 Let's get started. Good morning. Good morning, guys. Thanks for joining in online. Good to see you. I hope you all are doing well. Francis, all good? Nice smile. Awesome. Okay. So we'll start with chapter three, but let's just pray before we get started. Father, we submit and surrender ourselves before you, Lord, we come humbly and boldly to the throne of grace. Lord, I pray that even as we learn and study the Holy Spirit, please continue to pour out your wisdom, your knowledge and your understanding so that we would understand what we are learning, Father. You speak to me, speak through me, I pray. We submit the entire session into your hands, Lord. Holy Spirit, come and have your way. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Great. Awesome. So let's just do a quick recap. The subject is called the local church, of what we are going through the APC publication called the House of God. I hope you all have got a copy of that. Feel free to download it for free from the website, or I've also shared it on the stream section. If you don't have it, please get it. If you don't have a hard copy, make sure you get one. And yeah. Okay. So the local church, we started looking at it from the last class that the church is God's idea, isn't it? Or is it any man's idea? Oh, why do we say it's God's idea? What does he say? So you will build your church. Okay. Yeah. So Jesus says that he will build his church, right? And so there are two things that we noticed that he says he will build. That means it's his idea. And then he says it's his church, isn't it? And so we kind of very briefly saw where he takes his disciples to a place called Caesarea Philippi and what that says geographically and all of that. So he gives them a context. He says, you know, you look at all these things as gates of hell will not prevail as the church advances. And so he encourages them to go ahead. And so we learned a bunch of things. There's a spiritual dimension to it. There's a natural dimension to the church. And see as we progress, right, the content can get a little heavy, a little deep and whatnot. But what will help us for every subject is that just giving it a quick glance. You don't have to sit and read page to page and whatnot if you can, if you have the time great, but then just glance through it. So what we've learned will kind of stay there. So all you have to do next time when the exam or an assignment comes is just kind of glance and you'll understand what it is. Okay, so do that. What we'll do today is we'll start with chapter three. So in the last two sessions last week, we did chapter one, chapter two. And today we'll start with chapter three. Okay, so what is chapter three titled as Okay, right. The government and the structure of the local church. Okay, so structure I understand. So first I was, you know, I started reading this chapter even when Pastor did a sermon series on this in 2014 on this publication. We also did this when we went on a mission trip 2014 to Chandigarh. There, Pastor called this entire thing in one day I think. Oh no, two days. Yeah. But so structure I understand, we all understand a structure, right? Now we call a building is, oh, wow, that structure looks great. Or in other words, this is very structured. What does that mean? Sorry? Yeah? Oh yeah, okay. This order, it's a little bit of American accent coming there. So it was hard for me to, yeah, cool, cool, yeah, order, order, order. Yeah, so structure I understand. Okay, so okay, this has a structure, this program has a structure that college, you know, everything is very, you know, in structure or what's the song structure, right? When we learn a song, we kind of put a structure for the song, okay, intro twice, verse once chorus twice, verse second verse and then chorus bridge twice and go back to the chorus. That's the structure, isn't it? Of a song we can, when we learn, we teach about it for in worshiping meetings and all of that. What's the structure of the song, how we learn the structure of a song, song detailing, whatnot. So detailed structure, but what's government? Yeah, politics. Are we going to talk about politics in church? No, we are not. Right, so a government is what? Yeah, administration, authority. What comes to your mind when you think, I think that's a wrong question. What comes to your mind because, yeah, yeah, election, fine. Yeah, okay, cool. Leadership. Okay, Nikhil, what comes to your mind when you think of, when you hear government? What, you're too modeling what he's saying? Yogi, Yogi. Yogi Adityanath. Yeah, sure, no problem. Yeah. Yeah, so political leaders, I mean, so all of the political parties comes to our mind, isn't it? Like, because they, you know, fight for it in the elections and government and whatnot. Okay, but power, someone said power. Yeah, cheer, yeah. Yeah, people in government, one of the things, yeah, we can think of is power, okay, authority. They're responsible for the welfare of the society of community of the state or the country. They are responsible. Yeah, you be quiet. Okay. Yeah, so when you, as an administration system, power, there's a sense of, when you say that we use the word administration, there's a sense of structure to it like order has to be there, isn't it? Okay, it's an institution or a system in place or a group of people. So let's say one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Okay, so a group of people