says when you evaluate these men, you also misunderstand the fact that only the Lord can make that judgment. And that's his point in Chapter 4, verses 1-5.
God is the judge, you are not. The evaluation of a minister of God belongs to God. And we have no right to come up with arbitrary human standards and say this man ranks above this man because he does this, etc., etc. His church is bigger than that man's. He's got more degrees. He's written more books. He's a better speaker, etc., etc., etc. As I said, if they teach false doctrine, Romans 16:17 says that's different. You need to separate yourself from them. And 1 Timothy says if they're living in sin, an elder can be rebuked before two or three witnesses and he ought to be publicly rebuked if the sin is correct.
Well, where there is sound doctrine and personal holiness, there's no justification for evaluating and ranking men above the others. Now in order to deal with this problem, Paul writes one of the most interesting passages in the whole letter, these five verses. And here he gives us four major features of the minister and I want you to get these because they are very helpful, not only in understanding my place and understanding the place of any other man of God. He gives us the identity of the minister, the requirement of the minister, the attitude, and the evaluation.
Let's look first of all at the identity of the minister, verse 1. And just knowing who the minister is, who the pastor is, is really enough to create the proper attitude toward him. "Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God." Now he starts out by saying consider us. Let man consider us this way. Let this be our consideration. We are ministers of Christ. Let us be thought of as ministers of Christ.
Now unfortunately, the King James version has translated the word minister and we have taken the word minister and made it into something very dignified and something very great and something very wonderful and something with a whole lot of honor. The word minister is simply the word slave. Now it should better be translated that way and if I ever write a version of the Bible it will say "Let a man regard us as slaves of Christ." There is not a lot of dignity in the term people. Ministers of Christ is the first term of identification. Now you will notice that we are ministers of Christ. We talk a lot about serving the people, but our service is really rendered to God, isn't it? To Christ.
When I serve Christ I will best serve His people. But when I serve His people, I may not best serve Him. In other words, sometimes when a man gets focused too much on filling the needs of the people he may violate that which God wants. In other words, he may compromise true spiritual principles for the ends that he wants. But if I am always serving Him, then I will best serve people. For in His will I am the most benefit to His people. So many times in the ministry you can become so preoccupied with meeting the needs of people that you start doing things because people want them done and then you begin to compromise what you know is right. And you find that the end justifies the means.
In order to win people or to help people you start violating the thing that is most important. A simple illustration of that would be you become so preoccupied with meeting the needs of people on an individual basis that you don't study the word of God and then you don't meet the needs of anybody. It's important to remember that we are first of all ministers of Christ. In Acts 20:19, Paul says, I look at my ministry this way "serving the Lord with all humility of mind." Serving the Lord, this is the priority.
Now, look at the word minister and just forget it. It isn't even really the word here. The word servant in English has many Greek words. For example, you have the term in Greek oiketes, which means a domestic household servant. You have the word doulos, which means a bond slave, somebody in chains. You have the word diakonos, which means just simply an employee or a servant. Somebody who obeys the commands of another, but none of those words is used here. The word that is used here is the lowest level of slavery. It is the word huperetes. And huperetes literally referred to the person who road on the lowest level of the galley. They were called trireens. And they had three levels of oars, and the bottom group of guys who moved the oars that pushed that big hulk through the sea were called huperetes.
Huperetes guys were the bottom people. The word became synonymous with subordinate, with low, with the most menial person doing the most simple manual task, very common slave. So when you think of the pastor, remember that he is considered in the Scripture here and Paul is speaking about himself as an apostle even, he is considering himself as the lowest level of slave. Consider us galley slaves, under rowers, the lowest. You don't exalt them. You don't exalt one galley slave over another. They're sort of just lost in the mass of all of the slaves. We are servants. We are the lowest of low servants.
The life of a galley slave was an unbelievable existence. The pain and the agony of the strenuous work and then someone there cracking a whip against the bare backs. This was an abject kind of life. Paul says we are nothing but slaves. In Chapter 3 of 1 Corinthians verse 5 when he was hitting the same issue. He says you're arguing about who's better, Paul or Apollos. He says who is Paul and who's Apollos? They're nothing but servants by whom you believe. And the word there is diakonos. It means servant, and again the same idea we're servants. We are nothing. The only reason we're even useful is because the Lord chooses to use us.
When the apostles looked at themselves, they saw themselves as low level galley slaves, Luke 1. Luke writes, "For as much as many have taken in hand to set for in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, among the apostles even as they delivered them unto us who from the beginning were eyewitnesses, that's the apostles and who huperetes of the word." Galley slaves again, same word. Galley slaves of Christ in 1 Corinthians 4 and galley slaves of the word. Why? Because to serve Christ is to obey His what? His word. You cannot serve Him without serving His word for His word is the revelation of His will. His commands are here. I don't get up in the morning and say Lord I want to serve you now. I'm checking in. What do you want me to do?
Whenever I hear somebody say the Lord spoke to me. I always feel bad because in all my life the Lord never said one word. You know what I do when I want to know what He wants me to do? I go to this right? And I read it. This is the revelation of His commands and I am a galley slave to Him, therefore, to His word. And Luke saw all the apostles that way. Our Lord Jesus Christ even saw them that way in John Chapter 18, verse 36 He was having a conversation with Pilate at the time of His trial. And He says this, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world then would my galley slaves fight." And He calls His disciples huperetes again, subordinates, low level underlings.
Paul says whenever you're tempted to rank ministers and exalt them, remember they are slaves. They are low level slaves. Acts 26:16 when Jesus spoke on the Damascus Road to the apostle Paul, He said, I want you to be a huperetes. I want you to be a slave. This must be the identity of the minister. Look with me at 1 Corinthians Chapter 9 and we'll get to this later in our study, but I want to point out a couple of interesting things. 1 Corinthians 9, verse 16, "For though I preach the gospel I have nothing to glory of." I'm sure in your minds many of you esteem me superior to you because I am here and you are there. And you think that because I preach the gospel there's something different about me. Well, that's true, there's something different about me if I didn't preach the gospel. But there is something different about me because I do. God has given me a very unique calling and I recognize that. But at the same time, if I preach the gospel, that's nothing to glory of, that isn't any great big thing for which I deserve a lot honor. Oh you've given your life. Oh what a wonderful person you are because of what you've done.
Paul says this, I have nothing to glory of. Necessity is laid on me. Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. You want to know something about me, you know why I preach the gospel, because if I don't I am in a lot of trouble. Woe means judgment. The Lord called me to preach, now if I disobey Him, I put myself in a very precarious place. Don't applaud me. Paul says I was just going down the Damascus Road minding my own business. The next thing I knew I was a preacher. And a lot of choice I had. If I'd had picked this thing, if I'd had chosen it of my own volition maybe I would have been worth something. He says, verse 17, "If I was doing it willingly, then maybe I'd have a reward." Maybe somebody could honor me if I just chose to do. But I'll tell you folks, I'm a slave. I got called into this deal and the point is, I didn't choose to do it, but if I choose not to do it I'm in a lot of trouble.
And you get the perspective. Nobody gets glory for doing what they're told to do. You just get in trouble for not doing it. So a man who preaches because God has called him isn't worthy of any special honor, he's just worthy of dishonor if he doesn't. Paul says in Romans Chapter 12, verse 1, he says just do your reasonable service will you. In 2 Corinthians Chapter 6 he gives a little insight into what this particular slavery is like. Here's the characteristic of a true servant. Not very glamorous incidentally.
Well, he says "As a servant of God," verse 4 of 2 Corinthians 6, again the word minister should be translated servant or slave. "As a servant of God here's how my life goes. I have to be patient. I have afflictions, necessities, distresses, stripes, imprisonments, tumults, labors, watchings, fastings." That's a rather negative life. But on the positive side, "pureness, knowledge, long-suffering, kindness by the Holy Spirit love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and the left." He says there are some good points. God is there giving me all those things.
So he says, I have trouble, I have God and then he says in verses 8-10 and boy am I ever, ever an object of confusion. "Some people honor me, some dishonor me. Some have an evil report of me, some a good report. Some say I'm a deceiver, others true. Some don't know and some know me well. I'm dying and yet living, chastened and not killed, sorrowful yet rejoicing. Poor yet making many rich, having nothing yet possessing all things." The life of a servant paradoxical, painful. This is my life. I'm misjudged by men, misevaluated by men, properly evaluated by others.
That's the lot of a servant. At all costs, I endure everything, all criticisms, all misjudgments, all malignity, I endure it all because I am a minister of God and my priority is toward Him, not toward people. I am not concerned with what they think. I'm only concerned with discharging my obedient duty to Him. I'll tell you something if you're going in to any kind of Christian service, whatever it is, when you get that perspective you're really on the right road. When you have lost the consciousness of trying to please people and become lost in the truth of pleasing God, you've really got a grip on what you're all about. Because people can drive you willies. They all have different desires.
Now what is the primary task of a servant. If I am a huperetes and I'm going to go through all of this, what am I supposed to do? What is the simple order that I have? Well, I told you that I read Luke 1 and it said we are huperetes of the word so it would seem to me that my obedience is to the word of God. Well, what am I supposed to do? Look at Colossians 1:25 and here it is. Colossians 1:25, Paul says, "I am made a minister," there's the word servant or slave again. "I am become a slave or servant according to the plan of God." The operation of God which is given to me for you. To do what? To fulfill what? The word of God and the literal Greek would say to give full scope to the word of God. And the idea here is to proclaim it. If I am a servant then I simply do obey the orders. And what are the orders? Take the word servant and give it out.
That's what I'm called to do. I'm not called to be creative. I'm called to be obedient. Not called to be innovative, but obedient. Not called to have great ideas and great thoughts, I'm called to be obedient. Simply that to proclaim the word and we served God best by giving men His word. Not our opinions, not our great ideas, not our innovations, God's word. So the minister's identity, what is it in 1 Corinthians 4:1, "A servant of Christ." What does that mean? Lowly place, no honor, no rank, just a simple task of giving the word.
