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Turn in your Bible, if you will, to 1 Corinthians chapter 4 as we look to our study for this morning. We are having a great time in 1 Corinthians and the Lord has really been teaching us some very, very basic things. I think, however, though this morning's message is going to be unusual in that it will probably stand out in the Corinthian series as an extremely practical message. It deals with the concept of being a spiritual father. The Apostle Paul, of course, in writing to the Corinthians is dealing with their problems. He's struggling against their weaknesses and their sins and trying to bring them into conformity to the truth of God. They're Christian people for the most part but behaving as if they weren't. And he's very, very zealous and he's very, very earnest as he writes this epistle to solve their problems.
And while in the epistle he is dealing with their problems, such as the problem of division in the first section, the first four chapters, while he's dealing with their problems, he is constantly explaining his relationship to them. He'll say I'm saying this because of this and this...I'm saying this because I am your servant...or I'm saying this because I am the slave of God...and I want to carry out His orders...or I'm saying this because I'm a steward of God's mysteries and I must tell you the truth. And he uses many different metaphors in describing his own ministry so that 1 Corinthians not only becomes a letter dealing with problems in the church, but it becomes a letter that maps out the patterns of the ministry, for we see a church being attacked and we also see a minister attacking the problems in the church. So we get both sides of it.
And as we study the book we're going to see a lot about the church and we're going to see a lot about the ministry in the church, the pastor, the teacher, the leader of the church as well as things applicable to every Christian's life. Now already in 1 Corinthians we've been introduced to different metaphors to speak of the minister or the pastor or the Apostle or the prophet, the one who leads the church. For example, in chapter 3 verse 5 he is called a servant. In chapter 4 verse 1 the minister is called a slave, a slave of Christ. In chapter 4 verse 1 again he is called a steward of the mysteries of God. And so already we've seen the pastor as a slave and a servant and a steward.
We found too that in chapter 3 verse 6 the metaphor of a farmer is used. He says I have planted and Apollos has watered. So you not only have domestic metaphors like servant, slave, steward, but you have actually a farming metaphor in farmer and you have a building metaphor in verse 10 of chapter 3, he calls himself a wise master builder. So many metaphors in 1 Corinthians are used to describe the ministry, and all of them taken in a composite would give a tremendous study of what the pastor is, what the leader is, what the elder in the church is.
Elsewhere in Scripture you could even add to that study. For example, in 1 Timothy 2:7, pastors and teachers or ministers are called heralds. In those days when a king wanted to make an announcement, when any news needed to be given to the people, since there weren't any newspapers, they had professional heralds...guys who went out and stood on a corner and hollered out the news. And that's precisely, Paul said to Timothy, what Christian preachers are...they are heralds, they are the King's heralds. They are proclaiming the truths the King wants announced.
In 2 Corinthians 5:20 the preacher is also called an ambassador. In those days the emperor would represent himself in a foreign land with an ambassador. And we are God's ambassadors representing Him in this world in a foreign land.
So you have domestic metaphors to speak of the ministry. You have agricultural metaphors, you have building metaphors, you have what you'd call political metaphors in the herald and the ambassador. There's also a legal metaphor to describe the preacher, he is called a witness...somebody who gives testimony, somebody who witnesses to the truth as it were in a court. Now all of these metaphors describe the preacher.
But there is one other metaphor that perhaps sums up in a very unique way the intimacy between the pastor and his people and that is in verse 15 of chapter 4, "Though you have 10,000 instructors in Christ you have not many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel." And this is the metaphor of a father. One way that God describes the relationship between a preacher and his converts, a pastor and his people is the relationship between a father and his child and therein lies the personal metaphor, the intimate metaphor. And that is the theme of our study for today.
Now remember, for the four chapters we've been studying, Paul has really been firing all barrels. He's really unloaded on them against their carnality, against their pride, against their love of human wisdom, against their sectarian spirit, their splits and quarrels over whichever preacher they like the best. They were factioned into division and he's really been wailing on them. And even at the end of the last passage we studied, he became very sarcastic. And when you get to the place of sarcasm, you're really dealing in strong language. And he's been very strong with them and he will for the next chapters in the book, 5 through 16, be equally as adamant and equally as zealous and equally as stern and equally as strong in dealing with their sins. But he stops right here in verses 14 to 21 and really tells them why he is so stern and why he is so strong and why he feels that he must speak with such conviction. And the reason is because he seems himself as their father spiritually.
Now, you know, if I deal sternly with my children and if I deal strongly with their mistakes and if I deal lovingly with their lives and if I struggle diligently to conform them to the things I believe in, it is because I am their father and it is because I do love them. And that's exactly what Paul is saying here. In the very middle of this thing I need to tell you the reason I'm doing this and it is because I have this tremendous sense of responsibility as a loving father to his own children. And in every sense of the word the Corinthians were his children. John said in 3 John 4, we're going to study this concept tonight and I think with great benefit, he said, "I have no greater joy than to see my children walk in the truth." Paul in 1 Corinthians is expressing the very opposite, as it were he is saying, "I have no greater anguish than to see my children are not walking in the truth." And he sees it from the standpoint of a loving spiritual father.
Now look at verse 15, "Though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, you don't have many fathers. In fact, in Christ Jesus I...and it's emphatic, the egois emphatic...I alone have begotten you." You may have a lot of instructors, you've got only one spiritual father.
Now think about your spiritual father, who was it that led you to Jesus Christ, that's your spiritual father, that's what Paul is talking about. You may have ten thousand instructors and the word there, paidagogos, including the word for a child in the training of a child is the idea, was not a teacher. Paidagogoswas a slave who was given the responsibility of the moral guardianship of a child. He would take the child to school, he would walk the child back from school. He would try to guide the child in moral matters. He would try to help the child in decision making. He would try to make him into a solid man. This particular word refers to a moral guardian. And a child could have...and he speaks with hyperbole here, exaggeration...you could have ten thousand moral guardians. You could have ten thousand people giving you information. You can come to the church here and you can have a lot of different people teaching you but you have only one spiritual father. And Paul says it's me who is your spiritual father and that's the reason I feel about you with such intensity. I'm not just one of the non-family members, I'm not just a slave assigned to do something for you. I'm more than a steward of God. I'm more than a slave of God, I'm more than a servant of God, I am your father spiritually and I feel that toward you. And therein really lies the depth and the compassion of his heart. He was not indifferent to them. He was not just merely carrying out orders as a servant. He was sensitive to them as a father.
Now this passage, 14 to 21, then expands on that concept and develops for us a very beautiful picture of the ministry of a spiritual father. Now preachers are to be spiritual fathers. But let me add this, so is every other Christian. So what I say is not only pertent...pertinent to me but it is equally pertinent to you. Let's look at it together.
What are the characteristics of a spiritual father? Now Paul doesn't give these, he doesn't list them as such, but by what he says we can understand what they are. They're here by implication. He's saying to them, "Now I am your spiritual father and this is what I do." And by seeing what he does we can draw out what marks a spiritual father.
This is so important. People ask me all the time, everywhere I go in conferences they say, "How do you disciple somebody? What is your discipleship program?" A week or so ago I spoke to a group of Free Methodist pastors, the question they asked: how do you disciple somebody? What is the process you use to take somebody who has been born into the family of God and raise them up as a spiritual son? How do you build them up in maturity? What are the principles of being a spiritual father? That's what we want to talk about right here.
Number one, the mark of a spiritual father is that he begets...he begets. Verse 15, "Though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, you have a lot of teachers, not many fathers. No, for in Christ Jesus I alone have begotten you through the gospel." Paul says I am your spiritual father first of all because I led you to Christ, that is begetting. And really that's where being a spiritual father has to start. A father is somebody who has a child, would you agree to that? You don't have a child, you're not a father. You may be a husband, you may be a man, but you're not a father. But you become a father when you produce an offspring. There are some Christians who are not spiritual fathers. They have never produced a child. They have never begotten anybody in Christ. They have never led anybody to Jesus Christ. They are not a spiritual father. And in a sense, they are a living contradiction to what a Christian is. A Christian is a living thing. And one of the characteristics of a living thing is the ability to do what? To reproduce. And so a Christian should be reproductive. Every believer should be a spiritual father in the metaphorical sense, bringing somebody to Christ.
Now Paul was the spiritual father of the Corinthians. In Acts chapter 18 he arrived in Corinth and he became very close friends with Aquila and Priscilla. In fact, he probably stayed in their house. And little by little he began to have an impact on the city of Corinth. He taught and preached. And finally it says Crispus believed and many of the Corinthians baptized believing and the church was born. And Paul was the agency of the birth of the church. He begot them.
Paul also went to Galatia and to the four towns in Galatia, Antioch of Pisidia, Derbe, Lystra and Iconium and started churches. And so when he wrote the Galatians in Galatians 4:19 he calls them my children, or my sons, my little children. There was a slave by the name of Onesimus who happened to get in contact with Paul when Paul was a prisoner. And Paul led him to Christ. And then Paul wrote his master, Philemon, the letter of Philemon. And in the letter he calls Onesimus "my son whom I have begotten in my bonds." So the idea of begetting is the idea of bringing someone to Christ. Paul called Timothy and Titus his children.