come together and say, okay, this institution, we are going to plan and discuss the welfare of the society or the welfare of this college in a way or in a sense, a system or an institution is what is called a government, right? It could be over a state or a country or an area. That's why we have MLAs and whatnot, isn't it? So we can learn quite a bit. I think you can accomplish quite a lot when you're organized and structured. Any organized people? Nina says corruption. I was just yeah, thanks Nina. We'll be missing you here in class. Sorry, where was I? Yeah, so any organized people? Who likes to be organized? They like to be organized. Oh yeah, there's a difference, isn't it? Okay, there's a difference between liking to be organized and yeah, the thought of going to the gym and working out is great, but going there and doing it is not happening. I mean to clean my room for a month now, but it doesn't seem to happen enough. So I think in general, when you think about God, God is a God of order, right? In everything that he does, he's very structured. He is like the standard when it comes to order and whatnot, right? But what we're going to learn in this chapter is we're going to look at how government or institution or systems and structures kind of evolved over time. Because what happened when Jesus says the Great Commission, right? He gives the Great Commission going to all the world, increase the gospel, teach fellowship, baptizing them and whatnot. He doesn't say how to baptize. He doesn't say how to fellowship. He doesn't say how to preach. He doesn't say how to teach, right? So that is just before he's ascending to heaven, isn't it? Yes or no? Yeah, Great Commission is just Matthew 28 is just before that. And so we know between, from the time he resurrected till the time he ascended, how many days ascended and descended? What? How many days was he with his disciples after he resurrected? 40 days. Okay, sorry. I think I didn't frame my question right. Hi, lovely. Okay, slow claps. Slow claps. Okay. Full independence day colors and all. Okay, awesome, awesome. Join, join. So from the time he resurrected, Jesus resurrected and before he ascended, he was with them for 40 days. Now in Acts chapter one, verse three, he says, I mean, Acts chapter one, verse three says that he taught them or he spoke with them, things pertaining the kingdom of God. Okay, you can just, if you have your Bible says, it can say in the book of Acts, because we are going to go through a lot of scriptures from the book of Acts. Thank you, Nina. Yes, 40 is right. He taught them. So he just appeared to them and in that period of 40 days, in Acts chapter one, verse three, can someone quickly read? Acts one, verse three, right? Okay. Okay, as long as it's a Bible, it's fine, dude. So he spoke about the kingdom of God. Now again, it says that he spoke about the kingdom of God. Now we don't know in detail of all the things that he spoke, isn't it? Yeah, so we don't know in detail. The Bible doesn't record that. It's fine. So, but we know that he spoke about the kingdom of God. The rest is left to us for to kind of discover and whatnot. So, but what we see happening in the book of Acts throughout as it evolves is first the church being introduced. And then we see all these different stations, different leaders being introduced. And so that's what we're going to learn about in this chapter. Okay. So once again, as we presented in the beginning of this course, is that this course is not about saying, for a successful church, you have to do step one, step two, step three, step four. These are the methods. Only if you follow these methods, you will be successful. You know, you blah, blah, blah. No. But again, as we go through this chapter three, we learn what the New Testament in the book of Acts and you know, the word of God has to teach. And then we'll see how we can apply it. Okay, because God expects us to be creative and expects us to be creative in his wisdom, through his wisdom. Can I say that again? He expects us to be, see, we are created, isn't it? Yeah, sure. No, 100%. Okay, we are created. That means God is our creator, creator. We are created. If we are created, that means we are creative, right? Creator, created, creative. But now anybody can be creative, a non-Christian can be creative, isn't it? Because we are all made in the image of God. But what makes the difference is when we are dependent on his wisdom. Okay, so that's the, that kind of sets us apart when we lean on his understanding on his wisdom, you know, in the context of the church and everything related to ministry and whatnot. Okay, so, and I think God knew that, you know, we are going to be creative people because we are made in his image. That's why he, you know, that's why he gave us trees and not tables or chairs, right? He knew that we were going to make tables and chairs out of this, isn't it? So that's our approach is, again, and I like that approach is, and it's not spoon feeding, it's like, okay, say, ah, okay, this is how you do, you know, and even when I'm teaching music, I don't like to say, okay, this is how you play, you know, the songs, these are the chords and whatnot, but I like the fundamentals of it. You know, he gives us the toolkit. Now you go build whatever you can, isn't it? Right? So you here's the hammer, here's the spanner, whatever it is, now you go build, you be creative, you see