Now he increases our understanding of the identity of the minister by the next term that he uses in verses 1. "And," he says, "stewards of the mysteries of God." We're not only ministers or servants of Christ, but stewards. Now you, if you've ever been on a ship, you know what a steward is. Or if you've ever been on an airplane you know what a steward is or a stewardess. Stewardess doesn't own the airplane. Did you know that? She doesn't own anything on that plane. The company owns that stuff, she just passes it out, right? She is giving the responsibility of taking the goods that belong to the company dispensing them to the people. This is a steward. A steward in the Bible appears many times.
For example, in Genesis 43 and 44 Joseph had a steward in Egypt and his steward was responsible for taking care of guests, for preparing meals, for settling all of his accounts. He was like a bookkeeper for him. All of these things the steward did as well as commanding the slaves. In Isaiah Chapter 22, the king Hezekiah has a steward whose name is even given, Shebna. And there are other incidents in the Old Testament, many of them that record for us the steward. Now the steward is the word oikonomos from two Greek words, oikos, which means house and nomos from nemo which means to manage. Somebody who manages the house. A house owner would have a steward and the steward would manage his household affairs, his property, his farm, his vineyards, his accounts, his slaves, his food, taking everything into account. He would dispense, take care of things make sure everything went well.
All Christians are God's stewards. God has deposited in us His resources, given us spiritual gifts, given us His information, His truth and we are to share it. We are to minister it to His house. We're stewards. 1 Peter 4:10 says all Christians are stewards, but particularly is the ministry of sacred stewardship and that's what Paul's talking about. In Titus 1:7 it says, "A bishop is to be blameless as the steward of God." Any pastor, teacher, any bishop is a steward of God. God has given us His goods to dispense to the house. What are God's goods? What is it that we are to dispense? The mysteries of God. It says it right there in verse 1. What are the mysteries of God?
Musterion, something hidden now revealed. What was hidden and is now revealed, but the New Testament, the word of God. This is it. The gospel of God. The revelation in the book. We are to take God's revelation and dispense it to the household. That's what we're to do. When I try to examine my ministry and say what am I to do, it's a simple thing. I simply say God has called me to take His word and pass it out to His people. That's all. I'm a waiter. That's all. Just a waiter, He gives me the food. I get it out of His kitchen and I deliver it to the table. That's all I do.
And the thing I want to do is make sure I don't mess it up on the way. Just get it to them the way God intended for it to be heard. In Acts 20:20, Paul says, "I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shown you and talked to you publicly from house to house." Now Paul says when I came to you I taught the mysteries of God and I kept back nothing that was profitable. You say well, how do you know what's profitable? The Bible says this, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is, what? Profitable.
What are you supposed to give out then? All of it. It's no wonder so many people have spiritual malnutrition. They don't get a good diet. There needs to be a balanced diet. And that is to declare the whole council of God, Acts 20:27. Paul said, "I am not shunned to give unto you all the council of God." It's all profitable. It all needs to be given out. That's what I'm to do. I'm just a steward to do that. But you know it's so easy to pervert the word of God and twist it and distort it and that is mentioned in 2 Corinthians 4:2 in a very interesting statement.
Paul looks at his own ministry in verse 1 and says see we have this ministry. Now here's our ministry. What is it Paul, verse 2. 2 Corinthians 4:2, "We have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully." You know there are people who take the word of God and twist it around to make it say what meets their own needs and their own desires and their ends. The word of God is to be given out as God intended it, not to be twisted to meet my own whims and opinions and desires. There are all kinds of people who have opinions about things and they scramble around and try to find verses to support their opinions.
Take things out of context. I don't believe there should ever, ever, ever be given a sermon that is not in some sense expositional. And by that I mean you should never teach any Scripture unless you know what the words mean, what the grammar construction means and what the context is so that you're using it in the way God intended it to be used. You can prove anything with the Bible if you take things out of context; anything. Push Scriptures around, slam them together when they don't connect. You wonder how come the cults can prove their point by pulling Scriptures everywhere. They're all out of context.
You know, it's like the guy who preached on the fact women shouldn't wear hair on the top of their head. And he used the text top not, come down. And top not, come down, where is that? Matthew 24, "Let those on the house top not come down." You can do anything with Scripture if you just take the right little thing and put it in the wrong place. We are not to handle the word of God deceitfully. We are not to try to prove our point. To deceive people into believing this is what it means when it is not what it means. Do you see? The Bible is not a proof text for my opinions. I am to teach it in the way that God meant it. In fact, I think what Paul said to Timothy is so important. We need to be rightly dividing the word of truth. What does rightly dividing mean?
Oh that is an important word. Orthotamunta, in the Greek and what it means is cutting straight. We are to cut the word of God straight. What does it mean? That word was used in the Septuagint in Proverbs Chapter 3, verse 6 to speak of a straight road or a straight path. Our presentation of the Scripture is to be so clear and so simple and so straight and so direct that it is easily to be understood and easy to follow. Opening the word up making it clear and straight so that it isn't confusing. Now in order to do that to rightly divide the word Paul said to Timothy, study to show yourself approved unto God. "A workman that needeth not to be ashamed," what, "rightly dividing."
You'll never rightly divide unless you do what? Study. What is the minister to do then? He is to dispense to the house of mysteries of God. Not adulterated, not handle it deceitfully, not twist it around and make it say what he wants it to say, but to give it as God intended it to be given. That means the only legitimate way to teach is to truly know what the text means. It's so important. So the minister's a steward. No big thing. Just a servant and all stewards were servants. He's a galley slave. He doesn't deserve any glory, he just deserves discipline if he doesn't do what he's told.
We are subordinates. It's a tragic think, you know, when the minister doesn't do what he's told to do. It's so simple to do. It's tragic. When like Milton said "The hungry sheep look up and are not fed." That's tragic. So many people exist in churches where the minister does everything but what he's supposed to do. He couldn't possibly dispense the word of God in the way God intended it because he never studies it. So the identity of the minister. People don't exalt us, don't lift us up, don't honor us, don't rank us over each other. We're nothing but slaves anyway. We're all obeying orders. That's just God's business, not yours, not mine.
Secondly, not only the identity of the minister, but look what Paul hits secondly, the requirement for the ministry. What is it? Verse 2, "Moreover," in addition to what I just said on top of that, "it is required in stewards," if you're going to have a good steward, "you want man that is found," what, "faithful." What's the hardest kind of employee to find? A faithful one, right? One that you can turn your back on, go on vacation for three weeks, come back, and he'll just work like he did when you were standing over his shoulder, ho, ho, ho.
Where can you find a guy like that? They're few and far between. When you got a steward for your house, boy you wanted somebody who was trustworthy. That's what the word faithful means. Trustworthy, you could trust him. God says, you know what I want out of you? I want to hand you this stuff and I want to make sure it gets to the table the way it came out of the kitchen. That's all. You don't have to spruce it up. You don't have to be creative and innovative. You just take what I've given and pass it out. That's all.
It doesn't say it is required of stewards that a man be found brilliant. That let's some of us out right off the bat. Educated, clever, glib, no. Faithful, faithful, He wanted stewards that you didn't have to watch. Stewards you absolutely implicitly trusted. God doesn't want brilliance, personality, doesn't want popularity. He just wants faithfulness. You know there are people who are faithful in something that may not look to you like it's much but if they're faithful before God that's the basis on which God honors them. Faithfulness. It's always been so with God. Look at verse 17 of 1 Corinthians 4.
The commendation of Timothy, "For this cause have said unto you Timothy," 1 Corinthians 4, "who is my beloved son and," what, "faithful in the Lord." That's the commendation. That's nothing new. I could show you the Old Testament, Numbers Chapter 12, verse 7. Don't look it up. It says this, "My servant Moses, who is faithful," isn't that good? Moses was faithful. 1 Corinthians Chapter 7, verse 25, Paul says, "I give my judgment," middle of the verse, "as one that has obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful."
Now look at Colossians and I'll show you three faithful men. Colossians 1:7, "You learned of Epaphras our dear fellow servant, who is for you a," what, "faithful servant of Christ." Chapter 4, verse 7, here's another one. "Tychicus who is a beloved brother and a faithful servant." Verse 17, "Say to Archippus take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord that you will fulfill it." Archippus be faithful, that is God's plan for ministry. Just be faithful. Just take what I've given you and pass it out. I want to trust you with this. Don't adulterate it. Don't pervert it. Don't twist it. Don't handle deceitfully. Don't corrupt it. Just give it out the way it came. Matthew 24:45, "Who is a faithful and wise servant whom his Lord has made ruler over his household to give them food in due season? Blessed is the servant whom his Lord, when He comes, shall find so doing."
When the Lord returns He just wants to find His servants being what? Faithful. Faithful, not successful, as a world can, faithful. Matthew 25, remember the parables of the talents? "Well done good and," what, "faithful servant." That's the valuation. You were faithful, well done; well done. What are we to be faithful to people? God says MacArthur see this book? Pass it out will you? Will you teach the people what it means? I'll give you the Holy Spirit. I'll give you the gift of teaching and preaching. I'll give you a congregation, give them food would you? That's all.
That's all. It's amazing to me how people have taken that simplicity of the ministry and prostituted it into everything. And there are some people in the ministry who are so busy doing other things, they don't have time to do the one thing God wants them to be faithful to do. I read an interview in a magazine with a very well known pastor all of you would know. This is the way the interview went. I'm just telling you what he said in response to the questions. He said, "it was at that point that I decided the pulpit was no longer in my ministry to be a teaching platform. The pulpit needs to be used as instrument in spiritual therapy." He said, "it is a mistake to teach and preach. Don't preach sermons. Create an experience. I don't have time to write a systematic theology which would give us solid theological basis for what I intuitively know. What I intuitively believe is right."
What he's saying there is I don't need to study, I just know what's right inside. Hmmm, scary. He said, "begin with your heart, don't begin with your head. Every sermon has to begin with the heart. If you ever hear me preaching a sermon against adultery, you know what my problem is. If you ever hear me preach a sermon where I'm so enthusiastic about the coming of Jesus Christ, you know that's where I am heart-wise. It so happens I'm not hung up on either of those areas, so I've never preached a sermon on either one.
I never begin messages by thinking I ought to go through the book of Romans. I could not in print or in public deny the virgin birth of Christ or the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ or the return of Christ, but when I have something I can't comprehend I just don't deal with it." People that is to totally corrupt and pervert the ministry. Is there a revelation in this book about adultery? Is there a revelation in this book about the coming of Jesus Christ? If you didn't pass it out my friend you're a poor steward. You are a poor steward of the word of God.