Now that's the basic thing. Now I want to add what he says into the text here so you'll get the picture. He says in Christ I have begotten you. Now even though the word "I" in the Greek is emphatic, he is not saying "I am the one who saved you." He is saying, "I alone as opposed to all your other teachers was the instrument through which you were saved. Consequently I feel a unique relationship to you. There is a sense of concern about you that I don't feel about those that I didn't lead to Christ." And I think that's realistic. I'm not...I'm not excusing indifference to those that we didn't lead to Christ but I am saying that when you yourself leads someone to Jesus Christ, you tend to feel a greater degree of intimacy and responsibility than for one you did not. I just think that's the way it is. And so Paul says I have begotten you. I am the one who feels the concern, not all these other instructors. And the reason I write with such strength is because of that.
Now, he, however, does a good job of making sure we don't think that he is the whole story in salvation because he says this, "In Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel." And he recognizes two things, the power of God in Christ and the agency of God, the gospel. Really two things bring about salvation from a divine standpoint...the power of Christ and the truth of the Word of God. Is that right? But the third thing that is in there is the human agent. That's the way God has designed it. Because he is in Christ he has the power of Christ moving through him. Because he knows the Word of God he can give out the gospel. And that's very basic to bringing someone to Christ.
James 1:18 gives us an insight. It says simply there, "Of His own will begot He us with the word of truth." God does the begetting through the Word, James 1:18. In 1 Peter 1:23, "Being born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the Word." It is the Word of God that is the instrument. It is the Spirit of God, according to John 3, that is the power...the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, divine power. But there is the human agency. So Paul is saying yes, Christ is the power, yes the gospel or the Word of the truth is the instrument but I have been the agent that God has used. I therefore sense toward you a tremendous degree of spiritual responsibility.
Now I think it's important, people, to remember this that you can get so sovereign in your thinking that you don't think you need to do anything, God will just save whoever He wants. God does do the saving and God does have the Word of God as the instrument but God does use the human agent. Let me give you an illustration. Our Lord Jesus said this, "Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that He will save the people." Is that what He said? "Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that He will...what?...send forth laborers." God has chosen not only redeeming men through His power and His Word but human agencies. So you and I are part of the process. An analogy in the human realm would be to put it this way, the father of a human child is used to plant the seed, but yet in every sense of the word that new born baby is a creation of God. And so we may be used by God to plant the seed. We may be used by God as the human instrument. But that doesn't violate the fact that what is born there is the creation of God. Hodge said, "For though multitudes are converted by the Spirit through the Word without any ministerial intervention, just as grain springs up here and there without a husbandman, yet it is the ordinance of God that the harvest of souls should be gathered by workman appointed for that purpose," end quote.
So a spiritual father begets. My dad used to say, I can hear him saying it, he said it so often, "The church ought to be a maternity ward where there is constantly heard the cry of newborn babes in Christ." And that's true. Wouldn't it be exciting, we had about 55 babies we dedicated this morning, wouldn't it be equally as exciting to have 55 new babies in Jesus Christ this morning? But that's the way it ought to be. We ought to be begetting.
Secondly, a spiritual father not only begets but he loves. Now back up to verse 14, "I write not these things to shame you." You know, a loving father doesn't want to browbeat his children and have them cringing and cowering in a corner in fear. I don't write to do that to you. "But as my beloved sons, I admonish you." Now just pull the word "beloved" out of there. Paul loved these Corinthians. He loved them deeply. And the word is agapetosfrom agapao, the strongest kind of love, the deepest kind of love, not just brotherly love, not just phileolove but the deepest kind of love, the love that can only be measured by God. I have that toward you, I love you. And he truly did.
In 2 Corinthians in the second letter that he wrote to them under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit it says in verse 11, "O Corinthians, our speech to you is candid, our heart is wide open." Paul says I write you and I am an open book, I let it all out. You're hearing exactly what I'm saying. My heart is open to you. Man, that's a great characteristic, you know. That kind of openness and it's born out of love. He says there is constraint in your affections. He says I speak as unto my children, open wide your heart to us. Paul is saying...Hey, my heart's wide open to you, I care for you, I love you with all my heart, will you receive me in that way?" He cared about them.
In 2 Corinthians 11:11 he says, "Am I doing what I'm doing essentially because I love you not? God knows. God knows." It's not because I don't love you it's because I do love you. And then that great statement of 2 Corinthians 12:15, "And I will very gladly...oh what a statement...I will very gladly spend, I will very gladly spend, I will give everything I have, I will spend everything I have and be spent, even myself for you even though the more abundantly I love you the less I be loved." Isn't that a great statement? I will spend everything I have, I will even spend myself for you even though the more I love you the less you love me. That's love, love that is so strong and so deep and so far reaching that it doesn't even ask anything in return. He loved those people. It wasn't just sentimentalism, it was a strong unselfish love that cared and disciplined. And it was a self-sacrificing love where he would give his life for them. And that's as it ought to be for a father. There ought to be that love for our children.
You know, as a father I can qualify my love by certain characteristics...and maybe this will help to define how we are to love our spiritual children. When you love your children you have to love them with understanding. A father who loves his children really struggles to understand his children. He wants to meet their needs. He wants to know where they hurt. He wants to fulfill their hopes. He wants to bind up their wounds. He wants to dispel their fears. He wants to strengthen their weaknesses because he loves his children and he has to be understanding.
And I think it's true in raising spiritual children. Paul was so understanding with the Corinthians. Even in his sternness there was a sense of gentleness. He even referred to the meekness and gentleness of Christ. And that leads me to the second thought, in loving your children there is not only that understanding but that gentleness, like Jesus who said I am gentle and lowly of heart. Paul said to the Thessalonians, "We were gentle among you like a nursing mother." There's a sense of strength and a sense of gentleness. We have to recognize that spiritual children grow slowly, spiritual children frustrate us, spiritual children foul up, spiritual children have a hard time learning the principles. And so we have to be patient. And so we have to be understanding and gentle with them.
But in addition to that I think our love, like Paul's, makes us intense. It makes us have tremendous desire to see them follow the patterns we believe in. I remember when our children were little that I used to really worry about them running in the street. And Matt when he was little used to run in the street. You know, he did it a few times and then I, you know, really laid it on him. I mean, man, it was bad. We have this board that we use and we really use that baby on him. He was..he was feeling it. And, you know, I would lay in bed at night and I'd wake up with a jolt, you know, fearing that this dread that I had in my mind that one of my children would be run over. And I'd be somewhere else and I'd be thinking about home because I was afraid my kid would run in the street. And I was practically paranoid about children running in the street, so much so that my kids were practically paranoid about going in the street, you know. It was a big a problem to them as it was to me. But I used to worry about it. And the reason was, I didn't want my kid dead. It's obvious. And so I would really get earnest about that. And I think that when you love somebody you have such a tremendous concern for their welfare that you cannot be without passion. You cannot be without concern.
People may come even to Grace Church and they may listen to me and they say, "Man, he gets all excited about this." Well of course I do, I care about you, see? I mean, it matters to me how you behave. It matters to me how you respond. I want you to walk in the truth. I want you to be obedient. And that's why I pour my heart out to you in order that you might know that I care about you. I want to transmit through me the care that God has for you.
And so I love you and so I love my spiritual children, those I lead to Christ and did Paul love his spiritual children. It is characteristic of someone that you lead to Christ that you are to love that person. That means you are to make sacrifices for their sakes, spend anything you have, time, money, anything and be spent, wear yourself out for them. And even though they love you less for it, you still love them more.
Third thing, if we're going to raise a spiritual child, we not only must beget them and love them but we must admonish them, verse 14. "I write not these things to shame you." He didn't want them cowering in a corner, he didn't write the 1 Corinthians to make them all into fearful beaten dogs, whipped puppies sitting in a corner cringing. He wanted to bring some shame on them, yes. And he does speak to their shame as we shall see in 1 Corinthians 5:5. But he wanted them to go from shame to a change of behavior. In other words, he's saying my purpose is not to destroy you, it's to reclaim you. It's like in Ephesians 6 where you have a father who provokes his child to wrath. You can discipline your child to the place where it ceases to be correction and becomes so wounding that he may never recover from it. And sometimes we pick up the pieces of adult lives who once were so beaten and oppressed by their parents without any reclamation or any redeeming that they were destroyed as human beings. Now Paul says I want to bring some shame but I want to go from shame to change. "So I write not these things to shame you but as my beloved sons I admonish you."
Now you've got to understand the word "admonish." The word means to criticize in love with a view toward a change. The word admonish assumes a problem, it assumes a weakness and it assumes a sin. And it is saying I see a sin, I see a weakness and I correct it in love so that you might be changed. It is not punishment, it is not just slamming home the rod. It is not just beating them with a big club. It is seeking a change in their behavior. You don't want people are shamed into almost the loss of their own sense of self-worth but those who are shamed into a change for what is right. So I admonish you. It presupposes a problem, the word noutheteodoes, and it means a change with a view toward being obedient to God.