what you can do with it, right? So that's the difference. So are you all with me so far? Oh, okay, okay. So yeah, he doesn't, he doesn't necessarily say, okay, this is how you have to go and spread the Great Commission or build a local church, nothing. So let's start looking at the first local church. The first local church, in your books, I think it's page 24 in your hard copy, page 16 in your soft copies. So the first local church, the church of Jerusalem, excuse me guys, you've got to burn airplane mode. So there was only one church in Jerusalem. On the day of Pentecost, we know what happened. The Holy Spirit falls down like a prophecy being fulfilled from Joel chapter two. And one of the translations says he came, most of the translations says he came like a Santa Claus. He came like a rushing wind, right? The Holy Spirit came. So one of the things that Jesus taught them is you stay in Jerusalem, isn't it? We see that in Acts chapter one verse eight, you stay there, right? And then in chapter two, it goes on to talk about the day of Pentecost. 120 people meet together in the upper room and the Holy Spirit falls down. He came like the rushing wind, it says. When is there a rush? We say we use words like rush our traffic, no? Sorry? Emergency, yes. When do you rush? Late for train, late for flight, late for work, late for everything. Right? You rush, isn't it? Like people rush, okay? There's a Good Friday sale. It's like full mall is a rush, isn't it? Amazon Prime Day sale, you know? So you rush when you want to be somewhere really urgently or when you want something and you're desperate for it, isn't it? That's when you rush. So when you read the words, he came like a rushing wind. It says that he wanted to be there more than we wanted him, right? He came like a rushing wind. That means he couldn't wait to come, isn't it? He wanted to come and fall on their flesh. They didn't even know what was going to come, isn't it? So again, we know the story. So Holy Spirit falls on 120 people, you know, Acts chapter 2 talks about it in detail. Then Peter stands up and gives this famous sermon and in one day, 3,000 member church is formed. In one day, like a 3,000 member church is formed, okay? And so what it looks like initially, so there were 120 people on the day of Pentecost who recognized the 12 Apostles of the Lamb as their leaders and initially it seemed like Peter was their, you know, leader and at least one of their main leaders. But then later we see in Acts chapter 15 that Peter moved out. He went on multiple missionary journeys and James becomes the leader of the local church in Jerusalem. Now remember, we're still talking about the local church in Jerusalem, nothing else, okay? So Peter seemed like the initial leader. Then he goes on to Judea and, you know, other places. Then the leadership seemed to have transferred to James. Now we look at James chapter, let's, James, no, sorry, not James, Acts chapter 15. Acts chapter 15. Now this context will properly start from verse 13 to 19. You can just mark it, write it down, we are not going to read it. Okay, this is the first local church guys. Remember, at this point, they're experiencing something for the first time, like they have never before, okay? They have not been taught the subject on the local church, okay? There was no class, there was no certification course, okay, please come sit down like this under the tree, okay? This is the local church. This is how you should function. No, they don't have a clue. The first encounter they have is the Holy Spirit falls on them. And what happens? Everybody encounters Jesus, right? There's an encounter with the divine that is happening there. And the result of that is, no, I'm sure, I'm just imagining. If Peter preached, I'm sure there must be other people who must have preached as well, you know, in a different place and whatnot. So maybe not. But what does he say in Great Commission? Maybe this happens, okay? In other words, preach and teach. We saw that Jesus didn't necessarily say preach, how to preach or how to teach. But you see the response of the Holy, or being filled with the Holy Spirit is that you're filled with wisdom. So he preaches with power and he preaches, right? When you look at, when you read Isaiah chapter 11, verse 1 and 2, I think it talks about the seven spirits of God, isn't it? He's the spirit of wisdom, he's the spirit of revelation, he's the spirit of God, he's the spirit who reveals the fear of God and whatnot. So when Ephesians chapter 5, sorry, Isaiah 11, I think it's verse 1 and 2, okay? So that means Ephesians chapter 5 was 18 when it says when Paul is saying, be filled with the spirit. So that means a person who's being filled with the spirit is the result of all these things, isn't it? Because you're being filled with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is the spirit of power, spirit of revelation, spirit of wisdom and whatnot, isn't it? And so when these guys were filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, that means they were filled with all of this as well, isn't it? And so that gave, that gave him the wisdom of what to say, that empowered him to stand and preach, yes? Without the sound system and without having any fear to the local, say the Roman empire is still ruling there, but he preached anyways, isn't it? So that is how the local church was born, is being filled with the spirit, isn't