It's not up to you to preach your feelings and opinions. The last thing he said was "I only deal with what I can feel." So you know what people are getting when they listen to him? They're getting him not God. And you didn't come here for me, I hope. If you did, you're not getting me. If you got me, you wouldn't be back. This kind of thing is a guilt that is expressed in 2 Corinthians 2:17. "We are not as many who corrupt the word of God." That word corrupt is so very interesting. It is the word kapelos, it is the word huckster. Hucksters of the word of God.
They sell a cheap gospel. They sell a cheap Bible. It's emasculated of any difficulties. It's a Bible without hell. It's a Bible without sin. It's a Bible without judgment. It's a Bible without depravity. It's a Bible without damnation. And believe me, it's a Bible people buy. And when they take home the cheap diamonds, they find out they're glass. Anybody can preach a cheap message, but he's a huckster of the word, not a steward.
Don't prostitute the ministry for glory, fame, wealth, popularity, whatever. All God wants out of His ministers that they be what? Faithful. What does faithful means? It means just do what I tell you to do. What did you tell me to do? Dispense the mysteries. So simple. Third thing, 1 Corinthians, not only the identity of the minister, the requirement of the minister, but the attitude. Boy this is really, really helpful. And I struggle with this a lot in my own heart and so I know that what Paul expresses here is a tremendous spiritual victory.
"With me," he says, "it is a very small thing that I should be evaluated by you or man's day." Or human day, and he means by that human standards. The word judge here means not krino, but the word is anakrino, which means evaluation or cross-examination or the process of evaluating. He says, you know what it means to me that you evaluate me? Zero. I could care less about your evaluation. It's a small thing to me. Now people let me tell you something, when a minister of God can stand up and say I don't care what people think, boy that's a great spiritual victory, because we all fight what people think, you know. We care. The human side of us wants to here boy you're terrific. Oh it's great. What a message. Man you really gave a zinger today John. Really spoke to my heart.
You know your tape did this and your tape went over there and all these people and this and you say oh boy my tape, see. You fight that. God help us to get to the place of maturity where you can say look, I really don't care what people think. And here's another step. He goes on to say, I don't even evaluate myself. Not only do I not care what you think, I don't care what I think either. Now that is real maturity, because all of us are in the business of building up our own egos, right? They may not know it, but I'm really good.
No one understands me. I'm too beyond them. They're not on my level. They can't comprehend these deep things that I'm speaking of. You know we just build these little cases to keep our ego bolstered don't we? Paul says, I've reached to the place where you know something I don't let you judge me because your standards are too low and I don't let me judge me because mine are as low as yours.
I'm just as depraved as you are. We're a bunch of sinners saved by grace and we're lousy at real evaluation. Boy that's a tremendous indication of his own maturity because it's so easy to let everybody else evaluate you. You know, you're finished with a message or teaching and somebody comes up and says oh that was terrific. Boy what a blessing. I was thrilled by that. And you know, you're listening to that and you're saying I am good. I am. He's right. I know it.
Or your dear wife will say to you honey, that was great and given you extra portion of potatoes or something. You know, I mean, it's just...and then there are those times when you hear that long enough and you pretty soon say well I am. You're tempted to think they're probably right. I rank right up there with the biggies. Paul says, nope. My own evaluation is as corrupt as your is. You know something I've tried to say to you in years past and I say it again to you, don't ever, ever evaluate your own spiritual life. You're in no position to do it. You're too biased in your own favor.
That's why the focus of the Christian life isn't on the Christian life, it's on God. You just keep plugged in to God and let the evaluation take care of itself. When the Bible says if you're going to be a changed person 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, "don't gaze at yourself," it says, "gaze on the glory of the Lord, and you'll be changed into His image by the Holy Spirit." Get your focus where it ought to be. That's why so much spiritual introspection doesn't do you any good because you can't make a proper evaluation anyway.
It's kind of like dealing with demons. You can't deal with them either, because they lie all the time. So the best thing to do is to focus on God get outside of yourself. Paul says, I don't care about your rankings. I'm not writing this part to you because I'm upset that I'm third and not second on the list. I'm not asking for equal billing. Your judgment means nothing, neither does mine. Verse 4, "Even though I don't know anything myself against me." In other words, even though I look at my life and I say Paul everything's like it ought to be, there's no glaring sin. There's no inconsistency. There's no unrighteous thing in your life. I know nothing is wrong. I'm dealing with all those things before God. Still I am not by that evaluated.
The end of verse 4, "But He that evaluates me is," what, "is the Lord." What is the attitude of the minister of God? It isn't human opinion that governs what I do, it isn't my opinion that governs what I do. The only one who can really determine is God. So who do I serve? Study to show yourself approved unto yourself? Unto your people? Unto whom? Unto God. He alone is making evaluations. Let me give it to you again people. I'm not in this church to serve you. I'm in this church with all my heart serving God, because He's the one that makes the evaluation and if I serve Him with all my heart, you know what, you will be best served.
But honestly, it doesn't matter what you think. I'm so appreciative when you're kind and you say things and you appreciate the message. And I love that and that let's me know you're responding. Let's me know you're growing and I have to take it for what it means. It means your heart was enriched. You learned something. You were blessed. God spoke to you and I understand that and I appreciate the love and I appreciate the response. But I can't evaluate my ministry that way, because I can't evaluate it. Only God can. That's His business.
That brings us to the last point. The evaluation of the minister. Verse 5, how do you evaluate a minister? Oh listen, I can tell you how they do today. Just pick up the Christian magazines and read. How big is your church? How big is your Sunday School? How many baptisms? There's one magazine that came out in America that had the pictures of the pastors who had the most baptisms. And on the front page were the biggies with a big picture. Anybody over 300, big picture. Under 300, littler picture. And then there were the 100 guys with just a little picture. Nice guys, but you know, not in the class with the biggies. You know that kind of paper estimates good material for lining your birdcage.
Listen, God does not evaluate a man on how many people he baptized. God doesn't evaluate on how big his church was or how many letters he has at the end of his name or how many conversions or how many books or how great a preacher or how much he knew. Listen, when it comes down to the day when we face Jesus Christ, He's going to evaluate us on one key thing. You want to hear what it is? Look at verse 5, "Don't judge anything before the time until the Lord comes." Don't you make evaluations. That's His business. You're out of line. You're usurping the seat of the judge and you don't belong in that place.
You quit judging before the time until the Lord comes. He's the one who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the, watch this word, motives of the heart. That's that word. What is God going to judge us on? Not nearly so much what we did as our motives. One word is the evaluator people. Why did he minister? Why did John MacArthur minister? Did he minister for fame? Did he minister for filthy loucker like so many? Did he minister for the satisfaction that had gave his own ego? Did he minister for popularity? Did he minister for prestige or did he minister because he wanted to give me glory? That's all that matters. Not how big was his church. Not how many degrees did he have. Not how many books did he write. Why? Why did he do what he did?
Stop passing judgment. Some day there's going to be a judgment. Revelation 22:12, "The Lord's going to come quickly and His rewards are going to be with Him." 1 Corinthians Chapter 3 we studied some months ago talked about the fact that there's going to be a judgment day and the Lord's going to check out the works whether they're wood, hay, stubble, gold, silver, precious stones. 2 Corinthians 5:9-10, we're going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ and we're going to receive rewards for what has been done in our body whether it's valuable or worthless. God's going to take care of that and the hidden things of darkness and I'd take that not to refer to evil, but simply things that we can't see, hidden things. Things that are dark to us. The reason I don't think it's evil, is because it says at the end of verse 5, every man will have praise.
So the things that we can't see, that humans can't know are going to be opened by God who can know them and He will manifest motives. And on that basis men will be praised. Every servant of God's going to be praised, because in Christ there's no condemnation, right? But as to who gains the greatest praise, who gains the greatest reward only God can make that judgment because He alone knows the motives. What you need to do in your heart when you serve the Lord is search the reason. Why?
I'll tell you people that's a struggle in my heart. That's a struggle that Satan throws at you all the time? Why am I ministering? Am I ministering so I'll be famous, so I'll be popular, so I'll be loved by everybody? Or am I ministering so that God is glorified. There's only one motive. There's only one motive, 1 Corinthians 10, "Whatever you do whether you eat or drink do it," what, "all to the glory of God." It doesn't matter what it is. Something as simple as eating and drinking, preaching, anything.
One motive, God's going to evaluate it and the key is motives. Paul says there's no place for evaluating human teachers. No place for exalting one above the other. Why? Because they are all slaves. Because you're not in a position to do it, because you don't know the truth about them. Your standards are all wrong. God says all I want is that they're faithful. And all I want is that their motives pure and only God knows that.
It's going to be kind of exciting to get to that throne and see some people that nobody knew receiving some rewards that nobody dreamed they'd ever experience. Don't rank men of God. Realize at the end of Chapter 3 that they're all yours. And you're Christ's and Christ is God's. And remember that we're slaves. All God asks us to do is be faithful. We can't regard your opinion or our own, but only His and He'll evaluate us on the basis not so much of what we did, but of what we thought. Why we did it.
My prayer is this, some day at the end of my life I appreciate when you say that was good. When my own conscience says that was good, but some day at the end of my life the greatest thing could ever happen would be if the Lord looked me in the eye and said to me, John, well done, good faithful servant. Wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't you like to hear that? Then be obedient, be faithful, have pure motives in your ministry as I must in mine.
Father, we do thank You this morning for Your word to us clarify it in our hearts specifically as it applies to each individual. Make us the kind of servants You want us to be. Help us to remember that if we do anything, it isn't worthy of glory, it's only what we should have done because necessity is laid on us. Father if there are some in our midst this morning who have served You from impure motives, heal that. If there are some who haven't served You at all, they've been unfaithful. May they be faithful from this day to use their gifts, their ministries, their abilities and Your word to pass on to others. We pray in Christ's name, Amen.
This article is also available and sold as a booklet.
This sermon series includes the following messages:
Please contact the publisher to obtain copies of this resource.Publisher Information