An illustration of this is Eli. Eli was one of the most rotten parents that ever is recorded in the Bible. He absolutely was horrible. In 1 Samuel chapter 3 it tells us the sad story, chapter 2 and chapter 3, but 3:13 comments on Eli and it says, "The problem with Eli was his sons went bad because he restrained them not." And the word "restrained" is translated in the Septuagint "admonish." Same word. He never bothered to criticize them lovingly with a view toward a change. He never bothered to take them from this wrong behavior in love into right behavior. In fact, Eli didn't even know what they were doing. In chapter 2 he sees his sons and he says, "Hey, fellows, it's been told to me that you are sleeping with the ladies at the door of the temple." Wow, that's unbelievable. They're having love affairs with the ladies at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. That's pretty gross stuff. And Eli is the high priest. And he's saying, "You know, I've heard what you fellows have been doing." You've heard it, Eli? Where have you been? You start getting that kind of information second hand, you reveal a fact that you're not even involved in the life of your children.
Finally he hears about it and then he says to them, "Why did you do that?" You know what I thought when I read that? Eli, that is irrelevant. You're speculating about causes and you're supposed to be seeking solutions. He never did understand what he was supposed to be doing. Tragic. And he did not admonish his children.
Listen, if you have a spiritual child, it's no different. You better admonish him. If he's doing something wrong, criticize him in love with a view toward a change in his behavior. Don't damn him for it. "Boy, are you going to get it...oh baby, you just forfeited your reward, you are done." No not that, no that isn't the idea. The idea is a loving criticism with a view toward a change, not a dunning of somebody into feeling such shame they can't recover. We need to do this. A loving father doesn't publicly shame his children. He doesn't make mockery out of his children. He doesn't make them a public display. But he does do things to see a change in their behavior. He aims to reclaim them, not to destroy them.
Oh, this is an important part of a father's work. Paul admonished, Colossians 1 he talks about admonishing every man, all the people he worked with he admonished to see a change in their behavior. Let's say you're discipling somebody and you see that person doing something wrong. You have the obligation if you really care about them, if you really love them, and if you really want to see them come to maturity, you have the obligation to say that's wrong and let me show you why it's wrong and let me show you how to make it right. That's part of discipling.
You know, a fellow was talking to me about discipling, he said, "You know, we've got a great discipleship program. We meet once a week and we teach these people discipleship principles." He said, "Is that how you do it?"
I said no. And I said, "I really question that because you can't just disciple somebody by teaching them. You have to confront their lives with the things that need to be happening in their lives as individuals. You have to get alongside of them and see what's going on."
All right, fourth, a spiritual father not only begets and loves and admonishes, but he sets the example. And maybe this is the most important thing at all. Certainly nothing works without this. Verse 16, "Wherefore I beseech you, be followers of me." Now one other characteristic of a spiritual father is that he sets a pattern for his children. If you're discipling somebody, just set the pattern that you want them to be. Whatever you want them to be is what you are. If you're not that then they're not going to be that either. If you say, "Now, my friend, I led you to Christ and I love you and I want to get you going here, so here are the principles and here are all the facts, now do these." And he looks at you and says, "Well yeah, you don't even do those." Well you've just lost it, haven't you? It's out the window.
You think about this, mom and dad, when you look at your kids. You want to disciple the kids in your home? You better be sure that you are what you want them to be because they'll never become what you want them to be unless they can see it in you. You'll just reproduce yourself all over again...and that's a fearful thing. The toughest place to disciple is in the home because you can't put on your disciple suit, you know, I'm going out to disciple and get your Bible and go out. See, you're there, man, in the morning when you're grubby and at night when you're tired and all that stuff. It's all hanging out. And if you can disciple somebody in the home, then there's a genuineness to your faith. That's why the Bible says that an elder or a leader in the church should have godly children. Why? Because it gives evidence of the truth of his ability to live the life.
So what are we saying then? We're saying that you must be able to set the pattern. He says I beseech you, be followers of me. The word "followers," mimetes, mimics, imitators. You imitate me. I'll set the pattern, you follow. Philippians 4:9, "The things that you have heard and seen in me, do." Do what I do. First Corinthians 11:1, "Be you followers of me as I am of Christ." He's saying, "Look, I'm the one to follow. I'm following Christ, you watch my life and make yours like mine."
Boy, that's exciting. Discipling isn't just teaching principles. It isn't just applying principles. It's living principles in front of those people. And your consistent life will become a rebuke in itself.
Verse 17, look at this, this is really super. "For this cause, for this reason, because of this idea of example, because I want you to be followers of me I have sent unto you Timothy." Now, you know, I read that and I thought, "Now that doesn't make any sense." If I had said to somebody, "Now I want you to be followers of me and because I do I'm coming to be with you." He doesn't say that. He's saying, "I want you to be followers of me so I'm sending him, Timothy."
You say, "Well what is the deal?" The deal is simply this, people, here is an illustration of the absolute ultimate in spiritual fatherhood. Paul had done such a job on rearing Timothy that sending Timothy was just like being there. Do you see the point? He had so raised Timothy to be a spiritual son that Timothy could stand in his place. I'm telling you, folks, that is the epitome of rearing spiritual children when you don't even have to go, you can send one of your sons in the faith in your place and know that if they follow him, they'll be following you who are following Christ. Now that's the way to minister on the broadest base.
The best way to be an effective minister is not to get a high-powered car, a handful of airplane tickets and keep going and go all over the place and minister to everybody. The best place to minister is probably to stay in one place, build spiritual children who then can go everywhere with the ministry. And they can, in a sense, be you, be Jesus Christ cause the principles are the same for everybody wherever they go. So the ultimate in raising a spiritual son is to be able to say, "Because I want you to be followers of me, I'm sending somebody else that I have raised."
Do you have anybody like that? When you can't go somewhere to present Christ, when you can't go somewhere to show people what a Christian is, when you can't go somewhere to minister, do you have somebody you can just grab and say, "Hey, would you be me over there? Would you take my place?" Because you know their spiritual life, you know the content of their living and their knowledge because you know they're so committed to Jesus Christ that it's just as if you were there? That's as it ought to be.
So he says I want you to follow me so I'm sending Timothy, listen, who is my beloved son. Again he goes on this father idea. My beloved son faithful in the Lord and he gets there he'll bring you into remembrance of my doctrine. Is that what it says? What does it say? My ways. When Timothy comes you'll see how I do it. You'll see my ways which are in Christ. Paul, what a fantastic guy. Christ was living through Paul and Paul had been used of God to reproduce that same kind of life in Timothy. When Timothy gets there you'll know how I live, you'll know how I walk in Christ, be ye followers of me. Paul's conduct was Christlike and he had been the instrument by which God had made Timothy's equally Christlike.
So, the spiritual father begets and loves and admonishes and sets the example. Fifthly, he teaches. And here we come to the fact that there has to be the giving of principles, the end of verse 17, "When Timothy comes he's not coming with a lot of doctrine, he's coming just to be an example, that's all. And he will bring you into remembrance of my ways which are in Christ as I teach everywhere and every church." Now what he says by that is, "Look, Corinthians, Timothy is going to come and he's going to show you the principles."
Now listen. The principles aren't any different anywhere else, I'm not asking anything special out of you. This is the same thing that I teach everywhere. Paul taught the principles and he lived them...and watch, thirdly, he reproduced them in somebody else. There is the Christian life. There is how to make a disciple...teach it, live it and reproduce it.
So Paul taught. It's obvious that we believe in teaching, right? You can't live principles you don't know. God never put a premium on ignorance. There's no value in being stupid. There's honor in not knowing something. And biblically we are to know the Word of God. And so Paul says I'm teaching principles. Always the same principles, there's no...there's no relativity in the Christian life, there's no, "Well, if this applies to you, it's good...if it applies to you, it's good," no there's none of that dynamic inspiration here. I teach everywhere the same thing in every church. There's absolute truth. It's the same for everybody. It isn't cultural. It's absolute. And it isn't any different for you than anybody else. Timothy will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, the same principles that I teach everywhere.
So discipling somebody is teaching and applying and setting the pattern. Very important. And what can we say about teaching? Well, obviously we've said all there is to say about it again and again here at Grace Church, but one thought just might help. When you are in a situation of being a spiritual father, remember one thing, you're teaching should be practical and it should be simple. Some time we have to crucify our intellectualism and our erudition and get rid of our Doctors degrees and all the stuff that surrounds our lives that sort of gives us credibility academically and we've got to get down to a humble place and teach on a basic level.
I am so graphically faced with this in my own home when my kids ask me questions because I am a teacher of the Bible and I know the Bible and I'm well read in a lot of areas of the Bible, and then I go home and my kids ask me these questions, these little questions that kids ask. And I realize that it's very easy for me to talk to professor but it's a struggle for me to get down and be simple with those children. I mean, those little questions like how can God be in my heart and in heaven at the same time...and things like that, that are very...how do you explain that to a little kid? Well He's everywhere. Well He must be really fat, see. No, He's not fat because He doesn't have a body. Well, then you're really long gone, see. So you struggle with that. That's why in our house we have a little children's book that teaches basic theology because I need some help to get that down to the very simplest possible way.