it? And now, I apologize for sounding redundant, you know, again, Jesus didn't preach as how to preach and teach and whatnot. But then someone said the greatest form of influence is example. It's not one of the form of examples. The greatest form of influence is example, right? So they've seen Jesus preach. They've seen Jesus teach. They've seen Jesus pray. The only thing that they don't do is that they don't go to Jesus and say, teach us how to teach or teach us how to preach. But they thought, okay, but he's about to pray. But what I'm trying to say is that Jesus taught them without teaching them by being an example, isn't it? There's a saying in the world of the discipleship in Israel. If anybody is following a rabbi, it's, what do I say? It's something that's related to the culture. It says, in the dust of the rabbi, in the dust of the, sorry, rabbi, rabbi, rabbi. What did you say? Yeah, so rabbi, so in the dust of the rabbi, that is, you walk so close with the rabbi that the dust of his sandals is on yours. And so they've walked so close with the rabbi Jesus and they've seen everything what he's done. And they, okay, Peter understands, okay, so this is how it's done. Okay, and now being filled with the Holy Spirit enabled him to preach. Okay, so that is the result. And we see that he was the initial leader. And then we see that the leadership goes to James in Acts chapter 15. I would encourage you to read it from verse 13 to 19 later. So Paul also confirms that James is the leader later in a couple of scriptures in Acts 21-8 and Galatians 2-9. Okay, Apostle Paul kind of confirms that also later. Now, very quickly, again, I might, I would have shared this before, but what is the meaning of Apostle? Apostle, yeah, it comes from, so it comes from the ancient Greek word called apostolos, means to be sent or the sent one. Okay, send, that's what it is. Okay, or the one who is sent, the one, the sent one, to send off you go away from that's what it is. Okay, apostolos. Now, it's a Roman word as well, an ancient Greek Roman word. It was used militarily by, it was an Apostle was the name of the leadership of any army, of the Roman army. For example, the Roman Empire captured Israel or Jerusalem, isn't it? They've defeated the region of that nation militarily. They won the battle, the war against them. After they've won against the region militarily, they will send the Rome, the Roman Empire will send a fleet of ships. Okay, a fleet of ships to the region that they've won, victory over. The leadership of all those fleet of ships was known as the Apostle. And this Apostle ship will carry, what do we say, an ambassador or a minister, a representative. So the sole responsibility of this person is to go to the region that they won militarily and to change the culture to that of Rome. So when the Roman Emperor, who's that Caesar, when Caesar comes to Jerusalem, he will feel at home. So he doesn't like, he's a king, he wants to feel at home, isn't it? So and Jesus kind of takes that and uses it in our context here is the one, like we are the ones who sent, we are the sent ones. In other words, that it is our responsibility, we say your kingdom come, your will be done. So we change the atmosphere to that of heaven. So when the king comes, he feels at home because kingdom has two words, isn't it? King and Dominion. So when the king comes, he always comes with his dominion. So that's the first local church, the church at Jerusalem. So we slowly see, even though they were not taught properly of how to start a local church, how to plant a church, church planting, etc., etc., in all of that, the Holy Spirit is leading them, guiding them, empowering them, teaching them, shepherding them in so many cases. And as they're, I don't really like to use the word evolve, but they're evolving. But growth is another word you can use as you're growing. And we have to be very careful. Anything that is kind of growing, it needs to be stewarded well. That's why we teach our children well when they're growing. As they're growing, you start to instill good habits, good manners in them. It's very hard to teach an elderly person, because they're set in their ways. It's very hard to undo the knots. So the church is growing, and it's growing at an exponential rate. In one day, 3,000 people, in the second day, we don't know what happened. Maybe 6,000 people added or whatnot. But growth happens, and it's very important to steward it very carefully. That's why sometimes, most of the time, fame is very hard to handle. And especially if you become too famous at a very young age, or if you become just too great without going through the process or the journey to that place, you don't know how to steward it, isn't it? And I can give a lot of examples of many bands, because music has a context, because so many young, they become too successful, very famous at a very young age, and they don't know how to handle fame. And so they fall apart. And so anything that grows needs to be stewarded very well. And that's the kind of thing that we learned. There would have been some mistakes mentioned, and one of the mistakes led to a word called deacons. Yeah, so in Acts chapter 6, when you look at Acts chapter 6, so initially there were 12 apostles, and that's what, from the day of Pentecost, there were 120 people. They decided 12 apostles. And from there, when we go to Acts chapter 6, we don't see the word deacon used in that chapter or in that verse from verse 1 to 6. But again, the deacon comes from the word, it's a Greek word, diaconos. Everybody say diaconos. What is that? Right. Okay. So it simply means helper or a servant. It means helper or servant or attendant even. Okay. Deacon board members, have you heard of that? So I'm a deacon in this church. It doesn't necessarily sound now like a helper or a servant. It sounds like something, yeah, I'm a deacon. There's my apple juice. Okay. So, but let's look at that. Acts chapter 6 was 1 to 6. Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, okay, the number of disciples was multiplying, that we don't know, right, what the number is there. From 3000, chapter 6, it's quite a year gap. We don't know how many have grown. Okay. So there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists. Because their widows were neglected in daily distribution, daily distribution of food. That's what it is. Okay. Then the 12 cement, the 12 apostles summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, it is not desirable that we should leave the Word of God and serve tables, serve tables that the 12 apostles are saying. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the Word and the saying please the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, and Pumbak, no, Timon, Parmenas and Nicholas, and Priscillaite from Antioch. Awesome names, you know. It's like gladiator movie. Whom they set before the apostles and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them. Okay. So like I mentioned, deacons comes from a Greek word diakonos. It simply means to serve, to help, or to attend. Okay. And so how did this come across? Because they were learning, so they made a mistake. What was that mistake? They got a feedback. Okay. We all get feedbacks, don't we? We all love good feedback. They felt that, okay, few of the widows are being neglected. And so the response was immediate. Okay. He's like, Hey, you know what, the 12 apostles, they come together and say, they bring the multitude to say, okay, you know, we need, let's choose seven men. It is not, you know, seven men who's full of the Holy Spirit, wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. Now, all they want them to do is what? So what? Food. Okay. If you want someone, if you want them to serve food, I ask, okay, have you been a waiter? What is your experience as a, you know, do you know how to carry food? Have you done this before? All of that, right? But that's not a job interview here. But then, I mean, you might think one would ask something like that, okay, out of the multitude, out of, I don't even know, okay, what the number is, okay, out of the multitude, we need seven people. But the standard is so high. And see, again, coming back to that point is that be a man of good reputation, a full of Holy Spirit to serve food, to serve one another, to attend it, to help. It's amazing, isn't it? Right? Oh, good Lord, what is this? Excuse me. Okay. So seven men were selected and to help with the daily distribution of food. These seven men were selected because they met the following criteria, honest report. That's another translation for reputation, right? Honest report of the person full of the Holy Spirit, full of wisdom, took responsibility for daily distribution of the food. What does it say in verse three, accept over six, verse three, it says, whom towards the end, it says whom we may appoint over this business. What's the business? None of your business, right? Again, so let's just get organized, okay, let's get organized, bring a structure in place. Let's, you know, address the issue here as soon as possible. Okay, so as I mentioned, even the word, even if the word deacons is not mentioned in that passage, but later you see Paul using very similar language in his epistels to Philippi and to Timothy as well. Are you all with me so far? Yeah, so it simply means it helps an administration, that's what deacons are for. We'll continue to learn a little bit more about it. Now, even in Jesus' ministry, he multiplied the food, five loaves, two fish. After he did that, he just didn't say now, okay, you know, I'm going to throw it from the top of the mountain, just catch it, whoever catches it, I'll say, ah, let it go in now. No, it would have been a chaos, isn't it? Now, 5,000 men, we don't have the number of children, we don't have the number of women, right? No, yet the five loaves and two fish came from a child who was not counted for, who was not even regarded those days, isn't it? But he made them sit in the group of 50's. Can you imagine? I don't know how many people, hungry, hungry people, okay, I'm not going to give you food. One, two, three, four, five, six, ten, ten, fifteen, fifteen, okay, say one, two, three, for physics. Can you just give the food already? But no. Structure was important. Order was important. Administration was important, isn't it? So the disciples have seen all of this. And in and they keep learning all of this. Let's look at Romans chapter 16 verse 1 and 2. It's in the North, by the way. It's in your book. I'm in soft copy, page 18. Where am I? Page 26, yeah. Okay, Romans chapter 16 verse 1 and 2. It talks about Phoebe that, I mean, this portion is just to go on to say that women were also part of, who are also known as deacons. Okay, so it rests a lot of discussion that we can have. Okay, should