text:
Clarence L. Anderson Building
Juneau Campus
Description: 17,204 square feet of classroom, laboratory and office space. A remodeling project of the interior started on the first week of January 2010, with complete electrical, mechanical and plumbing systems being removed and replace. Work is scheduled to be completed August 2010.
Notable People: Clarence L. Anderson

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Apart from a brief eighth-inning burst, runs were scarce for Kinston Post 43 Friday at Viking Field.
Post 43 pitcher Matt Hinson didn�t need many anyway.
Apart from a brief eighth-inning burst, runs were scarce for Kinston Post 43 Friday at Viking Field.
Post 43 pitcher Matt Hinson didn�t need many anyway.
Hinson, a rising sophomore at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, tossed a four-hit complete-game gem, allowing just one unearned run to go along with 10 strikeouts as Kinston tacked on some runs late to subdue Ahoskie Post 102 5-1 in an Area I East Division contest.
�We call Matt �The Professor� because he�s such a student of pitching,� Kinston manager Ronnie Battle said. �He�s like Greg Maddux. He stays within himself and just dissects hitters.�
Hinson dissected plenty of Post 102 hitters, surrendering harmless singles in the first, third, sixth and seventh innings. He hit one batter and walked two.
Other than the fourth, when Ahoskie scored its lone run without benefit of a hit, the only time Hinson saw trouble was the sixth, when Post 102 (2-5, 2-3) loaded the bases with two down.
Hinson then fanned Stephen Umphlett on four pitches to end the threat.
�It felt nice to be able to complete the game,� an exhausted Hinson said. �I wasn�t thinking about going the distance before the game; I didn�t even think I was throwing that well during warm-ups.�
That changed once the home plate umpire shouted, �play ball!� Half of Hinson�s strikeouts came with the batter looking, the product of a nasty, backdoor slider that got more unhittable as the game progressed.
�My fastball had some movement, but my slider was definitely my best pitch tonight,� Hinson said. �A lot of their left-handed hitters were chasing it out of the strike zone and it was breaking in over the plate against the righties.�
Ahoskie pitcher Umphlett almost matched Hinson pitch for pitch. The left-hander, a recent graduate of Gates County High School, retired the first nine Post 43 batters with nine strike outs.
Finally, in the fourth, Kinston (5-3, 2-1) came to life with three hits, the last of which, a clutch, two-out single by Will Deters, plated two runs.
The hit also snapped an 0-for-17 drought for Deters at the dish.
�I�ve been in a slump so it felt really good to come through at that time, in that situation,� Deters said. �I didn�t want to let my teammates down.�
Deters added another hit � a single to right center leading off the eighth. He eventually came around to score on Sammy West�s RBI base hit. Garrett Holland also drove in a run with a fielder�s choice and a third run tallied on Post 102�s fifth error of the night.
�This was the type of game we thought we�d be playing a lot of before the season � low-scoring, good pitching, exciting,� Battle said. �After two straight losses, it was just what we needed to get back on track.�
The two teams exchange locales today as Kinston visits Ahoskie for a 7:30 p.m. first pitch. Caleb Kearney will be on the hill for Post 43.
Post 102 000 100 000�1 4 5
Post 43 000 020 03x�5 8 2
Umphlett and Rose. Hinson and Davis. W�Hinson. L�Umphlett.