And so, it's important when I deal with spiritual children, that I be humbled to the place where I don't care about the intellectual thing, but I am willing to forget my education and get down there and struggle to be able to communicate something that is practical and simple. John Stott says, "If we love them, our objective will not be to impress them with our learning but to help them with theirs." Bishop Ryle says, "One of the keys to the eighteenth century British revival was the simplicity of the preaching." He says to attain this, quote: "They were not ashamed to crucify their style, sacrifice their reputation for learning. They carried out he maximum of Augustine who said, `A wooden key is not as beautiful as a gold one but if it can open the door when the gold one can't, it's far more useful.'" Good point.
I was reading a story in a British medical journal in 1957 of a patient in a mental ward who attended chapel. And all the patients in the mental ward were there because that's where they belonged, apparently. And the chaplain got up and spoke and he was so confusing that one of the people going out was heard to say, "There but for the grace of God go I." So...so, it's very easy to be impossible to understand. Jesus was so simple, wasn't He? You know, you think about the knowledge of Jesus and then you read the parables and they're so simple...simplicity.
All right, if we're to be a spiritual father we beget, we love, we admonish, we set the example, we teach...and one more and we'll be done...we discipline. We have to discipline. I mean, when it's time to use a rod, we use a rod. We have to come to those that we've led to Christ and we have to deal with them. I can think of many times in my own life with people that I've done this, when I've discipled somebody and I've just sat them down and I've just said, "You know, it grieves my heart to tell you this because I love you but you are out of line and there's going to have to be some changes in your life. Your testimony is not what it ought to be. Your not living by the principles." And you really come down to grips with this and sometimes there's some tears shed and sometimes there's some pain but when it's all done you've done what's right because you've confronted them with what has to be done.
Look at verse 18, now he says, "Some of you are puffed up as though I wouldn't come to you." The Corinthians had a puffed-up problem. They had pride. We saw that last time. And some of them were really proud. You know, they were saying, "O boy, you know, Paul won't dare come around here. He won't show up around here. You know why? Man, we've got control of this baby, he's afraid...he's afraid to show up. See, we've established new groups, Cephas group, Apollos group, Christ group and Paul has pretty well faded, he won't show up around here." They were really proud and boastful.
And so, he says some of you are puffed up, you don't think I'm coming but I will come shortly. Then he throws this in, "If the Lord will." He knew to throw that in because a lot of times when he planned to go somewhere he never got there. "And I'll find out then not the speech of them that are puffed up but the power. I'll find out who is talk and who is real when I get there. You people talk a great game but I'm going to find out who's real, not who is just talking."
Discipline is important. Paul says when I come there I'm going to check some things out. Love is not easy blind sentiment, love really disciplines when it's necessary. You know something? A simple principle, an undisciplined child belongs to a parent is too selfish to love the child. And it's true spiritually. If Christians, everybody who is a Christian has been led to Christ by somebody. Why aren't we all mature? Because somebody who led us to Christ, or somebody else along the way hasn't cared enough to bring us to that place and maybe it's because they haven't been willing to discipline us. I thank God for that, people who are willing to discipline me spiritually. Even my own wife who is careful to do that when it is needed, and I thank God for that.
So, he says I'm going to come and find out which of you are all talk and which of you really manifest the power of God because the Kingdom of God is not word but power. This isn't an issue of words. I'm going to come and find out who is genuine. The man's true character is determined not by his words but the divine power exhibited in his life because if he's a member of the Kingdom of God, if God rules in his life then there's going to be power in his life, not just verbiage. Now he says I'm going to come and check you people out, that's what verses 18 to 20 mean, I'm going to check you out.
Now watch, verse 21, what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do? "Shall I come unto you with a rod." If you don't change, that's what's going to be. "Or in love and the spirit of gentleness." How do you want me to come? I'm coming and I'm coming shortly and how do you want me to come?
Did you notice there's no answer there in verse 21? Why isn't there any answer? Who had to make the answer? The Corinthians. The choice is yours. I'll come and if it needs to be a rod, it's going to be a rod and some heads are going to roll. That's right. But, I could come in love and gentleness, it's up to you. This is a great illustration of a loving father who is going to use the rod when he needs to use it, who's going to discipline when he needs to discipline and who's going to love in gentleness when that's called for. But the decision is theirs.
Have you ever told that to your children? Have you ever said, "Look, the choice is yours"? "You can obey me and everything will be great, but you don't obey me and the consequences you pay." That's what he's saying. God laid the laws down, you obey...great, fine. You don't...the rod.
And so, the spiritual father bares his heart. I care about you, he says. I begot you. I love you. I seek to see a change in your evil behavior. I want the pattern of my life to be the example for you. Paul cared about them...so much so that he was willing not only to teach them but to discipline them, to bring them into conformity to that pattern. That is as it should be.
My prayer for us, for me, for you, for all of us is that we would become in the fullest sense spiritual fathers. Wouldn't that be exciting? Why aren't we busy reproducing? There may be ten thousand instructors, all kinds of people that are teaching and giving input. Not many fathers. A Christian who isn't spiritually fathering somebody is a contradiction. My prayer for us is that we would all become spiritual fathers. Let's pray.
Lord, we know that some of us have failed miserably in this area...of really being all that we should be in terms of spiritual fathers. And, Lord, we would ask that somehow you would help us to see that and someway make some fresh commitments in our hearts to be what we ought to be, to find some folks and to bring them to Jesus, to beget them and to love them, admonish them, set an example for them, teach them, discipline them in order that they might grow up and that some day we might be able to say, "I want you to know how I live so I'm sending so-and-so." May it be, Father, that we have such disciples who can go for us and even in the place of Jesus Christ. We pray in His name. Amen.
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text:
Contract award notice
Directive 2004/18/EC
Section I: Contracting authority
I.1)Name, addresses and contact point(s)
Isle of Wight Council
Enterprise House
PO30 5WB Newport
United Kingdom
Internet address(es):
General address of the contracting authority: www.iwight.com
I.2)Type of the contracting authority
I.3)Main activity
I.4)Contract award on behalf of other contracting authorities
Section II: Object of the contract
II.1.1)Title attributed to the contract
II.1.2)Type of contract and location of works, place of delivery or of performance
Main site or location of works, place of delivery or of performance: Isle of Wight Council.
NUTS code UKG13
II.1.3)Information about a framework agreement or a dynamic purchasing system (DPS)
II.1.4)Short description of the contract or purchase(s)
II.1.5)Common procurement vocabulary (CPV)
II.1.6)Information about Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)
II.2)Total final value of contract(s)
II.2.1)Total final value of contract(s)
Section IV: Procedure
IV.1)Type of procedure
IV.1.1)Type of procedure
IV.2)Award criteria
IV.2.1)Award criteria
1. Attributes. Weighting 0
2. Client review. Weighting 0
3. Price. Weighting 100
4. Features. Weighting 0
5. Capability. Weighting 0
6. Qualifications. Weighting 0
7. Custom metric. Weighting 0
IV.2.2)Information about electronic auction
IV.3)Administrative information
IV.3.1)File reference number attributed by the contracting authority
IV.3.2)Previous publication(s) concerning the same contract
Section V: Award of contract
V.1)Date of contract award decision:
V.2)Information about offers
V.3)Name and address of economic operator in favour of whom the contract award decision has been taken
Buckland Care Ltd
13 Lagoon Road, Lillyput
BH14 8JT Poole
United Kingdom
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
Telephone: +44 1202709962
Internet address: www.sproc.net
V.4)Information on value of contract
V.5)Information about subcontracting
Section VI: Complementary information
VI.1)Information about European Union funds
VI.2)Additional information:
VI.3)Procedures for appeal
VI.3.1)Body responsible for appeal procedures
Isle of Wight Council
Enterprise House
PO30 5WB Newport
United Kingdom
Telephone: +44 1983821000
Internet address: www.iwight.com
VI.3.2)Lodging of appeals
VI.3.3)Service from which information about the lodging of appeals may be obtained
Adam HTT Limited
249 Midsummer Boulevard
MK9 1EA Milton Keynes
United Kingdom
Internet address: www.sproc.net
VI.4)Date of dispatch of this notice:

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The 1989 grounding of the Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound presented an enormous technical challenge to resource managers in Alaska. Documenting injury to natural resources and fostering their restoration across hundreds of miles of poorly-studied coastline in a scientifically defensible manner were extremely difficult tasks, never before undertaken on such a grand scale.
Now it is possible to locate online much of the research that has been funded by the Trustee Council since the settlement, including annual and final reports for specific projects. If you have technical problems, please contact data management staff. Please contact research staff if you need assistance locating a specific project report.
(*) This operation accesses a lot of data. It could take up to a minute (or longer, depending on your Internet connection) to display all (1989-present) projects.


text:
Forklift Hydraulic Attachments
- Forklift Hydraulic Attachments
- Forklift Mechanical Attachments
- Forklift dumping hoppers
- Forklift Skip Bins
- Forklifts Trucks
- Linde Forklift Spare Parts
- Larger Capacity Paper Roll Clamp
- Material Handling Equipment Bale Clamps
- Forklift Attachments Rotator
- Forklift Side Shifter
- Forklift Forks Attachment
- Steel Shipping Container
- 360° Rotating Paper Roll Clamp
- 4 Wheels Electric Forklift
- Long Life Battery Electric Forklift
- Forklift Bucket Hinged Fork
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The hinged carriage can equip different mechanical attachment to suited different works.For example,it can handle lumber or pallerized loads through equip the forks. If equip buckets, it can allows the forklift handle bulk materials, such as coal, gravel and sand, etc.