women be part of the deacon board member? Should they be leaders and all of that? Okay, so that's our case. Romans chapter 16 verse 1 and 2. It says, I commend to you Phoebe, our sister, who is a servant of the church in Sankreya, that you may receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints and assist her in whatever business. Okay, the word business is translated into a help, administration, etc. She has need of you. For indeed, she has been a helper of many and of myself also. Okay, so business helper, otherwise the iconos as well. Okay, so she was a deacon. She was, and then Paul is encouraging the church members, there's like helper in whatever business that she needs to attend to, whatever it can be. Isn't it? How many of you have gone to youth camps here? Right, so if it is not organized, I know what can happen. Okay, some people will give in responsibilities if they don't do their job and all. So Ravali here was the timekeeper, that means, so it was her responsibility in one of the youth camps to bring everybody to the hall on time. That's all I'm going to say. I'm not saying anything else. Okay, so, but just imagine, so just planning for the youth camp, it's not like, okay, everybody who's interested to come for the youth camp, come pay money in the day, okay, whatever it is. But no, so I might be the youth pastor, I was the youth pastor, but the way we planned was, okay, so who's going to take care of the transport team? We need a few individuals who will organize transport and who will take care, you know, tell people, okay, this is where the bus is, this is location one, this is location two, bus one is going to be in this location, bus two is going to be in this location. Okay, that's the transport team. We need a team who will take care of the food, that means at the campsite, we need someone who's constantly in contact with the kitchen, asking them, is the food ready? Can we send them now? And serving team, okay, and then what are the teams? Room allocation team, games team, worship team, ushering team, sorry, our decoration team, yeah. So the thing is to make one camp successful, you need to come together as a team, isn't it? And so basically, and if it doesn't happen, we can't really accomplish anything. And so that's what this section and this chapter is actually talking about. I need to keep a watch on the time. Okay, guys, let's move on. Okay, so beacons were not only responsible of all this administrative works, they were also encouraged to take part in spiritual ministry. Okay, so can someone read Acts chapter six verse eight? Quickly, Acts chapter six, verse eight, yeah, awesome. Thank you. So Stephen, who was a deacon or the helper attendant, who was responsible, one of the person who was responsible to serving food was also doing science and wonders. Okay, so these leaders was not only, you know, saying responsible for saying, okay, hey, you just do this administrative work, leave the spiritual part was no, they were encouraged to do spiritual work as well, spiritual ministry as well. Okay, so as a result of this, new churches were raised. Now, Stephen is one of the deacons, but everybody else were doing their role as well. They were involved in spiritual ministry as well. Okay, so you look at Philip in Acts chapter eight, you see that a deacon used by God to preach the gospel with science and wonders. And he also planted a local church in Samaria. Okay, in Acts chapter nine, churches were raised in other regions like Judea, Samaria, Galilee, and Lida. And then the local church, in Acts chapter 11, we see another local church being raised in Antioch. Okay, where is modern-day Antioch? Modern-day Antioch is south-central Turkey. Okay, south-central Turkey. So, and all of these new local churches were planted because the apostles encouraged, you know, helpers, attenders, in other words, deacons. And deacons were not limited to just administrative works. They were encouraged to do spiritual ministries as well. Are you all with me so far? Any doubt? Any question? So today, the thing has changed, isn't it? So we're looking at the Bible and how they were selected, what is the meaning of a deacon, and why they were chosen for, and how they were chosen for, like the criteria. But today, in the modern day, it has a very different expression of that word deacon. Okay, yeah. So every denomination will have their own criterias and how they choose a deacon. But I feel, this is my personal opinion, I feel like the significance or the essence of the meaning of that word is lost. Like with most of the cases in Christian ministry. Okay, which is South State of affairs. So, yes, that can be considered. No, so the whole point is, what does that word mean? Like the root word means it's diaconis, Greek word. It means helper, attendant, etc., right? Anyone who's willing to serve, right? So that is what it is. So, and it's a similar root word for the word minister. Minister simply in its root form means up-bearer to serve, isn't it? So minister, and then out of that word, we get ministry. It means to serve people. It means for us to be up-bearers to people. And I'm not surprised why the word deacon is used for the bunch of people initially who had to serve food. I'm sure there were cup-bearers literally, isn't it? Okay, we are almost towards the end of time. I'll pause here and we'll take a quick break and we'll resume the next session.