text:
Follow RFF News on your cell phone. Text follow rff to 40404 you will receive txt messages with RFF News
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Your fast rmax ; , looks about what I was thinking . Same here dropped Gary and kept Danni & Rafe for now ...only time will tell . not sure about who votes first , I may back track to see who they normally show first .
Lill , fwiw I picked 7 to vote for a male ..Gary might throw Judd a vote but don't listen to me , vote with your gut . Also Rafe was my first gut feeling for RC but thats just me ,I don't want to sway you ..if its Q&A he should excell
Page created in 0.102 seconds with 33 queries.


text:
In the field of Identity Management, a new dawn has begun, if one is to believe authorities such as Eve Maler of Forrester. The old, complex era of XML-based standards (SAML, SPML, XACML) is being replaced as we speak by a more lightweight, web-scale set of standards which are loosely called "the OAuth2 family".
OAuth2 is the one that underpins the others. Eve Maler refers to it as "a means of enabling constrained delegated authorisation of access." In other words, if you need to allow a photo printing service to print some of the photos that you have hosted on Picasa, then you don't have to give the service your Picasa username and password. The OAuth2 protocol allows you to give the service an "access token" for a limited period of time that allows them to access your photos, without having to reveal your security credentials. It takes an interesting 3-way handshake to accomplish this, but once this pattern is established, it can be used to protect any resource, most importantly APIs or service invocations.
The other members of the "OAuth2 family" use this feature so that they no longer need to concern themselves with the authorisation part of security, since OAuth2 will ensure that only a client with the right authorisation can invoke a service. These other APIs are "OpenID Connect" for Single Sign-On and SCIM for user provisioning. [Eve Maler talks up UMA (User Managed Access) as the third piece of the puzzle instead of SCIM, but I view UMA as just OAuth2 at industrial scale. Authentication, Authorisation and Provisioning are the three major aspects of IAM (audit is a fourth), and these are rightfully represented by OpenID Connect, OAuth2/UMA and SCIM, respectively.]
However, just when it looks like things are finally coming together in a simple and sane way, the party has been rudely interrupted.
Just 3 days ago, Eran Hammer, one of the leading figures in the OAuth2 standardisation effort, resigned from the working group and withdrew his name from the effort. The reasons he provides, at least initially, are dismaying and lead one to believe that OAuth2 is doomed as a standard and that we are going to see some catastrophic security breaches very soon.
His reasons for this seem plausible.
- When the standardisation effort behind OAuth moved from the WHAT-WG to the venerable IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), the lightweight-and-agile web developer crowd was replaced almost overnight by the enterprise-y crowd. They squashed the agility out of the standard and replaced it with the dead weight of Enterprise thinking. The OAuth2 standard is the camel that the committee came up with when it set out to design a horse.
- The specification fails to deliver on its two main goals of security and interoperability. As evidence, he says it has been renamed from a protocol to a framework, and the spec explicitly warns that implementations are unlikely to be interoperable.
- The main point that the "enterprise crowd" fought for and won was flexibility and extensibility. In Eran Hammer's view, that's a bad thing, because "it is this extensibility and required flexibility that destroyed the protocol. With very little effort, pretty much anything can be called OAuth 2.0 compliant."
I now have a more nuanced picture of where OAuth2 stands, and it isn't a picture of doom and despair. I've been in this industry for over 25 years, and I've seen this sort of thing before. Eran Hammer is young and idealistic, and design-by-committee always frustrates the young and idealistic.
The IT industry knows three types of innovators:
- The young, smart and agile, who come up with a new way of doing something, which then suffers growing pains because its inventors didn't think of all the possible situations in which it would be used. The NoSQL movement exhibits several examples of this.
- The older, smarter and experienced, who have learnt from years of mistakes (their own and those of other people), and who now know how things are to be done and will brook no questions. They're insufferable and nobody can work with them. (The much-respected and avoided Marshall T Rose comes to mind.)
- The committees of people with vested interests, who design the ugly camel that no one likes.
What Eran Hammer describes about the IETF and what they have done to OAuth is unsurprising and hardly dismaying. He's describing the sausage machine at work, and nobody really wants to see this in operation.
It's important that he's qualifying his rant with these two statements:
- "OAuth 2.0 [in the hands] of a developer with deep understanding of web security will likely result [in] a secure implementation"
- "It is true that [OAuth] 2.0 can be profiled into a simple, straightforward protocol. But every single one of these profiles is slightly different."
What this tells me is that OAuth2 is entering the second phase of its standardisation, when interoperability profiles will need to be defined. The standard isn't inherently broken. We can and do have secure implementations today. We just need to make them interoperable.
As an industry, we know how to do this. We've done it before with Web Services. That was called the WS-I Basic Profile, where "I" stood for Interoperability. Indeed, when Eran began his rant, he called the OAuth2 protocol "a bad protocol. WS-* bad". In other words, not that bad.
In fact, compared to the WS-I Basic Profile, OAuth2 is more of an orthogonal concern. The only aspect of it that an API developer will see is the "bearer token" header. So once the OAuth2 infrastructure is set up, it'll be an unobtrusive part of the IAM fabric. I know people who shudder at the term "profiles", but I don't believe profiles in OAuth2 are going to be visible in the sense of WS-I Basic Profile. So no course corrections required, folks. It's still full steam ahead with OAuth2. We'll give the angry young man some time and space to settle down.
[I have a rant of my own, a different one altogether, about the whole Identity-Management-as-Technology mindset, and will shortly be writing about the neglected stepchild of IAM - The Data Model. Watch this space.]


text:
The Postabortion Care flipchart provides the materials and information needed for conducting counseling and community education related to unsafe abortion in English-speaking Africa. The flipchart outlines different procedures to reduce the risk of post-abortion complications, self-care instructions for after receiving post-abortion treatment, warning signs for identifying complications, as well as a guide for assessing the patient's medical condition.
The flipchart also discusses some reasons for unplanned pregnancy and the risks involved with unsafe abortions, and an explanation of how a woman becomes pregnant and contraception options prevent pregnancy. Enclosed are a prototype client brochure and a user's guide to assist health workers and program managers in using the flipchart. Each page offers questions for guiding client counseling and education sessions, essential information that the counselor should convey, and key actions that should be taken post-abortion for the care of the client.
Available in English.


text:
Yamaha YZ80 Chain Tools
Universal Driven Chain Breaker - DBRAK
Driven USA
Listing Price:
Selling Price:
Info: Fits: All Years Universal
Listing Price:
Selling Price:
Info: Fits: All Sportbikes
Yamaha YZ80 Chain Tools are a great first choice to make when you start modifying your bike. These aren't just for beginners, either. We have riders that have been on the street for over 30 years picking up Yamaha YZ80 Tools Chain Tools for their bikes all the time. Riders just want a good deal and that's what we give them. Trust 1Tail.com for all of your aftermarket motorcycle parts needs. Get your custom YZ80 Tools Chain Tools knowing you're getting a great deal!


text:
Whizbang wrote:Does the dogs' rights to life and well being take precedence over your (impersonal you, here) right to take pleasure (and potential monetary gain from gambling) in their fighting? (or vice versa, however you want to phrase the question.) Yes. Clearly yes.
[justification for tautology needed]
What about robot fights? Is the destruction of robots in violent fights amoral? If not, then why is it amoral for animals?