- first page
- last page A total of
360 Rotation Single Arm Paper Roll Clamps
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HEZE Bale Clampscan handle nearly any type of bale products efficiently and economically, including cotton, wool, synthetic, textile bales, corrugated, newsprint, rag, hay, metal and other scrap bale. You can easily operate the cargos without work platform condition through CNB bale clamps.
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Carton clampscan efficiently and econormically handle paper carton, wooden carton, metal carton and other scrap bales.
Hydraulic Forklift Attachments Rotator
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Forklift Hydraulic Heavy Duty Sideshifters
Big heavy dutySideshiftersare the most common attachment installed in forklift, allowingside shiftingof 150mm both goods, thus greatly improves the flexibility and moving efficiency of the forklift sideshifting.It is s uitable for various occasions using for moving and stacking.
Strong DesignForklift Attachment Hinged Forks
The hinged carriage can equip different mechanical attachment to suited different works.For example,it can handle lumber or pallerized loads through equip the forks. If equip buckets, it can allows the forklift handle bulk materials, such as coal, gravel and sand, etc.
Forklift Attachments 4 Drums Drum Clamps For Forklift
HEZE rotating drum clamps are used wherever product is stored in drums, including the petroleum,chemical and food processing industries. CNB forklift drum clamps improve productivity by allowing forklift driver to handle up to four drums per load. In addition, the use of a drum clamp allows the driver to securely grip the drums for transporting. This eliminates instability during braking and cornering, which is a common problem when attempting to handle drum with conventional forks.
Forklift Attachments Flat Holding Block Clamps
Flat Holding Block Clamps Widely used in construction material, metallurgy industries for handling concrete blocks, cement bricks, carton cubes, etc.
Forklift Rotating Tyre Clamps
Forklift rotate tires clamp is for heavy duty apply to tire, paper, printing and transport industries. With 360°rotation and excellent visibility, practical and easy to use.


text:
Connecticut Personal Injury and Employment Law Trial Lawyers
Address: One Stamford Plaza, 263 Tresser Boulevard - 9th Floor, Stamford, CT 06032
Phone: (860) 667-0839
Providing labor and employment law solutions to workplace problems.
Address: 244 Fifth Avenue Suite F276, New York, NY 10001
Phone: (347) 766-5185
The Law Offices of Wyatt & Associates is an employment law firm that represents employees who seek to assert their rights. We offer free initial consultations and believe in a client-centered practice. Serving NH, MA, CT, VT NY, RI and ME.
Address: 17 Elm St., Suite C211, Keene, NH 03431
Phone: (603) 357-1111


text:
The interminable hourglass
"Joe Dee Beeay?"
I looked up. The cubicle smelled of old coffee, dust from old technical manuals, the tang of heated electronics and fear.
"Yeah?" Something in the boss's voice told me that he hadn't come to tell me I was doing good work.
"The application's had a wet job. It's dead meat."
The application, THE application, you know the one. The beautiful one, the one everyone wants. She had the habit occasionally of running as if she had had her hair parted by lead piping. Some in the business say she's brought troubles on herself, but it's just the way she was built. Sure, she's a little older now, and is showing the signs. She's been beat down and roughed up more times than he cares to remember and it shows, but she was still The Application, and she needed me.
The Fat Man's voice was calm, but he had sweat on his brow.
"What's the layout?" I asked.
"Dunno. Just sort it out, Joe, please."
I wasn't worried until I heard the word "please". Maybe, too, it was that humorless smile he had before he stumped out of the room that made me wince. I know what he was thinking: "There are no bad DBAs. There are only some DBAs that aren't as good as others."
Now what?
I tapped the spacebar, lost in gloomy thought. I looked out the window. Suddenly the world seemed dark with more than the night.
Every possible kind of problem had happened to this application over the years. She's been put back together so many times it's surprising that she's still so desired and attractive instead of looking like Frankenstein's monster on the outside as well as the inside. Regardless, Joe Muggins had to identify the problem.
False Dawn
Better go see Dawn in Accounts, she knows when things aren't right and likes to give bad news. Dawn was a dame with an ice-cold stare. From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away. She pouted when I told her I was on a mission to fix The Application, sipped from her plastic coffee-cup, and then sang like a canary. Well, like a canary who wanted to upset her audience. She told me that the issue was happening currently, but had also happened last night and, evidently earlier in the week.
"Thanks", I muttered. "You're welcome", she replied, meaning I was as welcome as an over-packed bin-liner.
I trudged moodily back to my pigpen in IT. No one had thought it was important enough to inform the DBA team. If only we'd put some monitoring software in place to identify issues when they were happening, instead of relying on other people, with other concerns and problems, to get the information to the team.
I reached for my faithful SSMS. "Hmm. Signs of life in the old crone?" Waiting for the connection to complete seemed as if I was waiting for that next blow to land in a beating. Success... the server is online and accepting connections; That's a positive sign. Without that reassuring open query-window, I'd have had to resort to the lo-down, dirty trick of using the Dedicated Administrator Connection to elbow my way onto the server. Also, if the server wasn't accepting connections or, worse yet, was offline, I'd have had to trust that I could revive the cold corpse by restoring from backup. There were backups running, but, hell, when was the last time we'd verified them?
I shook my head, trying to shake loose that nagging doubt about those unverified backups. Something to check once this crisis is past.
"... I shook my head, trying to shake loose that nagging doubt about those unverified backups."
Verify and restore your backups with SQL Backup Pro.
Once I'd connected to the server, a wild world of lash-ups and software harvester-tape opened up to me. I shuddered. A DBA's work is sometimes unsavory. Where first? Travel down to the grit and dirt of the tempdb? Now there's a dive where some of the worst of the low-life lurk. Look for the rot within the glizt-and-glammer of the CPU? Walk the mean streets of the I/O processes? Or just round up the usual suspects by taking a look at the currently running queries?
Let's start with the usual suspects, I decided.
The usual suspects
Sure, I could look at wait statistics to understand specifically what is causing the server to slow down. It's a great metric for understanding the system as a whole. I could maybe run a query against sys.dm_os_wait_stats and order by the number of currently waiting tasks, the cumulative wait time or the max wait time to see what, in general is causing the server to run slow. Yeah, that might flush the critters out.
I stared moodily at that empty query window. Nah. C'mon Joe, since we're only getting calls from a single team on a specific application, the other approach, seeing what's running on the server, might stir the pot more.
To see what's currently running on the server, I could run a query against the Dynamic Management Object (DMO) sys.dm_exec_requests. I gave the server a burst of SQL through my trusty SSMS:
FROM sys.dm_exec_requests;
The server babbled out its secrets as though I'd promised it a nice waterboarding holiday. I saw immediately a full listing of all sessions running on the system. I had useful information at my fingertips, and then details that may, or may not, prove useful later. To narrow down to some of the more immediately useful data, I modified the query like this:
der.session_id , --internal identifier for the running session
der.status , --determines if the query is active or waiting
der.start_time , --gives you an idea when the query started
der.command , --the type of command involved
der.database_id , --which database you're connected to
der.user_id , --which login is running the command
der.blocking_session_id , --session id of blocking session
der.wait_type , -- what is the waiting session it waiting on
der.wait_time , --how long has it been waiting
der.last_wait_type , --what caused it to last wait
der.cpu_time , --how much of the CPU has been used
der.total_elapsed_time , --how long has the command been running
der.reads , --has the command hit the disk for information
der.writes , --how much information was written to the disk
der.logical_reads --how many reads came out of memory
FROM sys.dm_exec_requests AS der;
One session stood out in the results, about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake. It was running long and using resources like a fat man pursuing a lead bird.
What I needed now was the text of this query this session was running, and its execution plan. I start to write another query, thinking there must be an easier way to pull all this information together in a hurry.
SELECT SUBSTRING(dest.text, ( der.statement_start_offset / 2 ) + 1,
(der.statement_end_offset - der.statement_start_offset )
/ 2 + 1)
FROM sys.dm_exec_requests AS der
CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_query_plan(der.plan_handle) AS deqp
CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(der.sql_handle) AS dest
WHERE der.session_id = 442;
I sat back in my chair with a creak and a whistle. I whistled, and the chair creaked, but it might have been the other way around.
No query should be running like this, I mused, and especially not this one. I tuned it recently, I remembered, and added a new index in order to make it more efficient.
Looking at the execution plan, I noticed a scan where an Index Seek used to be. Could something have happened to the index or might the statistics simply be out of date? Goddam it, was there a rogue table? I soon had my SSMS looking straight at that table.
Well, if I hadn't homed straight in on a pretty sinister problem. That index I'd created earlier had vanished, done a runner, as if I'd never done all that tuning work. I don't like seeing things like that. It makes the hair on the nape of my neck prickle. What else in the database had been given the big sleep? Things like that don't vanish by themselves.
I swore. I needed to get that index back, and find out what else was missing. Compare with what's in source control? I'm a production guy; I don't put stuff in source control. Sure, it gets there eventually, but the devs do it on wet Fridays. There was all sort of healing stuff we'd done on that database that hadn't been fed back into source control. Did I save my build script? I didn't feel like answering that question, but hurled my damp plastic coffee-cup over the top of the pigpen. It cheered me a bit.
I smiled grimly. Wouldn't it be a fine time to find that the backup that run just after my database-tuning session failed or was corrupt? I'd be able to find out if only I had a place to restore the database. I'd always meant to get to using compressed backups.
I didn't want to eat up more disk space on the production server, with the restore; I'd have to do it somewhere else and, luckily, the QA team wasn't around to object. This is a production issue, and even if they were screaming from their pigpens, I'd do it. When they're slapped, they'll take it and like it. It is not a fragrant world.
If only there was a way to directly access the backup files to either pull the code out or simply connect them to the server without having to use so much disk space.
I went to the first backup, last night. After setting up the restore process, I had a moment to reflect on the cruelty of the human condition while the restore operation ran. A rush of errors on the screen soon told me I was about to experience this first-hand. Last night's backup really was corrupt.
I sat down. It was a good start, but it didn't go far enough. I ought to have turned out the light and hidden under the desk
The screen painted red
How many backups do they keep locally for this server? Ah, it goes back three days. No need, at least, to try to contact their offsite storage company to retrieve a backup. Crossing my fingers, I tried restoring the older database. It worked. I browsed down to the index and exported it to a query window.
Quick as a rabbit, I changed the connection to the production server (change requests are for those squares who shall inherit the earth eventually) and fired off the script to recreate the necessary index. I waited, and waited. Suddenly, I felt like a fugitive from the laughing house; the screen is painted red like the lips of a cheap woman, as error messages pop up. There's no space on the hard drive for the index.
I knew that whatever malicious spirits inhabit our datacenter had conspired to ensure that we were running low on storage but, heck, I didn't know we were that low. Then it all clicks. Wasn't there a message from earlier this week? One of the junior DBAs, Timmy, had dealt with an issue where they had run out of space on a drive overnight. He fixed it somehow, but I hadn't been watching that closely, he had problems of his own.
"I knew... that we were running low on storage but, heck, I didn't know we were that low. "
Monitor your disk space and get alerted when storage space is low with SQL Monitor.
The smoking gun
Digging back through the email... there it is, the smoking gun, the drive had run out of room and the junior DBA had decided that the new index wasn't needed, had dropped it like a murder weapon over the side of a bridge. There is no trap for a DBA so deadly as the trap set by an idiot colleague.
I contacted the SAN admins and somehow managed to persuade them to get a new LUN allocated to the server. There I added a filegroup for the database and was able to recreate that index with room to spare. Now to have a conversation with that junior DBA that ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.
The end?
The fat man seemed pleased as punch. A punch in the mouth. He decided against it. Instead he gave me that smile again.
"OK Joe. So, plenty of heroics to retrieve this situation, but what caused it?"
Hmm. That's a hard one. "The application's no good"
"My life's no good, but I'm stuck with it." I didn't like the look he gave me. "Instead of being told by the business people that there was a problem, we should have found out ourselves before them, and found out in more detail. There might have been several applications complaining about a slow server, meaning bottlenecks in the hardware or misconfiguration of the server. You got lucky. Maybe some up-front planning, with the right software tools, might have entailed less heroics. I need fewer heroes and less luck "
I shrugged. I'm like any good detective; I gotta go where the clues lead me. A true DBA Detective relies on his trusty SSMS and shoots from the hip. Or, maybe the fat guy had a point.
When problems arise in SQL Server, we're faced with a server full of suspects, including disk I/O, memory, CPU, incorrect or missing indexes, badly written T-SQL code, out of date statistics, and full disk drives. All of these have motive and opportunity to murder the performance of our databases, and it's our job to collar the culprit, quickly.
It requires a methodical, level-headed approach, a refusal to jump to conclusions until all of the facts and clues are exposed, and it requires the right set of tools to get the job done.


text:
Paul touched by HOF trip | Report: Smith to skip Cavs' mini-camp | Report: Meeks set to return in November | Stevens says veterans will push Brown
No. 1: Trip to Hall of Fame resonates with Paul – LA Clippers point guard Chris Paul was honored by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame this summer with the Mannie Jackson Human Spirit Award for his work with his organization, the Chris Paul Foundation. Initially, Paul was hesitant to come out to Springfield, Mass., for the event, but since then has drastically changed his tone about both the Hall itself and has a newfound respect for his the game at large. Jackie MacMullan of ESPN.com has more:
Chris Paul admits it — he viewed his trip to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame last week as a bit of a nuisance.
It wasn't the first time the Hall had reached out, but it was the first time the nine-time All-Star finally acquiesced.
"They ask," Paul conceded to ESPN.com, "but you think, 'I'm busy' or 'Oh no, it's too far,' or 'I have too much other stuff going on."'
During his tour of the birthplace of basketball, Paul was moved by the stories of African-American pioneers who were banned from hotels and restrooms that welcomed their white teammates. He delighted in locating the plaque of Clarence "Big House" Gaines, the legendary African-American college coach at Winston-Salem State, just miles from where Paul grew up.
It prompted a reflective Paul to deliver one of the most memorable and impassioned speeches from an elite player who wasn't actually being inducted.
"Today was my first day having the opportunity to come here, and it was kind of touching," Paul told the audience upon accepting his award. "If not for this game, I am not here. If not for this game, my family is not in the situation we are in. And so I'm grateful for this game and what it has done for me and my family …"
With his voice breaking, and tears welling, Paul pressed on.
"It really hit me today being here around all the history that we take so much for granted," he said. "And I know I do [that] a lot of times."
Before long, as Paul shared the story of how he pressured his parents to buy him a pair of Allen Iverson's signature shoes, he had Iverson — a 2016 Hall of Fame inductee — weeping, too.
"To be here on his special day … man, this game has taken me places I never imagined," Paul said. "Guys, you gotta come see this, because it's bigger than any of us."
"I haven't never been here before, and as I walked in I actually felt bad about it," Paul said. "It hit home today, in a big way, what this game has done for me, and the people I love. You walk in and you see all the history and you realize, 'I need to support this.'
"I'm one of those people who, my wheels get turning. You want other people to see this. You think, 'Maybe it would be better if this was in New York or L.A.,' but that doesn't make sense. The game was invented here. There is where it has to stay."
Paul, who is also president of the players' union, said he plans to go back to his NBA brethren and encourage them to see for themselves how the pioneers of the game paved the way — and to spur them to give back.
"Every experience is different for every person, but this place? It got me," Paul said. "I can't wait to bring my son."


text: Getting Smart With Management Zones July 29, 2014 07:49 AM Tweet TAGS: Marketing, Overseas December 18, 2014 By Chris Bennett Farm Journal Technology and Issues Editor Email What do management zones offer a farmer? They're not about cutting input costs, but rather about getting the most out of input dollars and managing them within the field to improve profitability. Management zones are a producer's guide to variable rate farming. Dry fertilizer, fertility, nitrogen, population – all those prescriptions can be based off a management zone system. At Corn College 2014 in Coldwater, Mich., Brad Beutke, Crop-Tech Consulting, Heyworth, Ill., described the benefits of management zones: "We want to get away from the traditional grid-based system that most agronomists and universities have been using the last several years. We're strong proponents of the management zone based system in order to implement a soil-testing program and a variable rate program." Beutke says zones should be managed differently and if producers only manage by the blocks, the results will be off in a lot of cases. "We have to do a better job of smart sampling and managing fields." How does he create, modify and update those zones on an annual basis? The baselines for management zones are created in soil type maps. "Most of the soil maps we see in Illinois are pretty accurate and spot-on. In areas or states without accurate soil maps, other types of data need to be used." Beutke emphasizes the need for ground-truthing management zones and breaking down the reasons for differences. It's a hands-on, manual process where Beutke sits down with his client farmers and pores over maps and data – rather than simply relying on computers. "When you create management zones based on yield, they need to be ground-truthed. In other words, we need to know why they happen. It needs to be a human process." Missy Bauer, B&M Crop Consulting, emphasizes the vital role of management zones. "The need for creation of management zones is huge and there's not enough people doing it. Farmers want variable rate population and nitrogen, and until zones are established, there's no good way for those to work. Management zones are a work in progress and don't happen overnight. There's a whole lot more involved than sending somebody out to pull soil samples. It takes somebody who understands the whole process and knows the agronomy side." Beutke fine-tunes differences revealed in fields using NDVI imagery, yield maps, thermal imagery, elevation and sensing data. "Once the zones are created and we start sampling that way, then the opportunity for variable rate develops. I've heard it said about management zones and farmers, 'Once they take this approach, they'll never want to leave.'" Thank you to the 2014 Corn College sponsors: AgriGold, BASF, Great Plains Mfg., Honeywell, Plant Tuff, SFP, Top Third, Wolf Trax Back to news


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Greg Cote
Greg Cote: With White House visit, undefeated Dolphins team becomes a part of Americana
You enter the vast East Room of the White House and veer left through a marbled reception area, past a Marine playing a waltz on a grand piano from the Franklin D. Roosevelt presidency. You enter the ornate main room with its long, gold drapes and gilded frames, and you notice the gaze of a painting of George Washington from 1797, the oldest possession in America's most historic place.