text:
Infuse a little rock n? roll swagger into the everyday with these handmade bracelets from Electric Picks. Hand-knotted on elastic cord, these versatile accessories are made with metallic pyrite and Hematite beads.
These unique conversation pieces add a little rock to any wrist. Handmade in NYC.
AHAlife is committed to help you live a conscious and inspired life.
Many of the items you discover here are exclusive to AHAlife, which is what makes our community of designers and artisans so special.
If you find one of our products anywhere else for less than it's being sold on our site, we will match it.
Our dedicated Support Team is here to help. Reach out any time at:


text:
MissPixie avait besoin d'un nouveau design de logo et a lancé un concours sur 99designs.
3gagnants ont été selectionné parmi 91 designs proposés par 26 designers freelance.
New Logo, new website design, business card, letterhead
MsAuto http://www.msauto.com.au
Auto Advice For Women
Desired Style:
Contemporary, friendly, uncluttered
Accepted File Formats:
Standard Web Formats (.jpg, .gif or .png); Vector Formats (.eps, .pdf or .ai); Layered Formats (.psd or .tiff)
Task: I would like to rebrand existing website http://www.hercar.com.au.
Competitors: In Australia are shebuys and autochic
Target Audience: Women 20-65 who seek practical, relevant informaion about buying, owning and servicing a car.
Brand Personality-credible, experienced, professional, contemporary. It is about empowering women, not "girl power".
Web Design-SEO friendly, clean, easy to use
Home Page Brief
Use of images important-but not young sexy chicks
Advertising spaces-all need to appear above the fold
- Banner at top 468x60 on home page and lower level
- Medium rectangle 330x250 on home page and lower level
- Sponsored links 50x50 image and text (4 on home page)Pls note No skyscraper ad
- Buying
- Sellling
- Maintenance
- Car Reviews
- Go Green
- Family
- Accssories
- FAQUseful Links Section
- Roadside assist
- Vehcile registration
- Consumer Advice
- Manufacturers
- Travel
- Resources for womenMember (to appear above the fold)
Become a member It's free
Button, star burst
Section on home page
Latest News
6 lines of text up to 50 characters each with small image for 6 seperate news articles
Bottom of page menu
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Advertise
- Privacy Policy
- DisclaimerLower Level Page Brief
1. Main menu and sub menu to appear
2. Space for text and image
3. Advertising
- Medium rectangles to appear throughout article
- 468x60 bannerLogo Design-illustration based on me. See image on website at Ask Melissa
Colours-female friendly, doesn't need to be completely pink, but pink is OK, as is purple, limes etc contemporary
This contest was originally listed in multiple categories:
- Logo Design
- Web Page Design
- Stationery Design
Savoir comment fonctionne un concours de design ou en savoir plus sur nos services de design de logo.


text:
I have been slacking off from my blogging duties lately. Mostly because of vacation and work, but also because of a general malaise I think. Here's what's been going on lately:
1. I turned 40.
2. I spent Passover in Israel.
3. My mom arranged a surprise genealogy-themed birthday party and invited everyone in my Geni tree.
4. Part of the surprise was a video she produced for the event.
5. My wife snuck behind my back and got all our friends to participate in the video as well!
6. I published a children's book inspired by my grandmother Zipora Smorgonski. It's called 'Grandma Birdie's Red String' and you can buy it on CreateSpace or Amazon.
7. My wife wrote a book inspired by our daughter. It's called 'Nobody Likes Me' and you can buy it on CreateSpace or Amazon.
I have so much to write about. Just have to find the time.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 5, 2010 at 10:47 PM and is filed under Books, General . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .


text:
You have no items in your shopping cart.
Protect and transport your firearms and accessories with our line of Hogue Gear gun bags. Our rifle and pistol bags are manufactured from durable materials with the familiar Hogue eye for quality. These heavy duty nylon products feature soft-padded 100% cotton internal linings, bar tack stitching at critical stress points, velcro pockets and the highest quality YKK® zippers. Features: - Heavy Duty Nylon - Soft-padded 100% cotton internal linings - Bar tack stitching at critical stress points - Velcro pockets - Highest quality YKK® zippers Specifications: - Black - Large - Single Rifle Bag - Front pocket and handles - Dimensions: 10 tall x 46 long


text:
Viddy, An Instagram For Video, Is Indeed Raising At A $350 Milion+ Valuation - Source
On the heels of Instagram's $1 billion exit to Facebook, investors are hoping a new buzzy startup, Viddy, can share a similar fate.
Viddy, an Instagram-like app for video, is raising at a $350 million valuation, sources say.
Hats off to Alexia Tsotsis at TechCrunch, who first reported the insane Series B financing round. We held out because we were trying to confirm it was a new round of financing, separate from the February Series A, which PandoDaily reportedly was at a $300 million valuation.
It was not. This is an entirely new infusion of cash, which Tsotsis pegs at $30 milion at a valuation slightly higher than what we've heard, $370 million.
Tsotsis says NEA is involved. We heard the firm was considering investing.
"Everyone is expecting Google to make a large social network acquisition, but no one has any idea who," says a source with regards to the high valuation.
Viddy, in a conversation separate from the funding news, tells us it has 10 million registered users with 500,000 new users per day. The company also says it is averaging over 100 million plus video views per month, doubling every month.
Viddy is the same company that Shakira and a slew of other celebrities just invested in. The New York Times attributed the celebrity investments to Viddy's $6 million round which closed in early February. But it could have been a part of this new Series A financing.
Still, the valuation hardly seems justified.
"That valuation is bizarre -- Viddy only speaks about signups but never about engagement, which I'd assume is very low," says another source who says they wouldn't invest at even an $80 million valuation.
Socialcam, a Viddy competitor, has similar numbers. The Justin.TV spin out just got 4 million new users last weekend and also has a reported 10 million users.
Once Instagram launches its video product, it will be hard for Viddy or its competitor SocialCam to compete with Facebook.
Please follow Business Insider on Twitter and Facebook.
Join the conversation about this story »


text:
1. near - verb
· move towards; "We were approaching our destination"; "They are drawing near"; "The enemy army came nearer and nearer"
Synonym(s): approach, come_on, go_up, draw_near, draw_close, come_near
The only site you need for word puzzles, home work, anagrams and scrabble games. The best site for two word anagram solutions.
Enter the letters to get anagrams for the word
Definitions, synonyms, antonyms and related words
Enter the word below with '?' to indicate missing letters
Enter the word to find the rhymes
Enter the letters of the beginning, middle or end of the word.
Unscramble.net is the free tool to unscramble letters and words for games like Text Twist, Words with Friends, Scrabble, Word Scraper, and of course the ever popular Jumble newspaper puzzle. It is also great for homework problems that frustrate many parents and students. Unscramble.net provides one and two word unscramble solutions from its extensive 280,000 word list that includes technical, medical and slang words. There is no limit to the number of letters entered for one word unscrambles and the site also provides for rhyming words and dictionary definitions for many of the unscrambled words. Two word unscramble results are provided in two formats for easy comprehension by the user. There is no limit to the number of word combinations provided whether for one or two word unscramble solution sets.
The site is mobile friendly and fully https/tls security compliant. Fast and easy, unscramble.net provides the most accurate and complete word, letter and anagram solutions available. Trust the oldest and most reliable unscramble tool on the net. Word lists are constantly being updated from reliable sources. Android and iOS apps are coming soon.


text:
Rays Need to Plot a Victorious Course in Seattle
I swear some times the Tampa Bay Rays use my heart like a toy yo-yo. They seem to tear it out of my chest, fling it down and then slowly up until it is again within my chest. I do not take any heart medications, but after a few of the recent games, including today's back and forth battle…I might consult a doctor.
Is this going to be the hidden mantra of this team to push the limits of faith and trust, or will they again have a solidified basis for all of us to believe and rejoice in nightly. When this team goes on losing streaks, even the rare ones on the road, they do it with a loud bang.
How else can you describe the man-handling of the Rays top tier pitchers David Price and James Shields in this series. Even rookie Jeremy Hellickson was left pondering the "what if's" during his lackluster performance to start this 4-game whirlpool of emotion.
Can we blame the chatter and talk among the players and fans regarding the Trade Deadline, or is it the curse of this ballpark where Rays wins always seem to come at a premium, even with the great California mountain range in the background.
Starting this contest this Rays squad was a season high 11 ½ games behind American League East front runner Boston with 58 games left, another AL East title may be beyond reach. Even though the /Rays are a considered the third best team in the American League, they are also the third best currently in their division. And their 7 ½ game deficit to the New York Yankees is bringing more than a few of us mild to severe heart palpitations.
This season is again starting to mirror image a bit of the 2009 Rays season where no matter what they did, it was one hit, one win, one pitch away from securing something magical. But the good news is the Rays head to Seattle next, where wins have been extremely rare lately. The reality of the Rays losing 5 out of the 7 games currently on this road trip tends to sho maybe this team peaked too early.
Again, after the first week this team had, any push upward, even towards a .500 mark seemed like a gift from the Baseball Gods. Mixed into this losing streak was the questions about this teams offense, their run support for their starters, and why certain teams just seem to choke the Rays into submission.
It was only three weeks ago this same Rays team was 49-39 matching their high-water mark of 10 games over .500 and were sitting in the catbird seat just 3 ½ games behind the Red Sox. In these 21 days, the Rays have gone 4-11 and have tumbled 8 games farther behind their divisional foes farther into the dismal abyss.
Again a dark cloud looms for the Rays as they jet northward to Seattle. Mariner's starter Erik Bedard, who might be making his last M's start will get the call. When healthy, Bedard has been a Rays killer. Post that with the stat that the Rays are a MLB worst 7-12 against the AL West, and we might hear a few late night screams.
But there is a shining light on the horizon, or at least for tonight in that the Rays showed pride, confidence and a renewed vigor at the plate in the final innings to hand the Athletics at least one loss in this series. Now it is off to the town of coffee and seafood to battle a Seattle club that until recently had been in their own cauldron of disappointment.
This series might decide more than who stays and who goes as the Trade Deadline approaches, it could prove to be the final resting place of the Rays 2011 post season dreams. Sweeping Seattle would not push the Rays into playoff consideration, but the confidence and stride as they headed back home could help them face their home field demons with more vitality.
A lot os going to be riding on this 3-game series. A chance for redemption in this un-Rays like road trip. A sweep would push their present 10-game road trip record towards an even 5-5 mark. Not the expected Rays road results, but would be a 4-game winning streak heading into a 10-game home stand with revenge games against Oakland and Kansas City on the horizon.
Watching this Rays team over the past few nights have been an adventure with emotions running rampant from pride and hope to despair and frustrations. This 2011 Rays squad might not have the depth and stability of the 2010 squad, but they have more than enough in heart, courage and determination. Let's hope those latter emotions lead the Rays to victories and not another sequence of heartaches and turning the channel.