Suddenly that silver 1972 Super Bowl trophy shining on a table doesn't seem so old. Suddenly the 41 years it took the Perfect Season Dolphins to get to this place seems worth the wait.
All at once Tuesday, Miami's famed 17-0 season was elevated to a piece of Americana, and given a historical context beyond its place in football and sports.
"I can go no higher," whispered Larry Little, the old Hall of Fame guard. "I'm on the White House grounds."
The president of the United States almost always enters a public ceremony here by himself, introduced alone. Tuesday afternoon, though, it was as if Barack Obama felt he was in equal company. The man to whom the world defers was the one showing deference.
After the 31 players from that perfect team had filed in and stood on a three-level metal riser and the packed room had hushed again in anticipation, there came these words:
"Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States accompanied by coach Shula."
The shared entrance showed respect for Don Shula, the winningest coach in NFL history, now 83 and in a motorized scooter due to back problems. A poignant moment came later when the president helped Shula up briefly so they could pose for a photo.
This 20-minute ceremony wouldn't be all solemn or serious, though.
These two leaders — the most powerful man in the world and the former coach who seemed like that to Dolfans for so long — were here for a good time.
"I know some of these guys are a little hard to recognize," the president joked of the former players behind him who all are in their late 60s and older now. "They don't have the Afros, the muttonchops and the Fu Manchus.. . ."
Obama kidded that he only invited the '72 team because, "I wanted to be the young guy up here for once."
The president had just turned 11 when the Dolphins set out on the NFL's only perfect season, before or since, but it's well-known that Obama, from Chicago, grew up a Bears fan. When the president mentioned he had the 1985 Super Bowl champion Bears to the White House a few years ago, a devious smile crawled onto Shula's face.
"That Bears team lost only one game . . ." Obama began.
"Who beat 'em!?" Shula cut in, away from a microphone but loud enough to hear.
"I think it was the Miami Dolphins," said the president, matching Shula's grin.
The old coach wasn't done feeling feisty.
Later, he handed Obama a No. 72 aqua Dolphins jersey with UNDEFEATED stitched on it, signed by all the players. Then Shula couldn't resist saying, "Hopefully you can find a nice place somewhere in your office where you can look at it and think about the whipping we put on those '85 Bears!"
("I kidded him a little bit about those Bears," Shula had to admit later, his continuing grin indicating little remorse.)
The Perfectos were given a private tour of the White House prior to the afternoon ceremony, and just before it enjoyed a brief meet-and-greet alone with the president, a big sports fan.
The demands on any president's time are obvious, but a ready reminder came Tuesday in the juxtaposition of real life and the fun time of the Dolphins visit.
One minute, we media there for the Dolphins were in the crowded White House press briefing room as observers, listening to deputy press secretary Josh Earnest (fabulous name!) being grilled by Washington reporters on the day's big news story: reports that the United States had cut off aid to Egypt.
The next minute, we were being escorted past a vintage grand piano into a room with a Super Bowl trophy in it.
The whole day had a strange, giddy feel. Half surreal, half time warp.
"Last time I came to Washington, D.C., I was 8 years old on a school outing," said the old running back, Jim Kiick. "I didn't get to meet the president that time."
One ex-Dolphin, former receiver Otto Stowe, wore an Obama/Martin Luther King button on his lapel. Another noted a link between one sport's only undefeated team and Obama being the country's first African-American president.
"Unique team, unique president," said Larry Csonka. "It fits."
A few of the '72 Dolphins did not attend for political reasons, but the loss was theirs. Current club owner Stephen Ross is a staunch Republican and was a major donor to Mitt Romney, but Ross attended, paid for the team's trip and thanked the president.
This was a time to be bigger than one's own politics. And to recognize the White House and what it symbolizes are bigger than the policies of any one current occupant.
I can admit to you on a personal level, as someone who is an American before he is a journalist, that this experience hit me and made me proud in a way that covering Super Bowls, Olympics, World Series and NBA Finals does not.
Every day, all day, you see dozens of people standing outside this place's tall, wrought-iron gates, just quietly staring at the White House, some for hours. It can bring a tear to your eye, if you let it.
"We all had a smile on our face today," said the team's quarterback, Bob Griese, echoing the vast majority of players thrilled to attend. "We had a great day and the White House treated us greatly."
Many members of that 17-0 team have let on over the years a sense that they lacked respect. Even Obama acknowledged that during the event, saying, "These Dolphins didn't always get the credit they deserve."
Tuesday, they did.
It took 41 years, but they got it.
"It's a reward," said Griese. "It's the country officially receiving a team that accomplished something special."
So there they stood, right in between a priceless oil painting of George Washington and the sitting president of the United States — the 1972 Miami Dolphins.
They were there because they were perfect, once.
They still are.


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Just like to wish all participants in this year's MAC 10/100 Challenge "all the very best" and "good luck". Special wishes go to all the Team BOFA4x4 entrants and all our friends from other clubs that have entered too.
May you all have a safe and fun experience
Also, as an Admin on this site, I'd like to thank everyone that has donated or supported this cause in the last year.
Do I wish I was doing it? ....................... Hell yes! Enjoy peeps !!


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Lieder Vom Fahren & Wandern - Auf Der Gr
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Fortunoff Fine Jewelry
Bright Green Glass and CZ Stud Earrings, Gold Tone, by Tai Design
Bright Green Glass and CZ Stud Earrings, Gold Tone, by Tai Design
These green colored stud earrings make a nice addition to your jewelry wardrobe or a great gift.
- Gold tone brass metal
- Bright green class
- Cubic zirconia
- Diameter .25 inch
- Push posts with butterfly backs
- Design by Tai Design
- Made in Thailand
Arriving from Thailand in 1994 to pursue her education, Tai attended UCLA to gain a degree in business. Her family has years of experience in jewelry manufacturing and with a love for the art of jewelry making, Tai first started her business at Santa Monica open-air market. Inspired by her mother's love of knitting and crochet, her bracelets often use cord or a string to make them adjustable.
For more by this designer click here.
General Care for Fine Jewelry
With proper care, your fine jewelry will last a lifetime. Here are some tips to keep your jewelry looking its best: All fine jewelry should be treated with care. After wearing your jewelry, wipe with a clean, soft, barely damp cloth to remove any dirt or cosmetics. Store each piece of jewelry individually in a soft pouch or cloth to prevent scratching.
- Avoid salt water and harsh chemicals such as chlorine or detergents, which can harm gold and gemstones.
- Do not sleep in your jewelry - you may damage it.
- When you travel, pack your jewelry carefully. A variety of protective soft rolls and pouches are available.
For more information on jewelry care see our Jewelry Care Guide.
If you have questions about how to care for your jewelry, email us at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Enjoy Free Gift Wrapping and Free Ground Shipping Every Day!
It's always been a hallmark of Fortunoff. When other merchants charge $5 per package for gift wrap — we offer it for free!
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Your jewelry will always ship in the signature Fortunoff gift box or gift pouch.
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If you would like your gift box wrapped or to send a personalized gift message, simply choose "Gift Services" during checkout. You can select to have your box wrapped in our elegant silver paper and enter your gift message, which we will hand-write on our gift card.
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Shop at FortunoffJewelry.com and enjoy free FedEx Home Delivery on every order, every day. Your free shipping discount will be automatically applied during checkout.
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- Fortunoff will make every attempt to fill your order as quickly as possible. We ship most in-stock orders within 3 business days using Federal Express or US Postal Service Priority Mail. We require a signature upon delivery for orders over $500 and for all orders being delivered to an apartment or suite. Your selection ships in a gift box or pouch. Free gift wrapping and gift card messages are available; just indicate your request at check-out in the appropriate fields.
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Small Business Commitment
Central to NREL's mission is our commitment to small business through a comprehensive and mature outreach program that combines proven techniques with the latest technology and best business practices.
For More Information
Please email Rexann Dunn or call 303-275-4322 for more on NREL's small business commitment and opportunities.
NREL's focus on small, small-disadvantaged, women-owned, HUBZone, veteran-owned, and disabled veteran-owned businesses extends far beyond the purchasing and subcontracting dollars which is an integral part of the high performance standards set forth in all areas of the laboratory. For example, prompt payment is a critical factor in the success of every small business. NREL's Finance Office works with the Procurement Office to establish payment terms that accommodate small business needs. Payment and deliverables tracking has been automated and placed on the Intranet to ensure rapid processing of invoices and subsequent payments.
NREL continues its ongoing involvement with the small business community by sponsoring and participating in special events, trade fairs, and networking exchanges. NREL has been honored with several prestigious awards that include the 1998 Vision 2000 Award for Excellence in Advocacy, the Martin Luther King Jr. Business Social Responsibility Award, and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Award. On behalf of NREL, the Small Business Partnership Development Manager serves on the Board of Directors for the Opportunity Council. The manager also serves on the Colorado Women's Chamber of Commerce. Many of the NREL staff consistently dedicate their time in volunteering to serve on numerous small, small-disadvantaged, women-owned, HUBZone, veteran-owned, and disabled veteran-owned business events throughout the year.
A further reflection of NREL's commitment to the small business community is through a workplace culture that embraces diversity. The Human Resources Office works cooperatively with the Contracts and Business Services Office and the Small Business Partnership Development Office in recruiting small businesses who in return supply temporary personnel throughout the laboratory. Additionally, NREL's Workforce Development and Education Programs develops and implements science programs that engage the minds of our future leaders, scientists, and engineers that ultimately increases the number of women and other minorities in science and engineering careers.
Another key feature of NREL's commitment to small business concerns is through Technology Transfer. NREL works with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in processing Cooperative Research and Development Agreements and Strategic Partnership Projects agreements to build a better understanding of the market drivers for the renewable energy community. With the renewable energy market continuing to develop, small businesses that want to be competitive in the market place are bringing funds to NREL to support technology maturation and commercialization. NREL's commitment to small business makes it possible to build lasting and successful technology partnerships. In addition, resources are available to business that want to make their buildings more energy efficient.
NREL's commitment to small, small-disadvantaged, women-owned, HUBzone, veteran-owned and disabled veteran owned business has never been stronger. We will continue to set new standards for our research and performance standards that support our vision of a world that runs on clean, renewable energy technologies. The laboratory will continue to seek alliances with small businesses to help achieve that vision.


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According to a World Economic Forum 2016 report, the cumulative value of digitization could reach $100 trillion over the next 10 years. With digital pervading everything, it's bringing with it ubiquitous and unprecedented amounts of change.
Recently, the Accenture Technology Vision 2016 report found that fostering a people-first approach – equipping employees, partners and consumers with new skills to fully capitalize on technology advancement – will be key to unlocking success in today's disruptive digital economy.
The analysis is partly based on a global survey of more than 3,100 business executives. The survey found that 86 percent of respondents anticipate the pace of technology change will increase at a rapid or unprecedented rate over the next three years. Yet, most corporate cultures are not keeping up with technology advancements, creating a state of digital culture shock.
In this slideshow, Accenture has highlighted five trends, fueled by the people-first approach, that provide a roadmap to digital success.
Related Topics : A Big Market for Big Data Jobs, Midmarket CIO, IT Management Automation, SharePoint, Technology Markets
The gig economy is clearly disrupting the tech industry, both in positive and negative ways. ... More >>
Is fake news a security issue? Some say yes, as it can be used as a social engineering tool to spread disinformation and conceivably to get unsuspecting users to click on malicious links. ... More >>
Executives at several top tech firms outline the skills they need now and in the near future, including IaaS and IoT security expertise. Other skills listed may surprise you. ... More >>


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No one is better positioned to address hunger than FFA members who are tomorrow's leaders who will provide food and nutrition for a growing planet.
Indianapolis, IN (PRWEB) October 23, 2012
FFA members from all 50 states will take the first swing Wednesday of a long-term fight to help eliminate global hunger.
As a kickoff event of the 2012 National FFA Convention & Expo, more than 10,000 FFA members, teachers, alumni and volunteers will work hour-long shifts from Wednesday through Friday and pack meals during the "Rally to Fight Hunger." The rally kicks off at 12:45 p.m. with public remarks at Lucas Oil Stadium.
Their collective goal: Create 1 million meals by Friday night. Half will be distributed in the Indianapolis area and half will be shipped overseas in coordination with Kids Against Hunger, a humanitarian food-aid organization.
"No one is better positioned to address hunger than FFA members who are tomorrow's leaders who will provide food and nutrition for a growing planet," said National FFA Organization CEO Dwight Armstrong. "Hunger is the right issue for FFA and it is fully aligned with our values and vision. What FFA members learn in Indianapolis at our rally will prepare them to continue fighting hunger in more than 7,500 local communities – and beyond where relief and solutions are desperately needed."
The rally will kick off the National FFA Organization's global "Feeding the World–Starting at Home" initiative, a movement to help students understand the issues and effects of global hunger.
In support of the new initiative, on Thursday 35,640 pounds of chili with beans donated by Hormel Foods and more than 30,000 pounds of fresh turkey donated by Tyson Foods will be delivered to Gleaners Food Bank, 3737 Waldemere Ave., in Indianapolis. Hormel and Tyson have been corporate sponsors of FFA for 39 and 37 years, respectively.
"Feeding the World-Starting at Home" is sponsored in part by Farmers Feeding the World through the National FFA Foundation.
The National FFA Organization provides leadership, personal growth and career success training through agricultural education to 557,318 student members in grades seven through 12 who belong to one of 7,498 local FFA chapters throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.


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Hi UltraVNC team,
an option to disable/enable zip compression during file transfer would be great! Maybe placed as a check box in the file transfer dialog, or something. I often transfer big files (that couldn't be compressed in an effective way) through LAN, so I doesn't need the compression...or is there already an option to do so?
Regards, Bastian


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Go west and south as far as you can in Texas to find Big Bend National Park. At 1,252 square miles (3243 square kilometers), it's a little bigger than Rhode Island. The Rio Grande River along the south marks the border of the park, and the border to Mexico. Most Texans have not been there, but people travel from around the globe to take in the wonderful scenery and more. It's a fantastic introduction to the various ecosystems found within Big Bend and to desert hiking.
Most visit in spring when the usually barren desert bursts in to color. Mid-winter is also a popular time. July- October is the rainy season. It may not rain much, but when it does rain, it pours and there can be flash flooding. Mostly the weather is hot and dry with those cooler desert nights.
You can't build campfires if you're camping inside of Big Bend National Park, but if you stay outside of the park, there are plenty of places that allow it. Just make sure you have some great campfire cooking recipes, like this migas recipe, ready to go to make your stay as awesome as possible.
The best known feature in the park, The Window, is a gap in the mountain with a view well in to Mexico. Most come to Big Bend for hiking, float tours along the Rio Grande, mountain biking, horse riding or 4 wheel drive touring, but there is plenty for the less adventurous. It's one of the best places in the country to stargaze as there is so little air pollution and it's a mecca for bird watchers.
Vegetation and wildlife
There are three main ecosystems in the park: desert, mountains and river. The Chihuahuan Desert covers most of the park. It includes many mountains, hills and rock formations, dry creek beds and a few springs and oases.
The park has some wildlife you're unlikely to find anywhere else. The javelina is like a small pig, but related to hippopotamus. If you're camping in the park, you may encounter more than you want of javelinas. Store food securely in cars or containers and, while not dangerous, be aware they can become aggressive.
Bring binoculars to take in the wide variety of birdlife – there are more than 450 species. The best place to see some is along the river, although the Chiso basin is also good. Some species, such as the Colima Warbler can only be found in the park. The park also boasts more tropical butterflies than any other national park in the country.
Geology and history
The park includes many interesting features for anyone just slightly interested in geology. Dinosaur fossils have been found here, plus those of sea creatures as millennia ago this area was under sea. The geological formations are not as gob-stopping as those in Utah or some other places, but they are interesting.
People have lived in the area for 10,000 years. Some of the first were the Chisos, then later the Comanche and the Mescalero Apache. Mexicans and European settlers left further ruins from farms and mines.
Big Bend has been a national park since 1944, and a state park before then. Neighboring ranches have been bought to add to the park's area, and the neighboring Big Bend Ranch State Park may be incorporated one day.
Getting there & staying
Big Bend is a six hour drive from San Antonio, but it's a pleasant trip. The park is directly east from the tiny towns of Study Butte and the ex-mining, almost abandoned town of Terlingua. While there are some stores in the park, it's best to take supplies. There is no public transport within the park, but renting a bike is a great option. Bikes have to keep to tracks, but there are plenty of those. There are no places to hire a horse in the park, but you can bring your own. Horses have to stay on recognized roads, trails and campsites and away from most of the Chisos Mountains. Bring all their food as grazing is not allowed.
What to do
Big Bend is not a park to explore in a day. Rafting down the river, hiking and backpacking and rock climbing are popular. People come from all over the world to do the Outer Mountain Loop.
Adjacent to the Rio Grande upstream from Rio Grande Village there is a series of thermal springs. The most popular are Langford Springs, four miles up from Boquillas Canyon. The water is 105 degrees Fahrenheit and has a range of minerals that possibly might be healthy.


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Anne Heche has admitted to a fractured past which contributed to psychological issues including multiple personality disorder. She claims an alien and/or a reincarnation of God named Celestia would speak through her, but in a different language. She was gay but then, apparently, she wasn't gay. As opposed to just being bisexual. She named her kid Homer. She's a bit hard to follow, but Barbara Walters attempted to understand her and Celestia in a confusing and bizarre interview. It was one of those fascinating events the world couldn't stop talking about. We knew, at the time, no one would forget September 2001 because of the crazy interview with Anne Heche. Of course, history has placed a different memory with us and few remember the nonsense news we were concerned with in early September. Before the Carpocalypse we were concerned with the 2010 Chevy Camaro and Truck Nutz, as TurboBrick reminds us. Of course, the Carpocalypse now has us merely worrying children will no longer be able to afford fake metal nutz for their Big Wheels.
If measured by word count, then the impending release of the new Camaro. Now if GM goes and folds before they release this thing it will be biggest case of automotive blue balls since Trucknutz.
Ahhh... the halcyon days of early 2008.
Photo by George De Sota/Getty Images