text:
The tax agency has a role in several provisions of the law, including the controversial individual mandate now being examined in the Supreme Court. It is also responsible for a catalog of new fees and taxes that will require the hiring of more than 300 new employees to cover those changes — such as new fees on drug manufacturers and insurance policies. The IRS will also manage the most costly provision of the healthcare law, the subsidies (structured as tax credits) for poor families to buy health plans. The agency is requesting funding for another 537 new workers to supervise those subsidies.
Republicans claimed during congressional discussions over healthcare that the IRS would also have to hire hundreds of new agents to enforce the individual mandate and jail those who don't have insurance.
Of course, this is just a glimpse of the bureaucracy that President Obama's healthcare scheme will hatch. James Gattuso and Diane Katz of the Heritage Foundation recount in their 2012 "Red Tape Rising" report that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has planned 133 new rules relating to ObamaCare. However, these rules aren't coming by way of just the HHS. Gattuso and Katz explained:
Rulemaking related to Obama's health care legislation encompasses more than 150 federal agencies, bureaus, and commissions. And, it appears that the rules are changing faster than regulators can write them. Administrators have granted nearly 2,000 waivers to the new health care regulations, for instance, while the long-term-care insurance plan called for in the legislation has been dropped as completely unworkable.
Amidst the toiling in the Supreme Court over ObamaCare's constitutionality, congressional Republicans have fought to cut off all funding to enact the law, at least until after the Supreme Court makes its ruling, which is expected to happen by June. Last week's hearings on the law indicated that the justices might strike down the individual mandate provision, if not the law entirely.
"While President Obama and his Senate allies continue to spend more tax dollars implementing an unpopular and unworkable law that may very well be struck down as unconstitutional in a matter of months," asserted Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), "I'll continue to stand with the American people who want to repeal this law and replace it with something that will actually address the cost of healthcare."
But despite staunch opposition from Republican lawmakers, and questions over the law's overall legality, Democrats and the President are aggressively pushing to implement ObamaCare. And according to a review of budget files delivered by Congress, the Obama administration is plowing through funding that is apportioned for the law's implementation. The Hill reported:
The law contains dozens of targeted appropriations to implement specific provisions. It also gave the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) a $1 billion implementation fund, to use as it sees fit. Republicans have called it a "slush fund."
HHS plans to drain the entire fund by September — before the presidential election, and more than a year before most of the healthcare law takes effect. Roughly half of that money will ultimately go to the IRS.
HHS has transferred almost $200 million to the IRS over the past two years and plans to transfer more than $300 million this year, according to figures provided by a congressional aide.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) claims there are no legal questions regarding the funding transfers because the money was sidelined for "federal" implementation activities and can be provided to any agency. But the $500-million transfer to the IRS, along with transfers to other agencies, is draining the HHS, and the department must pull from the $1-billion fund to execute its largest tasks. For example, ObamaCare requires that the HHS launch a federal insurance exchange, which is designed to be an insurance marketplace for people to purchase health coverage. Because the law did not render any funding for the federal exchange, the HHS must draw from the $1-billion fund.
So why steer funding to the IRS in such an indirect route? "The transfers also allow the IRS to make the healthcare law a smaller part of its public budget figures," The Hill speculated. "For example, the tax agency requested $8 million next year to implement the individual mandate, and said the money would not pay for any new employees."
Naturally, critics have protested this enormous wealth transfer to the IRS. After all, American taxpayers are effectively paying the IRS to confiscate their money — for a law that is unconstitutional in the first place.


text:
April 5, 2008
The Lady Bisons had a tough match against Florida Gulf Coast on April 5th. The lone winner for the Lady Bisons was Claire Landry; who defeated Johnson by a score of 6-1, 6-2.
April 5, 2007 Lipscomb vs. Florida Gulf Coast FGC 4 Lipscomb 1
M. Braniecko/J. Vaughan (FGC) def. Kara Jackson/Raphaela Jann (LU) 8-4
M. Maggiorini/L. Pfeiffer (FGC) def. Caitlin Khouri/Claire Landry (LU) 8-6
B. Kinley/L. Johnson (FGC) def. Olivia Ellis/Mariana Rangel (LU) 8-4
M. Maggiorini (FGC) def. R. Jann (LU) 6-0, 6-0
M. Braniecka (FGC) def. K. Jackson (LU) 4-6, 6-2, 6-2
L. Pfeiffer (FGC) def. Caitlin Khouri (LU) 6-3, 6-0
C. Landry (LU) def. L. Johnson (FGC) 6-1, 6-2
O. Ellis (LU) led B. Kinley (FGC) 4-2
M. Caulk (FGC) led B. Kuertz (LU) 4-0
The match was ended early due to inclement weather. The Lady Bisons will travel across town to Belmont on April 9th, followed by Senior Day at home versus Western Kentucky on April 12th.


text:
Starts at 6:30pm; finishes at approx. 8:30pm (no later than this time).
Access to the building at night is via the back entrance (security will buzz you in). Parking is either behind or down the side of the building.
To attend the meeting via Skype, notify the WAMBA Secretary prior to the meeting. You will need to have added the Secretary (jodiestem) as a contact. It will NOT be a video call – sound only. To make the call work, please obey the same basic meeting etiquette:
In addition, for the best sound quality using Skype:
Powered by iCagenda


text:
The website for our specialist partners: product data, spare parts, planning tools and lots of practical content.
There are currently no entries in your notepad.
There are currently no entries in your download list.
You have not selected any products Items for your Comparison can be found here:
For the wash basin: taps, bathroom mixers, accessories, waste systems
For the shower: showers, shower mixers, shower systems, thermostats
Mixers for the bath tub: mixer taps, single lever mixers, thermostats
For the sink: kitchen mixers and sink unit mixers
Bidet mixers and toilet accessories
We manufacture durable products predominantly in Germany
As a Green Company, we focus on the sustainable use of resources
Award-winning: the creative ideas of globally successful designers
Subjected to technological and visual testing: Top mixer and wash basin combinations
The five-year manufacturer's guarantee offers long-term security
Taps and mixers for bathrooms and kitchens
Are you looking for high-quality mixers for your wash basin or bath tub? Or are you after a new tap for your kitchen? Or perhaps an elegant shower head? At www.hansgrohe.in you will also find showers, showerpipes and shower systems for your bathroom. Everything is of the best quality and in appealing design. For more than 110 years now, Hansgrohe has embodied cutting-edge technology, emotive design and high-quality workmanship in mixers for bathrooms and kitchens – made by Hansgrohe.
© Hansgrohe India


text:
A Father's Day of Sacrifices
A passing tradition at a farm in Connecticut on Father's day signifies so much for the men who leave their families to work.
Population and migration issues are fraught with moral positions, confusion, and unexpected connections.
We cannot talk about population growth without also discussing decline; or contraception, without faith and medical technology. It is the mother of cross-cutting issues—at the intersection of economics, environment, gender roles, culture, politics, and religion. The population question is about the possibility and necessity of balancing the needs of nature and human civilization—and whether we can hope to or should have any say over the process.
The issue is global. Overpopulation of one region will seek release in an under-populated region. Stronger economies will be a magnet for those from weaker economies. Local carbon emissions will increase temperatures and change global weather patterns, disrupting food supplies and sowing insecurity. Diseases that begin in crowded slums can travel the world. Aging populations could lead to long-term economic depression, decreasing our ability to address the great problems we face such as environmental degradation.
Changing demographics in countries where men far outnumber the women often leads to human trafficking. Basic human rights are abused in countries where entire communities live without citizenship rights—unable to vote, own property, travel, work legally, or attend school.
Pulitzer Center grantees look at the effects of migration on climate and business, the efforts of immigrants to preserve their cultural identity, and the sacrifices they make in leaving family behind. Our journalists ask tough questions: How do refugees mobilize to take care of themselves when aid agencies fail?
Population & Migration exposes the risks and dangers refugees and migrants face as they leave one nation to seek a better home and a fresh start—only to find more obstacles and new threats. Resettlement presents its own set of challenges; hopes and promises prove illusory.


text:
Lagmalix wrote:Oh right, I've totally forgotten about the extra walls there. I don't prep the Den anymore, prefer the Black Market, as I find it hard to use efficiently. I always want to save the tiles to the very end, on the other hand there are 3 boosters there, which help you early but I guess in this case it might not be a bad idea to take it. I also usually take swap MP to HP boosters as this is pure dmg build. Btw even with 30% walls eroded there will be enough piety worth to take down 50% res, take the attack boost boon and save some up for the lvl ups. GL on your runs, I'm sure you will succeed.
Huh, I'd never heard of anyone prepping black market. It's always the den or patches. How much gold does it give on average? +10?
I love the den, personally, 25 extra dark tiles is 12 piety with MA or 20 piety with binlor, then there are the extra walls and the small boost at the beginning of the game.
Black Market would be good for conversion builds, which get minimal gains from the den, since 10g could mean the difference between a level or not.


text:
According to SteveMorse.org, a census website, a street in Queens could sometimes change its name every few blocks as it passed through several small communities and neighborhoods. But throughout first couple of decades in the 20th century, New York City's boroughs gradually adopted a street numbering system that was first introduced by Philadelphia.
As late as the 1950s, though, some developers featured historic street names in their building prospectuses. In recent times, some locals find the numbered system more perplexing, despite the vision of urban planners to simplify a commuter's navigation.
In 1906, the first street to undergo development in the newly named Forest Hills was Roman Avenue between Queens Boulevard and Austin Street. Developer Cord Meyer appointed Benjamin Dreisler to design an assemblage of 10 Neo-Renaissance style rowhouses, which housed the neighborhood's first electrician, plumber, and carpenter.
Today, it is known as 72nd Avenue, but the only reminder of Roman Avenue lies in Forest Hills Gardens. Established in 1909 as America's earliest planned garden community, it is the only section of Forest Hills which preserves its full extent of authentic street names.
South of Austin Street and leading to Metropolitan Avenue are alphabetized street names such as Burns and Clyde to Nansen and Olcott, which remain intact. Traveling west along Queens Boulevard, street names included Atom Street (75th Avenue) and DeKoven (72nd Road) to Pilgrim (67th Drive) and Zuni (63rd Drive).
Intersecting avenues included Colonial Avenue (110th Street) and Seminole Avenue (112th Street). One could speculate how street names were derived. Some imply the state of the land and farming practices. For example, 66th Road was known as Sample Street, 67th Road was Quality Street, and 70th Road was Harvest Street.
No firm erected and named more buildings after their accompanying street names than Cord Meyer Development Company. North of Queens Boulevard, forest Hills has apartment houses such as The Kelvin, named after Kelvin Street (now 69th Road), and The Livingston after Livingston Street (now 69th Avenue).
South of Queens Boulevard on Austin Street, one of the earliest apartment houses was The Portsmouth, which Cord Meyer developed at the intersection of Portsmouth Place. The historic name has been abandoned, and is now referred to as 72-22 Austin Street.
It was not until 2005 that history would repeat itself. Cord Meyer revisited this tradition while building The Windsor on 71st Road, which paid homage to the long-forgotten Windsor Place.
Main thoroughfares of Forest Hills are a different story. Their names were largely retained, and include Austin Street, Ascan Avenue, Yellowstone Boulevard, Metropolitan Avenue, and Continental Avenue (south of Queens Boulevard).
Ascan Avenue pays tribute to Ascan Backus, whose homestead was on the northeast corner of 69th Road and Queens Boulevard. He began acquiring parcels of farmland in 1829 and was referred to as "The King Farmer of Long Island." Austin Street was named after developer Austin Corbin, who was also a 19th century Long Island Railroad president.
Streets are co-named periodically, as in the case of Ascan Avenue and Austin Street being designated "Geraldine Ferraro Way." Co-naming streets with original names and dedicating historic markers would be an educational and nostalgic undertaking.


text:
Marketing Jesus
Dear Naberus, Aren't these wonderful times to be in the temptation business? The hyper-consumerism of modern times virtually does our work for us, as it converts our targets' social lives into commodities that serve personal happiness, whether jobs or marriages …Read More
Secular Eschatology
The Bible teaches that the universe had a beginning and that it will have an end. Christians believe this, though controversies about eschatology (the end times) have long roiled in Christian circles. It illustrates how profoundly the Bible has influenced …Read More
Where Is Your Treasure?
As I was flipping through the television channels recently, I was overwhelmed to see how secularism is influencing our culture today, particularly through advertising. In the teaching series Christian Worldview, Dr. Sproul describes secularism as that which looks at reality …Read More
American Idols
We are made in God's image. The sheer fact that we could spend the rest of our lives contemplating what it means to be made in God's image, without beginning to scratch the surface, reminds us that we are God's …Read More


text:
|The flexible and extendable multiple protocol instant messaging system.
|Some of this information is old and may be obsolete. If you are a user of Kopete please either directly edit this page or add notes on the attached Discussion page
The goals of Kopete are to provide users with a standard and easy to use interface between all of their instant messaging systems, but at the same time also providing developers with the ease of writing plugins to support a new protocol.
All protocols are plugins and allow modular installation, configuration, and usage without the main application knowing anything about the plugin being loaded.


text:
Martin St. Louis had a remarkable year, leading the NHL in scoring at age 37. Still, the Tampa Bay Lightning forward would give up it all up to play in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Tampa Bay failed to make the postseason for the second straight season despite having the league's top two scorers in St. Louis and Steven Stamkos.
"The summer's long when you don't make the playoffs," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "We're about to experience that and it's not a great feeling."
St. Louis finished with 60 points, becoming the oldest Art Ross Trophy winner. He also captured the scoring title in 2004, when Tampa Bay won its only Stanley Cup championship. Stamkos wound up second in the points race with 57.
"I'd trade a lot of that to be in the playoffs and have a chance at the Stanley Cup," St. Louis said. "But then when all that kind of goes away, the hope of getting in, you try to finish strong and play the right way."
With postseason hopes fading quickly after a 6-1 start, the Lightning (18-26-4) fired coach Guy Boucher in late March and brought in Cooper, the coach of the organization's top minor league team at Syracuse of the American Hockey League.
"It's one of those situations where I'm going to sit back and reflect on the day to day basis what went on," Cooper said. "It's just been a whirlwind. Something new pops up every day. So, I'm just glad that I've been able to experience it now than in September. It's not going to be new to me anymore."
Tampa Bay finished up next to last in the Eastern Conference and fourth in a weak Southeast Division, which only sent one team — division-winning Washington — into the postseason.
Too many bad turnovers, a shaky defense and inconsistent goaltending doomed the Lightning, which scored 148 goals, while allowing 150. The team struggled in close games, going went 8-23-4 in contests decided by two or less goals.
"We've got to learn to put games away," Lightning captain Vincent Lecavalier said.
Tampa Bay general manager Steve Yzerman has decided to move forward with two promising, but inexperienced goalies, Ben Bishop, acquired in an Apr. 3 trade with Ottawa, and Anders Lindback, obtained from Nashville last offseason. The duo have played in a combined 107 NHL games.
"Winning is contagious," Cooper said. "When you start doing it, you want more of it. It's s process. It doesn't happen overnight."
The NHL's new realignment plan, set to begin next season, will provide an additional playoff hurdle for the Lightning, who are moving into a new eight team division that includes 2013 playoff teams Boston, Detroit, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto.
"We had two of the top scorers in the league, and we're not making the playoffs," Cooper said. "That's where, somewhere, at some point we've got turn that into winning hockey games. There's no question that with the players we have we can create that."
Disappointed Lightning miss playoffs again
Martin St. Louis had a remarkable year, leading the NHL in scoring at age 37. Still, the Tampa Bay Lightning forward would give up it all up to play in the Stanley Cup playoffs.